Gem Show Blogging

Yesterday I took the kids to the San Diego Gem and Mineral Show. It's a small show with around 30 exhibits and 15 dealers. It's a bunch of rockhounds showing off their stuff. I brought the camera, but left it in the car because I had something bigger to worry about.

The kids had never been to a gem and mineral show before. To be honest, neither had I, but it was something I was interested in. A friend of mine had introduced me to rockhounding and I had been out to Ocotillo Wells a few times to pick up some quartz specimens. My friend showed me how to cut and polish the pieces and a few of them turned out to be pretty dramatic. I haven't gone back to finish them yet, so I won't do any photoblogging until then.

In any case, the kids went to the show. Reluctantly. All I heard the whole morning was "How long will it take?", "Do I have to go?", "Can I go over and play with my friend instead of go to the show?", and "Why do we have to go?"

The answer to that last question is, "Because it's something new. New things are good."

We went. The kids loved it. The second my daughter, who had been the loudest complainer of the two, passed through the doors, she went bananas. She rushed about looking at all of the fabulous exhibits. There really was some stunning work on display. At the time I considered going back to the car to get the camera and now I wish I had. She ended up buying two grab bags of polished stones and we discussed them over dinner. If you had candidly filmed us, you could have ended up with a TV commercial for the show.

This brings me to another, semi-related thought. At a marketing conference I went to recently, they talked about companies that bring bloggers in to live-blog product unveilings. What about small, local shows doing the same thing? I thought of it when I was at the Ikebana show. All you'd need is an Internet connection and some power. I'm going to look into that in the San Diego blogging community.