Yearly Kos: Things I'll Take Away

-At last night's keynote speech, we didn't know there'd be any food there, so we walked out of La Salsa and into a full buffet.

-Tom Tomorrow (my personal blogfather, he's the one that got me interested in political blogging) showed some of his favorite cartoons at the event. Later, I ran into him and thanked him for turning me on to blogs. He said, referring to this phenomenon, "Yeah, I didn't see this coming."

-Kos delivered a great speech, summarizing the rise of the netroots and the importance of people-powered movements.

-Putting faces to names that have been a part of your life for years.

-Wesley Clark threw a party at the Hard Rock after the keynote, everyone pretty much meandered over to that. Gen. Clark jumped on a stool and delivered a stump speech tailored to the netroots that was pretty good. He talked about how he won the Oklahoma primary and then was told to get out of the 2004 race, and he couldn't understand that one. "I'm just starting to win!" Got to shake his hand later.

-Grabbed a photo with Ambassador Joe Wilson (to be posted later).

-Mike Stark "cornered" Byron York of the National Review and challenged him to a debate. York said OK, but after Stark said it would be about abortion, he took a pass. Hilarious. Stark, incidentally, won the blogger's hold-'em tournament at the Mirage later over Chris Bowers of MyDD and others.

-Running into Ryan Lizza of The New Republic this morning at the coffee stand, and absolutely embarrassing his colleague Jonathan Chait by talking all about his Dave Barry-esque columns in college (we went to school together).