BLOGS UNITED

During my too-short* trip to Portland last Friday, I was able to meet up with two people who I know mostly through their blogs.

First up was Ellen "Flushed Face" Compton...

We can be seen here activating our wonder twin powers to further strengthen our respective blogs. Ellen and I met in passing while at BYU in the early 1990s, but really got to know each other through blogging and eventually Facebook. Now that we have truly met in person, I have moved her blog into the "Daves I know" category on my sidebar.

Late that day I headed out to the Scandinavian Heritage Foundation, where I met up with Allen "Faroese American" Boggs.

Allen's expression can be explained by the fact that I was sticking a knife into his ribs when this photo was taken.

Allen is half Faroese and we were both in Portland to see two Faroese women speak about their experience growing up on the islands. I learned about this event through a Facebook friend I had never previously met in person.

And when the weekend was over, I thought about the people who say that social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter isolate people and keep them from making real friends in the real world. But everyone I met with last weekend were all friends I met using those supposedly isolating tools.

Take that, technophobes.

(*The trip was too short in that it was not sufficiently long. It was not a trip I took in the persona of Oakland/Atlanta-based gangsta rapper Too $hort, also know as Short Dawg and Shorty the Pimp.)