Last night we went to three fun networking cocktail parties in advance of our national hotel conference (we call it BLIS, short for Bisnow Lodging Investment Summit) today. We started at the Streetsense VIP reception at the Riggsby in Dupont's newly renovated Carlyle Hotel and enjoyed fantastic food from chef Michael Schlow, whom we snapped with the Streetsense gang: Jeff Pollak, Adam Willamowsky, Eric Burka, Leah Casnocha and Gabby Rojchin.

Then we went to a reception at the Marriott Marquis sponsored by the DC and Baltimore chapters (7,000 alums total) of the Cornell Hotel Society. There we snapped chapter president Keith Norof, Hilton Worldwide SVP Dexter Wood, his wife, Susan Wood, Melby Ventures president Scott Melby, and HarborStone Hospitality president Joe Lavin.

We walked across the street to The Renaissance Hotel for the Penn State School of Hospitality Management reception and snapped the program's former director, John O'Neil (right) and current director Donna Quadri-Felitti, with Marriott's chief development officer Eric Jacobs.