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Bainbridge Bloggers Bash #1: in retrospect

May 2nd, 2005 · 1 Comment

Ted and I had a great time last night hosting the first Bainbridge bloggers get-together.

The attendees

The group included many of those listed in the sidebar of this blog:

Busker (Chris Holmes), Capra hircus (Adrian Sampson), Casdra Blog (Mike Houser), Delivering Hope (Walker Willingham), Rowdy Rover (Ed and Mary Hager and family), Ted Leung on the Air (Ted Leung), The Binary Circumstance (Chip Gibbons), Voice of Bainbridge: The Blog (Philippe Boucher)

Also Dave Henry of bainbridgeisland.org attended.

As Chris noted in his write-up, a couple non-blogging spouses also joined us (perhaps they should merit a special badge? :-). My children were happy to have a few playmates, making friends with younger members of the Houser, Willingham and Hager households.

Mary introduced us to another blog of hers, Bainbridge Book Moms, an excellent idea. One member will post a review and others comment, using a rating system.

Missing from our group were Real Lawyers Have Blogs(Kevin O’Keefe) and the anonymous Bainbridge Beat. Maybe next time? I also hope Le blog d’Anne (Anne Boucher) will come, along with her father, Philippe. And as Ted has noted, it’d be great if Sarah Gould could join us too.

Side note: On my post describing our bash, blogger Beth Freeman commented that she will soon be returning to Bainbridge!

potluck = community

As part of our dialogue during the evening, we introduced ourselves and mentioned our interests. The descriptions eventually became a conversation on the definition of community. Someone said that community happens whenever you have a potluck. Potluck we had indeed, with plates of delicious food from hors d’oevres to desserts, including olives, muffins, bread, cheese, salads and apple cake. Cucumber sandwiches were conspicuously absent. Bloggers like wine, and also cranberry juice, as evidenced by the empty bottles on my countertop. We also enoyed a huge cooler packed with ice and abundant choices. I think next time we should try picnic at a park. Thanks to everyone for contributing to our dinner!

I took advantage of the occasion to cook two of my favorite soups: split pea and another one named Grubbin’ Spicy Chicken Soup, clipped from a magazine years ago. The latter has twenty ingredients, some grated and chopped, a mix of vegetables, rice, beans, chicken and flavors; I often wait to make it until my birthday or another event that warrants gourmet stew.

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The bloggers bash reminded me of my wedding reception: I was having too much fun talking and hosting to eat. It was only after I was tidying the kitchen late last night that I started to realize all the goodies everyone had brought. But what I really want to know is who brought the slug?

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I couldn’t believe it when I saw the creature emerge on my windowsill while I was scrubbing at the sink. Quite possibly it came in the house after my gardening efforts earlier that afternoon. But perhaps it was someone’s creative contribution to our potluck? 😉

our assembly

Everyone was sitting down to eat:

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I didn’t remember the camera again until later, when the group was smaller.

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for further reading

Other reports on our gathering:

  • Philippe Boucher posted first and twice, adding the Bainbridge Book Moms blog to the list of island bloggers linking to capra hircus the blog and capra hircus the lawnmower.
  • Mike Houser had fun and hopes we get together again soon.
  • Chris Holmes composed a thorough recollection of the evening, amusing and clever. Chris also explained in his post why I discovered pictures of Brad Pitt on my laptop after everyone left.
  • Chip Gibbons figured out that my neighbors were in Washington D.C. last night and not on Wysteria Lane. He explained more about the research done on my computer and discovered he now has some new connections to famous people.
  • Ted tried not to get too upset about Mike’s PSP (photo compared to the Newton!) Although he wasn’t as connected with as many bloggers as I was, he knew Dave Henry from previous island connections and had used Adrian’s iCAR.

    Where do we go from here?

    To borrow a phrase from Doc Searls (his Les Blogs slides are excellent and make me wish I could have flown to France!), I hope this meeting was the beginning of rolling the snowball down the hill.

    Tonight I mentioned to Ted I might start a blog for our Bainbridge group but he groaned, overloaded with feeds already. So please comment below so we can discuss how to proceed from here.

    I hope we can get together again sometime soon, taking advantage of the fact that Sarah and Adrian will be graduating and going to college in the fall. Perhaps we can hang out at the waterfront concerts this summer or potluck at a park.

    Or we could meet somewhere with wi-fi to talk about technical issues and pursue the aggregator demonstration.

    Here’s a thread I wanted to pursue further last night:

    One comment that was made during the introduction-discussions seemed to imply that community was easier found outside the island rather than within the island. I wanted to pursue this but wasn’t able to follow up the idea. However, we could get together both in person and on-line to create community and to interact with the island. I like the Urban Vancouver blog – would anyone else like to create a group blog? How could we impact Bainbridge? How could we encourage others to blog? (through more fun potlucks?)

    In addition, I’d like to organize a get-together for Kitsap bloggers, perhaps at a park in the middle of the county, sometime this summer.

    A big thanks to everyone who came and everyone who helped connect us to each other. In comparison to many friends, I don’t think of myself as a Gladwell-categorized-Connector (I perform well as I do on his test because Leung is on his list). Yet yesterday it was fun to be in the room and realize I had helped people get to know each other. Thanks also go out to reporter Jim Thomsen, Google, flickr, and Jay McCarthy, among others…

    Thanks again and please comment or email to continue our conversation…

  • Tags: island

    1 response so far ↓

    • 1 chris holmes // May 2, 2005 at 2:52 am

      Along with explaining Brad Pitt on yr laptop, I wonder if I might have the answer to the slug – so irritating to have these mysteries. I got the plant I brought from *outside* Safeway. I did not peer into the foliage for stowaways. That’s the only possible ‘carrier’ I can think of. Did you put the plant near the sill from which the slug could have crawled. If you did, we may have the culprit (me!).

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