Laura Lohr

Not Just an Alliteration

BlogHer 2012—My Thoughts and Critiques

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We got back from our trip to BlogHer and our Tour d’East Coast two weeks ago now. It was an exciting adventure and like any fabulous vacation, I am glad to be home, sweet home, savoring the memories. The BlogHer conference was a letdown this year; I am very disappointed to say. It was disorganized. It was chaotic. It was crowded. It was stressful.

The Bad:

1. They had over 5,000 attendees and that was way too many! The New York City Hilton was completely unprepared and unable to accommodate this many people. I was at BlogHer two years ago, with 2,000 less attendees and the cracks were beginning to show back then. Thankfully, we did not stay at the Hilton. I understand there was a 15 minute wait (and more) for the elevators during peak times. Yikes!

2. There was a stampede of pushing and shoving at the Martha Stewart lunch the first day. People were stuck on the escalators and could not get off. There were so many people on the upper level, where the food was served. It did not feel safe at all. I nearly had an anxiety attack and I was not the only one. I did not talk to anyone that had a different experience that day.

Here is the only surviving photo of the Martha Stewart luncheon. Somehow, I managed to delete every single, last photo from my DSLR camera before it backed up to the Cloud or my computer. EVERY ONE!

But, THANKFULLY, my friend Danielle of SimmWorks Family Blog saved the day and sent me some of her. I am totally appreciative! Thank you! Thank you!

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Here is Martha tweeting about us. 🙂

3. At the Katie Couric luncheon the following day, I was looking for a place to sit, but every single table I went to sit down at, one person was “reserving” the nine other chairs at the table. I finally sat down and held my ground at an EMPTY chair. I was tired of caring if people had saved seats for people that had not bothered to plan ahead to get a seat before I got there. I think saving a seat for one or two people is fine. More than two people? That really is unfair. This particular person I have been following on Twitter for some time now and she is a lovely, genuine, sweet person. I think the crowds brought out the worst in a lot of people. It was tense. Once her friends arrived, however, I felt like we left on good terms. (By the way, I still think this person is a very lovely person!)

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I am maybe ten feet away from Katie Couric. I thought she was great! She has some serious arm muscles too! Man!

4. The expo was so disjointed. Rooms with brands here. Rooms with brands there. It was completely different from last year. It was difficult to locate the brands I wanted to connect with. There was not a flow. Also, from what I understand, there was some bad behavior from other bloggers that completely had some brands totally turned off. I found that some of the brands were a little more willing to give away swag than to discuss relationships. Last year seemed a lot easier to make connections.

The Good:

1. I got to hang out with some of my very favorite people and meet some new friends along the way! It was wonderful to spend time with some of my friends I had met years ago and we get to see each other once a year at the conference.

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2. I went to a lot of really fun parties with a lot of fabulous people. It was so much fun! I have to blog about the Harley Davidson party, the Land’s End party, the California Dreaming party and The Odd Life of Timothy Green premiere that Allie and Mr. Bear went to. There were so many incredible experiences, they all deserve their own post!

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3. New York City was fantastic, as always! The city was bustling and full of energy all day and night. It was awesome to go to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, just the three of us. Mr. Bear and Allie spent the two days I was at the conference roaming around the city. They went to a tour of the NBC studio, to the Empire State Building, to the Natural History Museum and wandered aimlessly through Central Park. Allie had a blast playing on the playground, while Mr. Bear had a leisure chat with the other dads with their kiddos. The last day in New York, we took in a Broadway show together. I have always wanted to do this! Mary Poppins was a great show. I have so many posts to write! We had a blast.

4. This was the first time Allie was in New York City with us, outside the womb. (See my post about this!) It was exciting to be in Times Square with her. She was so in awe of everything going on around her.

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Allie and Crystal—This is the bear she convinced Mr. Bear she MUST have because all of her stuffed animals were at home. In her defense, Crystal went everywhere we did.

London Olympics 2012—Delays, Time Zones, Bogus

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I love the Olympics. I always have. I remember when I was a little girl, my dad would tell me I could be in the Olympics because I would be great in the Equestrian events. He may have been delusional, but when I went horseback riding while the 1984 Olympic games were happening in Los Angeles, I would pretend like I was an Olympic rider. I would have my horse jump over logs and anything else I thought necessary to go to the Olympics. I watched every single Equestrian event I could on the family television set, studying the riders’ every move. I was 11 years old and I will not forget the impact the Olympic games had on me at that impressionable age. Those images. That pride I felt. It left me with a sense of patriotism, a sense of belonging. It was special.

We watched whatever my dad wanted to watch and sometimes (okay, well, most of the time) it was not the exact programming I would have enjoyed. We also did not have the ability to watch sports whose times conflicted. We did not have DVR. We could not watch every single event, because once it was broadcasted, it was over. If you missed it, you would have to find out from friends, family, neighbors, the water cooler conversation, or the newspaper to get details beyond the short news clips aired on the evening news. If you wanted to watch tennis and soccer, great—as long as their schedules did not conflict. Our options were limited by our lack of technology.


“The Olympic Coverage Was AWESOME on NBC last night,” Said No One EVER

Today, we have everything we could possibly need in place to watch what we want, when we want, where we want, and DVR it for later. What amazing opportunities we have! What I do not understand is why NBC did not get it last night. I am completely confused by NBC’s refusal to broadcast the Olympic ceremonies last night LIVE! In California, we watched the Olympic ceremonies a full 8 hours after the rest of the free (and probably unfree) world. Why is it that they could not figure out how to make it work? I understand it is about ratings. I understand it is about advertising profits for the network. I understand the network paid millions of dollars to get rights to broadcast. I get that. HOWEVER, there has to be another way that does not completely screw California, and Hawaii (the rest of the West Coast) completely. Advertisers are going to have to get with the program too. This network system is antiquated.

The ceremony went on so late last night that my daughter fell asleep before the torch lighting. If it had been on three hours earlier, we could have been more alert, more interested, and less stabby by the end of it. Viewers clearly want to watch when they want to watch. How can this message be sent any clearer?

It bugs the snot out of me when I am watching a show or God forbid, the Academy Awards (THAT ARE FILMED IN CALIFORNIA for Pete’s sake) and someone on another time zone announces the winner a full three hours before California gets the feed. Instead of live tweeting or Facebooking during the PST programming, I have to shut it down so I do not get spoilers. I want to watch it when it is available. I want to see it when it is fresh and new, not when it is stale and already broadcasted across three time zones, or in the case of the Olympic ceremonies—after the whole entire world has already seen it.

The commentary:

Where to start with this one? The commentary was awful last night. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! I do not want someone talking to me while I am trying to concentrate on a show and this includes commentators. And Meredith Vieira? Bless her heart. I am sure she is a nice person. How many times did she say “money shot”? She should really Google the contemporary references to money shot. Each time she said, “money shot,” I giggled.

I was properly entertained on Twitter, with some fabulously sarcastic friends on #CleverOlympics. I had a few much needed laughs, mostly at Vieira, Lauer, Costas, and Seacrest’s expense. Everywhere you looked, people were watching at the slated time that NBC deemed appropriate for America and they were not thrilled about it. (NBC, could you tell?) Why did they start the ceremony after the kids’ bedtime? The consensus was that America would rather have watched the opening ceremonies with the rest of the world, instead of with Ryan Seacrest, Meredith Vieira, Matt Lauer, and Bob Costas. We want to watch without so much noise. STOP WITH THE INANE CHATTER! Also, let us decide when we want to start watching a three hour ceremony.

NBC and MSNBC, the Internets are here to stay. Say hello to social media. Twitter, Facebook, blogs, Pinterest, Instagram, Foursquare, and every other avenue of social media is growing with or without you. The sooner you realize how to meet viewers’ wants and needs, the better for all. I am all for you making a profit. You provide us with a service and you should be compensated for that service. No one is denying that. We, nonetheless, should be able to have a say in our viewing habits.

You can find some of the 40 funniest tweets of the evening here, 40 Reasons Vieira and Lauer’s Olympics Coverage was an EPIC FAIL – via Twitter.

How We Survived the San Diego Power Outage

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Thursday or #SDOutage as it was hashtagged on Twitter was an unexpected reminder that we were completely unprepared for a major disaster.

At 3:30 p.m., we were preparing dinner before we went to my niece’s high school football game. My niece is a freshman in high school and became a cheerleader a few weeks ago. We had our stuffed chickens in the oven. We were preparing rice. We were chopping and steaming fresh green beans. Then, everything shut down. The air conditioner we had just gotten from the High Performance HVAC Air Conditioner Reviews and ramacorporation which is an industrial grade heating supplier, the oven, the television, and all the lights went out.

Thinking fast, we put our Pyrex dishes on the grill and continued cooking away. We left before we were able to eat anything. With the power out, we were running late. As we were driving down the hill from our house, we began to realize how widespread the power outage really was.

Every freeway in each direction was congested in both directions. The exits were backed up. The trolleys had stopped running when the power went out. There were people getting off the trolleys to find their way to the buses. People were standing around at the gas stations trying to figure out how to get gas. It is a rare sight to see 7-11’s store interior completely dark and empty.

We sat in the 100 degree heat and watched an awesome high school football game. My niece and her cheerleading team put on a great show and we enjoyed watching them cheer. We were still completely oblivious to how big the outage was. We enjoyed the game. Helix High School was playing against Vista High School (Mr. Bear’s alma mater). Helix won. Yeah! Go Scotties!

We went home and the traffic was still heavy. Our friends in Temecula invited us to stay the night with them. After thinking about the heat to come the next day, we decided to have a slumber party with them. We ate dinner and then packed our bags by candlelight. I did the dishes by moonlight. We threw out all the perishable food to make sure we did not have a mess to come home to. We packed enough for a couple days. We did not know how long we were going to be gone. One day? Two? We did not have information. The temperature in the house had already climbed up to 84 degrees in a few hours. “It is going to get hot on Friday,” I was thinking.

We left the house after dark and it was a bit eerie. The traffic lights and the nearby airport lights were the only lights we could see. The traffic lights were blinking red. It almost seemed like Armageddon. Spooky.

We were following San Diego Gas and Electric on Twitter. We followed the #SDOutage. We were following NBC on Facebook. We were listening to CNN on XM Radio. We set up Google Alerts for news on the power outage. We were making good use of our smartphones to get as much information as we could. The freeway was empty for the most part—and dark. I had never seen it so dark. We found out from somewhere that San Diego county schools were canceled for the following day whether or not the power came back on. We heard from somewhere that the power might not be turned back on until Saturday.

We decide to change our plans. We decide to go to my parent’s house two hours north of where we live. If we could not get power until Saturday, we did not want to burden our friends with their newborn for two full days. As we continued to drive, we followed the news. It was uncertain when the power was coming back.

We were enjoying our conversation and following the news. We arrived at my parent’s house around 10:30. We got a good night sleep. The next morning, we had coffee with my dad and watched the six dogs playing outside. We went to lunch with my parents and had a great time. Nana got to spend some time with Allie. Allie got to spend some time with Pop. It was an easy ride up to their house. We had an impromptu visit and it was well-worth it.

It turned out our lights were back on at 12:30 a.m. We would have been fine staying home, however we had an adventure that was very worthwhile. We came home to a cool house, an empty fridge, and the lights on in nearly every room in the house. Fun! Fun!

The Pink Pearl

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My old laptop gave up on me. It decided one day that it did not want to turn on—at all—-ever. I searched and searched to find something that was not a billion dollars (READ: AN APPLE. Sorry, PC haters, that is the way it goes.) and something that would last. I found the cutest little pink computer and my heart skipped a beat. I l o v e my new computer. I am so ready for BlogHer 2011!

They don’t call me “Gadget Girl” for nothing!

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Cute, no?

Like We Need Another “Rich Whitey” in Politics

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Over the weekend, while listening to talk radio, Mr. Bear and I heard this story from Illinois and could not stop laughing over the irony.

The last name of Rich Whitney, Illinois Green Party gubernatorial candidate, was misspelled on electronic-voting machines in two dozen wards, as “Whitey.” This error was made in 23 total wards, half of which are predominately African-American areas. Election officials said on Wednesday, that it was unlikely that the error would be corrected before election day.

Anyone want to vote another Rich Whitey into office?

Rich Whitney is none-to-impressed with the irony of the mistake and is considering a legal response to the snafu:

I don’t want to be identified as ‘Whitey.’ If this is happening in primarily African-American wards, that’s an even bigger concern, Whitney told the Chicago Sun-Times. I don’t know if this is machine politics at play or why this happened.

Conspiracy or innocent error? While highly suspicious, it is still unclear if “the error” was intentional. Jim Allen, spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections, said there is not adequate time to reprogram and test machines before Nov. 2. According to Allen, about 90 percent of the ballots cast that day will be on paper ballots, where Whitney’s name is spelled properly.

Personally, I believe it is unacceptable to have such an error be made on the ballot, especially with the implications behind the misspellings. It should not be so difficult to make a correction, given the fact that elections are still two weeks away.

What do you think? Would the error have an impact on how you voted? Do you think this will have any implications for a fair election? Are election officials doing enough to promote fair elections? Is the damage already done?

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