Russell Beattie

I just read Jason Shellen's post about not going to Camp Foo, and wanted to chime that I'm wasn't invited back this year either. Unlike Jason, however, I'm quite upset about it. I personally know enough people who are going (Jeremy, Diego, Jeff) to make it somewhat embarassing - like I didn't make some sort of intellectual or professional cut or something.

I'm mostly disappointed simply because I had *such* an an amazing time last year and was really hoping to be invited back. But I'm also a bit annoyed because I spent quite a bit of time and effort this past year *being* a Friend Of O'Reilly in appreciation, actually, including free ads for conferences on this site, spending serious cash (my own) to pop down to eTech for the day, moderating a panel at Where 2.0, etc. and I've done things behind the scenes to help out as well. So it was quite a surprise to me to not even get an email along the lines of "Sorry, we couldn't invite you back this year, we're just way overbooked," rather than discovering that the invites had already been sent via friends and that I didn't get one. Come on, that's so wrong.

And no, I don't want to get invited back now that I've whinged about it, I'm just really not happy about it and in a real way the whole situation makes me sad. It was just sooo much fun last year. So to everyone going, enjoy yourselves and realize that it could be literally a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was for me.

-Russ