Blue Monster from GapingVoid.com

After three days of real estate bliss at Inman Connect in San Francisco last week, I flew home early Friday afternoon.

Other than the:

* 2-hour delay at SFO,
* the lightning storm at JFK International that shut down all air traffic in the Northeast (so I heard),
* taking a “bigger arc” over Chicago,
* flying down to Virginia and staying in a holding pattern for another hour,
* running so low on fuel the airplane had to make an unscheduled landing in Atlantic City,
* waiting on the tarmac for another hour until about 2am,
* and then finally arriving at JFK,
* getting home at 3:30am, it was uneventful,

with one glaring exception: While trapped in the plane in Atlantic City, I got to spend about an hour speaking with Noah Rosenblatt, of Urbandigs.com, one of the smartest bloggers out there. It was 1am, and I am sure people around us thought we were insane, having excited discussions about the housing market, the economy, the fed to name a few. He’s an ex-Wall Street trader, current successful real estate broker who shared his insights with me about the turmoil in the financial markets.

We both saw the irony of the financial markets right now. Their volatility is driving a flight to quality so bond prices are rising, making yields fall…yet mortgage rates aren’t falling because of the credit crunch and diminishing liquidity.

I have felt strongly for the past year that the Fed would be forced to lower rates by the end of the year, but now its a real dilemna for them. Housing/mortgages have the potential to drag the economy down, spurring the fed to drop rates, yet, with rising oil prices, among other things, there are inflation concerns, causing the Fed to try to cool down the economy. The Fed’s position is probably going to have to remain neutral for a while, so perhaps the language in the upcoming FOMC meeting will be tweaked to show more neutrality.

but I digress…

Marketing is all about social objects.

Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void gave the keynote speech and he was incredibly refreshing. Of course his use of language was much broader than the audience was prepared for if you know what I mean, but he was so interesting, and I feel more…literate, and stuff… His blogging success story with Stormhoek wine was truly amazing.

Bloggers connect, the concurrent conference was a big success and I learned a lot.

I spoke to a bunch of really enthusiastic bloggers brimming with ideas and excitement over their craft including, but not all inclusive because its late: Joe and Rudy of Sellsius who survived their cross country rv tour, Dan Green, John Keith, Joel Burslem, Jessica, Brad (of course) and Glenn of Inman, Lockhart Steele, Pat Kitano, Kevin Boer, Heather Fernandez, Dustin Luther, Ardell DellaLoggia, Teresa Boardman, Hugh MacLeod, Jim Duncan, and Matt Heinz to name a few.