Ijust got back from Perk Central, where I often go to unwind, or sit and think, or in this instance, after browsing a bit on my PDA, I heard the familiar sound from WS_FTP finishing an upload, and so I looked up and said “Sounds like WS_FTP”, and struck up a conversation with Michael Ashby , who has a nice blog at www.mashby.com. He was uploading some pics he took on a bike tour of the Natchez Trace . Lots of geougeous pictures (it’s fall, you know).

I always find it refreshing to experience how easily conversation comes with fellow techies, and especially between fellow bloggers. It also helps if the person on the other side of the conversation is also friendly and responsive, and willing and eager to converse. Michael was, and that’s the second time in the last 4 or 5 visits that I’ve gotten into extended conversation with a fellow developer.

It’s also a testimony to something that I rave about often, and that’s how Weblogs and other online community-enabliong technologies are far from being the refuge of lonely , isolated people, but are extension-enabling appendages of our person, and the things that we experience there also reach back and give us fodder for the face to face. When I got back, I enjoyed looking through the pictures of some of the stuff I just heard Michael tell me about. And I got to see pictures of some of his family on a trip to Destin, and some photos of his wife singing with a group at a Church concert. Great stuff.