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You are here: Home / Balloon Juice / Meetups and social events / Proof of Life: Seattle Meet-Up

Proof of Life: Seattle Meet-Up

by | 109 Comments

This post is in: ,


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Apologies for the delay; because stuff was happening (and not just on the blog), turned out I was waiting on photos I already had. From commentor ThalarctosMaritimus:

A group of local BJers came out on Friday night to welcome the lovely and talented ruemara to Seattle, and a great time was had by all!

From left, around the table: Maccheerful, CaseyL, Mike J, opiejeanne, mr. opiejeanne, beautifulplumage, thalarctosMaritimus, ruemara, H.E.Wolf, and chopper.

A big thank-you to CaseyL and ruemara for arranging it, and to beautifulplumage, an alumna of the Pike Place Brewery Pub who not only served as our expert guide to the nuances of different beer selections, but who also is commemorated there in pictures on the wall.

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More pics from Opiejeanne:


Ruemara, H.E. Wolf, and Chopper


Beautiful Plummage and ThalarctosMartinus


Ruemara and H.E. Wolf
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Final note from ThalarctosMaritimus:

Another display there bore out the appropriateness of the choice of site

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Reader Interactions

109Comments

  2. 2.

    ruemara

    I think we were supposed to leave more random destruction to fulfill our jackaling. My bad. Thanks to all that came out! Haven’t had anything less than a lovely time at every BJ meetup. You’re all pretty awesome. Except you. and you too. But everyone else is awesome.

    Edited to reflect I have a giant moon face.

  6. 6.

    Sab

    I am so jealous! I have wanted to meet Ruemara for years, and there is no way she is ever coming to northern Ohio.

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    @ruemara: Aww sweetie! I so wish I could have come! BUT…I did get a new flat out of the deal so, yeah, tradeoffs.

    Still I might pop down to SoCal for a weekend or two. Got me an eye on a corpsman and lots of my CA friends said I wasn’t there long enough last month.

  25. 25.

    ruemara

    @Sab: I may, *may*, be on the east coast next year for another prime nerd event and I may also be in Chi-town for a work conference, so possibilities abound!

  26. 26.

    Yutsano

    @chopper: East of the mountains has been cold and gloomy. We even had a freezing rain last night. WTF is up with that?

    Also: nice face fuzz dude!

  27. 27.

    Cacti

    @lamh36:

    My assumption is that it’s cold and rainy in Seattle?

    The past week or so has mostly just been cold.

    And it gets dark very early this time of year. Like sunset at 4:00pm early.

  29. 29.

    VeniceRiley

    What a handsome bunch of JUICERS. Across the street from Angels’ Stadium if y’all ever want to Anaheim Meetup

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sab:

    I live within reasonable driving distance of John Cole.

    I once had a long, elaborate dream that Cole had a sleepover party at his house for all of us Juicers. It was a really classic high-school style one with everyone in sleeping bags on every available inch of floor. It was pretty funny.

  37. 37.

    Marcopolo

    So I’m curious—demographically speaking, are there any folks who post here who have yet to reach 30? And I ask that knowing that participating on blogs is so at least ten or fifteen years ago.

  39. 39.

    lamh36

    Doug Jones holding a presser.

    I’m hoping he says nothing newsworthy for any side of the aisle, but I’ll be happy if he just doe not re-enforce the GOP bullshit bout voting with Republicans cause he won in red state Alabama.

    Here’s the thing…I think that no matter how Doug Jones votes, if he votes as a Conservative Dem, that he will still NOTt likely win re-election in Alabama.

    So I say he should say FUQ it to GOP and vote as liberal as his heart desires and FUQ what the GOP says.

  40. 40.

    Ruckus

    @Sab:
    I lived within reasonable distance as well when I lived in OH-Columbus area. Especially considering how far it is now.

  47. 47.

    Patricia Kayden

    It’s always nice to see BJuicers in the flesh. Such a lovely bunch of liberals/progressives. I’m waiting for John Cole to have a meet up in West Virginia. Might drag my behind out there for that one.

  48. 48.

    lamh36

    @Major Major Major Major: It’s still red state Alabama, and if the GOP manages to put up someone Republican, who’s NOT loopy cray cray like Moore, then yeah…they still may have a chance.

    Do we really imagine, if say Sessions doesn’t make it as AG, that if someone like him challenged Jones, that he really wouldn’t have a chance of winning even if Jones is the incumbent.

    Look no further than Mary Landrieu here in Louisiana to see an answer.

  51. 51.

    TaMara (HFG)

    @ruemara: Somehow you look just like I thought you would. Beautiful smile! Nice to put a face to Mike J and CaseyL, I’ve seen Mr.and Mrs. Opiejeane. Great to see all of you good looking jackals.

  52. 52.

    Barbara

    @Major Major Major Major: 2020, a presidential year. Seriously, I don’t expect him to be re-elected. I mean, I hope he is, but this is like having a prognosis of six months to live and then finding out that you actually have three years. The time that matters is now, and to live and vote for today without regard for re-election, the way Cory Gardner and Dean Heller have been doing.

  54. 54.

    Marcopolo

    @Major Major Major Major: Honestly, unless there is some kind of serious political realignment between now & 2020 Doug Jones is toast. Or I guess if the devolution continues by then the opposition could be reduced to only nominating candidates as whacked out or worse as Moore. But, and this is despite Moore running about as good a campaign as possible, if either Strange or Brooks had been the R nominee he would have lost. Turnout for the Dem coalition was nearly Presidential election level. It was the depressed R turnout that allowed our coalition to push Jones across the line. Just as a for example, here in MO Jason Kander ran a pretty much textbook perfect Senate campaign in 2016. He outperformed Hillary by 16! points. Still lost to Blunt by 3. Now Kandor might win that race if it were rerun in 2018 due to D energy but MO is like 10 points less red than AL.

  55. 55.

    H.E.Wolf

    It was a great pleasure to meet everyone at last Friday’s shindig!

    @ruemara:

    …I have a giant moon face.

    Yep, me too. I like the photos of us two moon-faces together!

  57. 57.

    lamh36

    @Major Major Major Major: look, I expect Jones to be given some leeway from Dem leaders to vote in ways that won’t cause complete outrage and keep in in good graces.

    But I also believe that many of the GOP voters eventually go back to form once the stakes on down and they don’t feel frenzied like they were being made to feel w/Moore vs Jones.

    So…sorry, not sorry, but I truly do believe that, unless something happens like Trump’s out of office, that those voters will go back to voting GOP as soon as they feel the spotlight is gone…

    But again, we have until 2020 to worry bout that!

  58. 58.

    ruemara

    @Marcopolo: Good lord why the fuck are people declaring defeat in 2020 already? How about a large, merciful cup of shut up? Alabama voters were energized and have a building block to retake their legislatures. Stop pissing on it about 2 years in the future when the man hasn’t even been sworn into office. You have no idea what will happen. Neither do I. The people in whose hands the future of Alabama lays, are the only ones who can determine it. If they want to keep fighting, I’m there with what cash I can spare. If they aren’t, then best of luck, i hope every republican fails on general principle. But the premature misery is too much. Let us have a fucking 48 hours of celebration.

  61. 61.

    lamh36

    @Major Major Major Major: dont’ know bout “pouncing” on you, just throwing in my 2cents…of course it’s too early to tell right now, but just past being prologue…GOP voters always go back to form once the spotlight is not on him

  62. 62.

    LurkerNoLonger

    @Marcopolo:

    Honestly, unless there is some kind of serious political realignment between now & 2020 Doug Jones is toast.

    Not even 24 hours from “Yay, Doug Jones!” to this. Some people…

  65. 65.

    lamh36

    Oh and I dont’ know bout anyone else, but I was talking about it because of Jones presser that just ended and the questions that were being asked about his possible voting plans…

    that’s it.

  69. 69.

    lamh36

    Ha… Bannon said props to DNC who came in an undercover ground game that swept the race…BWHAHAHAH

    If Tom Perez plan is to let the surface fights with Bernie-bros mask the underlying ground game operation that the DNC will have from the watching eyes of the RNC them kucos to him

  73. 73.

    VeniceRiley

    @BillinGlendaleCA: Or I could take the train UP! Are there any Juicers in OC? Besides me, I mean. I need pals to work on ousting Rohrbacher (R- It stands for Russia!) with me.

  74. 74.

    chris

    What a fine looking crew! Anybody have thoughts on a Maine gathering next spring?

    Also, Mister Pierce:

    Don’t listen to anyone who warns the Democratic Party not to “overplay its hand.” It is the constitutional obligation of the Democrats to beat Republicans anywhere and everywhere until consistent defeat wrings out the insanity that elected Donald Trump, and that nominated Roy Moore, from a Republican Party gone blind and mad.

  75. 75.

    Gelfling 545

    @ruemara: Read this just after thinking that your face is lovely. Turn in your mirror for a new one! The one you’re using is lying to you.

  77. 77.

    ruemara

    @Marcopolo: Worked on campaigns and worked directly in government for nearly 20. I haven’t seen any good coming from playing the lowered expectations and morose future game immediately. People need to win, they need to celebrate and then they need to do the work. This entire campaign was won based on doing the work. Let Doug get into office and start working. Decide he can’t win sometime in 2019, not less than 24 hours after the last polling place closed. This kind of methodology does not make folks come back to vote. Words affect things.

  78. 78.

    Gelfling 545

    @lamh36: Didn’t he campaign as a pretty up front progressive? I believe he was pretty straight about his pro-choice position.

  79. 79.

    Mike J

    If we actually want to have the Balloon-Cruise that we mentioned sometime in the spring/summer, I’ll need somebody to learn a tiny bit about handling the boat and help me bring it through the locks. Really need an extra person up on the bow handling the lines for that, and it will come in handy at the dock too.

  81. 81.

    Gelfling 545

    @Marcopolo: Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. The man isn’t even sworn in yet. Seems silly to count chickens, or foxes eating them, until we see how he does in the job.

  82. 82.

    Marcopolo

    @Lapassionara: Always a chance. And 2018 would be the year. Since Clay won’t need help in MO1, I am already committed to knocking on 500 doors for whomever the Dem candidate is next fall. As well as doing 500 for whomever winds up running against Mike Bost across the river in IL 12 (that might be slightly more flippable). Hope to drag some friends with.

    Are you in MO2? If so or just if you are interested there’s a group called MO2 for change. Here’s a link: http://mo2-4change.com

    They are all about retiring Ann Wagner and held a candidate forum about 3 weeks ago. If you poke around their site you can find a video of the entire program.

  84. 84.

    Barbara

    @Marcopolo: You are not a realist in this sense: given that Jones is likely not to be reelected, the focus should be, “what can we do with Jones that we could not have done without him for whatever time he is in the Senate?” Keeping expectations grounded is what you do when you are conducting a campaign. When you win, you start thinking about the possibilities of using power, not whether you are going to win the next election. That is very clearly how Republicans think and that is why they have tended to be much more effective when they are in power. Trump is a black swan, but they are still most likely going to pass the tax bill of their dreams even if Dean Heller and Cory Gardner and Susan Collins end up being toast as a result.

  85. 85.

    Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)

    That’s a right fine looking bunch. Every time I see pictures from one of these meetups, it makes me regret even more the fact that I missed Cole and ABL when they came through here during the great “Where Are My Paaaannnnts?” tour.

    All naysayers, gloom bringers, and Herbs (thanks Bomani) are to be ignored today. Today is a day to celebrate.

  86. 86.

    Marcopolo

    @ruemara: Look, I also do the work. I have worked on 3 campaigns in 2017. We won one of them. I suspect you misread my comment as some kind of Debbie downer crap. Or you just chose to take it that way. Fine. Someone asked about Jones’ re-election chances. I threw my 2 cents in. That’s it & that’s where I am leaving it.

  88. 88.

    lamh36

    Tom Perez on MSNBC “we were quiet, but we were on the ground we were putting in the work and we were a part of Team Jones”

    not trying to showboat and be Bannon-like pitosider taking over

  89. 89.

    gwangung

    Well, my mode is that Jones is likely to get turned out of office in 2020, all things being equal anf as they are usually,

    BUT…WE CAN CHANGE THAT. So let’s do.

  90. 90.

    Marcopolo

    @Barbara: Never said anything like that. Just commented on his re-election chances. Folks here really need to stop reading beyond the words.

  91. 91.

    lamh36

    So Roy still ain’t conceded…smh…i suspect he never will..

    Senator-elect Doug Jones relayed a message to Roy Moore, in response to a question from CNN: “Do the right thing, Roy, it’s time that we heal. It’s time that we get together. This has been tough, it’s been tough on him, but at the same time it’s time to move on…”

    “… and it’s time to heal. Our campaign has been just about that. It is about trying to heal not only in Alabama but across the country, and that’s exactly the message I would give him.”

    https://twitter.com/jaketapper/status/941067669280784385

    Men like Roy rarely concede defeat

  93. 93.

    Anotherlurker

    One day, I hope to meet all you magnificent Jackels. I am more hopeful, now, than I have been for over a year!
    Meanwhile, per/ Rumara’s instructionns, I am celebrating, with Pizza and Egg Nog.

  94. 94.

    Marcopolo

    @Gelfling 545: Really? I’m not sure exactly what this means but my post never said a word about what Jones would do once he is seated. He campaigned as a progressive Dem—I suspect that is mostly what we’ll see.

  96. 96.

    Marcopolo

    @lamh36: Well, he did say last night God would be the final word on this (something like the election was in God’s hands), so if he concedes he’s kinda admitting God is not on his side. I’m picturing what happens to Evil at the end of Time Bandits if that occurs.

  99. 99.

    debbie

    @Marcopolo:

    I suspect you misread my comment as some kind of Debbie downer crap.

    I suspect I’m the only one who cringes whenever this pops up. Sigh.

  100. 100.

    marcopolo

    @debbie: Good to know I can offend even when I think I am being innocuous. My apologies. Next time I shall use Donnie downer in honor of the President.

  104. 104.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    Right! I wasn’t watching SNL when that character started up. I saw it a few years later during a highlights show. My heart sank, like when you’re the last to be let in on a joke. Wah, wah, wah.

  105. 105.

    chopper

    @debbie:

    could be worse. an old roommate of mine in college had the last name Garvin. and her dad’s name was Fred. as in “Fred Garvin: male prostitute”. he caught so much hell at work over that.

  109. 109.

    d58826

    wow they all look ‘normal’. Figured there had to be one or two caring a pitchfork or had the devils horns (snark):-)

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