Holiday Marathon 2009 Ends Successfully…or does it?
Posted Saturday, December 19th, 2009 by Lorelle VanFossen
Whew! Amazing! Another year of the Bitwire Media annual Holiday Marathon is over. Twelve non-stop hours of fun, a little mayhem, and a lot of love for charities and each other.
We at Bitwire want to thank everyone who came out on this holiday weekend to support us by watching the live stream, listening to the live audio stream, and participating through the live chat, Twitter, Skype, and on our blog.
Dave Moyer led the amazing cast of Bitwire characters to cohost the 12 hour event, featuring Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today, DeBorah Beatty of Living a Created Life, Christina Roberts of Aimless Agenda, Lee Sze of Best of the Net, and Lorelle VanFossen.
Our Holympics Competition for the best “ho ho ho” was won by Norm Wright of Beaverton, Oregon. Ethan won for the weirdest holiday story, and Razor70 won for weirdest holiday gift. Congrats to all!
We spoke to a lot of charities including US Marine Toys for Tots Foundation and Family Giving Tree.
It’s always amazing to review the past 12 hours and consider all the topics we covered and all the guests. We began with Dave Moyer and Lee Sze talking about Christmas Trees and decorations, but specifically, “alternative” trees and decorations – not your normal. Christina Roberts and Jonathan Bailey joined the cast of crazies for discussions of weird holiday stories and gifts. DeBorah Beatty and Lorelle later joined the insanity, talking about food, favorite gifts, worse gifts, and memorable holiday moments.
Cali Lewis of Geekbrief.tv stayed for almost two hours, answering questions from listeners and watchers with recommendations for a wide range of tech gifts. John Pozadzides of John Pozadzides of One Man’s Blog and Woopra joined her for an hour plus with a Wealth Nation “on the road” show for the holidays covering money issues and financial decisions.
We had a great chat with Alek about his Web Controlled Christmas Lights and Decorations, one of the most unusual holiday lighting experiences in the world. A annual fundraiser for the University of Maryland Center for Celiac Research, Alek decorates his home and connects it all to his website for visitors to control the lights through the site controls and webcam. We talked about how he did it and what visitors enjoy playing around with the most via the web.
DeBorah and Lorelle did an hour on holiday gift giving of handmade crafts, showcasing DeBorah’s beautiful tie-dying with her husband, Rich, joining in on the phone, and Lorelle’s tatting, knitting, and having her way with recycled sweaters. We talked about all kinds and types of crafty gifts, and touched on the struggles to turn a hobby into a business. We even heard a great story of how Robyn Seaton makes her incredible peanut brittle in the microwave, and counts up the 2000 calories!
We spent an hour visiting Christmas in areas of the world that lack a white Christmas, especially in Hawaii with Mai Fee and Ed Morita talking about trees delivered by refrigerator trucks, food, and other social fun and decorations in the islands.
We heard a lot of holiday stories, and actually have a few we didn’t get a chance to air that we might highlight in a future post. The stories were touching, funny, and delightful. Thank you to everyone who took time to call in and let us record their favorite holiday memories.
As if that wasn’t enough, the chat room light up even more after the marathon was over and Dave Moyer and Lorelle VanFossen spent another hour talking via the web cams to people from all over the world tuning in late, or just wanting the party to continue. The live chat continued in the Bitwire Chat Room, with hysterical discussions that began with Dave learning how to string popcorn to how to make Hawaiian style leis out of popcorn and other food groups. Makes us think about adding a “how to make clothes and things out of food” show to our Bitwire Network. Ha!
As usual, anything and everything happened during the annual 12 hour marathon, including a few technical diffiulties, but all were handled with grace and style with everyone pitching in to help, even Dave’s dog, Charlotte, helped to eat the popcorn up off the floor. Well, kinda.
As we put this together, we’re already talking about next year’s Holiday Marathon and the party continues into the night in the Bitwire Chat Room. We’d love your feedback and suggestions for next year. It’s a non-stop party here, so come join us!
We’ll be posting a list of the radio and Internet affiliates rebroadcasting the Holiday Marathon in the next few days, so you can tune in and relive or experience the fun for the first time.
Again, thanks to our audience, our affiliates, and to our Bitwire family, including WordCast, The Aimless Agenda Show, Liz and Lorelle Show, Living a Created Life, Best of the Net, and Bitwire: Behind the Scenes.
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