TechyDad

This is a warning. The rest of this post is NSFW. It involves "toys of an adult nature" and photos. No, the photos don’t show the toys being used for their intended task, but some of the toys themselves aren’t safe for viewing in the office. So I’m providing a break below. Click the "read more" link to read the entire post. If you’re in the office, don’t click and wait until you get home. If you can’t stand the sight of "realistic looking toys", then just forget that this post ever happened.

Read more…

After lunch, B, CutestKidEver and I went to separate sessions. Before my session started, I waited outside of Anissa Mayhew’s session hoping to get to say hi to her. I saw her and suddenly no words popped in my head. I quietly said hi as they passed and hurried into “ROYO – Screw Work/Life Balance, We Need Work/Life Policy!”

Here, though the lone dad voice amongst moms, I felt completely welcomed. Everyone in the panel recognized that work/life balance wasn’t just something moms needed. In fact, it wasn’t even something only parents needed. A person might need it to take care of their ill spouse or parent. You can read more about what I learned here from my DadRevolutions post.

After this, I attended the “Creating (or Massively Altering) a WordPress Theme (Int. to Adv.)” session. This I was extremely interested in. I do freelance work on the side and would love to do WordPress theming for people’s sites. Unfortunately, this session was a big dud. During my previous Geek Lab session, I found out that half the room was without surge strips. So I positioned myself at the other half of the room. Unfortunately, after the session was supposed to start, I realized nothing was happening.

We were eventually told that there were 2 sessions in this room. When both speakers speaking at the same time didn’t work (duh!), we were told that the beginners (who weren’t even listed as a session) would have the first half of the session and then the advanced folks would get to work. I was being asked to sit twiddling my thumbs for half a session to possibly learn something before time ran out! Session FAIL!

Needless to say, I left the session. I went into “How to Run a Group Blog for Fun, Advocacy and/or Profit” (where B and CutestKidEver were) but spent too much time trying to catch up so I’m afraid I didn’t learn as much as I might have had I been there from the start.

When the session was over, B and I returned to our room to organize our swag for the return trip the next day and to change for the night’s parties.

When party time came, we met CutestKidEver and headed to the Warwick for the Eden Fantasys “decorating” party. Here, we saw Jenn again. We were presented with…. “adult items” as well as glue, feathers, pipe cleaners and various other items for decorating. There were also chocolate lollipops in various… uh, shapes. It was all a ton of fun. Yes, I took photos during this event. No, I won’t be sharing them… Not in this post at least. Maybe I’ll make a “TechyDad After Dark” post with those. (So people can avoid NSFW images if they want to.)

After about an hour, we left our creations with Jenn to dry and headed over to A Green Affair and Bloggy State of Mind. Unfortunately, these parties didn’t seem as interesting and the Eden Fantasy’s party. We finally started talking about dinner options since we were all getting hungry. We opted to walk around the corner to…..

NYC Pizza FTW!

We waited quite awhile, but it was worth it. We carried our pizza back to the Chill Space and enjoyed some delicious slices and conversation.

We also met CoupleDumb during this point and talked with them a bit. Eventually, we realized that SparkleCorn should be starting up. We got our sparkle necklaces and rings out and went to the party.

We had a blast walking around seeing all of the pop culture posters and standees.

Then, we saw the amazing cake and heard it was from Charm City Cakes. Yes, Ace of Cakes’ Charm City Cakes! Sadly, no sightings of Duff or anyone else from Charm City Cakes. Also, sadly, it won’t be featured in an Ace of Cakes episode. It was delicious, though.

While at the party, we also met up with a bunch of people that B knew and some people we met previously (including Jenn and Dadarocks).

Finally, we attended CheeseburgHer. As I don’t eat cheeseburgers and lounging on a bed with a group of lady bloggers whom I didn’t know didn’t appeal to me, I really couldn’t get into the whole thing. It looked like fun, but I was beginning to get partied out. (Must be getting old, right?) We stopped by Sparklecorn for a bit longer, talked with some more people, then dropped back into CheeseburgHer. B took some cheeseburgers and a steak wrap to bring back to our room. On our way out, I saw Anissa Mayhew for the third time that day. (The second time was as we were entering Sparklecorn, I spotted her leaving.) As before, I wanted to say hi but there were a bunch of people around her and no words came to mind, so I walked on. (Anissa, if you’re reading this, consider this a belated “Hi!”)

B and I retired to our room to get things ready for the next day’s trip home. We were exhausted but felt sad knowing that BlogHer 2010 was over! (Next up, our trip home.)

My parents visited over the weekend and we all had a blast. First, we went to a local playground. While B pushed JSL on the swing, NHL skipped the usual slides/climbing playtime routines to check out the hedge maze. Soon enough, his brother joined us and we were running through the winding hedge maze paths together. We also checked out the duck pond which seemed short on ducks but loaded with fish and people sailing model boats.

After this, we went to a local ice cream place for a sweet treat. Here we learned three important lessons: 1) Their small is really large, 2) They have huge ears of corn for sale, and 3) They’ve got cows! In fact, JSL seemed more interested in the moo-ing cows than his ice cream. (Sadly, the cows weren’t out on a return trip the next day.)

The next day, we went to the Altamont Fair with my parents, B’s parents, B’s brother, his wife and their kids (aged 2 and 5 months). Here we went on a lot of rides:

We also saw horses and rabbits:

By far the most terrifying experience (for me, at least) was the ferris wheel. You see, I have a huge fear of falling. So why would I willingly go up 100 feet in one? For the photo opportunity of course! My photo geekery did battle with my falling fear and won. In the photos below, see if you can spot B and our families talking. (For a better look, click on the photos.)

All in all, it was a fun, but exhausting couple of days. It didn’t help that the day after this was NHL’s 7th birthday party. But that’s a post for another day.

I began my second day of BlogHer by myself. B had an event to attend, so I went to get breakfast by myself. I’ll admit, sitting down at the table by myself, with other tables filled with people talking amongst themselves brought back some uncomfortable memories of High School. I wanted to pick some random table, sit down at it and strike up a conversation with the occupants, but wasn’t feeling brave enough. The food, however, was great.

As I finished my food, some ladies from XhaleIsProVoice sat down at my table and we struck up a conversation. Before the planned BlogHer speech began, I excused myself. I had decided that I wanted to go to the suites during this time instead of sitting and listening to speeches. As I got up, I felt my leg ache a bit but ignored it. I went to the 43rd floor where I found… nothing. The Microsoft suite was open but they told me they were seeing people by appointment only and had no open appointments at that time. The FireFox suite wasn’t opened yet. I went to the 42nd floor but didn’t fare any better.

Then I thought to myself: How often to you find yourself in a 44 story building? So I took the elevator to the top and took some photos from really high up.

Then, I decided to kill time by going to street level and walking around for a bit. I wandered only a block or so taking photos along the way. During my walk, I almost fell into the street as my leg gave out. Not a good sign.

Finally, I got a message from B and CutestKidEver that they were returning to the Hilton. I met them out front and we proceeded to the MomSelect Swag Suite where we got some swag, but more importantly met up with Deb (Mom of 3 Girls), Kailani (An Island Life) and Xenia (Thanks, Mail Carrier).

After this, we proceeded to the MyBlogSpark suite where we spoke with many company representatives, learned about a bunch of great products (and even tried some) and, yes, got free stuff.

Following MyBlogSpark, we headed on over to the S’mores Snacktivity suite and got to make some S’mores. My only complaint here was that I found out they had dark chocolate only after eating a milk chocolate smore and was too full to make and eat a second. I guess that just means I’ll need to make a S’more at home!

By this time, my legs were really killing me. We planned to go back to our room to drop off our swag before heading to the Expo for awhile. Unfortunately, the elevators were full so B suggested taking the stairs. Did I mention my legs hurt? Every step was filled with pain and the fear that they would give out sending me toppling down the steps. Luckily, my legs held out and we made it to our floor…. the opposite side of our floor! Our hotel room was now down a loooooong hallway. *sigh*

After putting our swag away, we went down to the expo and walked around, chatting with company representatives and checking out more products. Yes, collecting more swag also.

One note here. We didn’t try to grab everything shoved our way. We even passed up on some swag that we felt we just wouldn’t use (or couldn’t give away as gifts). However, there was so much out there that we wound up accumulating a lot of swag. That’s ok, though, because we plan on slowly putting it all to use in some way, shape or form.

Back to the story, though. Our journeys were leaving us hungry. Luckily, it was lunchtime! And, as usual, the Hilton did not disappoint food-wise. One nice touch were the signs on each dish letting people know which were vegetarian, vegan and/or glutten free.

After lunch, we split up again to attend more sessions. But the story of what transpired there will need to wait for another day.

Today, NHL, you turn seven years old. In some ways, it seems like forever since you entered our lives. I can’t imagine what our life was like before you arrived. In other ways, it seems like the seven years has just flown by. It seems like only yesterday that we were wondering when you’d crawl. Now you’re doing addition and subtraction, using the computer, reading and clamoring to learn more. I’m so proud of you and can’t wait to see how you grow this year. Just don’t grow too quickly, please!

After lunch, it was time to go back to some more sessions. I split up from B and CutestKidEver as we were interested in different sessions. Before going to my session, I noticed a spot where BlogHer attendees could write some witty sayings down so others could see. I remembered a week or so back where WhyIsDaddyCrying asked a BlogHer attendee to stand up during a session and ask “Why is Daddy Crying?” I said I would but quickly realized I was a lot braver on Twitter than I was in real life. Still, I could write the question here for all to see. And so I did. (Photos were taken later by B.)

This job done, I attended “Fight Spam and Hackers! Plugging Security holes in Your Social Media Life.” Now, I’ve been interested in security matters for a long time. I might have been a bit advanced for that session, but it was still interesting. My only complaint was that I sat down on the right side of the room near some surge protectors to plug in my laptop. I was told that the right side would be for a CSS workshop and the left side would be for the security Geek Lab session. So I went to the back near a wall outlet, plugged in… and was told that the wall outlets were for AV equipment only. Really? A Geek Lab without access to power? I puttered along on battery power, coming dangerously close to empty before the session ended. Still, it was great session and I was given an idea for a future series of posts by Amy Leis of Amiable Life.

While talking with Liz Henry (who ran the session) afterwards, I ran back into B and CutestKidEver. CutestKidEver was planning on going to the Eden Fantasys’ session titled “Bringing Sex Out of the Closet.” B wanted to go to the Geek Lab session about how to take great pictures. I had decided to go to the Family Foodies one.

Before I went to the Foodies session, however, I stopped by the Eden Fantasys table outside of their session. There, by the table littered with toys of the adult variety (nice euphamism, huh), I got the chance to meet Jenn aka KissMyKitty. As I said in Friday’s post, I had worked with her for my massage oil review. We had kept just missing each other previously. We chatted for a bit and she gave me a recommendation for something to buy B. (Insert evil grin here.) Eventually, I moved on to the Foodie session.

During the Foodie session, I began getting odd tweets from B. It seems she made a last minute change in plans and snuck into the sex session right behind my back! I tried to be interested in the Foodie session, I really did, but it just didn’t seem to catch my interest. So I snuck out and joined B and CutestKidEver in the sex session. (Ok, that just sounded really wrong!)

Unfortunately, my wireless network went down and wouldn’t connect. (Please, no cracks about being unable to “keep it up” during the session…. B already made those!) The helpful Hilton network guy came to help me. Now picture this: The guy had to come into a session where a lot of sex talk (including lesbian-type stuff) was going on. Nothing X-Rated, mind you, but still on the racy side given the subject matter. And the guy helping me has a yarmulke on. Yes, an Orthodox Jewish network technician braved the sex session to assist me in my wireless network! Now that’s dedication.

Due to my network troubles, I wasn’t able to pay attention as much as I would have otherwise. Thank goodness, CutestKidEver live blogged it. At the end, anyone who hadn’t gotten a swag bag (like myself) was invited up to get one. I took a peek inside and saw that this was one swag bag that the kids definitely wouldn’t be playing with! This one was for grown-ups only! As we left the session, we ran into Jenn again. I introduced B and CutestKidEver and we took a photo with her.

We passed by the food area on our way to the Expo and noticed that snacks had been put out. Pretzels, popcorn and the like graced the tables. It all looked good, but we were still stuffed from lunch. That didn’t stop me from taking photos, of course!

Then, it was on to the Expo where we saw many different products and talked with many different people. I’m ashamed to say that I was so involved with connecting with people that I neglected to take many photos. At least my Photo Geek FAIL meant that I socially won (aka made some good contacts and saw some great products). I did take a few photos, so here they are.

After this, we headed to the Sheraton for the Sweets in the City event. Here, we were tempted with cupcakes (which looked delicious, but we were still stuffed), got to play a Beamz (extremely cool instrument which plays music via a computer depending on which laser beams you break – wish I could do a review of this one), and got some great swag including a Perplexus (review of that coming up).

We headed back to our room, dropped off our heavy bags and then B and I decided to go for a walk. We were getting hungry and also wanted to see the M&M’s store and the Hershey’s store. First, we headed towards Broadway. We spotted where The Late Show with David Letterman tapes (sadly, no Dave sightings), saw where some Broadway shows are performed (sadly, didn’t have time to take in a show) and browsed the Hershey’s shop. Then we went across the street and enjoyed three floors of M&M shopping.

After this, with some (purchased, not swag) bags in hand and our tummies finally rumbling, we walked to Ray’s Pizza and got a few slices. We brought them back to our hotel room and enjoyed some NYC pizza before resting up for the next day.

We woke up to BlogHer 2010 Day 1 ready for the day ahead. Luckily, our previous fears of being eaten alive by bedbugs didn’t come true. We showered, got dressed and headed downstairs way too early. We could see tables full of delicious food in the final stages of being set up. We waited patiently and then got a table so we could take turns getting food/watching our stuff.

When it was my turn, I actually let people skip ahead of me. Being a photo geek, I was stopping to take photos of everything before serving myself the food. I didn’t want to slow anybody down, so I would step aside for them to pass/get their food and then would proceed taking photos. Read more…

After we got checked in and settled in, it was time to get ready for the night’s events. B had a Toy Industry Association event and CutestKidEver was going to the BlogHer 2010 parties. I meanwhile, had a Ralph Lauren event to attend, but for dinner I was on my own. I wandered around the streets taking photos and looking for a good place to eat.

I finally settled on The Great American Health Bar. As I walked in, I noticed a mezuzah on the wall. Was this place Kosher, I wondered? Yes, yes it was! (Not that that mattered, but it was a nice surprise.)

I sat down, looked at the menu and decided to order the Tuna Burger. This was canned tuna fish mixed with mashed potatoes, veggies and beans, fried in a patty, covered with cheese, placed on a bun and served with a side salad. It was delicious and I will definitely be replicating this!

After eating, I headed back to my room and killed time before getting ready to go to the Ralph Lauren event. I headed down and wound up being the first person to arrive. I waited as more people came and then we headed out. On the way, I connected with some other bloggers and we chatted for a bit. Here, I must apologize. I am horrible with faces and names. Since I can’t remember everyone’s name (though I still have all of your business cards, I’m not going to name the names of anyone I met – with one exception coming up later.

We were served some hors d’oeuvres, drinks and mini-cupcakes. David Lauren (Ralph Lauren’s son) came out and gave a speech about his father. We were told about how Ralph began (selling homemade ties from a drawer at the Empire State Building) and about their newest initiative. This takes the form of a children’s story book and video titled “RL Gang.”

Before seeing the video, though, a group of kids came out dressed in the RL Gang clothing line. They were incredibly cute and posed for a few photos before sitting down to watch the video. The video itself involved a group of kids, similar to the kids who were with us that night, attending a very special class and a magical trip to help a tree. I won’t spoil the ending, but it was very cute. I could definitely see my kids enjoying a series of these videos.

While there, I got to meet (and here’s the one name exception): dadarocks aka Adam Cohen. We’ve worked together for the past few months on DadRevolution.com, but we had never met in person. We talked quite a bit and in fact were the last ones to leave. We were sort of kicked out (but in a nice way) when the Ralph Lauren staff realized that they needed to close up for the night and that we were still there.

Before leaving, we each got a small bag of swag. Mine contained the RL Gang book, a USB drive (with product shots and a promo for the video which I’ll post as soon as I locate that drive) and some cologne. In addition, dadarocks handed me a Dora’s Big Birthday DVD and a car set. (I don’t have the exact name of the latter on hand… it was sort of a lego-type build-it-yourself product.)

When we got back to the hotel, dadarocks and I talked for a bit both to each other and to some other folks in the hotel lobby. Eventually, B texted me that she was going to get dropped off by the Sheraton and would like to walk back with me. I dropped my stuff off in the room, noticed we had gotten a room drop (including a Mr. Potato Head) and then headed over to the Sheraton. We walked back to our room and settled in, ready for the BlogHer excitement to officially begin the following day.