BlogHer Recap Part 1: Vacation, Expo & Parties

BlogHer is basically a summer camp for grown up girls who like to be on the internet. I mean this in a very, very, good way. Don’t get me wrong, the Wacky Wicketeer had a great time too, but he is not the target demographic. This year, BlogHer was in San Diego. Just a plane-hop from home!

Vacation

Since we decided to make it a vacation for him and travel as a couple, the Wacky Wicketeer and I arrived in San Diego Thursday morning. I did not register for PathfinderDay because I found out about too late, after we had already made our plans. Also because it cost more money. Fortunately, we were able to check into the hotel early, so we dropped off our luggage, and figured out how we could take public transit to the Hotel del Coronado. Our hotel room at the Marriott was awesome, and from the 22^nd floor, we had a great view. But the Hotel del Coronado is a landmark that has been around since the 19^th Century, and is a work of art in wood.

View from our room at the Marriott

Hotel del Coronado

We spent the rest of the day on Coronado Island, checking out the hotel, having lunch on their deck, and enjoying the beach. And that was my last meal we paid for until Sunday.

Beach on Coronado Island

Expo and Parties

That night the conference really began, with a series of three parties. I had obtained an Expo and Cocktail Pass (a.k.a. the Party Pass) for the Wacky Wicketeer so he could attend these events with me, and each night there were three more parties. All had complimentary food, and we had received drink tickets with our conference badges, so the parties alone made up for the cost of our conference admission.

The Expo was awesome. And huge. And full of giveaways. One woman’s junk was another woman’s swag, and thanks to the swag exchange room, we could take and leave accordingly! The Wacky Wicketeer (a.k.a. the Digital Emperor) was ready to pass out from the effort of trying to consume every ice cream, lasagna, sausage, and other food product being offered at the Expo. Referring to these samples, he called it “Costco on steroids!” Thank goodness there was dedicated time for it on Thursday, because otherwise I would not have had a chance to see most of it. Thanks to the Expo, we got to meet the Pine Sol Lady and the Swiffer Dust guy (on Thursday), not to mention Bob Harper and Giuliana Rancic (on Saturday).

As for the actual parties, they were pretty fun. Though I was pretty disappointed in the first night, Friday and Saturday made up for it. Thursday nights’ parties had pretty bland food. The others were an improvement. My favorite party was Sparklecorn, and you can see the awesome unicorn cake in last week’s Wordless Wednesday post. If the Expo was Costco on steroids, Sparklecorn was girl power on steroids! It was all about unicorns, sparkle, and glow-in-the-dark sticks. The DJ was the best I’ve heard in a long time, and we had a great time dancing the night away! There were also giant, soft pretzels, which I love. Saturday night’s parties were unique and fun, but by the time we got to Cheeseburgher, I was ready to pass out from exhaustion. So we gave away the rest of our drink tickets, and called it a conference.

Fireworks while at the Social Fiesta

The coolest part about the parties was that I got to meet some great bloggers and tweeps that I already knew online: Maya, Dresden, MrsLaLa, and Dead Cow Girl, to name just a few! A highlight was Dresden, upon first meeting us, saying to the Wacky Wicketeer, “wow, you’re cute!” She made him blush and me giggle!

Come back soon to read about Friday and Saturday’s conference sessions!

On Frequent Blogging and BlogHer '11

Most of you know that I spent much of the last five days in San Diego at BlogHer '11. The Wacky Wicketeer went with me and it was awesome! It was also a lesson in sleep deprivation for me. On the other hand, the Wacky Wicketeer got to sleep all day while I was at the sessions. I'm planning additional posts on our experiences while we were down there, but I'm still waiting to get my hands on some pics that were taken.

Before heading to BlogHer, I read that it was important to identify my primary purpose for attending.  Mine was to gain knowledge and inspiration for becoming a more frequent blogger. To that end, I've learned about editorial calendars, prioritizing, memes, and all sorts of helpful tools! Today I even started my own blog editorial calendar. I'm hoping this will help me to better honor your investment in reading this blog.

One of the other things I realized along the way is that I've been making my blog design too complicated. So, you should see some changes soon that will hopefully make it a little easier to read, and give it a cleaner feel.

Before I sign off tonight, I'll leave you with a pic that was a highlight of my trip: meeting Bob Harper, the trainer from The Biggest Loser!

Wordless Wednesday: Chillin' at the Airport



Austin: Observations at a sidewalk cafe

I came to Austin, Texas for three reasons:

1. To visit DH while he is here for two and a half weeks for work. We haven’t been apart from each other for longer than 4 nights since the summer I went to an international law program in Salzburg-right before we moved in together almost six years ago. Since I am self-employed and currently keeping my workload to a minimum, I thought it would be a good idea to visit him on this work trip.

2. To TTC! It turns out his work trip was scheduled just perfectly to MISS our ENTIRE fertile window this cycle, by several days each side of said window. So, if I didn’t come visit him here, we would have zero chance of getting pregnant this month. To those not dealing with infertility, you might not think one month is a big deal. When you have spent 25 cycles trying to get pregnant, and 5 months being pregnant, having a miscarriage and recovering from that miscarriage, you’re turning 34 this month, DH has challenged spermies, this is your last chance for a 2010 baby, and you only have two more months to get pregnant before the doctors officially will diagnose you as being of “Advanced Maternal Age” (“AMA”)....trust me, one month IS a BIG DEAL.

3. To get the heck outta dodge. I get the travel bug a few times each year. I start spending copious amounts of time on the internet researching random trips to various parts of the world, trying to figure out a practical way to fit a trip into our lives and our budget. It drives me bonkers not being able to go, and once the bug hits, the longer I have to go without traveling, the more I obsess over it, the less productive I am, and the more annoying I am to DH.

So, here I am, spending nine days in Austin, Texas, and it just happens to be during the South by Southwest music festival. This is apparently a huge industry event, and an already uniquely odd city is now teeming with wacky music-types. Being in this place and time has led me to certain observations.

One afternoon, I found myself writing this as I experienced it:

Sitting at an open sidewalk cafe, giant

Glass doors open to the world of the intersection next door. Eating

Spicy hummus wrap and drinking rosy-red hibiscus tea, watching

Bikers pull away, listening

To the dried-up and wannabe rockers dream lives away, hearing

Three different bands in the distance. One

Jazz, one rapping away, one with a grungy sound trying

To absorb all other vibrations.

But one more thing is necessary.