By Amy Armitage

Sheesh I’m tired! Wednesday night I finally arrived home from HostingCon 2007 with loads of swag and about 200 business cards! This year it was held in Chicago and for me it was the BEST one yet!

We arrived on Sunday night and Tiara hit the hay because she was too tired after spending all weekend partying? .. umm reading Harry Potter? (now that’s just embarrassing lol) .. Anyhow, after I settled in an unpacked my massive suitcase I met up with Jeff Cohen from Internet Litigators, his beautiful gal Jackie and adorable daughter Phoebe and we dined at Gibson’s Bar and Steakhouse. During our meal I told them the story of giving away my hubby’s chicken to a homeless guy (on one of our first dates actually), so with that we bagged up the left over lobster, steaks and cheesecake and went on a mission to find a hungry soul on the streets of Chicago. After Carson Daly declined my offer of yummy free food (he really was at HostingCon!), a lovely old fella was delighted to accept our culinary gift. On the trek back to The W Hotel, we met a New Zealand rugby player who tackled me on the sidewalk and a 21 year old horse named Caruso.

On Monday morning after a night spent tossing and turning from the LOUD air conditioner I took my tired ass eyes over to the Navy Pier and listened to the dry comedic tones of Neil Patel and the marketing and SEO tips of the socially talented Ben Fisher. Neil only said crap ‘bout 3 times and cussed maybe twice. He really behaved himself. I got a lot out of that session as you can see from all of the links in this blog post to our competitors (invisible .. I hope) .. heh .. wha? A girl’s gotta try right?

Next session was about Green Hosting and the challenges most hosts are experiencing with Data Center power, costs, cooling etc. It was moderated by Isabel Wang (she’s totally gorgeous btw). The panel included DreamHost CTO Dallas Kashuba, SoftLayer COO Sam Fleitman and SWSoft Director of Marketing Doug Johnson.

I saw Josh from DreamHost and he muttered something ‘bout a basketball game but he was too tall and I couldn’t hear him properly ;)

I had a lovely dinner with the team from TechPad Agency on Monday night along with around 30 invited guests including InterMedia (Robert & William), Ben from Reseller Guide (he is the NICEST guy), Ben from HostNine, Justin from StartLogic and my all time favorite jet setting playboys Brian and Greg from Best of the Web! They are such a blast to spend time with.

Our table was the loudest one of course.. lol.. Mindy’s hubby Todd was quizzing me on Australian slang and the more we drank the louder the laughter.

So what is root really? ;)

Ping!Zine (my all time favorite web hosting mag) were there handing out EXTRA LARGE bright orange t-shirts. Keith tried to convince me I could look professional and wear my shirt as a dress the next day to the exhibit hall… ummm.. no… With this accent it’s hard enuff to be taken seriously.

Got to catch up with the amazing minds of eBridge Marketing Solutions (Frank and Hartland) and Hartland actually said EH! to me so I was stoked on that.

Dave and Jamie from Hosting-Review took me for beer on the pier on Tuesday afternoon (couldn’t get them to say eh unfortunately).

Aaron and Shane from FastServers [their servers aren't as fast as Lunarpages Servers ;)] were so lovely and we attended their spectacular cruise on Tuesday night. Aaron’s a super snappy dresser too. Sorry we didn’t make it to Rush Street but.. welp.. I’m an old gal and my feet hurt A LOT from wearing stupid girl shoes all day.

Here are some happy snappys:

Amy & Mindy

Neil, Brian & Greg (Best Group on the Web)

Aaron (FastServers), Mindy & Todd

Ben (TechPad) & Amy

Amy & Brian (Best Guy on the Web)

Derek (Strike a Pose) from Techpad

Ben (HostNine)

Eddie (Globat) & Amy

The TechPad Agency

Justin (StartLogic) & Amy

Amy & Keith (Ping!Zine)

Keith from Ping!Zine

Neil Patel

Neil & Amy

Amy & Greg aka Popeye (BOTW)

Neil (again)

Justin & Kyle

Amy & Ben (ResellerGuide)

Mindy & Tiara (sea sick)

Michael Low (WebhostingStuff) & Amy

Biggest Regret - (apart from not being able to play with Matt from BlueHost’s iPhone longer) was the people I was unable to catch up with, François from B2Evolution (sooooooooo disappointed), Mark from RatemyHost, Scott from WebHostingTalk and Richard Guzzo (fellow Aussie) from FindMyHost.

Cooooolest Giveaway - TechPad won the prize for their board game all about servers called ServerMania.

Most Annoying Stupid Drunk Industry Person – Some dufus named Scott who I would NEVER do business with.

Fastest Talker – Eddie from Globat (that’s saying something considering I was there)

MOST Seasick – Tiara (she got friendly with the toilet bowl)

Best Dog Chit Chat – Justin Reynolds from StartLogic

BEST Couple – Mindy and Todd!

Awkward Moment – I complained to Greg from Best of the Web about the idiot whose alarm went off early Tuesday morning and woke me up. Turns out it was his alarm and he was staying in the room next door to mine (oopsy).

Classic Session Moment – When Derek from TechPad posed the question “Will it Blend?”

Most Genuine Person – That would be a toss up between Michael Low from WebhostingStuff and Ben from WebhostingUnleashed. Both absolutely fantastic guys!

It’s not often you can hang out with like minded geeks who don’t ask you what web hosting is when you tell them what you do for a living. I met some fantastic people at HostingCon including David from TouchSupport (hi David!), Mario from R1Soft, Markus from Web Hosting Search, Brett from Webmaster World, Douglas Hanna from Service Untitled and stacks more!

It was a pleasure to be in your company and to meet you all :D

This entry was posted on Friday, July 27th, 2007 at 8:04 am and is filed under Amy Armitage, Ben Welch-Bolen, Keith Duncan, News, SEO, Social Networking, Tiara Rea, Web Hosting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS feed . Both comments and pings are currently closed.