Wednesday evening, Lauren and I had a social in the spacious and comfy suite that she gets for chairing the XML conference, and it was great fun. (If you know us and didn’t get invited, sorry, we only decided Wednesday morning and missed seeing a few people). For me, the real thrill was there were several pairs of people at the party who’d known each other for years (electronically) but had never met and were really happy to do so. Put Betty Harvey and David Megginson and Rick Jelliffe and Dare Obasanjo and Jon Udell and Norm Walsh and Sean McGrath and James Clark and Peter Flynn and Eve Maler in a room — the evidence of the wineglasses suggests there were thirty people or so, I just picked those names off the pictures that I took but aren’t good enough for ongoing — put all these people in a room, and you get more than a few of of these You’re David? Wow! moments. I had one of those myself, meeting Dare Obasanjo for the first time. Dare is given to occasional over-the-top flaming and snarling on mailing lists, and he looks kind of menacing too, but turns out to be a friendly, cheerful, and interesting guy.
