blog camp 2.0 - sept. 4-7

there are still a couple of spots at blog camp 2.0 september 4-7 here in denmark (that's labor day weekend in the US), so do let me know if you'd like to attend! it's a riot of laughing, blogging, taking pictures, hanging out and drinking quite a lot of wine.

in the aura of blog camp 1.0

i'm still basking in the afterglow of blog camp 1.0. it was a success beyond my wildest expectations (and my expectations were quite wild). i'm still processing all of the many thoughts and feelings that are tumbling through my brain but after two action-packed days, two very late nights and relatively early mornings in a row (and some lovely patron tequila), i am rather exhausted, so those will have to wait before tumbling out onto the page.

i came home from the airport just in time to grill sausages and halloumi and marshmallows with my family and then i retired to the upper garden with mma ramotswe (i've got the new one) and a glass of wine (yup, i could still drink wine). husband came up and sat with me for awhile, but soon, i was snoozing away. and my snooze turned into a two hour nap in the late-afternoon sunshine, lulled to sleep by the songs of the birds overhead. blog camp was pretty tiring. :-)

i'll be sharing some of the pictures/highlights/impressions/reflections all week, both here and on the blog camp blog.

but for now, thank you girls (and they were all girls, despite our little jokes trying to convince otherwise), for a beautiful weekend! be sure to visit B and extranjera and kristina and polly and seaside girl to see their impressions this week as well. and don't forget to check in on the blog camp blog, because we've got some post-blog camp 1.0 fun planned there. and if you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please ask them over there, so all can answer!

two takes

it took us two takes to get us all jumping...(ok, way more than two), but these two shots show all of us jumping. just not in the same shot. check the blog camp blog for more of the fun that's been going on. i have many impressions to write about in the coming week. but for now, i'll just say it's been wonderful.

blog camp is a bit surprising...

like i totally did not expect these guys. but yet, here they are...

the god(desse)s of the blogosphere have been kind

some calm, restful images to help calm my mounting excitement over the impending arrival of blog camp.  tomorrow around noon, extranjera, B, polly, seaside girl and kristina will either arrive or meet me at the copenhagen airport. all of the last preparations are being made, the cleaning girl is here, and i'm feeling ready. but i definitely can't sit still. in some ways, it's quite extraordinary and remarkable that this is really happening. an idea thrown out one sunday on a whim, now coming to fruition.

i think it's really brave of five people who have never met me, except here on my blog, to buy plane tickets (for four of them) and come to stay at my house in another country for a whole weekend. it's like beyond belief cool. and i am in awe of their bravery. all kinds of crazy, "am i good enough thoughts" have crossed my mind, but those are mostly quiet now. i think we can't help but have a fantastic time. we hope you'll follow along with the madcap antics all weekend over on the blog camp blog. and hopefully, it will inspire you to want to be part of blog camp II in september.

* * *

and speaking of amazing people in cyberspace...you must go check out the latest guerilla marketing from stacey childs of discounderworld. she's got to be the coolest kiwi out there. while you're there, be sure to order your copy of the Gold Edition of Discounderworld (it's so exciting i actually used capital letters)! 

don't you just love the idea of guerilla marketing? and the whole way that ideas happen here in this bloggy world and then people get involved and suddenly things happen in reality and not only in cyberspace. i love that about the blogosphere. 

weekend accomplishments

when the possibility of blog camp transitioned from fantasy to reality, i took at look at this little slice of hallway hell and panicked a bit:

but, thanks to the tidying frenzy which preceded my sitting down and getting to work, and an entire day of effort on the part of husband during which he put in a new floor, it now looks like this:

and i can tell you that is a big relief! and we now have our very own room in which to iron. which makes us feel strangely posh. but probably isn't really that posh as long as we're doing the ironing ourselves.  which are are.

* * *

other than that, i invented a new recipe for rhubarb-strawberry cake. it was necessitated by discovering quite a ways into a rhubarb-strawberry crumble that i didn't really have enough brown sugar. i've never invented a cake recipe before, but it turned out pretty well. this is a shot before i discovered the thing with the brown sugar.

those two mangoes in the upper right of the picture (looking suspiciously breast-like) were diced together with some red onion and served over grilled halloumi as an appetizer last evening. they were the really good kind of southeast asian mangos and are almost buttery in texture. they kick those green ones from south america right out of the kitchen. no comparison. tho' there was a twinge of guilt involved in the carbon footprint of buying either one. however, that was eased by the taste of the velvety sweetness mingled with the salty halloumi all smoky from the grill. yum. and gone too fast to get a picture of it.

* * *

after getting down to work this afternoon (thank you rain), i finished three articles and got a good start on three others. now there are only three to go (because yes, it was nine, not seven). but the night is young and there is much caffeine in the house, so i will soldier on.

but first an after-dinner walk in the evening sunshine, since the rain of the day cleared up around 4 p.m. the world was fragrant and green and so alive.  even the dandelion seeds were luminous.

thanks to all of my procrastination, the house is tidy, the laundry is done and put away, ditto the dishes and nearly half my work is done. i have that sunday evening feeling--when you feel relaxed and ready to face whatever the week brings and even have optimistic thoughts that you'll start running tomorrow. the sunday evening feeling is that good.

"mobning" in the blogosphere

this may look a little scary

but really it's a totally cool place.

danish has a great word--mobning. i've seen it translated as bullying, but to me, it's a bit more nuanced than that word is in english. it's a word that conveys the whole notion of holding someone outside of your group. intentionally. if you're the parent of a school-age child, you hear the word a lot. because danish schools (or at least the one our daughter attends) are very focused on it and on keeping it from happening, at least to a harmful, overt extent, since you can never really fully prevent it. because everyone needs their albanian. but even an albanian would like to belong.

small aside to explain the last statement: this is one of the earliest theories that husband and i came up with (way back when he was still someone else's husband). we were in the balkans and noticed that everyone there (well, everyone everywhere, really, if i think about it) had someone they looked down on to feel better about their group--the croats and the serbs had each other. and tho' it was never clear to me where the bosnians stood, they had some complex system of someone they looked down on. the bulgarians looked down on the macedonians. the macedonians looked down on the albanians. the albanians looked down on the...hmm. there wasn't really anyone--except maybe the roma and let's face it, everyone looks down on them, so sadly they don't really count. if you were a regular albanian, you looked down on those poor suckers in kosovo and vice versa. so we decided that albanian was the end of the line. and that everyone needs their albanian--someone to feel superior to.

now, back to the regularly scheduled post. i've been thinking about this because things have gotten a little nuts in the comments on some of the other blogs of late (most recently the blog camp blog last evening--and i can't even blame wine b/c i was drinking tea in my hotel room in oslo since the little tiny bottle of wine in my hotel minibar costs 185NOK ($28) and the two glasses i'd had six hours earlier in the lounge at the airport were no longer having any effect).

you see, we're all stark raving mad. and we found each other here in the blogosphere. and finding other mad people has clearly fed that madness. and i fear that some people (like whoever stopped following blog camp in the middle of the madness last night) found all this talk of corn and rocks and herman and to rad or not to rad (definitely the latter) (and which shall hereafter be referred to (on this blog at least) as the r-word which shall not be named) and pink and all that stuff to be a bit much.

but i'm here to say that we most definitely didn't mean it that way. and so you should ALL feel that you can jump into the fray at any time. like monique (hey, she's new!) did last night on the blog camp blog.  all of this madness might have looked like mobning, but it really sincerely wasn't meant that way. we want everyone to feel welcome in this particular vortex of madness. so please play along if you want to--jump right in and ask what all that silly talk is about if you don't understand. we're really quite harmless. we just like the calming effect of rocks and watching corn grow (not watching corn pop, that's totally not relaxing, or so i've heard) and IM conversations in the comment section. maybe it just makes our comment numbers look good, or maybe we're just a bit crazy. but either way, we're harmless and would love it if you joined in the fun. we're all albanians here. :-)

p.s. none of this comment madness really happened here on MPC, but i feel a bit responsible for it because i'm definitely one of the IM-convo commenters, so that's why i'm posting here. click the links above if you want to see firsthand what i'm talking about. :-)

blog camp: SA

slight misrepresentation since this is cape town

but this was the picture i had

taken from victoria & alfred hotel where i stayed

the fabulous lynne of wheatlands news has suggested she would host an MPC blog camp: south africa simultaneously with MPC blog camp: denmark on june 19-20-21. she has room for five in moorreesburg. of course, this makes me want to drop in there, but since i'll be here with four (maybe five) fabulous blog friends and sadly transporting star trek style is but a hollywood dream at this point, we'll have to make do with a virtual hook-up. (the logistics of which we i are am frantically working on.)

 although this is at spiers' moyo

this is how chilled out i imagine blog camp: SA will be

i wanna go to blog camp: SA!! if you do too, please send an email to me with "blog camp: SA" in the subject line and i'll hook you up with lynne. we'll be coming up with more blog camp details and announcements here in the coming days. tho' you can already check on the blog camp blog (of course we have a blog!) to see who's coming in june and why they decided to come.

and remember if you're really serious about attending either of the blog camp dates--june 19-21 or september 4-7 in denmark, please send me an email (my email address is in my profile) so i can put you on the list (if you only comment, i can't get in touch with you if you're using a no-reply blogger address, so please do send an email). 

just a note: people are finding some seriously good ticket prices from the US for the september dates, so have a look at kayak.com (that's where the best price i've heard is coming from). even if you're flying from somewhere obscure like fargo, it might cost less than you think! and if you're coming all that way, we can surely find a way for you to stay a few extra days and see the sights, so don't worry about jetlag and making such a trip for only a few days! :-)

one time at blog camp*

yesterday when husband suggested blog camp, i was just kind of fording the stream of consciousness, talking to him about this interface culture of the blogosphere and all of the naked conversations that result from it. and wishing out loud that it was more than an imagined community, but sort of more of a sunday philosophy club. and so in a fit of whimsy, i posted my little wish list about what i imagined blog camp would be. and the comments poured in. it seems that in you guys would actually be interested in doing this! and since it is a liquid life we lead in these days of globalization (even in light of GEC**), i began to think, hey, why not? we could really do this!

we can easily accommodate four guests at our house (hence the rule of four) and possibly five if i got my ass in gear and cleared some junk out of a room upstairs. but let's see how it goes with four, if interest is great enough, i might be motivated to clear out that room for one more. here's what i'm thinking about how this will work...

because of deadlines, travels and events at work, the first weekend i could host a blog camp would be june 19-20-21. i'm thinking that this first round will no doubt attract those of you who live within a reasonable distance of denmark (e.g. right across the sound (and with your dog, perhaps?)) or within an hour or so by air (ahem, oxford and london spring to mind but i am certain there are others!!) and who are fairly spontaneous (tho' in my view, this is plenty of time to plan ahead).

for fabulous bloggy friends from farther afield, how about a long weekend in early september (the weather is usually pretty reliable in denmark in september)--september 4-7 to be exact (since the 7th is labor day in the US and therefore a holiday).

here's the deal:

1. you are responsible for getting yourself here (i'll happily answer any questions you might have about the best route).
2. you will have a place to stay once you get here.
3. if you'd be willing to pitch in to help buy some groceries, we will feed you well.
4. all of the fun, laughter and wifi is included.

the first group will be a bit of an experiment. we will do activities to include all of you who can't attend either because it's too far or because space is limited. we'll try out that stickam thing and/or others that work well (i've seen stickam working, so i know it's more or less ok) to be live and interact online. we'll tweet. we'll blog. we'll laugh and laugh some more. maybe we'll make some stuff. and perhaps we'll even do some vlogging, just for fun. we'll go on photo walks, so bring your camera. we'll spend at least one day in copenhagen taking the city in through our camera lenses. the rest of the time, we'll hang out here, eating, drinking and laughing:

if you are interested, please send me an email (email is in my profile) with "blog camp" in the subject line. i am open to suggestions for other dates (subject to veto by me due to work schedule with my real job). and if interest is great enough, i'll definitely add some more dates.

just one more thing...if husbands/boyfriends/significant others/random people you live with are difficult to convince that this is a good idea or there are guys out there who think it sounds like fun but rather girly, there's also a rather more masculine playhouse at our place, so either bring 'em along (one of the bedrooms has a double bed and we could arrange for one more) or just don't be shy:

i'm sure i'll be writing about this again along the way, so pls. ask any questions in the comments to help me figure out what people need to know (for obvious reasons, i'm not publishing my address here, but will definitely provide that information to who are serious about coming). once again. shoot me an email (it's in my profile) with "blog camp" in the subject line if you're interested in attending one of the two dates i've listed above--stating which date, of course. other than that, start packing your pjs and have a nice day!

* with thanks to iasa !
** global economic crisis (i hope i can stop typing this out soon)

blog camp anyone?

the scene for blog camp

this morning, i was catching up on my blog reading (i didn't get done yet, so if you're missing me, don't worry, i'll be by soon) at the table instead of reading the newspaper (which is over-hyping the one solitary case of H1N1 in denmark anyway). i was reading funny snippets of some of my favorite blogs out loud to husband (who is a bit mystified by the entire blog thing and often advises me to find friends in my local space rather than in cyberspace). i had just read something funny and i sighed, "i want to hang out with these people in real life." husband said, "why don't you have a blog camp, they could come and hang out with you in your writing house." (writing house is the original name for my garden studio/atelier/place of creativity.)

and so i began to imagine what blog camp would look like...

: : nobody would get dressed all day if they didn't want to, they could hang out in their pajamas.

: : we would probably all sit in the same room on our laptops IMing each other.

: : we would drink copious amounts of wine.

: : we would cook and eat the fabulous food we made.

: : we would stay up late.

: : we would drink lots of pots of tea and many lattes.

: : we would figure out how to make those hearts in the latte foam by practicing lots and lots of times.

: : in the unlikely event we got dressed, we would go on photo walks. or maybe if we were all in our PJs, we could go on photo walks anyway...and end up being known as the pajama gang. or the pajama mafia. i've always wanted to be part of a gang.

: : we would laugh a whole lot.

: : hopefully someone would teach me to crochet and/or knit.

: : and we just might make plausible plans for taking over the world.

: : oh, and OF COURSE, we would blog the whole thing (thanks hit 40)!

doesn't that sound good?

what would you wanna do at blog camp?