I didn’t blog much about the convention while it was in practice, but the reason is I was too busy hanging with a lot of really cool people. It was good to see Uncle and David Kopel again, and to meet Bitter Bitch, Sebastian, Robb Allen, Joe Huffman, Kevin Baker, Mike W., Thirdpower, the Rustmeister, the Squeakmeistermistress, TD, Caleb, Murdoc, Sailor Curt, Tam (whom some evil NRA staff member attempted to turn into a witch), U.S. Citizen, Michael Bane, David Hardy, David Young, Alan Gottlieb, ParatrooperJJ and some others whose names escape me at the moment. If you are among them, please identify yourself in the comments and I’ll add you to the list with my apologies.

I suck with a camera, so if you’re hoping for good gun pr0n you’ll need to follow the above links, but from my perspective, here are the high/lowlights of the conventions:

• No good deed goes unpunished. Bitter Bitch, to whom we all owe a colossal debt of gratitude for organizing the event and convincing so many gunbloggers to come in the first place, broke her foot before the convention even began.
• Chris Cox added insult to said injury by publicly threatening to deprive Ms. Bitch of her constitutional right to a secret ballot and “show the country how Bitter votes.”
• On Friday, if I hadn’t been such a dumbass and had paid closer attention to Bitter’s posts, I’d have known that I qualified for a media credential, which I would need to attend McCain’s speech. I’d have also known about the firearms law seminar, which I would have preregistered for and attended. Woulda, coulda shoulda.
• On Friday night, I finally did pull my head out of my butt and join up with the bloggers in time for us all to briefly leave the South for dinner and drinks in the Midwest. That was kinda cool, conceptually speaking, but cooler still was having the tab for the drinks picked up by Michael Bane. Thanks, Michael! I love ya man!
• After dinner, we returned to the South and had Jack and Coke, Jack and Dr. Pepper, Vodka and Coke, and whatever other alcoholic crap we could mix with whatever other fizzy bubbly stuff was on hand. US Citizen got thoroughly plastered. Uncle got mildly inebriated, which is saying a lot given that it takes a lot of alcohol to affect him much at all. Either that, or a small amount of alcohol turns him into a wise-ass, which distinguishes his drunk personality from its sober counterpart … how, exactly?
• During that session, either before or after he converted from a sober wise-ass to a moderately inebriated one, Uncle advised us that his teeth are like a bunch of little vaginas.
• Also during that session, which I’ll call “in vino wiseassitas,” several of us started speculating about what anti-gun conventions are like. I asked what the exhibits would be. Robb asked if they had an anti-gun range. Heh.
• A bunch of other really cool stuff happened during in vino wiseassitas. For some reason I don’t remember any of it, but I’ve heard it was really cool.
• At the banquet last night, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal gave an awesome speech, leading one of my fellow bloggers to suggest that McCain should name him as his VP, get elected, and then keel over in 2010. I was deeply offended by this vile suggestion, so I pointed out that for Jindal to serve 10 years rather than 7, McCain would have to wait until at least 2011 before keeling over. Err, I mean, I pointed out that it is terribly untoward to say that about anyone, especially the least vile Democrat in the race, so wouldn’t it be better for McCain to serve just one term and hand the reins over the Jindal after that? Yeah, that was what I said.
• Also at last night’s banquet, Glenn Beck gave a great speech, in which he compared the three individuals who have any chance of being President to the Three Stooges.
• Today a group of Truthers showed up to heckle Oliver North and Ted Nugent. More here.