Editor's Report - Happy Birthday LP - Aug 1, 2005

Editor's Report - Happy Birthday LP
Page 1 of 1

by Doobie Moseley (archives)
August 1, 2005
LaughingPlace.com turns six years old today.

Hard to Believe...

Happy birthday to us. Happy birthday to us. Happy birthday dear LaughingPlace. Happy birthday to us.

And with that LaughingPlace.com turns 6 today - old in Internet terms. And when I look back at some of things we did in the first couple of years, they seem like they took place ages ago. But hopefully we haven't slowed down too much in our old age.

In fact, this past year has been one of our most exciting. With the help of Lee MacDonald and Lindsay Cave there is now a Tales from the Laughing Place Magazine - a major and very exciting accomplishment that promises to get only better in the coming year. On the website itself we launches three new sections - LaughingPlace Live, LaughingPlace Lotion and The Latest - all of which have been very popular. Behind the scenes we made the long overdue upgrade to our hardware taking LaughingPlace.com from one relatively slow, older server to two very fast servers. Many of the other changes we've made this year have been behind the scenes facilitating better maintenance of the site and/or setting things up for future enhancements. In fact, as the techno-dweeb behind the scenes, I can honestly say this past year has been the most fun I've had tech-wise since we launched.

I think this was a great year for the LaughingPlace community as well. What used to be an annual meet in some corner of Disneyland on the birthday has now expanded to an organized big meet in a reserved location and several mini-meets lasting nearly a week.

This year's big meet was simply amazing with nearly 200 attendees! Held July 16th at the Disneyland Hotel it started with dinner in the Coronado Room. Then we moved upstairs to the Pavilion Room for the annual Golden Doobie Awards. For those of you not familiar, the Golden Doobies are an annual award show put on by the community for the community. Readers nominate other readers for awards and the winners receive buttons with that year's "Golden Doobie" logo on it. The first year the awards were given out in a small gathering at Fantasia Gardens. The presentation has expanded year after year to the point where this year it resembled an Oscar ceremony with song parodies (including "I've Got a Golden Doobie"), multiple presenters, gift baskets and even accompanying PowerPoint - very impressive to say the least. One of the great things about the annual meet is it truly is a community event. LaughingPlace.com facilitates a place to have it, makes buttons and invites some special guests, but beyond that it's all put on by the readers. Thanks very much to everyone involved with a special thanks to Inspector 57 and LuLu for all their very hard work on the Golden Doobies. And special thanks also to our meet sponsors Howard Johnsons of Anaheim and Mouse Ear Vacations.

Speaking of special guests, we were also honored to have some come and meet with our readers during the evening including Dickie Jones (the voice of Pinocchio), Margaret Kerry (the model for Tinker Bell), Terri Hardin (Disney artists and a puppeteer) and Bill Farmer (the voice of Goofy). Thank you all very, very much for coming.

Before closing I want to again thank everyone who makes LaughingPlace.com possible. That includes those who write articles, take pictures, monitor the boards, run errands, shop and ship for The LaughingPlace Store, contribute to Tales from the Laughing Place magazine and everyone else I'm forgetting. Not only would LaughingPlace not exist without you, but I would not be nearly as happy without you in my life. One of the great pleasures of LaughingPlace is working with wonderful people.

And thank you as well to the wonderful LaughingPlace community. There are times when running LP isn't as fun as it should be. At those times I just go read a few topic in the Community section and it always brings a smile to my face (and, often, a tear to my eye). So I close this year's Birthday Editor's Report with links to several photo galleries from this year's big meet and the various mini-meets.

Thank you all. You make this the best job in the world. And I can't wait to see what the next 12 months bring!

Doobie.

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-- Doobie Moseley
-- Posted August 1, 2005