I Did It

But I would have totally chickened out if Susan from Trout Towers hadn't yelled at me.  About two weeks ago while I was over reading Brittany, she linked to another blog she is a part of, Aiming Low.  They were having a party. A blogger party. (Sponsored by HP no less.)  And it was in Boston, on the 26th.  I paused.  Boston? I could do Boston.  No plane fare, no hotel bill.  Sure, a bit of a drive - but nothing crazy.  I RSVP'd.  Then I panicked.  I dropped a note to Susan asking her if she wanted to come along.  She said yes!  I relaxed slightly.

Sunday afternoon I emailed Susan basically saying I was completely willing to wimp out on the whole thing.  Because, you see, going to something where I don't know people and have to introduce myself and make small talk?  Pretty much my version of hell.  Luckily, Susan wasn't having it.  She promptly responded saying, "WHAT? YOU ARE GOING!" 

So yesterday after work I found myself driving to Boston for a blog event.  And to my credit I only once thought, "What the hell am I doing?"  I got there fine and eventually found my way up to the ballroom where the event was being held.  I signed in and quickly went to get a drink.  OPEN BAR, people! These girls know how to do things right.  The food was also really good.  I actually introduced myself to a few people - all of whom were very nice.  Then Susan got there and I was really able to relax.

And she totally looks like that woman in her avatar. I'm serious.  Susan's husband Chris and friend Jacob were along for the free food interesting event, so we all hung out and got to know each other better.  Which is kind of funny since really, we know so much about each other's lives already.  There were some great give-aways from HP and Staples.  None of which I won, but Susan got some fly binders from Staples.  We also got to print a bunch of pictures on the variety of HP printers that were stationed around.  So that was fun.

Then Brittany came and sat with us!  (And not to sound to pathetically stalkerish, but that was really cool.)  No, I don't have photographic evidence of this, but you can picture it like this:

We talked blogs for awhile and by then it was 10:30 and the night was wrapping up.  I still can't believe I went.  Completely out of the box for me.  And I'm so glad I went!  Sure it was fun to print pictures using other people's ink and photo paper, but the best part was getting to meet some people that I really admire face to face.  Thanks again, Susan for not letting me chicken out!  (And thanks to Aiming Low for making it happen!)