Just made it back from an evening of dinner and drinking with John Beck of Incite and yours truly of Classical Values.

After hooking up at Philadelphia's 30th Street train station, John and I went to "Ludwig's" -- and old German bar with mounted animal heads on the wall. It's a charming place with great food and beer, but the lighting was absolutely terrible for photos. I thought I'd try to photograph John next to the moose head, but the neon light from a jukebox overpowered half of John's head, and I think the moose was trying to overpower the other half.

The best I could do was half of a blogger and half of a moose:

Fortunately, the lighting outside was better, which allowed a full facial view of John:

As it happened, John was drinking more liberally than I was. Not to get political about it, but I had to drive, so I was drinking more conservatively. This wasn't a drinking contest, of course. Just having a good time.

To take the last outdoor photo, I had to balance my camera on a utility box, set the shutter timer and hop into the picture just in time for the camera to photograph both of us:

Notice John is taller than I am now. But twenty years ago, I was probably taller than he was. (Probably could drink more too -- at least I hope so, considering the age difference!)

While I can't say two bloggers constitute a "blog swarm," it was a very fun evening. Stuff like this should happen more often.

MORE: Here's John's recollection of the evening:

I only had three beers, but they were roughly 2 pints each, and German beer is about twice the alcohol content of American beer.