After almost 4 months, I finally have the time to sit down and write about MAL2011. I will try not to do that again! waiting this long means you forget things! For MAL, I shared a room with Dakota, American leather woman 2009-10, her girl Kim and the producer of the Mr San Diego Leather contest, Adam. I was the first to arrive in DC, which, was a good thing since the room was in my name. Dakota and Kim were supposed to arrive earlier, but had car trouble. I was able to get checked in and settled before anyone else arrived. Dakota and Kim arrived and after a quick set of hugs, we unloaded their stuff and put it in the room. Then we headed down to registration. Kim picked up her package, and Dakota and I spoke with another member of our sash family, American Leather Man 1997, Jim Raymond. Jim had arranged for me to be theJudges Boy at the contest, and had also arranged for Dakota's entry as well. We were registered in no time at all, but during that time (really seriously, it was about 10 minutes total), we must have seen and talked to about 50 people we knew. I had done enough traveling that this was feeling like a family reunion. In a way, it was a little bit. Before Daddy and I went traveling on our boat, DC was home. It was where I came out, and came out in Leather. So, not only was I seeing people that o recognized from other events, I was also seeing people that I had not seen in almost 15 years. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the vendor mart, hanging out in the hotel lobby chatting with friends, meeting new people, and people watching. Adam finally arrived later that evening, after having flight delays -- we got him settled, and ordered some dinner. I think everyone was tired from traveling, as we all went to bed relatively early, especially considering that Adam and I were operating on west coast time still. Saturday morning, Michael Brandon has a breakfast club that he does -- everyone gets up unspeakably early and we go to breakfast. Dakota, kKim and I joined the crew for breakfast. After that, we hung put in the lobby, checking email, surfing the web, watching Kim upload pictures to Facebook. The vendor mart opened at noon, so we headed down to check out what was for sale. I did manage to successfully avoid spending money, but there were a few things there that I would love to get one of these days. Saturday evening was Leather Cocktails. This has always been a favorite event of mine, and this one was very enjoyable as well. I ran into so many people that I haven't seen thT it made my head spin a little. It was great catching up with folks, and seeing how time has changed the people and clubs that I was familiar with. Saturday night, I hung put with Adam and some folks he knew from Inferno. I had planned to go to the Eagle, but the conversation kept me intrigued, and of course I was afraid I was going to miss something! Before I knew it, the bars had closed and I was ready for bed. Sunday was the contest. It took a few minutes, but I finally got in the groove of fetching and delivering drinks for the judges without interrupting their view of the contest or judging. The contest was as much fun as I remembered them to be, though I was very surprised at the drop off in the number of contestants. I remember 15 or twenty contestants, at this one they had 6. After the contest, and dinner, I met up with a guy named Dan and hung out with him for the evening. Interesting guy, and a lot of fun. Monday was the day to head back home. But before that, I wandered around the capital with Tim Starkey International Mr Bootblack and Adam. Had a great time hanging out with them. Ad touring some of the sites.

As I stood in the Buffalo tonight, something occurred to me. Part of this thought comes from talking to Utah Rox. He commented that San Diego was one of the few cities that still had a real leather bar -- the San Diego Eagle located at 3040 North Park Way. Utah was there judging the Ms San Diego Leather contest during the first part of San Diego Leather Pride. Don't get me wrong, our Eagle is a great bar, but it certainly is not a leather bar as I remember them back in the 90s. But that got me thinking. As I looked around the Buffalo tonight, it dawned on me that Runs such as this, contest weekends such as MAL harken back to the days when a leather bar was filled with men in leather -- doesn't mean that every man there was a leather man, but you had a higher percentage chance of finding one. These weekends take me back to a time when men did not go to a leather bar unless they were wearing leather... At the very least, a man in levis, belt, boots and a tshirt. It makes me a little sad that it takes events to get the leather men out to our bars. It makes meant to stand up and say to my brothers and sisters -- get out from behind your computer, make this weekend a special event for YOU, support you local leather bar, and show the twinks what it means to be in a leather bar. So far this has been a good weekend. We caught up with our friends Tom and Paul from the UK and Mark from Canada.