The ***Boston Weblogger Meetup|http://blog.meetup.com/3/events/4246334/*** is tonight at 7 p.m., Christopher’s, Porter Square, Cambridge. I’ll be there.

Notes on the evening
In convenient, easy to write, easy to parse bulleted form.

Getting to the meeting:

• Left home at around 6:05 p.m.
• Lots of rain and poor visibility made driving slow. Route 128 South was packed. I-93 South was better. Route 16 to Alewife was fine. Tractor trailers throw lots of water up from the road.
• Alewife station is very leaky. I spotted at least 12 buckets on the floor to catch water dripping from the ceiling. On the upside, at least the buckets give you some idea of where water is dripping from, so that you don’t have to get wet.
• Just missed an inbound train at Alewife, so I had to wait about 10 minutes to catch the next one.
• Arrived at Porter Square at about 7:15 p.m.

In attendance:

• ***Brad|http://www.bradsearles.com/***
• ***Steve G.|http://www.stevegarfield.com/***
• Clair Degutis
• Donna
• ***Sooz|http://www.sooz.com/***
• ***Steve W.|http://www.tiac.net/~sw/***
• ***Jack|http://www.jackhodgson.com/***
• Guy who wasn’t on the RSVP List, and therefore I don’t have a reference for his name.

My table mates and their food:

• Me: English Burgah (bacon cheeseburger on an English muffin), pub fries, water with lime. Delicious.
• Sooz: Roquefort Burgah, pub fries, can’t recall the drink
• Steve: Fettucini with Salmon, glass of red wine
• Brad (for a bit): can’t recall the drink
• Mr. No RSVP (after Brad left): Newcastle Ale (Note to self: remembered name of drink, but didn’t remember name? Try harder next time!)

Conversation Topics:

• Omega-3 Fatty acids and animal testing (Re: Steve’s choice of salmon)
• ***WhizSpark|http://www.whizspark.com/*** – event planning and interaction
• ***Peter Caputa|http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/*** (creator of WhizSpark) and the far-too-large graphic on the top of his TypePad blog.
• Sooz’s ***new office space|http://www.sooz.com/archives/2005/01/office_space.php*** in Somerville.
• Use of content management systems for non-blogging purposes (i.e., for actual content management). Recommended ***WordPress|http://wordpress.org/*** for its ease of installation, small size, “Pages” feature. Use of CMS’s as a place to keep track of ‘stuff.’
• Blogging has created a new standard for website design and development. Similar to when word processing made typeface printing accessible to home users, systems like Blogger and TypePad have made it possible to create a quasi-professional looking site with a minimum of technical expertise. Those who want to excel must work harder to find ways to differentiate themselves from the standard-template crowd.

Heading Home

• Left the meetup at around 8:50 p.m.
• Walked past the commuter rail train at the Porter Square station while heading down to the subway. That train is really, really loud in the small, enclosed tunnel that it pulls through. Deafening, really.
• Drive home was much easier than the drive down, but no less rainy.
• Arrived home at around 9:50 p.m.