Rising Tide 5: A Convention without Cosplay
Serpassing all Expectations

This past weekend A few weekends ago I attended Rising Tide 5, a one day local blogger/rebuilding type of conference down in New Orleans. I was immersed in a crowd of strangers all on my lonesome since none my my friends were interested in going. Now that I think about it, I should have invited Ally since she's pretty prolific on the twitters. Anyway, I did a lot of pacing, drinking, and keeping pretty much to myself. But I did meet a few people along the way.

Day 1: Pre-party

Friday evening I drove down to the Howling Wolf in the Warehouse district. Parking was non-existent so I used a parking garage across the street. I then walked up and in to the Howling Wolf. Inside a band was setting up for a gig. No bloggers to be seen. After asking around by a couple of other attendees who showed up at the same time we discovered the party was in the bar and grill attached to the side. I go in, start my tab, drank a few beers, and watched the Saints game.

At halftime I had enough liquid courage within me to go up to strangers. My typical greeting was "SO, WHICH INTERNET PERSON ARE YOU?" Most people had their real names on their name tags, this is an internet people conference, I needed internet names damnit.

After some Rising Tide staff "fabulous prizes" were awarded the party wound down and people stumbled off to hotel room parties or, in my case, bed.

Day 2: The Actual Conference/After-Party

I kind of slept walked/drove to the conference the next day. After enjoying same baked goods and moving my car to a parking garage instead of parking illegally like other attendees I took and seat and watched the first round of panels. At the initial "smoke break" I got my first beer and pretty much averaged a beer per panel from then on.

Panels were informative and a lil' preachy to the choir at times but that is to be expected. Some of the "questions" by the audience were more people getting on their soap box, kinda reminded me of people calling in to radio talk shows.

My favorite panel had to have been the politics panel, with Clancy DuBos being the MVP. Seeing Ronal Serpas on a panel Serpassed all Expectations™ with me. The keynote speaker was pretty funny, anyone willing to call Bobby Jindal a "fucking douchbag" is a-ok with me.

After the conference I helped carry some donated food to someone's car. After much deliberation by organizers and other attendees the location of the after party was chosen, the Half Moon just off of Magazine Street.

At the after-party I was starting to get a lil more comfortable but I was still in observer mode overall. The bar itself and the cheeseburger was alright. I left slightly later that most, but there was a good 10 left who gave me a round of applause when I left.

Blatant Name Dropping or "Man my first impressions are going to be sooo wrong if I read this 10 years later."

Mark aka Oyster was a nice goofy guy, hung out with him more at the after party. He was one of the few who stood up to my staggering 6'3 3/4" 6'4" frame, he was an inch or two taller than me. We share a birthday with Clint Eastwood, go us.

Jeff from the Library Chronicles, loves piss beer and is just as much of a smartass as I expected. He did a good job of inflating my twitter ego. For some reason he assumed the identity of another blogger at the pre-party to what I can only assume would be to ruin his good name.

Varg from the Chicory seems to be the life of the party, he and his wife gave me some wedding pointers the during one of the smoke breaks, good people. At the after-party he told me about the alcohol lobby he wants to start up.

Lamar of CenLamar was pretty cool, sharp guy. Sucks that he lives in the blander part of the state. Just kidding.

Met one blogger didn't realize who he was then noticed he was Jason Berry aka Ashe Dambala of American Zombie fame. Initially he reminded me of a guy I used to work with in college, then after realizing who he was he came off as some darker internet badass. Silly human perception.

Peter aka Adrastos wacky guy with a nice hat (or was that the other way around?), seemed a lil busy or distracted. His wife was nice and was making everyone feel at home.

Karl was a real bro' he was a reoccurring hangout buddy. I hear he lives a double life in California or was that online? I forget.

Loki aka George aka not a damn Yankee aka so New Orleans he shi... um never mind, had a very rock star attitude. I guess being cramped up in Ohio will make anyone snap in that way? He runs too many websites for me to reference here.

Tim writer of his own namesless blog has a kid into the Animu and put me on the spot about my Hulk shirt at the after party. Dry and sciency which is rad. His Dam(n)/Levee Safety panel was fun.

Derrick and Mags were cool. Though I mainly plotted bank robbery with Derrick on twitter.

Honorable mentions go out to Racymind and Virgotex whose real names fail me now. They were cool chicks.

I met the infamous linchpin of the underground journalistic movement known only as The Lens Karen Gadbois. Didn't talk to her much but she had a real glowing personality to me.

Who else? Leigh and Sharon seemed to be the den mothers of this motley little convention. They were hip dames.

Pistolette was cool, pretty sure she could kick my ass. She had some opposing viewpoints which is good.

I know I am leaving a few people out. I blame the alcohol and social awkwardness. I'm also bad with names. Anyway, didn't really meet a bad person really decent human being.

Epilogue

Rising Tide was a fun conference overall. Next year should be a bit better since I know people now. One more thing, I learned I was almost not allowed in because of the "guyhatesyou" thing. People were wondering if I was some kind of hate group or something. "The one man hate group" I kinda dig that.