Last night it was people who's names I knew, but faces I didn't, all over the place. It interesting how ordinary most of us look. Oh, there are a few handsome fellas, and more good looking women than should be allowed - but for the most part, all those thundering voices of the 'net are pretty ordinary looking.

Not one that I know well from the 'net came even remotely close to the mental image I had (heh, take comic book superhero body, stick on handsome/beautiful face, etc).

Of the Denizens, Fuzzybear Lioness was there, proudly clutching her shiny new Milbloggie, of course, along with Princess Crabby, AFSis, and AF1 Tim, the Denizen-formerly-known-as-Gwedd.

There was a different buzz at this meeting, though the OPSEC regs did not dominate conversation - well, except perhaps when Matt and Noah had to slip out to talk to the BBC, who are suddenly very interested in if our milblogger feelings have been hurt or not...

Noonan did an *excellent* job of emceeing the Milbloggie awards, much as it pains me to pat a Lieutenant on the back - their heads swell when you do that, and Noonan's noggin needs no encouraging, trust me.

I met with the estimable Lex, Murdoc, Eagle1, Slab, and the previously mentioned Noah to discuss the panel. If Captain Deiss, our handler from CENTCOM was present, I missed him.

I had a chance to talk to John Pike from Globalsecurity.org, a website I'm continually mining for information (John observed it's the most-plagiarized-by-the-US-military site on the web). Interesting chat - the guys at GlobalStrat are going to start a blog - I may apply for posting privileges.

We were flooded with Soldiers Angels, well-wishers, there were some official types who'd snuck in trying to network with bloggers even though their bosses were clueless on the utility.

I think the most fun thing about it was - how, for many of us, blogging has widened our scope and given us opportunities we'd never have had before - opportunities to Do Things, but we're all doing it in our spare time, well, most of us, anyway. I got asked to do Fox News this Sunday, but couldn't work around the schedule of other things, like giving out the 1000th Laptop by Project Valour-IT. I've had a serious chat with my Represenative in Congress, from which there has been a material impact - Congress now knows about Project Valour-IT and we're going to pull some leverage - not angling for money from the Federal treasury (though we'd be Delighted if the VA would take the hint) but mostly for the official gravitas that having bi-partisan Congressional acknowledgement of our efforts and the impact that can have on scoring major donors to get Valour-IT endowed.

It's gonna be fun - but I gotta get going. The conference will be starting soon!