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Food, Drinks and Fun at Thirsty Bear; The SF Meet n GreetJan 07 '04 (Updated Jan 29 '04) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line If there's one near you at least go for the free food. Remember, free stuff is always a good thing!
When the Meet and Greet was announced I RSVP’d without even thinking twice. Epinions, with all its good and bad has been apart of my life for almost three years so I figured that I would take advantage of the opportunity to meet some other people. However, when the day fell on a afternoon when I had been out the late night before. Let me set the scene. 12:00 My house. Him: Shaking me, as I was dead to the world. Hey wake up. Me: Arrrghhh…no Him: Aren’t you supposed to go to that eat, greet and feet thing today? Me: Holy #(*&$(*&$! I jumped into the shower, threw on some makeup and was halfway out the door when I stopped. Me: Are you sure you don’t want to come with? Him: And miss a whole afternoon alone with my PS2….not a chance. Eh. I was off in my car on a cloudy afternoon. It was a calming feeling driving up Highway 101, that is until I hit Redwood City and the rain started pouring down in buckets. It was enough to make me turn around, but I did RSVP and felt guilty for wanting to flake. My drive also got me thinking about what type of Meet and Greet it would be. Would it be low key like Florida, or a fun bash like the NYC one? I also wondered if I would have anything to talk about with people, because honestly I don’t communicate with a whole lot of Epinions people outside of the Eps website. Thirsty Bear is located near the Moscone center in SF, so I was slightly familiar with the area. I arrived about 1:45 and heading up the flight of stairs where roheblius greeted me with a nametag and a friendly hello. I was immediately introduced to Nirav, and Alexis & Christal who are on the staff at Epinions. I headed straight to the bar for something to drink because I practically ran out the door without grabbing my ever present water bottle. At the bar was a gorgeous bartender, James, who I chatted with about his late night bartending and my late night partying. Don’t believe Kristina though this guy was not a lookalike of Johnny Rzeznik, he was more on the line of Benjamin McKenzie, the guy on the O.C. Since I was starving I walked over to the food and grabbed some cheese and bread while scanning the room to see who had showed. I spoke with sweeper who is a lead in electronics. While I chowed down on my cheese and bread we engaged in a nice conversation. I found out that he lives near me and was surprised how many people made the trip up from the South Bay. If you told me I’d get free stuff here I would have totally laughed and no, I am NOT talking about those weird Epinion M&M toys. After a nice chat with adriennefoster, she handed me two books that a friend of hers had written. Free stuff is always good so I started my night off pretty good. I also found out that this spunky woman is a neighbor of mine, residing in the same part of the Bay Area. I got a chance to speak with kristinafh who was so incredibly sincere, sweet and funny! It is really nice to meet someone that you click with immediately because frankly, I thought that I wouldn’t have anything in common with folks other than Epinions. I remember thinking (or maybe I said it?) if we lived near each other….the trouble we would get into. The easiest way to describe the meet and greet was very laid back, casual and lighthearted. Lighthouse and I talked about Hawaii, since we both have cultural heritage from there. Dustygold was also a pleasure to chat with. While she is very quiet, she comes across as an excellent listener and when her and Kristina got a hold of those Epinions toys, all hell broke loose. I met zzjulia, a fellow beauty fiend, who wore a cute pair of boots that Alexis and I were eyeing. I also talked more with Garrett who also lives in the South Bay and coincidentally plays baseball with guys that I graduated high school with. This goes to show that sometimes the Bay Area feels really small. So anyway Garrett may try to find out some dirt on me, but I was an angel in school so good luck! I also spoke with Garrett briefly about some Epinions matters which was one of the reasons why I wanted to go. It was nice that the epinions folks were milling around open to whatever questions anyone had. One person who was fashionably late was megugrrrl who I consider to be one of the most open and helpful leads on this site. Any time I have a restaurant addition or question she is an email away always keeping a friendly tone and guess what folks? She’s exactly like that in person. Megu and I bonded over our love for dining out and I swear one day will hit up a restaurant in the east bay together. So after some more schmoozing I still didn’t get to meet everyone. After awhile though I noticed it was getting late and I headed out the door with Megu, who pointed me in the right direction back to the freeway. I drove out of SF happy that I decided to come although I really didn’t get to get into the meaty discussions about Epinions polices and future happenings. Hopefully there will be other opportunities to do so. So is anyone else thinking Las Vegas for the next one? Update 1/29/04: So I realized that I should have put down my suggestions or changes for the MnG. Open communication about the site should be discussed and encouraged. Eps folks should have a roundtable and/or present and discuss new ideas or policy changes. This is an opportunity to grill writers about what you guys are doing well and what's going not-so-well. Use this apportunity I think something like this should happen right away (when the MnG starts) and then afterwards people can mingle. Keeping a casual and comfortable enviornment AND discussing epinions issues is possible. ©2004 Tiffy0380  |
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