So here we are in Pittsburgh, the City of Champions.
It's a city where I lived for almost 15 years while learning, and then doing research in, epidemiology. This is my first extended time here since I left for New Hampshire in 1996 (I moved to Seattle in 2001). In fact, it's only the second time I've been here at all in the last 13 years, following a celebratory weekend honoring my dissertation advisor in 2003.
Netroots Nation 2009 hasn't really started yet, though you might not know it from the crowd in the Westin's bar this evening. Things are still ramping up for the official beginning tomorrow. Wednesday morning, I spent a bit of time helping out with the preparations, breaking down a couple of pallets of some sort of snack food that will be included in everyone's goody bags. At that point, I'd already seen a few familiar Kossacks, like teacherken, ct, and side pocket, and met others while helping out with the goody bag preparation (among them ex-Pittsburgher Dreaming of Better Days, blue jersey mom, and jlms qkw). The last addressed me by nom de blog, though I didn't know her; she remembered the story of my rotator cuff and my incapacity to tie it back. That was in February, but it apparently made an impression.
And then there's the Seattle Kossack I ran into at, of all places, Fallingwater. Which, of course, gives me still another excuse to display a gorgeous photo of that spectacular place:
I was heading back toward the visitor center after an enjoyable tour, which brought me past the next group of visitors. As I approached, who should pop out of the gaggle approaching the entrance but my good friend mcjoan? Not merely a local, but a local-kid-made-good!
As you may (or, more likely, may not) recall, I'd tried to recruit other NN09 attendees to join me on the trip to Bear Run, but hadn't been successful. Doing the tour on Tuesday before a Thursday start was poor planning on my part, I suppose. Well, Joan obviously hadn't seen my diary, so she found her way there separately. I didn't hang around to hear her impressions as a first-time viewer of Mr. Wright's masterpiece, but I'll ask her sometime or another.
In the evening was the annual C&J dinner. BiPM and CSM put together a rollicking good time for about 60(!) of us at a nearby restaurant, even if Bill started off heading in the wrong direction for the half-block stroll.
By now, others may have posted photo diaries from the dinner. If so, their stuff is surely more compelling than mine. Now I'm off to bed, in preparation for Thursday's NN09 schedule...