I #blamedrewscancer for it taking me five days to finish this blog!

August 5, 2009 – Dragon Bar, 473 Broadway Street, San Francisco, CA – Irina Slutsky and Melissa Jun Rowley of Rowley’s Word mobilized the San Francisco tech community in support of Drew Olanoff and the Lance Armstrong Livestrong Foundation to raise money for cancer research. The night included DJ’s, Raffles, Blue Angel Vodka and performances by Doc Pop and All About George!

Drew himself was not able to attend in person, but was there in spirit and was also livestreaming!

It was a pleasure to meet Melissa Jun Rowley, Shina Sebring, and Erica Mulkey. And always special seeing my friends Irina Slutsky, Sukhjit Ghag, Liza Sperling, Krystyl Baldwin, Tia Marie McGuire, David King, Adrian Chan, Scott “Laughing Squid” Beale, Doc Pop, Ken Yeung, Roderick Chow, Kristie Wells and Chris Heuer.

Highlights of my night included meeting Catherine Grison IRL (in real life)! Also I won rock climbing lessons in the raffle! Doc Pop did GeekRap about Skype and LOL Cats and All About George followed with and ode to Firefox’s About: Robots! I ended the night boogying to “I wanna put on my my my boogie shoes and boogie with you” with Liza Sperling! Too FUN!

My pics from the event can be viewed here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lauralovesart/sets/72157621972655216/

Posted September 3, 2008. Laura Iriarte discusses her perspective on social media.

I found this on YouTube.com when I was googling myself one day! I barelyyy remember doing this. I think it may have been at a Mashable.com event. If anyone knows, tell me!

December 27, 2008 – Last night I swam in a sea of squids and neon jellyfish. I went to the Laughing Squid Unholiday Party. It was great! It was MY kind of party – art and social media! Woo! I was in heaven!

Sometimes I go to these events not sure of who I’ll know there or who I’ll meet. It’s always been a pleasant surprise. I did see some friends as well as met some wonderful new people! I just love being a Social Media Butterfly!

The party was held at an as-yet-unnamed art gallery in San Francisco. It is a live/work space run by housemates Jeff Herzbach, Jessica Hughes, and Andy Fusso who lives part time near Mt. Shasta. Andy had on the most amazing knitted vest! It houses Venusian Gardens West, a showcase of wonderfully glorious Neon Sculptures by artist Eric Ehlenberger. The neon jellyfish were so beautiful and befitting of the Squid Party!

Our host and hostess for the night were Scott Squid Beale and Lori Dorn. Scott is known as the primary tentacle of Laughing Squid, a site and newsletter which promotes art, culture and technology from San Francisco and beyond. (If you live anywhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, you need to sign up for this newsletter!) Even though it was held in an art gallery, the party was unpretentious. People were encouraged to bring leftovers and a bottle of wine to share. The vibe was friendly and even cozy. I met Lori Dorn for the first time last night – she was so nice and gracious, great people the Dorn/Beale’s.

It was nice to see Doctor Popular(artist and yo-yo champ), Irina Slutsky (reporter for Geek Entertainment TV), Tantek Celik(http://www.microformats.org), and Kevin Rose(co-founder of Digg.com), again.

In addition I met a lot of new people! I met Shelley Rae O’Conner(Shelley’s Place – A Place for Entrepreneurs, Creative Geniuses and others of Brilliant Mind!) and Info Diva(Independent Solo Renegade Information Pro)! Both were fun amazing women! They introduced me to Anna Billstrom(blog – Adventures in Email Marketing). I also met Lenore Edman(Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories). Lenore and I were dressed very similarly! Both of us were wearing dresses, mary jane heels and pearls! I also met Geri and Carl. She works for Adobe I believe. She had the most amazing necklace! Most importantly I met a kindred spirit – Trixie! We both love libraries and vintage! (Actually libraries were a repeating theme in my night) Loved her and her husband John’s style! (I know why now after I looked at their website-Maskharat.org!)

Lastly, I met Violet Blue! I’ve seen Violet’s name and face quite a few times over the internet this last year, so it was really fun to meet her in real life. She’s San Francisco’s real life Sex in the City Carrie Bradshaw,an author, blogger (http://www.tinynibbles.com/), and she was as sweet as can be.

We had a musical surprise mid-party! Two DJ’s had spun the night away, but then The Mark Growden Trio walked through the crowd with their instruments, set up, the crowd circled around and were swept up in their bluesy folky sultry sounds. Mark himself played several instruments as well as sings.

Quite a magical night overall!

For more magical pics of the night please see my flickr photostream here.

Did you read this far? Then please comment!

Another nice blog on the event -with a video of The Mark Growden Trio here!