It’s always fun to meet people in person whom you’ve “met” online.  Nothing replaces the reality of actual presence.  Yesterday I got to meet Scott from Manland.  He was only in town for a very short time, and he was doing more of a swing by than a hang out.  Of course, we weren’t able to enjoy a beer together because he had to fly a plane shortly after our meeting.  What fun is flying a plane if you can’t have a brew or two?

At any rate, I had him pick up some Life & Limb for me a while back.  Even though I live in Southern California, I’ve not seen it anywhere, despite it being distributed by Sierra Nevada’s network.  Of course, I could have had him ship it, but we thought it would be nice to meet and receive my beer that way.  That worked out nicely since he was in town anyway.

Some of you might not know Scott, but he has been one of our biggest and staunchest supporters for the site.  He only has good words to say about us.  The feeling is mutual.

So, Scott came by today and dropped off the three bottles of Life & Limb that I asked him to get for me.  I told him that I’d like to send him away with some homebrew.  In fact, I gave him the 7 brews that I currently have in the bottle.  Personally, that was maybe a $10 investment on my part (maybe even half as much).  I had every intention of giving him that brew and paying him the $9.99 per bottle that I it cost him to get it. After all, he paid the tax and drove a car about 30 minutes to get it out to me.  Well, my money was promptly refused.  Why?  I think it’s simply because the feeling of kinship and camaraderie that happens among fellow beer lovers and bloggers.

In the end, the visit wasn’t about the money, an even exchange, or having a beer.  It was about solidifying a relationship, in person, that has begun to develop over this cyber-world (I prefer the real one).  But I just had to share this because it’s a cool story about how the sites we visit or run converge into the real sometimes…and it’s always even cooler when that happens.  What about you?  Share your stories about meeting some of the people that you interact with through your site/surf.