Sixth Annual Milblog Conference was best one yet!:)

Got back last evening from the Sixth Annual Milblog Conference and I think it was the best one I've attended thus far! (I think I might say that every time I attend,lol, but seriously..great panels this year,I learned a lot and IMHO  Andi ,and Military.com and USAA.com  did an Awesome job once again!:)

                                       Donald Rumsfeld's talk opened the conference

and then the first panel, Social Media and the Military, was a Great panel!

LTC William Caldwell spoke to the conference from Afghanistan, and here's the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan  page LINK

and this was a very meaningful panel, Gold Star Families.

My picture of the member of the member of the House Armed Services committee ,Rob Wittman,who spoke live ,didn't turn out, but his short speech was also very good.

and the last panel, War and Film, was Also excellent. After this panel, I Really,Really wish I could go to the GI Film Festival next weekend,but darn it, it's my weekend to work:(

I know a lot of folks who attend don't sit in on every panel, but if I get up at 4:30 a.m. and drive over 2 hours after paying the $75 to attend the conference, you can by gosh bet that I'll be sitting in to hear all the panels and soak up every minute of it! and I'm never disappointed! I learned so much yesterday, it was well worth my time.

Saw a lot of old friends, of course since I don't go up the Friday night before I miss a lot of the socializing. I still got the chance to speak to Most of the folks I wished to have a chance to say hello to,(sorry I missed LL though!:( and then I also got to meet a great many other random folks for the first time.

Sat next to a guy from Footnote.com at lunch and that was a most interesting conversation!

Of course saw Blake from Cooking With The Troops ,he had a great display table at the front of the room with a wonderful video display!

Chatted with some Soldiers Angels folks during the course of the day briefly, and sat with my dear friend Lisa from Soldiers Angels during the conference.

Learned a little about the Home Depot Foundation (and thanks,y'all for the great lunch!:) had a brief chat with a young woman at the Army Strong Stories table (which will probably lead me to finally do a blog post that's been hanging in the back of my mind since my step-son's deployment)

This military wife asked a number of good questions during the course of her conference, I'm looking forward to checking out her blog more in depth. I also spoke with a military wife who should hopefully be emailing me with some more info about something she has in the works:)

Once again, the great folks at YouServed  featured a livestream of the panels, and I think you can find links to those videos now right here

And lastly, but not leastly, here are the 2011 Mibloggie Winners !

I close with a pic that has nothing to do with the conference, but on the way home, I saw a hot air balloon drifting over the interstate, pretty cool :)

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Update: 'geek' excitement on my part:) I cross-posted a version of this post over at Hooah Wife & Friends
and that post was linked in the May 3 edition of  STAND-TO!
 (bottom left side "What's Being Said in Blogs"  The Sixth Annual Milblog Conference was Great!    Awesome! Woot :)