Saturday, February 26, 2005

Home again and blogger meetup

I am home after my latest trip and nearly completely well from the flu.
Equally exciting was the fascinating meeting I had tonight at a bloggers meetup.
I was late due to the plane arival time and went straight from the airport to the cafe where the meetup occurred. There were 12 or 13 people there. I will get all the names and blogs sorted for you later - I just wanted to say this bit before I go to bed.
After some initial confusion about the actual identity of one of the bloggers I was introduced to Senator Andrew Bartlett, the Queensland Democrat Senator. A legitimate blogger, whose blog I will provide tomorrow, he proved to be a charming and very easy to speak to man. Reluctantly describing himself as center of the left, though he voiced concern over the preconceived perceptions that political labels provide, he then proceeded to answer a volley of questions I fired at him covering journalism and the media, business and government, meeting his constituents and more.
After he and some others left, I then debated at length with a litigation lawyer and his teacher-in-training partner regarding the pros and cons of corporal punishment of children. We agreed that violence against children was always unacceptable and agreed to disagree regarding punishment involving spanking. Me for, her against.
After some more general chat and light hearted banter involving movie impersonations I headed home.
All the bloggers links to come tomorrow.
Nite :)