I am almost done packing my bags, I have secured most of the electronics I require to make it 5 days in a foreign city, and I have pressed and folded my most dapper of threads. Sometime Friday morning around 5 in the morning I will be on the first leg of my trip to SXSW. Waking up at 5′aught clock, securing my luggage and carry-ons, and heading to the airport. On the plane by 7, layover in Dallas/Fort Worth for an hour, back in the air by 9:30 and on the ground in Austin by 10:45. I’m traveling with a companion, the Multimedia Designer from Netcom, Nick. We will hit up Enterprise to pick up our economy sized Ford Micro-Spec or the next smallest car you can get for couch change. Fortunately we will both be rocking our own rooms; with king size beds at that. The best accomodations we could procure at the late date of our reservations slightly procludes us from walking. We will be lodge at the Holiday Inn - Town Lake which, thankfully, is only about 5 minutes from everything by car.
Questions that I still would like to answer before reaching the mecca:
- Should I bring my laptop everywhere?
- Is it ok to record audio/video?
- Is it ok to re-broadcast sed audio/video?
- How will I be able to see the 6 panels I want at the same time?
- What is/are the etiquette/morays of SXSW?
So that is the ultimate idea. Though, that is also just the beginning. It would be great to find some Sherpa or mystical guide to aide my way finding on this SXSW pilgrimage. I am open to the advice of any and all folks the have been there or know something I don’t.
The pre-SXSW excitement is nearing a climax. For the past two week I have been plotting and scheming like a savant with OCD. I have color coded and highlighted the panels in order of interest based on hierarchy, meticulously planed checked and mapped travel plans, and have a a solid foundation of when and where I’ll be boozing it up every night at the after parties. In fact like most people I have been paying much closer attention to the newest parties that have been announced than the newest speakers or panels.
Continue reading ‘The Best Laid SXSW Plans…’
This is my third trip on the Carnival ride, and I must say it is quite the spirited fling. A season within, where only the most daring veterans of base consumption remain calm. I have yet to reach the paramount of the holiday. My liver, kidneys, and lungs rise in mutiny against me to stop me from maintaining through out a solid 5 day strait bender. Getting back into the groove of work sound highly appealing at this point in time. Normally you judge the quality of time off but the time on. If your soul purpose in life is to stay coherent and drinking for 5 days you start to look forward to your time off, working as it were at that point, sort of like working for the weekend, but with out all that ’80s.
Ok so I couldn’t make it through the entirety of the first weekend of Mardi Gras. I’m not feeling in good shape today. I am feeling in a shape, but that shape is vulgar, sad, and hedious, and should stay in dark corners. Am I not human? Do I not need to sleep? It’s been on since Friday at 6 o’clock. Two 4 a.m. mornings in a row will humble even the most seasoned of drunks. But when you start at noon it’s and entirely new ballgame.
Enter the marathon party. This Sunday we will call a wash. I will recover, rehydrate, and relax. But this coming Wednesday, the 14th, at 6 o’clock p.m. it starts again. Mardi Gras or bust. 7 strait days of parades and party come this Wednesday.
As a bar fly, the most underrated and invaluable service you can offer to a patron of your bar is a broadband access to wi-fi. Brilliant. What a beautiful day and age when I can site comfortably on my padded stool, drink my over priced domestic beer, watch my Simpsons, have a smoke and browse ye ol’ intertron, all while maintaining the utmost of bar cooool.If you could figure out a way to get me a power outlet that I can’t spill a beer in and some more elbow room this would be the most idea situation.
