For me, today is one of those days where you wake up and clearly feel that you had wayyy too much fun the night before. I feel like Frank from the movie Old School when he says “I had a great time last night!” and his buddy answers back “We know you had a great time last night. The whole town knows you had a great time last night.”

I have to admit that I do take comfort in one thing: when you start out as the SEO Loser, you can’t really fall too far. Whenever I find myself doing something stupid or embarrassing I laugh and figure “Okay, I’m living up to my title.”

Around 9:30 or so we decided to leave the Hilton bar and grab some food. On the way out we bumped into some other attendees and started talking with them. I wasn’t paying full attention but my ears perked up when I heard a lady say her name: Rae Hoffman. For those who haven’t read my blog in the past, I ripped on Rae pretty badly in my first post. Afterwards I felt guilty about it because I thought I was too harsh and a couple friends/people I respect had contacted me saying Rae was actually really nice–I must have gotten the wrong impression.

Anyway back to the story—I had to tell Rae I was the SEO Loser. I couldn’t resist. But at the same time I knew she would (rightfully) hate me. Luckily I was pretty deep already and any form of timidity was long gone.

It was the kind of awkward situation I’m prone to, but Rae was really cool about it although she was a little heated at first. I’d say more but we agreed the conversation was “off the record” (the first time in my life anyone has ever asked me to have an off the record conversation … I must be moving up). I’ll just end this topic by saying Rae was really nice.

There’s one more incident worth mentioning that happened before we made it to our restaurant. On the way out we met a couple other nice girls attending SES and my friend asked them what company they were from. They pointed at my SES man-purse–specifically to the Findology logo on the side of it. Being a little tipsy and in bad lighting, the yellow O (the first o) didn’t really stand out. So I said in the stupidest way possible, “Find – Low – Gee? You’re company is called find low gee?” It was pretty bad. She called me an idiot and said “What company would name themselves Find Low Gee?!

After grabbing a bite to eat, we felt like we’d pretty much missed the boat in terms of the party scene. Word on the street had it that Pepperjam was hosting a killer party and unfortunately we hadn’t heard about it so we were about to give up on SES-parties and just check out some NYC bars. But first, we decided we’d give the Hilton one last shot.

I’m very glad we did. At the Hilton we bumped into Daron Babbin (aka SEGuru)–a very cool guy I’d actually met before at the Ghost Bar during PubCon. We talked to him, had a few drinks and met some other SESers around the bar before migrating to a bar down the street where a big group of conference goers had congregated. On the way out I saw Neil Patel sitting on the bench. I know what you’re going to say—“do you ever learn?”—but the answer is no, I don’t, so I walked up to Neil and started talking to him. He was a really nice guy as I would have expected based on the tone of his blog that I’ve been subscribed to for several months.

There was a lady sitting next to Neil and somehow it came out that her last name was Schoemaker. Mrs. Shoemoney?! I talked with her for a bit, told her how much I loved her husband, you know—the usual. A few minutes later Shoemoney walked into the hotel.

Now one thing that’s interesting about being an SEO Loser is that you’re never sure if people are going to recognize you or not. I’ve only posted one picture of myself on this blog and it was pretty blurry. Still, sometimes I’ll get a glare or weird look and I’m always wondering if they recognized me from the blog. The same was true when Shoemoney walked in—to be honest I didn’t think he’d recognize me. But he did. “Dude the SEO Loser!!!” he yelled and came up and gave me a hug. That was pretty fun.

We let the Shoemoneys go and headed out to the bar where we bumped into Chris Hooley – now famous for his ability to get SEOs wasted :). I had met Chris at PubCon as well so it was cool to see him again and have a few drinks.

In addition to Chris, there was a whole crew of SEO / SES ‘elite’ at the bar. I talked to Todd “Oilman” Friesen, one of the actual SEO Rockstars along with a bunch of others. Andrea, Shoemoney’s sister, was at the bar as well and it was cool to finally meet her— very nice girl.

Chris Hooley drink baited me into a final shot / beer combination that ultimately did me in. I could feel myself spinning and when I saw the homeless guy making fun of me I knew it was time to go.

I’m sure there’s a lot I’m leaving out but it’s time to start another night so I have to wrap this up. Hope to see some of you out tonight! As always comment on the blog or send an e-mail if you’re at SES and want to meet up and I’ll try to get in touch. Have fun!