When I was young and in college, I was introduced to the concept of the "angry drunk." These classmates were nice as pie under all circumstances except when drinking. Inexplicably, when they got drunk they turned belligerant, and wanted to fight.
The era of the internet has brought with it a new personality species, which we might call the angry typist. You never know what congenial, articulate, delightful person might turn petty and acrid once you slap a keyboard in front of him.
I know this because in my line of work I often see the angry typist. The mechanics by which I am introduced to his behavior usually run in reverse of what I experienced in college. In this case, I get to know the sarcastic needler first, and the nice person second. His nasty, malicious posts fly through the ether and sit on my web browser and only later, when we meet face to face, do I find the evil words were written by a choir director who spends his free time visiting the sick and infirm.
Against this backdrop I wondered who might show up to our first annual Slowtwitch Forum Brunch in Kona. We had about 40 or 50 turn out, none of whom were of the type I described above. That isn't to say we haven't had some folks attend who've crossed swords with each other.
Inclusive in the group were quite a few industry people (they're most easily spotted if you click in the image and see the blown up version). We had Graham Fraser of IM North America, Scott Montgomery of Scott Bicycles, forum regular Herbert Krabel of Quintana Roo and Litespeed, Patrice Lemieux and forum denizen Paul Thomas of Kuota, and a gaggle from Active.com, including its president Dave Alberga.
A lot of top age groupers were there as well, including Joe Bonness and his wife Sue, both forum readers (Sue in particular).
And of course we had the posse, led by Cathy Morgan (ironclm) who helped in the organization of our brunch. Paulo and (the) Sergio were there, and forum regulars glevec, dev paul, uncle phil, and many others.
A couple of nice bikes were present, a sweet Lucero Herbert has been riding around -- a sort of rolling trade show exhibit (at left) -- and the Normanator's Kalibur, held up in the pic by Paul Thomas (above).
When you get a bunch of triathletes together, face to face on a Hawaiian shore, and lubricate them with some good food, any acrimony that might exist between them melts away. After all, it's not the people who spar. It's the keyboards.
