No, I didn’t live blog the St. Cloud MOB gathering at Granite City Food & Brewery because putting a computer screen in front of my face is like throwing a high, outside fastball to Torii Hunter. We both know we should resist, but we can’t help ourselves and we forget about everything else. If I was going to get sucked into anything Saturday night I wanted it to be the dynamic conversations of fellow MOBsters released from their basements. So, on a type-delay basis, here are my observations from the evening.

One, the Queen Banaian does not take a backseat to King in encylopedic knowledge or sparkling conversation. It was a delight to meet her and we enjoyed a stimulating discussion that ranged from soy cooking to the theatre, The Rules and, of course, The Mystery. My wife especially enjoyed the evening, while the Littlest Scholar and my youngest daughter found the most interesting part of the event to be the arrival of a hulking piece of Triple Chocolate cake – which they proceeded to demolish like Mitch Berg going through a Nick Coleman column. The flying forks looked like a light-saber duel from Revenge of the Sith.

Another plus of our fortuitous introduction was that Mrs. Scholar and Night Visions, poised at the twin entrances to our circular booth, were effective pickets against Kevin’s efforts to buy beer for my oldest daughter. I finally helped him see reason: whatever threat I represented paled in comparison to what the management and the thirsty people of St. Cloud might do to him if he caused GCFB to lose its liquor license. At least that kept him busy until Cathy in the Wright (aka St. Kate from the MAWB Squad) could hit him – really hard. I don’t know what that was about, but I think Cathy may sense that the Force is strong in my daughter and wants to talk to her about world domination.

Of course, the main appeal for an event like this is to meet the people behind the blogs I read, like fellow Mizzou alum Phil from Market Power, who brought me the distressing news that The Old Heidelberg – a campus tavern known in my day for its fried mushrooms and don’t ask, don’t tell approach to the 21-year-old drinking age – had burned down (and fortunately rebuilt). Phil is an economics prof at Mankata State and I thought it would be interesting to get he and King together to do an Iron Chef-type face-off on the ripple effect of a 10 cents per gallon increase in the gas tax, but no one else seemed to think this a good idea.

It was also fun to see the faces and feel the handshakes behind Heavy-Handed Politics (firm, but not crushing as you might expect) and Speed Gibson (a fellow Powerblogs user) and Martin Andrade, not to mention Flash from Centrisity.

A real highlight, however, was the chance to meet my Blog Buddy, Leo, from Pscymeistr’s Ice Palace – a guy I never would have known if not for blogging but whose writing and insights I really appreciate – but not as much as I appreciate the encouragement he’s given me.

Thanks, King, for organizing the evening and I look forward to seeing (and recognizing!) you and the other MOB members at future events!

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