BlogHer ’10 — My 5th Quarter Report

There’s a universal trend concerning the BlogHer ’10 Conference – we all want to blog about it, but don’t know where to start. 

I suddenly feel like bursting into song….  

Let’s start at the very beginning.  A very good place to start!  When you read you begin with A, B, C… when you travel to New York, it’s

• feeling the need to rock 4 inch heels
• foolishly thinking you can “just walk” over to the Hearst Auditorium
• getting out from behind the computer to get to know your online friends
• taking chances & making friends
• free spanx & all you can eat Jimmy Dean (see how they go together?)

THURSDAY

My life is a soundtrack, y’all.  Thursday morning on the airport shuttle, I couldn’t get George Michael’s song FREEDOM out of my head, which is VERY strange because we have VERY different agendas.  I hadn’t flown by myself in two summers and I really felt like I was forgetting something.  I felt naked without the standard two diapers and package of wipes in my bag.  Plus, I had two free hands and two free hips – weird! 

To try to defray costs once I got to New York, through the magical powers of Twitter I connected with @hernewdeal (real name Elizabeth) to share a cab to the Hilton.  It’s good we shared — the cab ride went entirely over budget.  All the coupon blogger mommies would have passed out at our fare! 

Fast forward to late afternoon:  I decided that I could walk to the Heart Auditorium to an OpenSky seminar in FOUR INCH HEELS.  I am an idiot.  And just when I arrived at my destination, some crazy guy on the street wanted to “ask me a question”.  This sounds completely innocent, but Dorothy…  you’re not in Kansas anymore.  I was polite and said I was late to meet my incredibly muscle bound gun-toting Southern Republican husband and he passed out.  Cool. 

I walked into the Hearst Tower — is it a tower?  I’m too tired to Google Search the real name, so please forgive me.  I snuck in late with Sugar Jones ( @sugarjones)to the OpenSky Project’s seminar.  Had I worn comfortable shoes (like a true New Yorker), I would have been able to listen to more of John Caplan’s talk.  Nevertheless, I was in goodgreat company!  With OpenSky as the common denominator, I spent the next few hours with some of the blogosphere’s finest:  Fitarella, Sugar Jones, Linda Rihani, & Aliza Sherman as well as hospitable folks from OpenSky:  Ted Rubin, Josh Korenblatt, & John Caplan. 

By the end of the night, I had to have my toes amputated. 

FRIDAY

The conference started TOO early even for me.  It was so early, I could only stomach 17 glasses of orange juice and the half of my bagel that I didn’t accidentally drop on the floor.  The 10 second rule, by the way, never applies in public.  There were so many great sessions scheduled for the morning and I totally meant to go to them… except that I was able to sign up for a pedicure from Ecco Shoes.  Would you say no to that?  And then Metamucil was offering reflexology.  The only thing I have to say about that is… where is Shoni?  And can she please move here?  Move here as in live above my garage.  Yesterday. 

After lunch, I went to the Geek Lab but not before meeting John Andrews from Collective Bias.  Guess what?  He likes football and he knew the school that we’re coaching at…  thank you!  The Geek Lab helped me with all the changes I want to make to this site.  I hope you’ll bear with me if things get messy!

On Friday night I met the most famous of the bloggers that I follow:  The Pioneer Woman.  First of all, let me just say how brave she is to even show up.  My roommate had her picture taken with her and I tried not to gush but then I said something totally creepy… “So that last blog post with the pictures of your kids were great!  I can’t believe how big they’re getting.”  Ack.  Did I just say that?!  In case you’re wondering, she’s wonderful and gracious & she has the sweetest little voice.  Oh, and great boots. 

SATURDAY

Starbucks was calling my name on Saturday morning, but unfortunately it was also calling 32 other people and they got the message before me.  So I missed the state of the blogosphere address, but nothing comes between me and my coffee.  Ask my neighbor Michael - he knows.  With Starbucks in hand, I headed to my first session of the day:  Women & Sports.  According to the information, it was billed to sound like a session for women who love sports.  I kinda love sports — it does pay our mortgage, afterall.  I will be the first to publicly say that this session was a grave disappointment.  I LOVE being a woman, but I don’t want to be equal to men physically.  The entire session was about the WNBA and how unfair it is that their games aren’t on television.  Well, the day that someone wants to watch a WNBA game instead of watching paint dry will be the glorious day when ESPN decides to televise a game.  Hate me, but this is my blog.  I’m not a huge fan of professional basketball either — I would much rather get my eyebrows waxed or a mammography.   Women & Sport session = FAIL. 

A couple sessions later, I was headed to the e.l.f. party with my new bloggy pal Linda.  Have you heard of e.l.f. cosmetics?  Their HQ is very NYC cool AND their makeup is affordably priced at $1-$3.  Yes, you read that right.  (If you’re interested in ordering some, I’ll send you a discount code.)  The party that we attended was called Glam Games which was an unusual pairing of cosmetics and Xbox.  My parents never let us have video games, so I was terrible when it came to playing games.  I was, however, fascinated by the fact that the games were controller free.  Just when I thought it couldn’t get more fun, I won a pair of New Balance toning shoes.   

As just when you thought the day couldn’t get any longer, I put on my new party dress, those d@mnhigh heeled shoes, a bit of jewelry and I was suddenly channeling Madonna.  My roomie Caitlinand I headed downstairs to Sparklecorn & later the CheeseburgHer party.  One of the decorations included a cut out of Barack Obama — he will certainly be tagged in many facebook albums!  He was fed food & drink, hugged…  this really can’t be good for national security.  The CheeseburgHer party requires that you decorate a McDonalds’ to-go bag and then wear it on your head. 

BlogHer was a great conference, but the best part for me was meeting Tricia in the airport who gave me the most valuable advice of the weekend.  I’m so excited to start making all these changes & additions to the site.  If you have any ideas for me, leave a comment or send me an email.  For now, it’s back to reality — ‘Cakes just finished eating a bowl of hummus and followed it up with a bowl of oatmeal which she just threw to the dog.  Yesterday she stole three eggs from the refrigerator and led me on a high speed chase through the house.  It was the perfect welcome home!