• Amazing People,  Confessions,  Do I Really Want My Readers To Know This?,  Friends,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz

    Friends First.

    Momo and I met online seven years ago, at some point in 2008. (In Internet time that’s virtually 575 years ago.) We met in real life in June of 2009, when I helped bring a van full of meat to her house. (The Momo’s Meat Wagon story is here.) We’ve been close friends ever since. I became her contractor at BlogHer three years ago, and for every day of those three years I have been one half of a total Dream Team. I don’t think every pair of friends could have a successful work relationship, but we do. We have worked together seamlessly, with excellent communication and just the right…

  • Blessings,  Friends,  Jim Has Mad Skillz,  Travels

    Apparently My Word For 2014 Was “Travel”.

    This time last year I noticed many of my friends picking “a word for 2014”, something they would live by or strive for. I didn’t join in but it all worked out. As it turned out my word, “Travel”, found its way to me. While thinking about what kind of 2014 wrap-up post I wanted to write, what stuck out the most was how much travel I did this year. In fact, without even looking at my calendar to count days properly I figured out off the top of my head that I was away from my home for between six and eight weeks. That’s a lot of time living…

  • Amazing People,  Blessings,  Friends,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz

    So Glad She Was Born.

    It’s Momo’s birthday today!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOMO! (More on that later!) As I skimmed through the thousands of assorted pictures I have stored in my computer (aaaand backed up, thankyouverrrrymuch) to find a good one of the two of us, I reflected on our friendship of more than six years, which in internet time is, like, FOREVER, and I came to some realizations, too. Realization #1: When choosing from all the pictures ever taken of the two of us, I will almost always fall back on the one that was taken in the summer of 2009 at the bar across the street from the Sears Tower during the epic three-dollar…

  • Blessings,  Friends,  My Friends Have Mad Skillz,  Pretty Pictures,  Travels

    BlogHer Food: I Want To Go Back To There.

    It hardly seems possible that BlogHer Food 2014 in Miami was nearly two weeks ago. Time flies when you’re having fun! Truth be told, I wish I could step into a time machine and go back to do it all over again. Don’t get me wrong: it was HARD WORK. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: the amount of work involved in putting on these conferences doesn’t seem possible when you consider the size of the team that’s doing it all. (I also submit that everyone who attends a major event like this should have to produce one, just once, so they can see what goes into…