Yes, indeed. Got off the train this afternoon and crashed on the couch for a few hours until I felt the urge to face the computer screen again just now.

Once again, email has piled way up while I wasn't paying attention, so please be patient (How do the big bloggers keep up with it?). I am anxious to get back to regular subject blogging and paying attention to my inbox. Bear with me, and do feel free to keep the pointers or whatever else coming in in the mean time.

I had a great time and would have had a better time had I not gotten sick after the lunch/launch yesterday. Something didn't sit right -- whether it was the Rainbow Room food, the bug I guess my five-year-old had a day or two before (she was throwing up her food for two days so this is the most likely explanation), or maybe that cheeseburger wasn't as good as I thought it was, but I started feeling ill very shortly after the lunch. Tried to nap before the cocktail party at 6, but it didn't help. I threw up a couple of times (good old finger down the throat action to move things along) and took some Pepto, thought I was feeling better, headed back over to the W Hotel for the cocktail party where I lasted about five minutes before I couldn't take it anymore, staggered back to my own hotel and spent the rest of the night ralphing up the contents of my stomach. Big Apple, thou art my chum bucket!! I must have looked like death warmed over while I was at the party, and I know I stood around like a zombie for the few minutes I was there.

SO! Big, major-league apologies to the many, many bloggers I wanted to hang with but ended up shorting last night. I hope we have a chance to do it again some time, which I'm sure we will.

As I said, the launch was interesting. First of all, it's just fun to have this little hobby turn into something that would take me to New York, and to the 65th floor at 30 Rock. That right there is something. I took the pictures below when I first arrived -- just a couple of shots in the reception room where breakfast was being served and one out the window. This is the first time I figured I could take a couple of digital pics then whip out the laptop and sit in a corner without looking like a nerd.

After the breakfast we filed in to the main room where the official launch happened. No need to go into detail -- speeches, a peak at the portal site...people seem to have reacted negatively to the first panel discussion -- on fashion. I didn't have a problem with it. If part of this thing is about the business of blogging, then showing it's about more than politics is absolutely a part of it. The only thing I didn't care for was "The Manolo" showing up via a phone link -- a gimic that didn't work.

I enjoyed the next panel that involved a discussion on blogging and included Larry Kudlow, John Podhoretz, David Corn, Claudia Rosett and Belmont Club's Richard Fernandez. My one criticism here is that here we have this new venture to showcase the power and competence of the blogosphere and the only pure blogger they put on the panel was Fernandez -- 1 out of 5.

Lunch was next -- the less said about that the better -- and Judy Miller spoke and took questions as did Senator Cornyn (via satellite).

Anawho...lots of folks were there and have blogged about it -- go, thee, and search if interested. You can start here on the OSM portal page.

There has been much commentary already, of course. Just a word on that. Yes, there are many legitimate questions still to ask and answer, but most of the criticism has struck me as pretty unimpressive...pretty petty. Everyone's got an opinion in the blogosphere, of course. Some is honest reaction, and some has an agenda. Clearly, the OSM folks have rubbed a few people the wrong way on their way to getting to this point, and some of the more strident negativity is clearly the personal masquerading as honest criticism -- some are up front about their personal issues and agenda and some aren't -- and then of course there are the Lefty Inquisitors and the LGF stalkers. That's most of what I've run across, frankly.

A few reactions: The OSM site: Thought it was pretty blah at first, but as I look at it more it's growing on me a bit. We'll have to see how it develops and gets used. I like the stark look, and...it'll all be about the content anyway. BTW, here is OSM's statement on the name issue.

OSM has funding to the tune of $3.5 million and a full-time staff including marketing people. I haven't talked to a single person, not a one, from Charles and Roger, to the pros on the Editorial Board and on down to the bloggers like me at the bottom who don't understand that OSM is a work in progress. No one expected to show up yesterday and have the whole thing laid out and in final form, "Here! Here are your answers to the future of the blogosphere! 42!." The people who grasped this and are along for the ride and maybe hoping to influence where it takes us joined up. The people who needed to have final answers and an explicit vision of the future laid out for them didn't. I spoke to the ad guy (who's really, really tall, btw) who told me that everything is still developing, and that their investor(s?) understand that this is a process that's going to have to play out in years, not weeks, and certainly not in a single afternoon. That's good to hear.

As an individual blogger, you take your roll of the dice and see how it turns out. Personally, I have absolutely nothing to lose, nor do my readers, nor does anyone else. I've already gotten my money's worth.

One thing I did realize was how fortunate I was to get picked to be part of this thing and be featured on their site so soon, especially as I'm far from one of the big fish. I was told that one of the reasons they pared the initial membership down was due to technical/manpower/time issues -- it just takes too much effort to get so many blogs set up that they had to start with a smaller number than they originally intended. It takes as much time and resources to set me up as it does Instapundit, for instance. That's what I was told, anyway, and I didn't press it. My advice to bloggers who aren't in at this time but want to be, just hang in there and keep doing what you're doing. I'd bet there will be another "draft." I suppose you don't run the one risk there is for someone like me -- that if OSM goes in the tank, they may be able to say, "Solomonia? Wasn't he part of that OSM thing? Ha Ha." /Nelson voice

A lot of people have talked about creating some sort of interface between the MSM and the bloggers, but these guys are the first ones to actually do it in a big, real way. Their Editorial Board is an impressive lineup (to me). My only fear is that those MSM-types aren't just brought on as window-dressing, but actually feel they have a part to play in making this work. If they do, I think there could be something pretty impressive here, if not, well there's more than one way to skin a cat I guess.

My best moment came when I met Lisa Ramachi on Tuesday night and she told me that Solomonia was one of Steven Vincent's favoite sites ("Steven loved your site"). If there hadn't been people around I woulda lost it. That was worth the trip. Shaking hands with all these cool people who's sites I see was worth it. Bowing to the porcelain god all night was not worth it, but that's another issue.

Once again, it was a real pleasure meeting all those other bloggers and blog fans too numerous to name. Maybe we can do it again next year, or sooner.

Tomorrow it's back to your regularly scheduled blogging. I think if there's one thing non-bloggers hate to read, it's blog posts about blogging.

Update: Wow, reading some more of people's accounts of the day, I can't believe how many people I missed meeting at the party. Bummer.