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Everybody Loves Bloggers

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AP Press Story from yahoo.com:

WASHINGTON – Shortly after her swearing-in as the first female House speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) took time to field questions from a few dozen Internet bloggers on a conference call that was off limits to mainstream media.Last week, Pelosi’s aides arranged for bloggers to question two Democratic House leaders on another conference call shortly before President Bush‘s State of the Union speech.

Pelosi also hired a full-time staff member this month dedicated to blogger outreach, and is making plans to launch a blog of her own. The day she was sworn in, bloggers were given special accommodations at the Capitol to cover the event, and fed lunch.

It’s all evidence of the newfound attention bloggers from left-leaning Web sites are commanding on Democratic-run Capitol Hill, especially from the new speaker, a San Franciscan with an appreciation for the power of the Internet and grass-roots activism.

Schooled by evidence of what Internet-driven politics can accomplish — from fueling
Howard Dean‘s presidential campaign in 2004 to propelling Ned Lamont to victory over Joseph Lieberman (news, bio, voting record) in Connecticut’s Democratic Senate primary last year — Pelosi and other politicians have realized bloggers are too important to ignore.

“They’ve gone from an initial writing blogs off, then moving to skepticism, then moving to, ‘OK, maybe we can find a way of working with these guys,'” said John Aravosis, who runs Americablog.com.

“It’s a power base and it’s influential and it’s an opportunity. And you know what? It exists,” Aravosis added.

“It should only scare you if you’re on their bad side.”

Blogs also are a way for Pelosi and others to communicate directly with a politically engaged audience, without filtering by traditional media. She promoted the Democrats’ agenda for their first 100 legislative hours in a posting on Huffingtonpost.com.

Democrats, in turn, credit bloggers with helping marshal successful opposition to President Bush’s 2005 plan to overhaul Social Securityby adding private accounts, a fight Pelosi led.

“It’s a mistake to think that these people just sit behind their machines and don’t do anything other than talk to each other and send money,” said Joe Trippi, who managed Howard Dean’s Internet-driven campaign. “These people are very active in their precincts, in their communities.”

Friendly bloggers can help defuse attacks. Liberal bloggers rose to Pelosi’s defense when she was criticized after the November election for employing nonunion workers at her vineyard. Thinkprogress.org trumpeted Pelosi’s side of the story: Growers are prohibited by law from meddling in union contract issues before workers vote to organize.

Republicans are stepping up their involvement with blogs as well, and Pelosi’s aides are planning new media training sessions for Democratic lawmakers and aides partly to expand use of blogs — one more sign that Congress’ presence in the blogosphere will only grow.

“The speaker will be blogging,” promised Karina Newton, Pelosi’s director of new media.

“She understands the power that the netroots have.”

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Sorry, doesn’t sway me. I’m sticking to my convictions.

reps vs dems ladies

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My Bar

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When (okay, if) I have a bar, and it’s going to shut down, and it’s the last night of the bar, and you come to celebrate the closing, well – it will be a lot more fun that it was at Tambaleo last night.

Not to knock the birthday girl, who is currently calling Lindsey Lohan to try and find a good rehab clinic… not that she drank a lot, just that she fell a lot…but the bar ended up not being as excited as I’d hoped. I envisioned some streamers, some cheap drinks, some funny music and some toasts. Maybe even sharpies to destroy the place and write goodbye messages on the walls. That seems in order to me. But then again, I am known for knowing how to throw a party. Whatever.

Snippy and co. had a great time, and that’s all that matters. There wasn’t any drama, everyone made it home, and of course I cooked at 3am, which is what I do best.

I’m glad we are done with birthdays for a while.

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We’ve Got Pictures!

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So I’m finished updating the blog about our New Zealand trip, I hope you all enjoy the photos and the little bits of our story. You can click the link at the top of the home page for the day by day posts. MK took over 1800 pictures, a few too many to get up here! I picked what I thought were the best to give you an idea of just how beautiful it was.

We were so lucky to have gotten the chance to go, and to have taken our time and seen so much.

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How’s That Book?

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Well, to update those of you that were wondering about that book I made this big deal about for 30 days…

I finished it, as far as that contest goes. And I even let my mom read it. This might come as a surprise to you, but she was very supportive.

So, all that’s left now, is to edit. Edit really means write nearly 50% more book, considering the 50,000 word minimum would make for a pretty short book. Now. I just need to open it. I was going to, I swear. I even thought about it on my trip.

Here’s the thing: I’m a chicken. As long as it sits in that file, it’s a good book. It’s a book that might be published some day. I hardly remember if I butchered anything for the sake of getting it done. And mom’s too nice to let me know…I’ve never been much of an editor – I over-edit. So, I might tear it all up. Then what would I do? I’m doing what any normal person would do: procrastinating.

It’s not even like I have anything better to do. But it’s just sitting there. I’m really hoping to get up the nerve to get to work on it soon, so, I’ll keep you posted. Feel free to give me a hard time (or a beer) to get me going.

files

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Happy Birthday!!

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So I know it’s been a little crazy over here at somegosoftly, but there’s been so much going on!!

It’s been a lot of fun reliving my trip through the little posts about it. To be sure, there’s so much more that there aren’t words for, everything was so beautiful and life changing. There’s not enough room for all the pictures, MK took 1800!! I should be caught up in a day or two…

The trip really inspired me to be more positive and a better listener. It was funny to come home so anxious to tell everyone about the trip, but instead to let them go on and on about what I missed in their lives while I was away. Maybe it was good timing for a decision like that.

It was great to get home in one piece, and we made it literally 30 minutes before there was ice on the roads. We got home and bought the last gallon of milk and bag of pasta (seriously) in the store and rushed home. It gave us a chance to recuperate before having to do anything, us being trapped at home for two days.

I was close to a nervous breakdown about how I couldn’t go out on my birthday without getting my hair and nails done, but thankfully it defrosted Thursday – just in time! – and I got “done up”. Thursday I ended up going out with WB and Snippy, et al. We went to a silly bar downtown but had a pretty good time.

So Friday was the big birthday, and I didn’t feel like doing anything, so I didn’t. That was kind of nice. KE and KE brought me to Sherlock’s, which was the perfect place to be on a birthday where you feel a little old for the first time, we were the youngest ones there. Snippy met us up and we laughed at the band and the dancers, and, well, everything. I ended up having a good time.

Saturday I couldn’t figure out what to do but KD suggested Vivo, a great choice. There were about 10 of us that then met up with some other friends at Whisky Bar. It was actually one of my best birthdays.

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The Last Day

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San Fran was freezing when we got in. We showered up, and hey, in true hard core fashion, took the BART from the airport back into town and went to a bar with the Ryans. It was as though the month hadn’t hardly passed at all. We told them about the trip, and got to the bar just in time to see the Pats game. The bar we went to must have been owned by a Boston transplant, it was like being back home.

The bar also might be the coolest, as it was Sunday. You order a Bloody Mary, and they hand you a little vodka in a big glass. Huh? The bartender pointed me to the end of the bar. It was a MAKE YOUR OWN BLOODY MARY station. Yes!!

san fran at night
www.bergoiata.org

All the good stuff: olives, celery, tomato juice, Tabasco, horseradish, celery salt, pepper, etc. etc. etc. Best idea. Ever.

And the Pats won, just barely, and we had some food and some good times. It was a fantastic end to a wonderful trip. We were ready to get back to Austin.

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Call It A Trip

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There was this drive, we had to make it back from the Mt. to get on a plane back to Auckland to get home. At about 6am, we left the silliness that is the little town at the bottom of Mt. Cook.

Did I tell you NZ has 4 million people? 40 million sheep? 80 million possums? The entire ride back to Christchurch was the earliest we’d been in the car, and we were dodging road kill left and right. We had never been out that late driving, so we never hit anything – but man, they are everywhere. Don’t worry, there aren’t any pictures of that…

We spent the afternoon in the airport. No one ever checked ID, which was very strange. But we managed to convince them that we were really leaving NZ the next day so that we could avoid the US$200 that they were trying to make us pay for having so much luggage on a city to city flight. The rain and bad weather delayed most of the flights around NZ that day, and even canceled a few. Ours was just a little late.

We made it back to Auckland and holed ourselves up in our hotel for a little bit. We had some pizza and went through all our things preparing it for our long journey home, charging the video game player, finding the mp3 headphones, etc. Our flight out was late the next day, so we had breakfast, walked around the city again a little, and hung out in the hotel bar reading and playing on the internet to kill time. The shuttle got us there at about 4, and from there we were headed home!

auckland, hard to leave

The flight back wasn’t that bad this time around, I was in pjs and tired enough to get some rest. The food unfortunately wasn’t as good, nor were they as quick to pour the wine. But we made it in one piece. We got to San Fran again and stayed the night at a hotel by the airport.

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I See You, Mt.Cook!

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I woke up without an alarm because there was this thing, I’m pretty sure it was sunlight that got me all excited. I ran to the back patio, and yes, in the distance, there was the top of a giant mountain. That’s why he booked three days. It was worth it. Basically. I mean, well, it took that long to see anything.

mt-cook.jpg

The first hike we took was called Kea Point (no, no keas) and it showed us the tops of the peaks surrounding the area and the water everything ran in to. About an hour. Then we went to Hooker Valley, to make it to the base of the mountain and the best view. Wow. We should have skipped the first one. There were bridges. And rocks. I mean, I’ve never hiked anything like that – well, I’m not a hiker or anything, but it was nuts – it was the longest, biggest, scariest (over water and rocks and certain death) thing we had done yet. I imagine it was only just over two hours there, two hours back, but in was a tough walk. We got to the base of the mountain and there were ice caps floating in the water. It was spectacular.

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I am pretty sure that after that we slept quite a while, again, we had no watch but it was sunny for so long that the hike and the lunch I made was an all day event. I’m glad it cleared up, both of us enjoyed it and afterwards we changed up and had dinner and went to this “Old Mountaineer’s Bar” – it was 5 years old – then played pool and called it a successful day.

mtcookus1.jpg

Honestly, honestly: we were ready to go home. It was a LONG trip. A great, amazing, I don’t have words and I’m supposed to be blogging about it, trip – but we were toast.

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Mt. Cook Is Going To Get A Beatdown

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Seriously, to wake up and still not be able to see this thing was getting to me. It’s the biggest mountain. Can we see it before we leave? I mean, I’m fine with the napping and all, but, that was a long drive. We could have been hanging out with JB.

At breakfast, guess what happened? We saw another kea! In the mountain!??! No.
On the patio. Go figure.

kea2.jpg

I’m beginning to think people feed these things and they hang out…

We decided to take a hike anyway, since we were only going to see some lakes, and we didn’t think the clouds would mess that up. We went up the Tasman Trail to the Blue Lakes, which instead of the Hypnotiq color we expected, are more gray and dirt, ‘cuz that glacier, it’s ‘a melting, and it’s a little dirty. There was a bunch of melting snow caps, it was pretty.

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That hike threw me a bit, there was a glacier, and rocks, and it was straight up, and it started to rain, so I was a little grouchy. There was a town a little north called Twizel that was only built to build a dam, but protested to not be torn down and won, so we figured we should see it (it’s a fighter!). Pretty much a dump. But we got groceries (we’re here two more days!?!?). There was some *cough* excellent *cough* British programming on so we napped and watched that. We woke up very late. It had cleared up. We got all dressed up super warm and ran out. MK doesn’t know this, but it redeemed the stupid mountain for me. Have you ever seen the Milky Way? I didn’t cry, but there were tears in my eyes. We spent forever out there, necks craned. There was a shooting star we both saw, planets, stars, incredible. What an amazing view. It didn’t matter at that point to me if we ever saw Mt. Cook.