Come for the Jalapeņo poppers and beer, stay for the interesting company and site gossip.
Nov 15 '05
The Bottom Line Everybody dust off your boots and get out your best hat.... Epinions is going Texas style!
Dear Everybody...
Well it was about time.
We finally had the long begged-for Meet & Greet in Dallas. I'd have to say that while it wasn't quite as ... exuberant ... as Chicago or even DC, I'd still say it was a success and everybody had a good time.
Our weekend started on Friday. We had invited Garrett out to our house for a little pre-meet barbeque, and took the opportunity to invite a handful of other members to come as well. (Sadly our little house can only handle a handful or we would have invited everyone to come). As it turns out, several people we invited weren't able to make it; but we did have a friendly evening in with pyfr (Brian), Openroad (Abraham), and hardcoreham (Matt). We discussed some site issues and threw around some ideas of what might make things better (pyfr may be the most content member on the site – he thinks things are perfect the way they are!). We grilled a few hamburgers (Abraham graciously didn't scoff at us meat-eaters and contented himself with salad – both green and potato), chatted about some old site gossip, and generally got to know each other. I'm glad we did it. I for one had a good time. And the dog didn't actually eat anyone despite her best efforts.
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The next day we headed out for the Grapevine Mills Mall (a fabulous place by all accounts ... with the possible exception of various harried husbands) and the DFW area Gameworks. We had a private room downstairs that was a little small and a little drab, but certainly adequate for our group of revelers. There was a refrigerated case with bottled water and soda just for our use (a nice touch I thought), a nice buffet spread with all the best kinds of finger foods and appetizers, and a pair of wait staff making sure we had plenty of food and shuttling drinks to us from the bar upstairs (the margarita was good, but I really liked the Rusty Parrot (3 of them actually) with it's spiced rum, coconut rum, and orange juice... yum!).
We got there just after 1:00 – would have been there a little earlier but I couldn't find my cell phone... grrr. A few Epinionators arrived ahead of Andrew and myself – Mike Holmes and Mark Stevens to name a couple. I could kick myself for not being more proactive in chatting with some of those guys – some very good writing talents and interesting opinions were represented throughout the room. Anyway.... after collecting our nametags and our raffle tickets, I found a table in the corner where I could see the comings and goings. Andrew wandered off and I think talked to more people than me...
I was joined shortly by Brian (pyfr) and his wife (the subsequent imbibitions of fruity drinks cause me to forget her name and probably several others too...gah!) and shortly thereafter, by Gracef (one head, no horns) who had scouted locations one day a few months ago with me and the tomato. I think Brian must have been feeling an overload of girliness spilling in his direction – he soon abandoned us to go join Andrew and some of the other music peeps who had gathered at a table in the opposite corner where it appeared that Garrett was holding court. All was not lost though as we were joined by pnutmom (Missy) who had arrived shortly after the start of the event with husband (another name lost to the haze in my mind) and cranky-but-cute son in tow. Husband and son left after only a brief stay, and Missy was very quiet (maybe quieter than me in Chicago), but if I had to guess I'd say she was enjoying herself.
After a bit Christal – the long suffering co-worker of Garrett – came to our table too with notebook in hand, ready to pick our brains for what we'd like to see improve with Epinions, what we think works well, and whatever wild ideas we happened to come up with. Don't let her fool you – the girl has both beauty and brains. I have to admit – most of the ideas at our table came from Grace. For the record she's not at all scary, but she does have very clearly defined opinions about what Epinions should be. She did instigate some round table discussion (yes, the table really was round) on the books category, rating practices, and other things of that ilk.
I completely missed out on the music table which was populated by the likes of MadTheory and blindsider (What's with this segregation? Books in one corner, music in another?) and only briefly spoke with some of the folks at the other 'catch all' table – not least were tchoate who came with her husband; and ctmbw (very cool user name – it stands for 'chief trouble maker and bottle washer') who came with his wife as well as a teenaged son and a friend - what better chance to play video games without the parents bugging you.
By and by it was time for the staff members present to regain control of the room. Garrett did most of the talking this time since Randy has flown the coop since DC. He introduced staff members Christal (his partner in community services), Greg (one of the techs that keeps things up and running) and Andy (Randy's replacement as product manager). I think it's the law that Epinions can only hire GQ cover candidates... but I digress. There was the usual thanks for coming etc. and then they got to the important stuff... giving away an iPod Nano. Just in case anyone missed the outcome of that drawing, Andrew's iPod sounds great – I'm listening to it now. (current song: Come Home by the Dave Clark Five... a song from the concept mix CD that plorentz sent me almost a year ago and which I still haven't reviewed – shame on me)
They also handed out the official Dallas Swag – navy blue t-shirts with Texas style epi-guys across the front. Cool stuff. After that things started to wind down. Some went to play games with the complimentary game cards provided by Gameworks, others headed off to points unknown. At least two were heading to a college football game (hardcore and openroad).
In all it was probably less rowdy a crowd than met in Chicago – probably less insanity than was present in DC too. But overall I think it was definitely a success. I'm glad to have met the few new people that I did and I regret not spending more time with some of the attendees.
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But wait... there's more.
We'd made plans with GG ahead of time to 'go out' after the meet. Karaoke was a huge success after Chicago, and also in DC... so after a little research as to what was relatively close by, we had selected a bar that offered Karaoke on Saturday nights. Brian joined us, and the four of us piled into Garrett's rental car to head for points north (or possibly after). We were met at the bar by a friend of the G-man's ... and proceeded to have a somewhat surreal experience. Or maybe it was a fiasco... it's hard to tell.
As it turns out, this particular bar had cancelled Karaoke that night without telling anyone. It seems that the bar owner's wife was reaching a certain age and they were throwing a surprise 50th birthday party for her. Since we had nowhere else that we knew to go, we did stay and have a drink. And when the time came, we sang happy birthday to Vicky – or was it Vickie. None of us got in line for hugs from the birthday girl though... it would have been rude after showing up with no present.
And before they got to the cake, we headed back out to pile into Garrett's rented car. After all – I think brains would have started exploding had we listened to any more of the evening's entertainment. It seems that despite not having any public karaoke that evening, the bar had still hired a guy to come and play the karaoke music to accompany himself singing and plunking at his guitar. We knew it was time to go when half the bar joined him in a rousing chorus of Toby Keith's I Love this Bar. This was not our crowd and we all knew it.
So that's all the juicy details. I'm still disappointed at some of the no-shows. Dizzybint/Caroline had planned on coming, but difficulties with her bank (stoopid Canadian bank) prevented her from getting down here. Speeddemon531/Mike had also toyed with coming, but that idea was nixed by difficulties with a neighbor (stoopid New York neighbor). I think some who had talked about coming earlier in the year were also prevented by the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and/or Rita. And other events may have conspired against other members coming.
Maybe Andrew and I will sponsor an unofficial gathering sometime next year – or maybe someone else will plan one and we'll just be attendees. But either way, we were very impressed with the local Epinionators that we met as well as the ones that came from farther afield and we would gladly visit with any of them again, given half an opportunity.
I think y'all rock. Come on back soon, ya hear?
Amy
who doesn't wear boots because they hurt her feet, and doesn't wear cowboy hats because that would just be wrong
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Epinions.com ID:
pearannoyed
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Member: Amy Padgett
Location: CA Dreamin' ~ TX reality
Reviews written: 197
Trusted by: 244 members
About Me:
Mean people suck.
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