A brief explanation of the occasion is probably in order first, I suppose. For those of you who were not in the loop, the 20 Something Bloggers decided that this weekend would be a great time for (the first) summer meetup, a way to meet the people behind some of the blogs and forum postings keeping the community alive, and, as a central location for a good number of the group (as well as being an event-filled and tourist-friendly location for those who would be traveling), it would be held in Chicago.

Thursday
Of course, no trip to a blogger meetup in Chicago would be complete without Rachelskirts or her friend Sean, so we jumped on an inbound train and found ourselves in the Windy City one long (though fun-filled) train ride later, just in time for the “official” pizza dinner.

After some wackiness with the Giordano’s we originally had planned to eat at, we ended up spending quite a bit of time waiting outside Pizzeria Due (an extension of Uno’s ), chatting, deciding that street sweepers were worthy of grand theft auto, and generally enjoying each other’s company before heading in to discover that Dell Mini 9s (like mine) make excellent cell phone chargers in a pinch, realize that some people easily confuse Dr. Dre with Dr. Who (*ahem*), and determine that I’ve helped enough people out to earn the rank of “The #$&#ing Man.”

Friday
Long train rides aren’t necessarily entertaining or comfortable when riding solo, so I skipped the events on Friday (in the physical sense), instead opting to poke and prod at everyone on Twitter.  (In retrospect, being underage and spending the evening at a bar probably wouldn’t have been the most pleasurable of times, anyway.)

"You're doing it wrong!"

Saturday
Saturday was supposed to be the official 20SB wine tasting, but Rachelskirts, LovelyAnomaly, and I decided that we didn’t want to participate. (Well, that wasn’t much of a choice for me, but I wouldn’t have gone anyway.) Instead, the three of us took a hike (a painfully-crowded bus, actually) north to visit a nature museum, decide that the age limitations on children’s play areas don’t apply to us, (in Rachel’s words) “hack” the exhibit kiosks (because visiting about:blank is akin to hacking, apparently), and (with many thanks to the Subway that thoughtfully had its operating license suspended the day before) discover what Lovely and Rachel described as the best darn crêpes ever.

A little more wandering, an El ride, and a confusing map of the Merchandise Mart later, we found our way to Bucca di Beppo, where we caught up with the rest of the group and met Tim, perhaps the best server I’ve ever met (and little did we know his name was actually Tim until we got the receipt – we were simply calling him that to give him a name until that point). Too much food, good atmosphere, and plenty of people to talk with.

Sunday
I might not have had a chance to physically meet up with everyone (again), but I did get a chance to claim that I have seen the present-day version of the time machine from Back to the Future, find a $150 keyboard marked down to $10, assist with softmodding a Wii, and work on other things related to the next episode of TechCentric, so I can’t complain that the day was wasted.

Monday
Why might I be including Monday, the day after the meetup officially ended? Well, if taking the hijinks back online wasn’t enough, Monday has been a crazy day of people trying to find those last few stragglers on Twitter, Facebook, the 20SB site, their blogs, or wherever else they may be, swapping stories, and helping each other write up their experiences (when you have a group of bloggers hanging out, it’s expected that they all write up something about it, right?). Oh, and deciding that MomInRealLife owns everyone’s phones, of course.

It’s been fun meeting and trading jokes with some of the people behind the curtain, so to speak.  I’m glad I went, and I’m more than willing to do it again (sooner than next year, even).  Here’s to the success of the 20SB Ultimate Meetup!