I was feeling a little jealous of all of these Bloggernacle get-togethers, so I flew to Washington D.C. to meet Matt, Nate, and Kaimi.
We arranged to meet at the Lebanese Taverna, which has food not readily available in Madison. I spotted Kaimi in the lobby of the hotel, based only on the photos from the recent NYC party, and we went to the restaurant together and waited for Nate and Matt. We talked about T&S, and about how blogs get names. Apparently, before I entered the picture, the four founding members (Adam, Kaimi, Matt, and Nate), batted around some other names, like “FourMormons.com.” A fortunate rejection, I think. Times & Seasons is a great name.
Nate is very tall, and even though he has referred to it, I hadn’t imagined him with red hair. (This photo used to be in black and white.) Plus he has a goatee! So when he walked into the restaurant and greeted me, I hesitated before I realized who he was. He said that Matt would not be coming, so the three of us proceeded with dinner. We talked about the life of a law professor and just a bit about legal theory. Not much T&S.
We were all surprised when Matt showed up very late after spending two hours in traffic. (Another reason not to live in DC.) By the time he came, Nate had to go, but Nate was quickly replaced by one of my law professor colleagues from Wisconsin. My colleague has a Ph.D in economics, so we talked about — what else — law and economics! And an article that Kaimi recently published in the Wisconsin Law Review. Matt achieved the status of former lawyer only 18 months after graduating from Harvard Law School, but he obviously has a sharp legal mind, and he kept Kaimi hopping. When Kaimi talks about his article, his cadence increases noticeably; like every good future law professor, he gets excited about law!
All in all, breaking the barrier between the cyberspace and meatspace was not as traumatic as I had imagined. I am honored to be associated with these fellows, and with the other T&S permabloggers whom I have not yet met in person.
Yet another get-together: Yesterday I had the pleasure of a bento box lunch with Dave of Dave’s Mormon Inquiry. Turns out he works in a building on the same block as mine.
And a Bcc permablogger (moi) lunching with a T&S permablogger (Greg) symbolizes . . . well, something good. Or maybe just a West Coast reaction to all this East Coast socializing.
I didn’t know that non-Japanese types were allowed to eat o-bento lunches.
Greg and Dave,
Where in California do you guys live? Bay Area, I think? If you were closer, I’d say we should do lunch (on you, of course). Then I wouldn’t feel so lonely out here in L.A.
Alternatively, I’m thinking Shannon Keeley and I should just get together and take crazy pictures of ourselves and post them at BCC, just to reestablish the fact that we West Coasters are way cooler than all these Eastern freaks.
Aaron B
Aaron,
Dave and I are in San Francisco. Maybe you could try to post the Bcc or T&S URL on your ward bulletin board or something? :)
You guys are making me want to move out west. Dave, Greg & Aaron would be the bestest EQ ever.
Well, damn. Too bad I’m not downtown.
<---stuck out in the hinterlands, a long M-train ride away from downtown SF, with no decent bento boxes in sight (although there's a pretty decent taqueria)
It was a great get-together. I hadn’t realized that I speed up when talking about law, but one person mentioned to me today that I was talking quite fast. I guess I do speed up — that’s because there’s so much to say. :)
It was fun meeting you and Matt both in person, and seeing Nate again. I was thrown off by his goatee the first time I met him as well.
I’ll have to dig through my e-mail archives — fourmormons was the cheesiest that I recall, but there were some very cheesy names batted around before we arrived at a consensus on our current name.
Imagine if we _had_ been “fourmormons” — then we would have needed a new name every time we added another permanent blogger. :o
Yes, it was great to finally meet Gordon and Kaimi. It was odd to meet them in person after conversing over so many emails and internet posts; they were different than I expected. The experience makes me wonder how internet dating works — no doubt people can’t be too different in person than they are online — but there is a difference and I imagine there’s a period in internet dating where they have to come to grips with the dissonance between their perceptions and reality. Anyway, none of us are dating and it was good to meet them in person. Kaimi, you did speak quickly when you explained your article, you clearly knew what you wanted to say, and
I’ll take the blame for the majority of the terrible names. I was afraid that timesandseasons.org was too long and wanted something shorter. I through up a bunch of ideas hoping one of them would spur a good idea. Fortunately the others persuaded me that it’s better to have a long good name than a short bad one.