Blogher 07

The trip home rotted. Really, really rotted. I will say that off the bat. U.S. Air rots. Inn of Chicago really rots.

The Blogher food this year was really, really exceptionally good and plentiful. I was most impressed. I was also completely impressed by the internet connectivity...YAY! I know that took a lot of work.

The swag-well...I look like maybe there is a .com/web 2.0 bubble and it exploded all over me. I particularly love my AOL bag even though I got the green one...not knowing about the BLUE...which is a bit nicer. I have no swag complaints this year (though for all the time I spend on Google and pimping Google, they could have handed out something a bit more than handouts and for the lucky few...Blogger t-shirts.) I was also seriously annoyed by the attitudes of the Google Festival Hall folk and the total umm non meeting of the Google at the Google Breakfast. The combined dismissive attitudes of the Google folk was almost enough to make me dump the myriad of Google products that I do use. The pot holder? Uh...you even can use that sometimes to pull a frozen dinner out of the microwave or reheated leftovers from the Chinese delivery. Way more useful to me than another pen or paper clip.

The keynotes-really rather interesting. I did growl a bit about Elizabeth Edwards wandering down the campaign trail, but was actually rather entertained, as I often am, about the conniptions some of her husband's staff must have when she speaks her mind. For the record, I am the Christian, Republican, Lesbian who just might vote for a Democrat this year. Maybe. Probably not Edwards though. Maybe if Elizabeth was running, but then I would have to sit her down and explain to her just why her comments about putting kids in school at age 1 irked me so much. (She really ought to check out some Birth to Three programs that aren't about dropping kids off, but more about parenting education while giving the toddlers some new scenery and people to explore.) Good, healthy child care is a separate matter from education in my opinion.

The sessions, I only attended a few this year. Some skipped because the room was too crowded and I didn't get there early enough. None turned out to be what I thought they would be but were interesting nonetheless. Of course, I am starting to wonder if I don't have a conference schedule translation problem because this happens to me at academic conferences I have been to as well.

The maze on the Navy Pier-way fun. The cocktail parties-both nice...though I felt bad for the singer the first night and thought that taking drink tickets for soft drinks and water the first night was a bit wrong. Please find a soft drink sponsor next year...or some alcohol sponsor who wants to go with the drive responsibly free drinks thing. The second night, yikes, the crowd. But the exhibit rooms were not so crowded, so that was good. The food the second night seemed to have temperature issues (not hot...but not chilled cold).

The Yahoo Internet Cafe-way, way, way nice. The nice espresso guy-Fabulous, polite, friendly, really, really a first rate guy. The cool jelly bean tins. The places to sit and talk. Way nice. More folks should have taken advantage of it, especially those overwhelmed by the big crowds.