Travelogue: Blogging While Brown - recap #1

The 3^rd Annual Blogging While Brown Conference in Washington, DC, June 18-19, 2010 was a smashing success.

My very first highlight was being confused with Breakthrough Blogger and Black Weblog Award Best Culture Blog Hall of Famer Afrobella.  Seriously, two people on separate occasions thought I was her.  Dallas South News Blogger, Shawn Williams was even congratulating me for ‘my appearance in Business magazine’ to which I responded, “What? That’s news to me.  Oh, you must be confusing me for someone else.   That someone is Afrobella – who is THE leading Beauty blogger in Black Blogosphere, if not the entire Blogosphere.  Her fabulous blog has landed her writing and review gigs with Vogue (yes) as a contributor to Vogue Black, AOL Black Voices, and American Airlines’ Black Atlas Web site.

 Yeah, I don’t mind at all being her Doppelganger. (But actually, I think she and my great friend Darcella Craven could be twins. Incidently, people confuse DC as sisters all of the time.)

More great news…

The opening reception and game night was sponsored by CTIA and Comcast.  It was a great time.  I played Scrabble with fellow #BWB bloggers, Scott, Natalie, and Stacy.  We all though playing for fun was just fine until we learned the sponsors provided pretty sweet tech prizes to the winner – An Acer Netbook for 1^st place.  Long story short – I was a beast. I love word games and Scrabble in particular. (Ask any of my friends, one year for my birthday I was given a Scrabble Dictionary.  Love!)  And guess what happened? I won! Yes, competition was pretty stiff.  But I wanted that Netbook.  I listed this on my Graduation wishlist and I took this competitive opportunity as a direct sign from the Universe and the Good Lord Above that this was my chance to receive this gift. 

But it wasn’t without scandal.  I misspell a word – SWIMING.  I wrote the word out by hand a million times but spelling it with 2 ms didn’t look right to me either.  But my amazing opponents didn’t catch it either, someone at the next table called it out. They gave me guff about it – and rightly so.  However, since no one caught it and the word had been played against the decision was to let it stand. Whew! Lucky me and the Netbook was mine, all mine.

The Conference proper was twice as big as last year and I really had a great time.  The topics last year were great but in my mind some of them were a little irrelevant to me.  Not this year.  I was fully engaged the entire time and I really like the addition of the unconference to the mix.  Attendees were able to talk further about topics and network.  Thank you conference planners – Gina, Shawn, Aminah, Elizabeth, Cheryl, Shalon and everyone else.

It was a great experience!  Tomorrow I’ll talk all about my presentation about Science and outreach to under-served audiences.