Giveaway Day 8

I kinda like the whole candle prize, so I will giveaway another one today. This one is from Avon and is White Tea Vanilla. I am a huge Vanilla fan but not too much of the White Tea.

For today's entry I want you to visit the site of one of the funniest blogger's I know. The Bloggess. And yes, I know her (not in the biblical sense, but in the real life sense), but she won't remeber me. Now what comment should we leave there? hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm she made a great comment about an infamous blogger that was taken totally the wrong way last year and it caused a brouhaha at BlogHer08. But let's not bring that ugly mess up again. How about something more along the lines of.........oh I got it, give her an idea of what she should have tatooed on her new puppy. That's it! btw if you are faint of heart or have no sense of humor, you may not actually want to go to her site.

Rules, regulations and all that jazz.......
1. Follow and/or Subscribe to my blog.
2. Visit The Bloggess and give her a tattoo idea for her new puppy and tell her I sent you.
3. Leave a comment letting me know that you have acheived 1 AND 2. Make sure your comment includes a way to contact you or your entry will be removed.
4. Sit back, relax and wait to win!

Each day will have either a different sponsor or a different blog I think is followable.
Each days giveaway will run from 12:01 AM Pacific Time to 11:59 PM Pacific Time that day. Any comments left after 11:59 PM Pacific time will not be considered.
Random.org will choose each winner each day and the winner will be notified by email.

Saga Roundup

All in all I would do it over again in a heartbeat! I truly hope to find myself in a situation that allows me to attend next year, wherever it may be. Perhaps by then I will have grown a pair and will be able to just walk up to people, or perchance I will just float along like I did this year. I won't know until it happens, and I'm ok with that.

Saga VIII

Monday, July 21, 2008

Yummy breakfast at Lori’s diner starts my day. I meet up with my carmates Tiff and Missy and away we go. We actually leave the hotel and get gas and get on the road about 1pm. And since I am taking the 101 I don’t have to cross that Bridge again.

Missy is from Darwin (by way of Adelaide) Australia and has travelled up here for BlogHer and various other stops in the states to meet Bloggers that she reads.

Tiff it turns out lives close to my family in Ann Arbor and her mom even graduated from my rival High School in Livonia. So we had lots to talk about all the way home.

We met Suebob in Seeward to hand over the leftover luggage and lo and behold there was an IN-n-Out there. We had just been talking about In-n-Out as being one of the best burger places and they both wanted to try it, so that took care of dinner. They were going to be staying with a friend of Tiff’s in So. Cal. For a few days so I drove past my house and waved and continued on down to Fullerton to drop them off.

All in all not too bad, I was home in my chair in time for The Mole at 10pm.

Saga VII

Sunday, July 20, 2008


A lot of people left today but I was staying for the “Unconference”. Essentially it is a DIY day of smaller sessions. There is a blank Agenda Wall along with the principles of Open Space and the Law of Two feet. Anyone who wants to present CAN - no sessions will be culled. Basically if you want to present, or lead a discussion you write your topic down on a 8.5x11 paper, tell us about it and put what you have to offer on the agenda wall. When this is done we have our day...talking about what we want to talk about in the time/space slots. I think I got more out of these sessions than all of the regular conference sessions because they were more intimate. I was able to better follow along and even implement some of the suggestions and ideas right then and there. It was also during these sessions that I found out I would have car mates for the ride home.

Afterwards Califmom and I were treated to a lovely dinner at Sear’s Fine Diner by Shannonrenee. And while the food was very good the company was even better.

Sunday evening was spent alone in my room decompressing and packing. During lunch Sunday as I was walking through the lobby, I overheard someone mention Suebob’s luggage. I turned and sure enough Suebob had left one of her bags sitting in the lobby and she was now headed down the 101 on her way home to Ventura. I called her up immediately and offered to drop it off on the way home.

Saga VI

Upstairs in my room after keynote and again “do I go do I stay?” “do I wear the dress I brought, or put on my pj’s?” I logged on to the Mommytalk pity party and quickly surprise them with a giveaway of one of the pink wireless mice I won from HP. That was fun and the feedback I had received from the earlier BlogHer post propelled me to get off my ass and go to the reception. I did not wear the dress (the one from Mel’s wedding) because I realized it didn’t have pockets and I did not bring a purse.

I didn’t have a clue where I was going (it was not at the hotel but at Macy’s) but I followed the throng of women walking the streets of SF and found my way easily enough (in heels even). Along the way I ran into Suebob and her red stapler. It was guess what? HOT CROWDED AND LOUD! Macy’s had roped off certain areas of the store for our private party. The first spot was the Purses section (free gift with purchase and an extra 11% off any sale price, these women were shopping!)

I see everyone milling about enjoying the free champagne so I start looking for the bar. I find a waiter and request a water,
Her: “Sorry ma’am can I give you a champagne?”
Me: “No, I asked for a water”
Her: “We have White tea if you would like.”
Me: “No, I would LIKE a water, please (emphasis on the PLEASE)”
Her: “I’m sorry we’re not serving water but you can have FREE champagne.”
Me: “Look, I know it is hard to fathom that not everyone that comes to these things is not totally enamored with your FREE champagne, but I am overheating in this small space filled with 1,000 women and would really like some water, PLEASE.”
Her: “uh”
Me: “Ok, it’s obvious you don’t actually have anything to do with that decision so point me towards someone who doesn’t play this game part time.”
She points me towards a Macy’s employee. Who doesn’t have a clue but is smart enough to point me towards a manager as soon as she makes eye contact with me.
Manager: “Can I help you ma’am?”
Me: “Only if you can procure a bottle of water.”
Manager: “Water will be served on the second floor when we move up there in 20 minutes.”
Me: “So, in the meantime I am supposed to be hot and thirsty. And don’t offer me champagne, did it occur to you people that not everyone drinks alcohol?”
Manager: “Ma’am, the caterers have done a fine job of supplying everyone with champagne and tea for this first part of the party.”

Me: “You are obviously not listening to me, I want water. Let me leave this section and find a drinking fountain, it is absolutely unheard of to not have water available.” It would not be difficult at this point to hear my voice anywhere else in the store even over the muzac at this point.
Manager (obviously getting nervous): “Let me see if I can find a Macy’s water for you at one of the registers.”
She walks away and comes back with an emergency water bottle that is kept behind the counter just in case.
Manager: “Ma’am, I would appreciate it if you didn’t advertise this. I got this only for you.”
Me (turning my back and raising my arm and walking away): “WATER, IS OVER HERE!”

This was to be a roving party and our next stop was the shoe department (are they pandering or what?). I took off my name badge and wandered around the store like a real customer, found the end point (7th floor furniture) put my name badge back on and told the gatekeeper I was just a little early. In I went.

I bought my copy of Sleep is for the Weak and found a comfy couch to rest my feet (did I mention I was wearing heels?). Others soon migrated that way and the caterers started passing hor douvres the tiny French dip sandwiches were absolutely delish!

I found @Geekmommy, @sendchocolate, @shannonrenee and @digitalsista to hang out with and it was a very nice evening.

At one point when we got back to the hotel, I ran into Casey, she approached me and welcomed me into a hug. I told her how inspiring she is to me (and how freakin adorable her Moosh is) and she was gracious enough to take a picture with me. If nothing else happened this weekend, that would have been enough for me.

Saga V

Saturday, July 19, 2008


A new day, a second chance would I fulfill my goal of networking? Damn, I hoped so. Breakfast was again a lonely croissant and sitting off to the side of the ballroom so I would have a plug for my laptop. The morning session was fun in that the Michelin Man was there.



First break out session of the day was something that I had an interest in even though I didn’t fit the stereotype. Who We Are: Women Without Children and the Blogosphere. I was looking for some content ideas other than mommyblogging. But what I found was a room full of women who felt they were being slighted by the blogging world and others because they do not have children. Perchance this room of women needed a place to feel free to rant and that’s fine, but it wasn’t what I was looking for so I took advantage of the “two feet” rule from BlogHer and went elsewhere.



I tried to pry my body into the sardine can that was holding the Who Better Serves Women Like You: Obama or McCain? But is was beyond crowded and hot and I couldn’t hear so I will watch the video of it from Erin on Qik. We had a long time for lunch and I was again not in a socializing mode so I went up to my room and napped and moped.



Breakout number two today was one I was very interested in and it didn’t let me down at all. What We Do: There's More to Monetization than Advertising. Although a lot of it was over my head, I did my best to try to keep up and bookmark all the affiliate programs and such that were mentioned. A huge shout out to @JLongtine by the way for all his webshots throughout the sessions he was at.



Oh yeah and somewhere in between these sessions I ended up winning more from @HP_Blogs. I even wrote a limerick to win another webcam. Wanna hear it? I knew you did:
There once was a Blogger from LA
Who drove very very far away
She made friends at Hp
A she and a he
Because they were giving stuff away.
{{applause}}



I decided to skip the last session and just do some catching up on emails and Google reader (500 items!) Sitting in an almost empty Ballroom, I suppose I could have gone over to the “clique” in the corner, but they weren’t very receptive the last time I tried, so instead I just sat alone. It was then I wrote a very “naked” blog for the BlogHer site regarding my experience so far and poured my heart out (and a lot of tears as well). And it was there that I read this from Casey and again the tears and lack of self confidence came back. But because of her I reminded myself that I was only going to get out of this conference network wise whatever I put into it. So I put on my more inviting face and even smiled at a couple of people. I was approached by the girls from GM and “interviewed” about my feelings on the Malibu Hybrid. I was honest about everything and mentioned the humongous bruise on my hip. Because they were there, their peers also came and sat for the closing keynote.



The speakers this evening were blogging rock stars Dooce and Stephanie Klein. I think I was the only one in the room who had never read them (except the GM girls, I had to do a lot of explaining to one of them). There was a bit of q and a and even some drama between Dooce and The Bloggess, but really I was just sitting there trying to work up the nerve to go to the closing cocktail reception.

Saga IV

Friday evening

After the COmmunity Keynote, we were headed to the Ruby Skye dance club. Another Hot, Crowded and Loud cocktail party. I walked over by myself and couldn’t see anyone I knew enough to approach. I did have a Bossy sighting but did not get the nerve to say hi. I twittered my desolate feelings and kept sinking lower and lower into a depression. I saw an empty seat and approached, The Little Engine echoing in my brain. “Is this seat taken?” I ask. “Yes. We are saving seats for our friends.” WTF?! Bang there goes that last tiny bit of self confidence I might have had! I try hard not to cry and slink away.

Upstairs looks pretty empty maybe I will go up there. I see an empty seat and again try my “pick up line”. This time I am allowed to sit but the person next to me is even quieter than I and the other side is engrossed in their own conversation. I finally just give up and leave. I head across the street to the mini market and pick up some potato chips and a cookie and head up to my room to play pogo. I know I should have stuck it out, but honestly it just didn’t seem to be worth the effort. Did I mention how frikkin’ HOT LOUD AND CROWDED it was?! So an evening in my room with my pogo was not too too shabby, but it wasn’t fulfilling my purpose of being here.

I needed a good night’s sleep, did I mention the Heavenly beds?

Saga III

The highlight of the conference was The Community Keynote on Friday evening, some of you already read some of these people and if you don’t you should.

Best Rant
Sarah Brown, "Attention: I have some things to say about Goldfish snack crackers."
Danielle Wiley, "I am indeed a full-time mother, and yes, my daughter does watch Hannah Montana"
Megan Smith, "Michelle Obama Enjoys "The View:" A Recap"
Mr. Lady, "It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop."
Heather Barmore, "Guess who wants Typepad for Mother’s Day"

Blogging About Blogging
Liz Gumbinner, "I'm official! Hooray!"
Suebob Davis, "Blogging makes you lose your mind"
Stephanie Bergman, "Has Twitter Ruined Blogging?"
Zan, "Note to Self in the Age of the Internet: A Necessary Reminder"

Parenting
Casey, "The one about the overdose."
Doug, "Five going on fifteen"
Polly Pagenhart, "Thanks giving"
Lindsay Ferrier, "Every Mom Needs a Little Wiggle Room"

Letter to My Body
Yvonne, "Life Changing Words"
Schmutzie, "#744: I Nudged Him Hard, Saying: "Come, Gloopy Bastard, As Thou Art""
Jen Zug, "He should really teach all young men everywhere how to extract the truth from tired, chubby, stay at home moms"
Laurie White, "Letter to My Body, Letter to My Face"

Humor
Antonia Cornwell, "Christmas Poem"
Jenny Lawson, "High"
Evany Thomas, "Say my name!"
Deb, "Too much of a good thing?"
Angela, "The albatross and the whales, they are my brothers."

These were blogs that were submitted by BlogHer’s and chosen for their genuineness. Some are funny some are very serious and some just are. It was one of the most moving experiences of my entire life. I have always felt like I was a part of a strong enveloped female group because of the wonderful mother and sisters that I have (Amazon Van Houten Women Unite!), so to feel that same feeling in a room of 1,000+ was very overwhelming. And yet I felt very curiously alone at the same time.

Saga II

Friday, July 18, 2008

Thank you Erika for the wake-up nudge, computers are a wonderous thing. This being a Blogging convention and all the Westin hotel has graciously granted us all free wifi in our rooms and in all of the meeting spaces. It was greatly appreciated by all.

I awoke with the thought of I am going to go out there and network my ass off. Pass out my cards and just blow their minds away. Anyone who has already read my post on the BlogHer website knows this is not what happened, but let me give you a slight recap here. As I mentioned earlier, I am such a material girl. I get my badge and my schwag bag and head off to the ballroom for the opening of the conference. To what to my wondering eyes should appear? Another whole room with more schwag for me dear!

The exhibitor hall is there and I pick one of everything and make fast friends with the people at the HP booth (remember them, they are our friends). I head over to the Norton Symantec booth and get a complete overhaul of my security system on my laptop and a cleaning of all the crap that came with and I never knew what to do with. Fab! Very light breakfast fare of a croissant and a soda and it was time to into the ballroom. HOLY SHIT! This is huge, there are over a thousand people here. Who do I sit with? I don’t know anyone! OMG! And this is where I completely started my total and absurd freak out. I saw a familiar face of someone I had not yet met IRL (In Real Life) but who had promised to hug me so I sat with her (thank you Maria). This being the opening they decided to do a speed dating sort of intro and soon everyone was moving around. I never got the nerve to move around but I did talk to anyone that talked to me.

There were many break-out sessions to choose from and for the first round I chose Who We Are: Introversion, Blogging and BlogHer. It was crowded. Who knew this many people were as shy as me. The panelists were professed introverts and were going to tell us what tricks they used to help them. It was very informative and very helpful. I think one of the best tricks I learned was to use “Is this seat taken?” (More on that later this evening.)

Lunchtime! Yeah you know that excited me, NOT! A boxed lunch that I picked the beef off of the salad and then off to win a Twitter contest from HP, a beautiful pink wireless mouse. I have been wanting to buy a wireless mouse but have not wanted to pay the $40 for it.

Second session consisted of this: What We Do: DIY Content Syndication and Promotion. It too was crowded and HOT! But the info was good. We/I learned how to improve content and how to aim content at some search engines (google). How to use Digg, Kirtsy and Stumble to my advantage. We talked about building traffic through Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. Which is best for whom and how to optimize your content towards your targeted audience. If it wasn’t so damn hot in the room I would have thoroughly enjoyed this session. Break time and time to go win a new web cam from those wonderful HP people! Thanks again HP, since I have a web cam integrated in my laptop (ty Kathy) so look for a giveaway soon.

Session number three was one I was very excited about because it was being live casted with another tech conference that was happening this weekend called Net Roots. They were going to have a feed to us and vice versa so we could all intereact. The subject of this session was What We Believe: Two Concurrent Sessions: Progressives: Engaging Those Outside the Political Blogosphere in PoliticalDiscourse...and Action. It says “concurrent” because there was another room hosting a Conservative session of the same genre. Unfortunately the audio issues were quite ominous and it didn’t start out so well. There also was plenty of interaction between the two panels but nearly nothing involving the audience. I decided not to wait it out and headed upstairs for a much needed debriefing (read nap).

Saga I

I should have been updating all weekend instead of saving it til the end. When you mix my memory and my ability to procrastinate you get a lethal cocktail.

Thursday, July 17, 2008
I woke up late and was on the road by 7am. I made the decision to take the 5 and not think about the bridge on the way. I would cross that bridge when I came to it (Pun totally intended).

Getting in and out of the Malibu has been a slight problem for me. First of all it is a low sitting car and my knees do not care for that. The other is that being a person of stature (ok fine tall and fat, but stature sounds so much nicer) I usually have to put the seat as far back as possible in any car I drive. In the Malibu I didn’t have to go all the way back but I did have to put it pretty close. The seat being back that far actually puts it behind the door jam, so when entering and exiting, my hip bangs against it and I am now the proud owner of a beautiful purple and black bruise on my left hip. That is the only complaint I would have about that car.

Does everyones front passenger seat look like a techie threw up? Other than that the ride was wonderfully smooth. I am not completely certain of the actual gas mileage, I will figure that out on the ride home, but I can say I made it from Glendale to the hotel without running out of gas. (*now that I am home it looks like I averaged about 38mpg) I don’t see a close gas station so I hope I can make it a little farther when I leave.

I must admit the part of the Malibu that I was most pleased with (well, besides it being a free rental) was the XM radio. It was so nice to A: not have to search for a station; B: have so many great stations to choose from; and C: be able to do it all from the steering wheel. I listened to Robin Williams comedy act (uncensored) and kept switching between the 70’s and 80’s stations. I heard “The Streak”, “Spill the Wine” and “Convoy” within a one hour span of time. I almost called a sister. “Ethel! Ethel! Is that you Ethel? Put your clothes on Ethel!”

Traffic slowed down just over the halfway point so I pulled over for lunch hoping to wait out the traffic. Nope, an hour later they were all still sitting there. Seems somebody had the bright idea to put all the cars in one lane at some point down the road. Idiot! No worries, I have my XM to listen to.

Ok, ok, now to the part you all have been waiting for, I have begun to see signs that point me towards THE BRIDGE (dun dun dun)! At the first sight, my hands tighten on the steering wheel. My pulse races and my breathing is quickly catching up to my pulse. I can see the BRIDGE now and it is looming in front of me. It is not 10 lanes side by side as I had envisioned, but 5 lanes going one way. I maneuver my car to the middlest lane and just go trying to concentrate on keeping the eco light lit the entire time and gauging the distance via the On Star (Oh, did I forget to mention the On Star, yeah I used that for turn by turn navigation and it is so much better than a GPS system because mainly it breaks into the radio and announces you next move). Anywhoo, I made it and was very proud of myself. I immediately made the obligatory phone calls to those that would be proud of me and they dutifully were.

Upon arriving at the hotel there was a mix-up with the reservation (since I was a late addition to someone else’s room) but it soon was straightened out and I was happily ensconsed in a room that made Erika’s Chicago room look like a shelter, oh wait, nevermind it looked like a shelter before mine mocked it. After a quick relax and freshen I am whisked from my room by Erin (@QueenofSpain) and taken to socialize in the lobby. I so don’t socialize.

I did find my way to the momCentral party and picked up my first bag o’ schwag. BOOKS! Lot’s of them! I am such a material girl. I can’t approach someone I read everyday face to face, but stick a table of schwag in front of them and I can talk my head off. I head back upstairs to lighten my load and meet my room mate Karoli. We head out to the Newbie reception which is on the 32nd floor to which the only access is an outside elevator that shimmies and shakes. And did I mention the outside part?! Ugh. But hell, I did the Bridge I can do some stupid elevator. The intent (or so I thought) of this reception was to bring together a bunch of people who had never been there before and try to give them an orientation of sorts. I didn’t get that feeling from it at all. It was a bunch of people milling about. There was no facilitating, no orientating, no nothing, from what I saw. It was hot and crowded and loud so we each picked up a free drink and headed downstairs to The People’s Party. Guess what? It was hot and crowded and LOUD! But it had a great schwag bag and free drinks (alcohol is plentiful, water and diet soda not so much. More on that at Macy’s). A little networking and meeting of people was happening but really how can you network inside a frikkin’ woofer? It was way to loud for me and I headed back up to the room for a well deserved sleep after a very long day. Did I mention the Heavenly beds?