Looks like there was a pretty good crowd at the Chicago meetup on Saturday!
Great looking group! And it looks like you had the whole room to yourselves.
Left to right, wrapping around the table at the back: Mr opiejeanne, opiejeanne, Stacib, lafcolleen, prostratedragon, PST, Carlo Graziani, Eric S.
Where is Mr. Potato???
Carlo Graziani sent the photo. (Thanks, Carlo.) Rumor has it that opiejeanne has a couple of photos, too, but since they are traveling, I don’t know when they will be sending their photos, and Proof of Life cannot be delayed!
Open thread.
bbleh
But … but … where is the interviewer for the NY Times?
WaterGirl
@bbleh: In a diner in Ohio, of course!
I can’t believe you didn’t know that. :-)
eclare
Thanks for the photo! Love to see faces that go with nyms.
Renie
@eclare: Me too but the real face never matches my imagination! LOL
Lapassionara
We had a lovely meet up here in St. Louis with Mr. Opiejeanne and Opiejeanne, when they were traveling through several years ago. They haven’t aged One Bit!
HeleninEire
Always great to see faces matched up with nyms.
Brachiator
Great group of faces. Hope everyone had a great time.
Ohio Mom
Yup, no one ever looks like what I’ve imagined. Leads to me to wonder what people think I look like.
Looks like it was a nice evening.
Steeplejack
@Ohio Mom:
“Leads me to wonder what people think I look like.”
eclare
@Steeplejack: Hahaha…
prostratedragon
@Brachiator: We did!
CaseyL
Delightful to see BJ meetups happening again! And always terrific to see familiar faces. We’re a peripatetic bunch, traveling around the country to meet other jackals. I think opiejeanne and Mr. opiejeanne are the champions on that front.
PST
It didn’t take long to drive everyone else away.
kalakal
Looks like a good evening. Always nice to see the faces behind the nyms
zhena gogolia
Looks like fun.
JR in WV
I was in Great Lakes Naval Base for most of 1970, and once I was out of bot camp and into ET school me and my fellow anti-war draft escapees went to the downtown Chicago many weekends, with round trip train tix, because all the money was gonna be gone by Sunday evening. Saw my first anti-police riot in Grant Park (if that’s the one along the lake just North of the museum complex.
Wife and I would love to spend a week in Chicago to see the blues, the jazz, and the museums and architecture. Maybe someday we’ll feel safe to travel again, but not yet. So many great buildings all around Chicago, and sculpture too — giant Picasso…
We even had a late night dinner with the 5th Dimension a couple of booths away eating after their show nearby. Was exciting. Saw Jethro Tull, Procul Harum, blues in the park, stood in line to see the Greatful Dead, but they got busted crossing back from Canada that afternoon — sad!
Alison Rose ???
@Renie: I have that issue with voices–I hear a voice, like on the phone, and my brain automatically draws a picture of what they look like. And it’s usually way off, LOL
Raven
@JR in WV: Great Lakes Naval Training Center. My old man ran the special services there in the late 50’s and I was the batboy for the baseball team! But there is Naval Station Great Lakes!
SpaceUnit
A shady looking crowd.
Can’t blame the restaurant for sticking you in the corner. :P
Raven
@JR in WV: That may have been the Sly Show riot.
Steeplejack
@Alison Rose ???:
One of the worst ad campaign fiascos of recent years was when Arby’s used H. Jon Benjamin as the star of some TV ads. To hear the iconic voice of Sterling Archer coming out of the decidedly un-Archer-esque Benjamin was just—grating.
It even took me a while to get used to Benjamin doing the voice of Bob Belcher in Bob’s Burgers.
lowtechcyclist
@JR in WV:
You sure this wasn’t in Roswell?
lowtechcyclist
Since this is an open thread, if I’ve got my time zones right, it’s May 9th in Moscow, and everywhere else in Russia too. If Vlad’s gotten his big symbolic victory, it doesn’t seem to have made the news yet.
Fair Economist
Great to see all you having a great time!
Steeplejack
@lowtechcyclist:
Still only 11:38 p.m. in Moscow.
rikyrah
Good looking group.
zhena gogolia
Open thread, so I just ran across a letter I wrote Walter Mondale on November 7, 1984 (he answered me!). Here’s a choice line:
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
Stern language indeed! ?
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack: Huh. The time zone map I pulled up showed western Russia (including Moscow) as GMT+4, so 9 hours ahead of EST, or more applicably, 8 hours ahead of EDT.
But I now see others have it as GMT+3. Maybe the first one I pulled up was a leftover from their brief experiment with year-round DST.
Anyhow, in another 13 minutes, it’ll be May 9th there. Guess they’ll still miss the deadline. :-)
Lyrebird
@Ohio Mom: Well I imagine you look like the mythical sort of parent that long ago figured out how to keep a kid’s IEP and Medicaid paperwork in order. I have no idea what such a person looks like, because it shure ain’t me. I just aspire to meet one some day. So you could have wings and a unicorn horn for all I know!
delk
We go to a diner near Great Lakes. It’s usually full of proud parents and their kid all dressed up. Last time I asked the waitress to change the channel on the two tv’ sets within eyeshot. Fox News was on. She changed it without missing a beat. She knew three gay men would leave her a better tip than anyone that was watching Fox.
Steeplejack
@lowtechcyclist:
Pro tip: Just put “time in [location]” in your browser address/search box, and the wonder that is the Google will give you the correct answer.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack: I also found a stern letter telling Bill Clinton I wouldn’t vote for him because of “welfare reform.” (I did vote for him)
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
So much easier just to flame them on Twitter now.
Alison Rose ???
@zhena gogolia:
Kinky :P
stacib
I had a great time, and if there is ever another, I’m there.
prostratedragon
The Estonian Dixieland Band:
lowtechcyclist
@prostratedragon: I love that tune! A friend turned me on to it just before we made our three trips to Russia to adopt our son, back before the Magnitsky Act. So it always reminds me of that life-changing set of trips.
Dammit, there are some good people over there! We knew some of them, they helped us bring our son into our family!
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Leningrad Cowboys (they’re Finnish, so it’s okay), Those Were the Days.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Dorogoi dlinnoiu
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Ah, another fave.
ETA: An great visuals!
Steve in the ATL
Sorry I missed the fun! Was scheduled to fly into Chicago Saturday but had to change plans.
Eric S.
It was great fun. I hope we do another. It was great putting name and faces to nyms.
Anyway
@zhena gogolia:
Are you still firing off impassioned letters to Prezs? Were the recipients just Dem POTUSes? You didn’t write to Dubya, I hope? Not even gonna ask about TFG…
zhena gogolia
@Anyway: I wrote to Obama about gun control after Sandy Hook. Probably nothing since then. No, I would never write to a Repub (unless it was Lowell Weicker, who used to send personalized messages, not form letters).
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: Sorry, I’ll send the photos right away. I was going to do it last night but fell asleep.
We had a swell time and Chicago is lots of fun. Sorry to be leaving tomorrow but I’ll get to see my favorite cousin who unfortunately lives in Kansas. The family are all Democrats so there won’t be political conflict.
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: I didn’t get photos of lafColleen or Prostratedragon.
Carlo Graziani
I had a blast. More meetups, please.
John Revolta
@Raven: I was at that riot! And it was all on the crowd. It had been a nice afternoon, hanging out and waiting for the music to start. Sly was there and was gonna play, but he had missed so many shows in the past that when the warmup band started to play, everybody assumed it was another no-show and the place went nuts. I looked up and the sky above was full of objects being thrown at the stage. On my rapid way out I saw guys coming in with cans of motor oil (remember them?) with rags stuck in them. Good times!
Kropacetic
I got a beautiful letter…