Blogger Nerds at The Blacksmith

All the blogger nerds got together tonight at the Blacksmith restaurant in downtown Bend for a social "mixer." There were tons of us there,maybe 30. It was wild and unexpected to have so many people in one room who know all about my bad car wash experience. Especially since my husband hadn't read that post yet.

Super fun party, I must say.

And I think I met my new best friend. She's the one who writes "Knocked Up in Bend" http://lilberger.blogspot.com/.

So, she's pregnant, actually.

When she met me, I had my long black coat on. It's my camouflage "slimming" coat. I try to keep it on as long as I can, because as soon as I take it off, my chub flows over into real life. But in a dimly lit bar, after a few drinks, well...it does the trick sometimes. Plus, I get prettier the more I drink, and if I keep my black coat on, I can forget about my belly rolls falling over the top of my jeans. I just forget all about them...it's handy.

Anyhoo, I was wearing my long black coat, and I met this adorable pregnant lady and I said "You must be the 'Knocked Up' girl! I'm Chubby Mommy, nice to meet you!"

And she said "You're not so chubby."

See, this is why I like these types of events. It's so easy to make friends.

I met so many very cool people tonight. And to be honest, they weren't all nerds. I think the super nerds stayed home, since they're shy, so the place was packed with "mostly regular" people like me, who love to write about themselves and meet people who read about them.


It's all about us, really. That's the fun of a blogger party! We're all so happy to share our stories, and boy oh boy, are we happy to meet the people who read our stories, too.

Can't wait 'til the next one.

For the record, Jake, of Bend Blogs http://bendblogs.com/ won the name tag contest. Thanks for playing, Jake.

He was the only one who brought a handmade name tag, but that should not diminish the cool factor of his duct tape name tag. I like to think he made that name tag in honor of my duct tape car repair post. He won a token from Lucky Oliver: http://www.luckyoliver.com/ which is a fabulous site to get cheap photos for your blog or design project.

The reason this is an extra cool prize is this: I met the guys who started Lucky Oliver this summer at a New Tech Meetup in Palo Alto, when they presented their start-up to 150 of their peers. They gave me this token, which I've saved for a special occasion.

Congrats, Jake, you deserved this token of my esteem. Duct tape rules, man!