Like Donkey Kong. Oh yeah.

My slacker-self always misses BlogHer for two reasons:

1. I forget to sign up on time.
2. I do not have the money to sign up anyway.

This year I have thwarted both of those excuses. Even though I did forget to sign up for a full conference pass (and couldn’t have afforded it anyway), I’m still going because BlogHer 09 is in my friendly neighboring city of Chicago and I can get a partial admission called LobbyCon for only $99. This means I get to be in on the streaming video session of the general and keynote addresses (on-site at the ChiBar at the Sheraton), as well as the cocktail parties, the after-parties, and the swag at the Expo. I’ll miss the breakout sessions, but that’s okay. I’d rather come for part of it that I can afford than not go at all.

Do you know anyone doing LobbyCon at BlogHer?

Since LobbyCon-goers are not involved in the breakout sessions, we have a big gap of free time during the day Friday and Saturday, all of which cannot be spent harvesting goodies at the Expo. But BlogHer is at the Sheraton Towers in downtown Chicago, close to lots and lots o’ fun, even outside of the conference! Since no official forum exists, I’m working the comment board on the one article about LobbyCon, trying to gather email addresses to at least get a mailing list together so people can share ideas.

Because, you know, we don’t get to eat lunch with the rest of you guys.

If you are interested in LobbyCon, click here for a link to an article with the details, and click here to go to the Eventbrite page to register.

And if you’re going to BlogHer, with whatever kind of ticket, I strongly recommend that you check out  “The Unofficial Guide to BlogHer ‘09″ at Guidespot.com. Jenn of Free and Flawed put that puppy together and it is all kinds of helpful, especially for first-timers like me. I learned many things, including that I need not be afraid of taking my laptop around, but I might like a sexier laptop bag with more pockets. And that my social anxiety may be assuaged if I have pretty blog cards to break the ice with new people.

So I bought this from Amazon:

and these from socialcirclecards on Etsy:

The blog cards even come with a super-cute matching case. It’s not too late to order yours!

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