When Bloggers Meet
Monday, January 17th, 2005
When bloggers meet, we inevitably whip out our digicams and start snapping photos of each other. That was not all. In the midst of smiling for the cameras and chatting, we had a Rubik’s Cube Speed Contest, See Whose Camera Flash Shoots Off Fastest and Who Is Drinking The Most Expensive Water. We bloggers can be a bunch of weird people doing strange things when we come together.
I almost could not make it to the meet. Early Saturday morning, I was knocked off by bouts of fever that got from bad to worse. For the whole of that day, I was either shivering uncontrollably from chills or incoherent in my thoughts. It was that bad. I did not eat for the entire day because each time I tried to sit up, fainting spells would just overwhelm me.
When Wuan got back from work at 8:00pm, I was still in bed. She looked at me straight in the eyes and told me that we will not be going to the meet if my fever persisted. And I was wondering how I was going to explain to those who went and I did not. There was no way I could put up another entry in the state that I was in. Even if I did, those who had planned to go might not read it. What if I recovered enough the next morning?
When I woke up the next morning, I felt better but still weak. I was glad Wuan and I made it there. Twenty of us met at Starbucks, One-Utama. I was really late, arriving at 11:45am when I had set the time at 11:00am. I am sorry to have made you people wait for me. When we arrived at the venue, I saw Adriene and Marita and two of their friends. As I got closer, another group joined us. I could recognise two of them, Kaz and David, from the photos that they posted in their blogs.
The two girls with Marita and Adriene were Chet and Renee. When Adriene was in Penang the last time, I got to meet a cousin I never knew I had. This time around, Adriene met Renee, an ex-classmate whom she has not met for a while. Adriene and I must have this aptness of getting unknown relatives and long lost friends together.
It was truly a great day for me. Now I get to put a face to most of the blogs I frequent. They are Andreas, Redzuan, Fazri, Leo, Albert, Sashi, Jordan, Jess, Edrei, Jocelyn and Grace. Wuan, Renee, Little K (Jocelyn’s daughter)and Leen (Jordan’s wife) were the non-bloggers there that morning.
I was surprised and heartened by the large turnout. You all came with just an invitation through my blog. I am truly moved. Thank you guys and gals, for spending your Sunday morning and afternoon with me. Although we did not have the time to really get to know each other at this gathering I hope that we can continue to foster this new found friendship through our blogs, bloggers meets, emails and IM. This has been a wonderful weekend and most probably the highlight of my trip to KL. Blog on mates!
Who won the contests? I do not know about the first two but Jordan won hands down for drinking the most expensive bottle of water that day. Jordan, there is no prize for that except the bragging rights to the price you paid for that tiny bottle of water. Perhaps you should have kept that plastic bottle as a trophy? After the meet, we had another contest – The Fastest Blogger Meet Poster. While I was still busy window shopping with Wuan, Marita and Chet, Andreas had already got details of that meet up in his blog. Andreas, I have no prize for you either but a few useless MT tips that you can probably fish from the forums anyway. You can pick it up from me anytime.
Read the following for their account of the meet:
Andreas’ Bloggers Meeting In Starbucks
Jordan’s Invasion Of The Bloggers!
Chet’s What A Day
Dave Yoong’s Persatuan Persaudaraan Bloggers
Edrei’s Gathering After The Darkest Night
Leo’s 1Utama Bloggathering and photos.
Fazri’s Meet The Bloggers and photos.
* The rest of the images will be uploaded when I get back to Penang.
