I'm somewhere else today

I'm filling in for Florinda as she heals from shoulder surgery. She let me talk about my favorite book that I've read over the past year; The Breach by Patrick Lee. Go to Florinda's site and read it quick. With the loss of readership she'll get from me filling in, she might not keep the post up long!

I'm kidding of course, she would never pull the post down. I don't think.

My friend sent me something cool the other day

Back in March, Florinda mentioned she was going to the Festival of Books out in LA, and as a half-joke I mentioned to her that Pamela Ribon was going to be there and it would be great if she could get me an autograph. Now, I didn't really expect Florinda to do that. Like I told her, I didn't have anything I could send her to have Pam sign. But, she was the only person I knew who was going. It was worth a shot.

Now, I found Pamela Ribon (AKA Pamie, Pamie.com, May Q. Holla, Wonder Killer) on the Internet several years ago, but she's been on there with her online diary since 1998. I didn't even have a computer that could go on the Internet back then, I think we got one in 2000 then all we had were those free AOL discs so I wasn't online a whole lot. Anyway, a couple of years after that I found out about blogs, I found hers and have enjoyed it since then. She cracks me up. But, besides being a blogger, she's also a TV writer (Samantha Who, Romantically Challenged), author and a Derby Girl in LA. I'm not sure when she sleeps, to be honest.

I'm going to stop with the background on Pam so I don't sound like some kind of stalker. I've been thinking how to write this without sounding that way. It's not easy. Really, I'm not. Florinda can vouch for me. Just check out Pamie.com to see what I'm talking about.

Anyway, back to the Festival of Books. As you can read on her blog, Florinda did go to see Pam who was speaking on a panel and got two books signed. Yes, she got one for me. How cool is that?

As Florinda knows, the book isn't my normal genre, so to speak, but if you see what Pam wrote in there, I really have no choice but to read it. It's almost like a threat. She'll probably get the Chicagoland derby girls to kick my ass if I don't.

So, that was my good news in the mail the other day.

Thanks for all your hard work, Florinda. And thanks, Pam, for signing it.

In real life

I've been absent from here a few days, sorry about that. It's been a busy week. I've been on the afternoon shift at work, which always makes things a little more interesting, and we've been busy around the house too. I don't want to say why yet, if everything works out I'll let you know of course.

But, one fun thing did happen this weekend. I got to meet a blogger friend, in real life and everything! It was a little surreal to think about it at first. It's not like I know many people from here anyway, but actually meeting someone who I've never met yet, at the same time I know, was strange, cool and fun all wrapped up together.

See, Florinda was here in town for the BlogHer convention, so after several e-mails, and work tweaking, we got to meet downtown for lunch on Saturday before I had to go to work. It was fun, but way too short. I only had about 90 minutes before I had to fight traffic to make it back to work on time, but it was totally worth it. I had a good time, and since she hasn't blocked me from Twitter yet, I guess she did too. I did feel like I was talking at an extremely rapid pace, but sometimes I do that when I'm a tad nervous, and when I only have 90 minutes to tell my life story. Good thing I didn't have any caffeine to make it worse.

The funny part is that we would have had a little more time to talk, but I got a little lost. I don't drive downtown much, hate the traffic, but I did okay there since it was right off of Ohio street. For those of you not from Chicago, that is the street you get off the tollway from, in that area at least. I was fine there, the problem came after parking. It was one of those garages where you pull in on one street then come out somewhere else. Or so it seemed. All I know is I came out of the garage and I was totally turned around. I called Jenn for some help, but she couldn't help without seeing where I was. Then I remembered I had GPS on my phone! Somehow I got a decent signal, figured out which direction to go (the opposite of which I was heading) and started to jog to the restaurant. I'm sure I looked like a total goober. So, in short, the person who has lived in the Chicago all his life, was slightly late meeting the person who had never been there because he was a little lost.

Anyway, we had a nice lunch, talked a bit about the conference, family and the city. We didn't have enough time at all, but it was still great meeting Florinda. She said her and her husband plan to come back to town, so hopefully we can get together again. This time I'll have Jenn with to guide me.

One thing I wanted to do was take a picture with both of us in it to post here, but I forgot. See, goober. Want to know what pictures I did remember to take that day? Take a look:

Yes, I took pictures of in the parking garage so I could remember where I parked. Nerd!

Anyway, Florinda, thanks for taking time out from your convention to meet me for lunch. I hope I didn't talk your ear off.