nerd night

As most of you know already, Damned Connecticut was recently voted “Top Travel Blog” in Connecticut as part of the inaugural Websters, sponsored by the Hartford Courant. That now *officially* make me an “award-winning” blogger. As such, it’s time to start acting like a “winner,” which means taking my cues from my formative years (when I watched a lot of pro wrasslin’) and referring to myself from now on in the third person.

So first off, Ray would again like to thank all of you possibly unbalanced people who took the time to vote for Kate, Steve and Ray’s blog, Damned Connecticut. Ray would also like to especially thank the anonymous person out there (again, possibly unbalanced) who nominated us in the first place. Ray is just amazed that something partially from Ray’s brain could reach so many people—in the last year, Damned Connecticut has had over 250,000 visitors—and that so many of them actually liked it enough that they felt compelled to vote for it. Just crayzy, so to speak.

Anyway, to commemorate The Websters, the online staff of the Courant held a small happy hour party at Firebox in Hartford, and invited all the winners. Steve and Ray attended the event (Kate was home with her and Steve’s newborn son Daniel—pronounced “ray,” I think), which was like The Oscars, you know, minus the glitz, red carpet, paparazzi, throngs of adoring fans and Billy Crystal. (Pretty sure even James Franco was too busy for this one.) Still it was great of the Courant to do anything for Ray and the rest of us.

When Ray and Steve arrived—not “early bird” first, since Ray (a.k.a. “Mr. Compass Head”) actually underestimated the time it takes to get from New Haven to Hartford—a few of the other winners were already there. When Ray and Steve walked in, Ray is pretty sure the mental reaction around the room was like this …

Of course, this was coming from a room full of geeks. And when Ray says “geeks,” Ray does so lovingly, and in an effort to be honest. Everyone there was being honored for having “really cool” websites that they built and operate themselves, Ray, Steve and Kate included. If that’s not in the vein of true geekery—even if it’s actual respected journalism, as in the case of CT News Junkie—then Ray is not sure what is.

Upon arriving, they asked Ray and Steve to put on name tags, which Ray normally dreads and was exacerbated by having “Damned Connecticut” under Ray’s name—not that Ray isn’t proud of Ray’s website, but for the rest of the event, when someone came up to Ray and Steve, you could see them sneak a peek or two at the name tags, which was invariably followed by a sort of a “Oh, crazy ghost hunters” look and polite nodding.

For the record: Although there are plenty of haunted places mentioned in Damned Connecticut, Ray, Kate and Steve are not ghost hunters or paranormal investigators. Although Ray, Kate and Steve have visited many allegedly haunted places, Ray, Kate and Steve don’t have infrared video cameras or special microphones to record EVPs, nor have Ray, Kate or Steve personally reached across the spirit void to make contact with departed souls in psychic ways. As the website says, Ray, Kate and Steve are into “all that’s weird, unexplained or unusual in Connecticut,” from giant jack-in-the-boxes to mountain lions to UFOs that fall from the sky.

Of course, by the time Ray can explain this in conversation, people had usually already moved on to the sliders or sliced salmon that had been put out. (Great food at Firebox, by the way, although Ray is disappointed that Steve didn’t take Ray up on one of Ray’s patented $5 American challenges: To take one of the giant platters of bacon cheese fries off the buffet table, go sit in a corner of the bar and eat the entire thing by himself.)

Chatting it up with complete—or even incomplete—strangers at a cocktail party is (by far!) not one of Ray’s strong suits, so it’s good that Steve went along. He’s much better at going up to people and breaking the ice—if Ray had been alone, chances are Ray would’ve stood in the corner sipping his bar-brand cola trying not to make eye contact with anyone in fear of someone realizing that Ray (and his “award-winning” blog) didn’t really belong there.

The good news is that Steve doesn’t have these kind of hang ups, and he and Ray were able to mix, mingle and make a few new BFFs including Michelle and her posse from CT Working Moms, the crew from Local Band Review and Ian from Sox and Dawgs—you know, because Steve is a huge Yankees fans and nothing is more exciting for him than talking Red Sox baseball. (And yes, Ray did take great pleasure in eventually sneaking away from the two of them so Steve could bask alone in Ian’s Red Sox diatribes.)

Oddly enough, at no point during the evening did anyone ask Ray and Steve for their autographs. Probably too intimidated, Ray imagines.

They also may have been intimidated by being in the presence of a soon-to-be-published-again author. Steve, again demonstrating his promotional abilities, repeatedly tried to kindly pimp our upcoming book. (Ray says “our book” because very few people realize that Ray and Steve have an agreement where Ray so completely ghostwrites for Steve that it *almost* seems like Ray does absolutely everything to the untrained—and even trained—eye.) Despite Steve’s enthusiasm for our project, more than one person he mentioned it to sort of gave it that nod parents give their children when they tell them about something that happened on this week’s episode of “Pokemon.” “Oh Pikachu beat Raichu and you wrote a book about jerks? That’s nice, dear.”

Eventually the time came for The Websters to be presented, and Ray, being the brayve soul that Ray is, pushed Steve toward the presenter when Damned Connecticut’s name was called.

Although Steve had planned a lengthy acceptance speech (and interpretive dance), and Ray had encouraged him to tebow when the time came, Steve opted for the low-key approach and just said, “Thanks.” Whatev.

Following the presentation, Steve asked if he should take the award home or if there was a way how Ray, Kate and Steve might share it. Ray told Steve to take it for three reasons: 1. They deserve it because no one would know about Damned Connecticut if Steve hadn’t been spiritually guiding it and writing nearly Pulitzer Prize-winning pieces, or if Kate hadn’t designed it so brilliantly; 2. Ray would probably toss it in the drawer of his old desk with his journalism awards, where it might see the light of day once every six or seven years; and 3. Ray knew if Steve brought it home, Kate would completely freak out, which is a pretty entertaining thought if you know Kate.

Sure enough, Ray hadn’t even gotten to North Haven on his drive home when Ray got a text from Steve: “First thing out of her mouth—u didn’t take the only award I hope.”

Who knows—maybe by next year Ray will have his own certificate for a top blog! (Yeah, and maybe Ray will stop referring to himself in the third person by then.) In the meantime—

Again, Ray says thanks to everyone.