The first Pharayngula/Bad Astronomy blogger meet up was a success! And not just because more BA fans showed up over PZ’s, despite any lies PZ will almost certainly post.
About two dozen folks showed up, and we had a great time until well into the wee hours (aided for me, no doubt, by my being from two time zones west). We talked on a lot of different topics, including science, conventions, food, and of course the recent Best Science Blog award foofooraw.
Tara Smith from Aetiology showed up as well with her boyfriend (happy birthday Evil Monkey!), and that added to the festivities — that’s them in the picture, with PZ and me on the left. I will publicly chastise and mock BlueGal and DCup for leaving early to go back to their rooms and — of all things — work on their blogs. Of course, they were able to actually post pictures of the informal blogger dinner (check those links for the pix), while I had to wait until today. Oh well.
All in all, I thought it was a great time, and I’ll see about doing more of these when I travel. It’s a really fun way to meet folks of similar mind.
I’ll have more about the meeting we’re attending a bit later…
November 11th, 2007 at 5:25 pm
It was a good time. It was really great to meet you and PZ.
November 11th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I wanted to come out but was still getting over a cold that had hit earlier this week. You’ll be coming back to DC again, right?
November 11th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Phil!
It was great meeting you and discussing great entertainment of the day (UFO in particular). I asked you a couple of questions about movies that I sort of remembered and you nailed the first one (Journey to the Far Side of the Sun) but you got stuck on the second (I was less that clear on the premise). You told me to post to the forums here and ask and you were right! Turns out the movie is called Pinocchio in Outer Space and it looks much worse than I remember it. So of course I will have to get a copy.
I had a great time talking to smart people.
Here are a few pics from my site:
http://corsair.blogspot.com/2007/11/met-up-with-big-boys-last-night.html
November 11th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
I was going to try to get to this but spent the afternoon helping a friend move and had no energy left after that. Maybe next time.
November 11th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
I had a good time. It was gracious of you to autograph a book even though it had been previously defaced by an ivory tower squidophile.
November 11th, 2007 at 7:02 pm
Ever considered coming anywhere near Ohio, Phil?
November 11th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
I really wanted to join y’all, but it’s been an exhausting weekend and the 45-min drive to and from DC would have killed me. (The partying would have been fun, though!) Do it again sometime… but meet somewhere less politically-hostile, like over the river in Fairfax County, VA!
November 11th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Hey, it would be really great if you could come to St. Paul next Spring for the American Atheists convention. You know PZ will be there, I’ll be down there, we can get Greg Laden over there, and a whole bunch of other people there.
I’ll just sit back and listen while you guys talk your science stuff.
November 11th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
hey Phil.
Here’s something that may be relevant to you, maybe just to show that even supposedly liberal intelligent countries can have their problems. This happend here in good ol’ New Zealand.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=124&objectid=10475430
Heres the basic run down of the situation:
A maori (native new zealand culture) exorcisim goes wrong,
the mother to 2 dies (by drowning due to people holding her underwater).
They dont contact the police or any emergency services for 9 hours…
over 40 people were involved and nobody did anything to stop it.
I have lost a lot of respect for my home nation now
(luckily I’m moveing over the the USA in 2 days (colorado specifically) though I know this stuff still goes on I wont feel like its my home country doing it haha)
What are the odds of Phil doing a book signing while I’m there?
I’m there till April.
November 11th, 2007 at 11:24 pm
Who’s the old guy? (snicker snicker)
November 12th, 2007 at 3:04 am
Love the t-shirt. Where did you pick it up?
November 12th, 2007 at 8:42 am
It was great to meet you finally, Phil! Swing by if you’re ever in Iowa…
November 12th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Duly chastised. I stuck around for a while chatting at the end of the table, but you’re right. I should have stayed and hung with the science blog folks!
Next time…….
November 12th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hopefully PZ had calmed down sufficiently to speak coherently. Maybe he’ll actually reply to my e-mail asking what it is exactly that Climate Audit is denying – without using colourful metaphors, that is.
November 12th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
[...] science bloggers and readers (including some self-identified in the comments in PZ’s and Phil’s posts)? A nerdalicious Saturday evening in DC, that’s what. We arrived a bit late and so missed [...]
November 12th, 2007 at 7:22 pm
“I love heliocentricity”? That is a cool t-shirt.
November 15th, 2007 at 8:32 am
It was great meeting you and PZ and everyone else, and a fun evening it was, but to me, the rest of that night was far more memorable, although infinitely less enjoyable. A few minutes after I left, I was pulled over by the police and spent the night in jail based on nothing more than one policeman’s caprice, and despite objective evidence of my innocence.
So, you see, there is God, and he carefully monitors who meets with people like you and PZ, and sends his goons after those transgressors.
But don’t worry, I’ll kick His Holy Ass eventually. 
November 15th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
Hey Phil, it was great meeting you in person. I remember reading your Bad Astronomy stuff since a long time ago (at least high school), so it was really neat to finally meet you. As for meeting PZ, well, I first met him on talk.origins and discussed with him on there, so that felt more like a first physical meeting than a first meeting in general. Not to knock on him or anything though – his nerd shirt was quite clearly better than yours.
Anyway, I’m the guy who suggested that you take up amateur telescope-making when you mentioned that you were in need of another project. Don’t worry – it doesn’t have to be as much work as I’m putting into it. You can start off with a blank that is already pre-generated to a given curvature, so you just need to do final figuring, or you can buy an already-figured mirror and just build the tube around it. I recommend it! And it’ll give you some ammunition in your never-ending battle with PZ. He’d have to build his own microscope to keep up.
November 16th, 2007 at 3:05 pm
[...] Somehow, this reminds me of my meetup with Phil. [...]