Speaking of networking, it was a delight to meet so many individuals in person with whom I have interacted online as well as new friends. A few ppl, like Isaac and Morgan, came up to me and said ” Hey…Zenpundit!” which was amusing (More amusing was the confusion of Colonel T.X. Hammes when I had to explain to him that I was not in special forces but that I taught history and “blogged” – I’m not entirely sure he knew what that was) . It was a particular pleasure for me to meet Dr. Richards of DNI and Dave Dilegge of the SWJ, which was well represented at Boyd 2007, additionally, by Ski and Frank Hoffman.
Lunch was fantastic – Shane Deichman of Enterra, Dan of tdaxp, John Robb, Shloky, Isaac and myself discussing 4GW, physics, platforms, books, careers and such over steaming bowls of pho saigon (thanks Dan ! The charge of “cheap bastardy” is hereby removed). Shane’s son, Deichman the Younger, who is about the same age as the Son of Zenpundit, not to be left out of the grown-up talk, entertained us with his original theory of the “Jedi Ninja”, which should probably be filed under at least “5GW”.
The socializing continued after the conference at the officer’s club ( where I managed to lose my cell phone – requiring that Dan and I make a late night return drive to Quantico – sorry, Dan!) with A.E. , Gustave, Fidel and others. Chet Richards graciously invited us to dinner but we (Shlok,Dan,Isaac and myself) continued our bull session for several more hours before adjourning to a nice Italian restaurant where we narrowly missed connecting with Shane thanks to my lost phone.
It was a great, great, time marred only by my consistent inability to navigate the highways and roads of greater Washington, DC – give me a grid, my kingdom for a grid!
Next, PartII: The Ideas and (hopefully) a few Pics.
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Anonymous:
July 15th, 2007 at 5:01 am
It truly was fantastic on many levels. I’ll be RSVPing for next year, oh, maybe next week! I just got back to Yuma – so more later. It was great to meet you and I enjoyed our ‘bull sessions’ immensely. No pretension, no pageantry – I felt like I was back in college: Friday afternoon with beers on Sproul Plaza with my classmates. Good times. It was odd to come face to face with bloggers (we think we KNOW them) and have a real person materialize on top of our cyber-induced preconceptions… Cool, that.
Talk soon.
Nice,
Isaac
Lexington Green:
July 15th, 2007 at 6:45 pm
How many bloggers are buff enough to be mistaken for SOF soldiers? Mark, you should get some kind of award for that one.
mark:
July 15th, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Hi Isaac,
Yeah, it had that dorm room debate over beer feel, didn’t it ? Except most of us were drinking far better stuff than I had to consume back in college. Great to connect with you – give me a buzz if you pass through Chicago.
Hi Lex,
Gracias! The look on Hammes face, and you have to picture a kind of bullet-headed, no-nonsense, guy was more like “WTF is a ‘blogger’?”.
Evidently I don’t match ppl’s preconceptions very well. :o)
BTW, Are the Bald Cows going to continue their reunion tour ?
Lexington Green:
July 16th, 2007 at 3:04 am
Hammes seems like a very down to earth guy in his writings, which is a great strength in an area that sometimes seems to get lost in too much abstraction.
That reunion was a one-off.
Video here:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=o7xVGff634o
A fun time was had by all.
Anonymous:
July 16th, 2007 at 8:50 am
I planned to attend but backed out. If two certain worthles assholes would have attended and been in the same room as me, I’d kill em.
Gortex6
Your blog still suck btw
mark:
July 16th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Gortex6,
“I planned to attend but backed out. If two certain worthles assholes would have attended and been in the same room as me, I’d kill em.”
Not sure whom you mean. Deserved or not though, chances are that reaction would have gone over poorly with the crowd at the Gray center.
“Your blog still suck btw”
Opinions vary. Go read something else if you don’t like what I offer up here or start your own blog.