Lunch with the Space City chapter of Western Blogonia

(West is left facing north).

I'm the sort of person that isn't content being an online slacktivist. I like to meet the people I converse with online if possible. And I've met discussion forum participants locally and in Austin and San Francisco, and hopefully next weekend in Boston (and recently one site had a Europe gathering I'm sorry I missed) but as I move away from open-season semi-moderated boards to the Wild West of Blogistan I find I get to make a whole new set of friends and alliances.

So yesterday a bunch of us locally got together for some Tex-Mex and political chat.

Specifically the group included this fellow, this lady, this guy, this gal, and "Red Dog", who shows up in the comments of those often but if he has a blog I can't find it. (BK, help me out if I'm blind, pal...)

My first observation is that among the group there might be only one other native Texan besides me, judging from one self-disclosure and the accents. They're also all a pay grade or three above me in terms of formal education, with at least one Ivy Leaguer and several graduate degrees in the bunch.

And I mention the Lone Star connection only because all of these people do a much better job following the Texas Legislature's shenanigans as well as the local political scene -- right down to city hall -- that I can, or intend, to do. Oh, I blog a lot about Deep-In-The-Hearta, as my half-dozen regular readers already know, but it's mostly from a macro perspective (though those freaks in Pearland will undoubtedly continue to draw attention to themselves). And my state representative has lately exposed a particular strain of stupidity, but I'll avoid for now saying something really bad (or good, for that matter) about him. Mostly because it's just too 'inside baseball' even for me.

I'd rather talk smack about John Bolton and Jeff Gannon -- what, you didn't know they were an item? -- than Bill White or Michael Berry.

I hope more of the rest of the H-Town Blogosphere takes Charles Kuffner up on his invite to make these little get-togethers a monthly regular on their calendars. Pete, rastro, this means y'all ...