For me, "been gone too long" is not just a line in a country and western song, but it describes my blogging. So, by way of excuses, justifications or whatever you want to call them, I offer this account of my whereabouts.
June 21-24, I was in New Orleans at the Webmaster World Search Conference speaking on two of my favorite topics -- blogging and podcasting. The Webmaster World conferences are not quite like any other conferences that I have attended. They originated with a group of like minded individuals meeting in bar. Even with large numbers of attendees, there is still the atmosphere of a group of search-ies sitting in a pub over a glass of their favorite beverage.
I won't recap the sessions. For this I strongly advise going to Search Engine Roundtable where Barry Schwartz did a very thorough job. He posted his summaries of the sessions almost instantly upon each session's completion. This was a tour de force given that the hotel presented the usual challenges for Internet service.
Even though the Park Plaza advertised high speed Internet access in the rooms, I got lucky and had a room that even with hotel staff help I was never able to access the Internet. So this week has been a mad scramble getting caught up.
As the pictures show a good time was had in spite of the challenges. The picture at the top was shot with my camera phone during one of the sessions. The photo at the right was looking out over the balconey of Bourbon Street Blues Company host to a party sponsored by a number of exhibitors. I left long before the party ended, but stayed long enough to snap this pix.
