BlogHer 2011 Day 2

Today I found some of my Chicago blogger friends, and some of their friends.  Together we took our picture with the Pringles mascot:

L to R: Lisa, Tracey, Pringles Guy, Trina, Me

Over at the Proctor & Gamble booth, I took my picture for Cascade Action Packs:

"Cascade conquers my dishes so I can get back to my blog."

P&G also makes Iams pet food, which this little dog presumably eats:

Her name is Jenga.

Elsewhere, at the Brawny booth:

L to R: Brawny Man, Me, Lisa

To demonstrate the stain resistance of some type of carpet, we visited the Spill Bar.  Somehow because we got a spotless record, we had to take this mugshot ...?  Or ...?  That doesn't make sense, but anyway:

Also I am not 5'3".

This sweet lady from Michael Angelo's frozen Italian entrees talked to me for awhile and showed me pictures of her family.  Turns out her family came from the same part of Italy as my ancestors did, so I said I would pimp up her product for her.  The eggplant was really good. 

This guy was making a sand sculpture of a keyboard. 

This thing is called a Duo and allows you to play various board games on your iPad:

I watched the guy carve this sculpture out of Ivory soap yesterday.  Apparently Ivory is the only soap you can carve.

At lunch there was a flash mob! 

The final Twizzlers sculpture, the Seattle Space Needle:

Upstairs we visited the Hershey's S'Mores Suite:

L to R: Tracey, Other Shannon, Me, Trina

In the Hot Wheels suite, they were demonstrating their new Wall Tracks toys, which stick on the wall with removable Command adhesive strips:

Back at the expo, I met Buddy from Dinosaur Train:

And I hung out on Sesame Street:

As you can see, I've been spending a lot of time at the expo, getting free stuff and taking fun photos.  However, I haven't gone to a single session or panel yet.  Tonight is the "Voices of the Year" program, where we hear people read from blogs that got chosen as the best of the year in specific categories.  Tomorrow I'm going to try to hit a session or two, just so I can say I did.  But I also want to go to the pool. 

So far the whole experience has been fun, overwhelming, and ... totally different than I thought it would be.  I thought people would be more about promoting their blogs to one another, but in actuality it's more about people trying to hook up with brand sponsors.  I guess maybe that's a sign of the changing times in the blogosphere.  As you know, I find all these evolving trends interesting, but I don't really care that much if I never become a part of them. 

Tonight I might hit a party, but honestly I'm not as excited about those as I thought I would be.  I'm really happy here in my hotel room alone. 

I think, at this exact moment, my call on BlogHer would be that it's a totally fun and exciting experience, and one I'm glad I am having, but I don't really need to go back next year.