BlogHer: Mostly Awesome

Okay. It's been over a month since BlogHer and I have been incredibly slow in getting anything written about it. It was kind of a blur this year, with a zillion parties to run to and so many people I wanted to see. My time-management skills were definitely tested and I probably would have missed even more stuff if I didn't have the bestest roommate in the world, Kathleen. (I wrote about our swanky digs at The Buckingham a few days ago.) By far my favorite take-away from BlogHer was spending time with her, including hitting Madison Square Garden to see Spoon open for Arcade Fire, walking endless city blocks and sitting in the hotel room watching TV. She is a good egg, that one!

We dove headlong into the madness with a bus tour sponsored by Kodak. They had provided a bunch of bloggers with their new Easyshare M580 digital camera and wanted to give us a good opportunity to try them out. Imagine two double-decker busloads of bloggers, snapping away. It was a blast!

Collective Bias on the top of the bus: Kathleen, Katja, Kim, Zippy and Sandy.

Snap-happy bloggers!

Kodak's chief blogger, Jenny Cisney, shows us the jumbotron.

Roomies.

Empire.

Other highlights from my BlogHer experience:  The offsite parties were crazy and plentiful this year. SocialLuxe was a spectacular shindig (featuring gigantic swag bags with amazing stuff from Avery, Ghiradelli, Cambria Cove and more), Getting Gorgeous was a one-stop shop for glam (I absolutely love my Lia Sophia necklace, Remington wet 2 straight flatiron and my PowerMat) and the MomSelect suite next door had plenty of great stuff for kids (Webkinz, ZhuZhu Pets, Hexbug Nanos). The Hallmark party was on the rooftop of the Buckingham, where we were staying, which was nice. It was probably the most low-key and beautiful party we went to, with enough room to move around and actually have a conversation. Martha Stewart Blogger's Night Out was also a major treat. The Omnimedia offices are as impressive and gorgeous as one would expect but I was pleasantly surprised at how friendly and genuinely interested the staffers were. (Seriously, I had a lengthy conversation with two senior editors about naked ping pong and the best way to eat oreos!) Sadly, Martha had left just before we showed up.

I made Martha's Flickrstream with Kevin Sharkey! 

(That's the ginormous, very bright SocialLuxe swag bag.)

I am still sifting through all the stuff I brought back from BlogHer. I'm not sure why but the last month has been crazy hectic with a road trip to SoCal for my cousin's wedding and getting Roo back to school. I'm sure I'm forgetting something major. (Like the super excellent goody bags that Eden Fantasys handed out after the sex blogger panel. That was some seriously buzzy swag!) That's kind of how BlogHer was for me this year: a bit overwhelming and crazy. I kept feeling like I was missing something and didn't get to hang out with half the people I wanted to. Hopefully it will be a more laid-back vibe next year in San Diego.

Disclosure: I received a Kodak Easyshare M580 digital camera to participate in the Bus Tour,  The Buckingham provided our lodging and all parties and accompanying swag were free of charge. No one asked me to write about any of it but rest assured that all opinions are my own, anyway.