Saturday, February 28, 2009

Low Country Blogger Meetup

On Thursday I met up with a wonderful group of people who are part of the LowCountry Bloggers group. We met at the Glass Onion on 1219 Savannah Hwy. I have only been associated with this group for about a year now with regards to attending the meetups. My blog at http://jcmoffitt.blogspot.com has been listed with LowCountry bloggers website for quite some time and I had not even known it.

I believe that my introduction to twitter by a dear friend of mine is what awakened me to this group of folks who use Twitter to communicate about every day happenings both personally and professionaly. I remember when my friend introduced me to twitter the first time. At first I was really resistant because I felt that it was just silly to micro blog. I was very content with my occasional spurts of blogging here and there when I had the time. Once I installed the Twitter client and started using it I was hooked. Micro blogging allows you to be spontaneous and to post thoughts about this and that with a limit of 140 characters. Making a statement and confining me to 140 characters was somewhat daunting since I can be long winded.

One of the nice things about being a part of the LowCountry Bloggers group is that I am part of a community that has something in common. We all love to write about whatever it is that we write about and most of us seem to be addicted to technology in one way or the other. Every month the group gets together to eat and talk and take pictures. I have only attended three or four of these meetings but I have enjoyed myself each time. I can not speak for anyone else other than myself but it is easier for me to communicate through the written word from the comfort of my recliner and laptop vs meeting complete strangers in a social setting. The thought of doing that can be scary at times.

Thanks to Twitter and blogging I have met folks like Heather Solos, Don Lewis , Jared Smith and others which means that my social network has slowly but surely been expanding. Just like the Star Trek intro says "Going boldly into strange new worlds", Just today I spent some time on Vox looking for other Lowcountry bloggers and added them to my neighborhood. One of them I actually know through the LowCountry Bloggers group and one of them I did not. The cool thing is that we all have something to contribute not only to the blogosphere but also to one another. Until just recently I had not realized how tunnel visioned that I had become by only focusing on my blogs and not really paying attention to others. I guess that I felt as if the "blogosphere" was so huge that it was like a forrest that was too scary to even wander into. There is no way that any of us can have the time to read all the blogs that are out there nor will we be interested in everything either.

The food at the Glass Onion on Savannah Hwy was very good. The business card describes their food as "soulfull food". I am not sure that I understands what that means however I will say that what I ate was very tastey. I ordered their Gumbo which was spicey but not over the top. I enjoyed their world famous banana bread pudding with a touch of whiskey as well. Both the gumbo and desert were delicious and I am looking forward to taking my family there one day soon. The restaurant is in an excellent location in West Ashley and it appears to seat between 50 + people. Our meetup started at 6 pm and sometime between 6 pm and about 7 pm the place started to fill up pretty quickly. Heather had already arranged to reserve 3 or 4 tables for us and those filled up quickly. The staff was very busy but they were very courteous and did an excellent job of filling all of our requests in a time manner. I would highly recommend this establishment to anyone.

If you are a lowcountry blogger I would highly recommend that you try to attend some of the LowCountry Blogger meetups. They happen monthly and Heather Solos does an excellent job in coordinating the effort and finding us a different place to meet each time. In the three or four times that I have attended the meetups everyone has been very cordial, friendly and helpful. I have not had a problem in finding something in common with folks at my table and jumping into the conversation. I am thankful that this group of folks are here and that I can be allowed to expand my horizons and learn more about other folks and the things that are of interest to them.

James Moffitt
http://www.lightourworld.com
chiefpropellerhead@comcast.net

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