Last night’s Beer with Bloggers event, I’m happy to say, seems to have been a big success. To my knowledge, no one was slapped/stabbed, no one vomited, and no one went whining to the police. (My criteria for a successful event.) I’d like to thank the following local bloggers for coming out:

Brian Cors (who is going to be launching a new Downtown Ypsi site), my kid brother, Murph, George Hotelling (who I’m trying to recruit to Ypsi), our newly powerful friend Brian from East Cross, Dale from Arbor Update (who I only got to speak with briefly), the always entertaining Brett from Maproom Systems, our representative from the Ypsi School Board, Cameron Getto (who I now owe a beer), Sam from Sam’s Thoughts (whose new blogging gig actually takes him around the country… something of which I am extremely jealous), his better half, Jules from Ypsi Bites (who left me more optimistic than I have been in a log time about Ypsi public schools), the soon-to-be-graduated Julia from Ann Arbor is Overrated (who we need to somehow keep in Ann Arbor in the area against her will), Rod from Out of the Woodwork (who I saw across the room, but was never able to reach), Ed Vielmetti (who courageously fought sleet and hail to come in from Ann Arbor), British ex-pat, and pinhole photographer Matt Callow, and recent mayoral candidate turned citizen crusader Steve Pierce from All Things Ypsilanti.

And I would also like to thank all the readers of this site and others, including all the folks from Dreamland Theater, Think Local First, YpsiVotes, Flying Bomb Records, and Ballistic Design, who turned out. (I know I must be missing some groups that were represented. Sorry.) The world needs non-bloggers too… And an especially big personal thanks to those individuals from the MM.com comments section who risked everything to climb out from their bunkers for the evening.

I’m just sorry that I didn’t think to snap a few photos. (I was too busy talking with people.) It was a really great event and, as is usually the case when you get a bunch of smart, capable, and motivated people together in one room, some brilliant plans were hatched. More on that subject later.

A few bloggers have dropped off the map over the course of the past year or two, since we did this last, but, all in all, my sense is that the movement is growing. Who would have thought when we first got together a few years ago that we’d have bloggers on the School Board and City Council, being sent across the country on paid writing assignments, organizing successful community initiatives like Keep Ypsi Rolling and the YpsiVotes forums, launching big local events like the Shadow Art Fair, and all the rest of it? I know that there’s a perception out there that the local blogosphere is an “echo chamber… creating (only) the appearance of feverish activity,” but it’s simply just not true. There is feverish activity. Big things are being accomplished and blogs are responsible for pulling together and coordinating the people who are doing the work and making positive change happen. Blogs are empowering people to become involved in their communities at a level that hasn’t been seen in this country in decades, and that’s a really cool thing. I’m just happy to be a part of it, and to have so many good, brilliant colleagues in this endeavor.

[I would also like to thank those bloggers that would have come if not for prior obligations: UM Professor Juan Cole was out of town at the time, but tells us that he’d like to come out if we do this again, Ann Arbor’s Homeless Dave (who’s running some kick-ass Shadow Art Fair ads on his site) was all ready to bike out when “something suddenly came up,” both Ypsi-Dixit and Loose Tea would have been there if not for a conflicting local meetup on the subject of sustainability, and Doulicia says that she would have liked to have attended as well, if only to have a peak at Clementine, the little girl she helped usher into the world two years and four months ago… I’m sure that others would have made it too, but these are the folks who wrote to me and said that the would like to have attended.]

And a great big thanks again to blog-reading bar owner, Linda French, for giving us the space, keeping the beer affordable and choosing last night to unveil the Sidetrack’s most recent menu addition – mini-hamburgers - which she made available for free! They were delicious.