I was at a big convention-type gathering this past weekend…and it wasn’t San Diego Comic-Con. I attended my third BlogHer Conference, after a three-year absence.
BlogHer14, The Personal Highlight Reel
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I couldn’t sleep past 2 AM the night before BlogHer’14. I finally got up a little past 4, and discovered an email from Virgin America telling me that the flight I was scheduled to take to San Francisco at 11;25 AM had been bumped back nearly two hours. (My travel plans apparently overlapped those of President Obama, and Air Force One trumps Virgin America.) It left even later than that, and landed just in time for the Bay Area rush hour. I was already a little stressed when I got to the convention center that evening, which was a less-than-ideal condition for my solo arrival at the Evening at the Expo opening-night party.
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I actually wasn’t supposed to arrive alone at the Expo, but my delays caused me to miss an earlier event where Amy and I were supposed to meet up, and I didn’t actually find her until we were both leaving. But thanks to my encounters with her, Chloe, and Barbara, the weekend kicked off with a nice taste of the so-very-different Creative Alliance experience.
I did get some company at my table eventually: a team of mompreneurs, two blogging bartending sisters, a writing mom, and, believe it or not, a book (and movie) blogger!
Breakfast was followed by the Opening Keynote, featuring a “Why I Blog” video and an interview with Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess. I reviewed Jenny’s (mostly true) memoir, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, two years ago, but I bought a copy on-site so I could get it signed. (I no longer have the ARC I reviewed, so this one’s my keeper.)
Over coffee in the Expo Hall on Friday afternoon, Donna (the first blogger I ever met in person) told me she hasn’t expected to see me San Jose at BlogHer14, because she’d thought I’d be in San Diego for Comic-Con that weekend…and I had to tell her that we haven’t managed to get SDCC tickets since 2011.
But since I wasn’t in SoCal, I got some NorCal face time with one of my oldest LA-based blogging friends, which included meeting her co-blogger and sister Linda and joining her and her MOMocrats podcast partner Cynematic at BlogHer14 sponsor California Women Lead‘s kickoff event for the get-out-the-vote initiative The Plus 1 Project.
For many, the highlight and heart of a BlogHer Conference is the Friday-evening Voices of the Year keynote.
I’m glad I was there for the presentations, but didn’t linger for much of the post-keynote partying, which should be no surprise to anyone. It all started again on Saturday morning, though…