Beer and Blog Portland

Yep we’re meeting at the Green Dragon. No real plans for this one, so it will be networking and socializing as usual. See you there!

This Friday we don’t have anything special planned. There are no dramatic tweets, no hotly debated analytic algorithm, and no free beer. It’s just the usual “hanging with your bloggies” night. It’s the night before that we’re all punchy about.

The fanatical Timbers Army has invited the Portland Beer-n-Blog and Tech-n-Tweet communities to scream “Rose City ‘Till We Die!” for Portland’s beloved soccer team the Portland Timbers on Thursday, July 23rd. They’re playing against the Puerto Rico Islands at PGE Park, with kick off scheduled for 7pm. To sweeten the deal, it’s Thirsty Thursday. This means cost-reduced alcohol! Awwww, yeah!

The Army is pretty danged excited to have us there, as evidenced by this tweet:

$12 gets you in the door the day of the game, and it’s $11 in advance. Get your advance tickets here.

Prior to the ball chasing at PGE Park is a meet-n-greet at two locations, for your convenience: The Bitter End Pub (20th and W Burnside) and the Cheerful Bullpen Tavern (SW Taylor between 17th and 18th). Then it’s off to PGE Park to continue the fun!

If you’re skipping the pre-funk, meet your friends in Sections 206-209 of PGE Park for fun and bawdy singing.

Shawn Levy is the mastermind behind the invite. I suspect he might be the most fanatic of the fanatical Timbers Army. Or is that YOU? Are you the most die hard, most ardent supporter? Let’s see your best overzealous cheering on Thursday!

Hope to see you on the patio of the Green Dragon on Friday from 4-6pm.

RSVP on Upcoming for Thursday’s Timbers Army fun or get your deets on Calagator

The wait is over…it’s FINALLY time to celebrate a 3rd year of the wiki-awesomeness called AboutUs.org!

Portland-based burgeoning Web site indexing service AboutUs.org turned another year older last month (June 20, to be exact), and in appreciation to the community for helping their database grow to more than 14 million pages they’re buying the Beer and Blog community a beer.

Happy birthday to US and AboutUs!

This Friday’s free birthday beer comes right on time, too. The night before, on Thursday, is the eagerly anticipated Ignite Portland 6 (brought to us by Legion of Tech and many, many hardworking volunteers). How very poetic (and convenient) to have a nice little decomp the day after in the form of a birthday toast celebrating a successful local business. This will surely help us ease back into the progressive craziness ahead, because just you wait: demands to submit your IP7 proposals will soon be streaking your twitterstream.

Join us on the patio at the Green Dragon this Friday from 4-6. Oh! One more thing: show up sooner than later, because free beer goes fast. That’s just common Law of Free Beer sense.

RSVP on Upcoming or get your deets at Calagator

It’s that time again! Time to End Bloglessness!! Yay!!!!!! If you or someone you know has been looking to start a blog, now is the time to get your hand held as we walk through the process.

We’re going to try it a little differently this time. Last time it was a 4 hour workshop helping people install a blog. This time we’re going to help people start a hosted blog and use the time to train them on how to use it.

Saturday, July 18th from 12:00-5:00pm

Format

Each session will be 1 hour: 15 minute presentation and 45 minutes of assisted help. During assisted help, attendees can raise their hands to get help from one of our assistants. Assistants are folks from the Portland tech scene that have done this process before who can help you with your questions.

Agenda

• Session 1 – Sign up for your blog 12:00-1:00pm;
• Session 2 – Dial in the settings for your blog 1:00-2:00pm;
• Session 3 – Intro to posting on your blog 2:00-3:00pm;
• Session 4 – How to promote your blog 3:00-4:00pm;
• 4:00-5:00pm will be an open help time to ask help with anything you’d like.

What to expect

We are focusing on WordPress blogs for this workshop. We chose WordPress so that if your blog is going well enough and you need to graduate to a hosted blog, you’re data and experience will be compatible.

By the time you leave the workshop, you’ll have a blog that is ready to go and some direction on how to connect with other local bloggers. We are expecting people from all skill levels, including the technically challenged. Everyone will be treated with respect and will be encouraged.

We’ll be hosting the event at Webtrends. There are some computers available to use, but we highly recommend bringing your laptop if you have one as there likely won’t be enough computers for everyone.

Help us get the word out!

Most of the people we’re hoping to reach are either to far outside of our social circles or are offline completely. We could use your help in letting people know about this free workshop to get a blog up and running. We don’t care if your motivation to blog is personal, professional, or political; we’ll help you get one up and running.

• Tweet the link to this page http://bit.ly/14OwQU
• Email this page to a friend
• RSVP on Upcoming and Calagator
• Tell someone in real life using your voice. Crazy, huh?

Why is this free?

We’re hoping to make new friends and be good citizens. We don’t want to be an insular group, so we want to enable others to join. And, because we’re Portlanders inspired by other Portlanders to DIY and that Yes We Can.

Help out

If you have experience with installing WordPress, we’d love to have you help answer people’s questions. Please leave us a comment below if you’re interested in helping!

Intellectual property rights is a hot topic in Portland, Oregon. Within the Beer and Blog community in particular I’ve had several conversations about steps to take in securing exclusive rights to our idea inventions, that intangible creativity from the mind. And what the heck is the process for getting something trademarked? Or patented? What qualifies as a trade secret?

Wonder no longer. On July 14 from 6-8 pm Mike Cohen, an intellectual property-focused attorney at Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, will be answering these questions in a FREE off-site topic discussion. Mike will also cover general IP issues relevant to bloggers, such as copyright and trademark infringement, as well as defamation.

A reception from 6-6:30 with beer, wine, non-alcoholic beverages and appetizers will be served.  Then, from 6:30-7:15 Mike will talk. After that, we have time for questions.  We’ll have the room until 8 pm.

The law offices of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt is located in the building where Oracle lives, so remember there are two entrances: 5th and 6th Ave.  If you enter from 5th Ave. you must go up the escalator and use an elevator in the bank of elevators located on the right to get to the 19th floor.  If you enter from 6th Ave. just walk to the last bank of elevators.

Don’t miss this free, informative evening of expert advice and learn how to protect your work and your right to montetize your work. Rearrange your schedule if you have to and attend this Beer and Blog off-site topic event. The free drink and food that goes along with the free IP counseling? BONUS!

When: Tuesday, July 14th 6-8 pm
Schedule: 6-6:30 pm beverages and appetizers, 6:30-7:15 pm Intellectual Property presentation, 7:15-8 pm Q & A
Location: Law offices of Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, 1211 SW 5th Ave. Ste. 1900, Portland, OR 97204 (19th floor)
Speaker: Mike Cohen, Shareholder Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt
Questions: Contact Nichole Enriquez: nenriquez[at]schwabe.com

RSVP at Upcoming or get your deets at Calagator.

Editor’s Note: Okay, yes if I *had* an editor I wouldn’t have to write this Editor’s Note to say I’m a bonehead. About something specific this time, even. AboutUs will not be sponsoring Beer and Blog this week, but next week on July 17th. I didn’t clarify this date before posting and if I would have, the original title of this post would’ve stayed “What the Shit? It’s an AboutUs Birthday!” which, if I do say so myself, was a pretty good headline. Anyhoo, Sorry. Forgivies?

I’m TOTALLY excited about the fun in store for the Beer and Blog community this Friday, July 10. Back by popular demand is What the Shit, that Twitter dramatic reading event we all enjoyed back in May. Far too long ago, and now the wait is over.

What the Shit, the dramatic over-acting of Twitter tweets, was invented by @melissalion during a moment of undoubtedly utmost genius. The reading encourages you to invite your inner cheese ball out to play and read any tweet in your very best over-the-top oratory form. Also, emoticons are spelled out and there are RULES to follow. Helpful rules such as this:

If one of your tweets is read, this is a compliment. Remember, there’s no crying in Twitter dramatic readings. Chest beating and keening are okay.

Yeah, I’ve got me a nice little collection of tweets in consideration for my reading. Done in my best poetry voice, I hope to make my high school theatre teacher Mr. McDonald proud this Friday. The bummer is, the limit is 6 tweets. Who am I going to cut? Soooo difficult.

What the Shit starts at 5:45pm, and sign-ups start at 5:30. Go see @melissalion’s Upcoming.org event page for more information and the rules of the game.

Oh, and YES! AboutUs is having it’s anniversary party at Beer and Blog this Friday, too. To celebrate, they’re sharing the love in the way of beer. What a wonderful compliment to the silliness in store for us. I hope to see you there for great fun!

One more thing: Don’t forget to spread the word on End Bloglessness, scheduled for July 18th. We all know someone who’s been talking about starting a blog, but might not be Internet savvy or involved in social networking and wouldn’t ordinarily hear about End Bloglessness. Tell them about it. We’ll set them up with a platform in one afternoon.

By that way, July 18th is also @MizD’s birthday. I will be making something chocolate-y to celebrate for all to share. You don’t mind, do you? =)

RSVP on Upcoming or get your deets on Calagator