SamSphere Chicago

This weekend my employer hosted a blogger conference in Chicago, which was by all accounts a big success (still going on right now). I am grateful that I got a chance to discuss my project with the attendees.

And I got to meet some cool people. Here's the links to their blogs:

MaineWebReport - Lance, it was good to meet you. I, too, have found people on the internet who are wrong; together let us set them right.

mtpolitics - Craig, God willing, one day I'll be moving out to your part of the country; the further away from Detroit the better.

Louisiana Conservative - Jeff, it was good talking with you (twice) and my apologies for the nanny-statism of Illinois that had you outdoors both times; while I'm sure it is nicer in LA, what we had Saturday isn't that bad for weather this time of year.

American Princess Blog - EMZ, see my comment above to Craig. A colleague of mine calls Mexico "the Michigan of the south" and while Illinois is no conservative paradise, you'll think you're in heaven if you decide to make the move.

IL GOP Network - my second chance to meet Mark Johnson, who has piqued my curiosity about blog talk radio and youtube channels (I'll be off to surf that later).

The Voice for Liberty in Wichita - nice meeting you, Bob, and talking philosophy, I always enjoy those discussions and appreciate you humoring me while I gabbed.

Oklahoma Political News Service - (and NLB) Chris, it was good to meet you and get your take on what's going on in Misery, er, Missouri. I've got to get you hooked up with my blog mate TM, who's an Okie.

I am both certain and worried that I'm forgetting a few people, but I haven't had coffee yet and the old brain is working slowly this morning. My apologies to those attendees I am blanking on right now, and thank you to all of them for attending. Thanks to my colleagues and friends who were there as well.

Judgepedia!

Shameless self-promotion follows:

Judgepedia has been my work and enjoyment for the past couple of months, and the site is up and live. If you know what wikipedia is, then you'll understand that it's just like wikipedia, except concerning everything about judges and the judiciary. And it's awesome, despite its "beta" look and level of completion thus far.

We had our first press release today, and we'll probably get a lot of traffic on it (there happens to be a pretty crucial Supreme Court race in Wisconsin). The site is important for a couple of reasons, but the main one is to cast light on an area of government that isn't well understood by the average voter (and many, many judges are elected).

Know something about a judge in your state? We're on the lookout for contributors, so sign up and have at it. And feel free to contact me with questions on how to edit a page if you're interested (short answer: like blogging, once you spend a couple of days playing around, it will be like second nature).