Blogging Get Together At Al’s Wine & Spirits

For someone who doesn’t drink, it seems like I’ve been to Al’s Wine & Spirits on Clinton Street a whole bunch of times. This time it was for a get together of local bloggers, something I got invited to at the last minute on a very windy night and decided I just had to go, especially since I was having a last minute massage at Armory Massage in the same area.

When I walked in the door I was recognized by Renee Benda, aka cusecomm, who writes about local things like I do on this blog, who was talking with Mark Strong, aka phomancho, who writes about food. I was connected with Renee, though it wasn’t until later when I put her picture and seeing her in person together; much more attractive in person. 🙂 I didn’t know Mark, but we’d talk a lot early on.

Eventually people started trickling in and I got to know some of the names. There was Christopher Malone, aka chris___malone (that’s 3 underscores), who works in politics and writes short stories, and was soon followed by Kelly Covert, aka trimommykelly, who writes about life as a triathlete, mother, and all around superwoman, and Amber B, aka amberbinteriors (that’s all I got out of her lol), who writes about interior design.

Once Margaret McCormick, aka mmccormickcny, who I wrote about almost 2 years ago when she challenged the Doubletree hotel in a cookie contest, showed up, Mark and I went to save us a space in the establishment, where we talked about his penchant for loving to create interesting food combinations, including desserts he won’t eat; strange concept to me that one, but I’m hoping to talk him into making this cookie thing surrounded by a brownie in a cupcake wrapper for me; oh yeah!

When others finally joined us we were off and communicating. I knew some of the folks already, like Sunny Hernandez, aka sunnyinsyracuse, with whom I’ve shared a few adventures I’ve written on this blog, including my first visit to the B’ville Diner and the day she tried to kill me at Green Lakes State Park, who writes about pies of all sorts, and Steve Borek, aka steveborek, a local business coach and theater arts producer who, along with Sunny, was part of a theater production I saw called Urinetown, a strange little show that I actually liked, though I wasn’t sure I would, who writes about business and coaching; makes sense.

And there were some people who came I didn’t know or hadn’t yet met in person. Those folks were Joanna Giansanti, aka joannagiansanti, who writes about graphic design and creativity (we were connected already so it was our first meeting), and Christie Jones, aka bedsidesign (who also doesn’t always look like her pictures), who writes about interior design, and her husband Ian, aka helloianjones, who’s the spitting image of Elvis Costello and even plays guitar!. And Sunny came with her man Steve, aka SMARTASScny, who runs Trivia Night at Wise Guys every Tuesday and informed me that real Irish people don’t eat corned beef & cabbage; who’d have thunk it?

It seemed like everyone had a great time as no one was left out of a conversation that I noticed, and maybe the one thing we didn’t do that maybe next time we will is have a quick moment to talk about our blogs, although I’d have had to figure out which one to discuss with so many of them. There were a lot of other people who said they wished they could come but couldn’t, and it was put together pretty quickly so maybe next time it’ll be an even bigger event, with better weather. Hey, this is Syracuse right?

It’s great finally meeting local bloggers, and I’m someone whose said that it’s great when we can support each other since most of us seem to have bigger followings elsewhere. I’ve looked at all the blogs on this list that I’m about to share with you below; go take a look, comment if you have something to say, and look for a message concerning the next time we get together, because I know it’s happening. Anyway, here’s the list: