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Catching Up Recap #2 :: Finally a SXSW 2008 recap! - Wedding crashing, lobby swimming, and five 4am nights worth of free drinks (oh and also there were some internet panels)
Hey, welcome to Part 2 of my catching up before I take off for Sweden (!!). With any luck Part 3 - ski season recap! - should be up over the weekend (what, you missed Part 1? But that what’s Mom’s 60th bday!) Anyway, so let’s finally get this SXSW recap out of the way (er, from first week in March!)
So, SXSW = South by Southwest, the interactive + film + music conference festival that’s held down in Austin, TX every Spring. Alex and I went down on the Google dime in 2006 and it was amazing (esp since dodgeball was the Next Big Thing at the time). We went down again in 2007, though that was when me + Alex were brawling with Google over their neglect of dodgeball (all while Twitter was blowing up as the Next Big Thing). So 2008… I wasn’t really too hot on the idea of going down. I’m kind of in-between-jobs and in-between-projects and just wasn’t really that fired up for it. Then again, everyone in the world was headed to Austin… Alex, Karen, Kevin.K, Harry.H, Danny Denver and just about everyone I know from ITP whose now out in SF.
With about 2 days before the conference, Alex and Kevin start giving me for shit for not planning on coming. I did’t have a plane ticket, I did’t have a hotel (er, impossible to find even 2 months before the festival) and I didn’t have a badge ($500!). I started IMing with Karen about maaaayyybbbee coming down - secret surprise style, which is when Karen said I could crash in their hotel for a night. And then Danny Denver turned out to have an extra place to crash. And then I started looking at plane tix and realized I had a Jet Blue voucher. And then heard that my buddy Ryan who was running a panel on Location Aware Gaming had a open spot to fill (poor Slavin had pneumonia) which would score me a freebee speaker’s badge. So, early Friday afternoon - while everyone was already en route to Austin - I scrapped together my five-days-in-Austin itinerary, packed my lil’ green backpack and headed to JFK. I text’ed Karen to tell her know that I managed to scam my way down and to try to keep all the ITP kids out late enough so I could make a secret surprise entrance… masterplan was to get in around 10:30p, roll into downtown Austin around 11p. Woo-hooo! 
… and they I get to JFK and realize that Jet Blue has crushed my dreams yet again. My 8:45 flight delayed 2+ hours - pushing my 12am arrival time, back to around 3am.
Long story short, I told KB to keep everyone out till midnight. She knew I was super delayed and kept people out as late as possible. By the time I rolled up to the SXSW’s opening night after-party (er, 3:55am) there were no more beers, no more good times, and Alex and Ron and Manlio and Danny and KB (good bless them) were all Slurry McCrunkedaLot. Still a successful late night reunion! 
… just enough time for one of these… 
… before making the trek over the bridge… 
… to crash with Alex and Karen in their loooovveee suite. And goodnight! 
Hello Saturday! The panel I fandangled myself onto (“You Are Here, Gaming and Geolocation”) was one of the very first panels of the conference. Bad because the panel isn’t as crowded as it would be if it was in the afternoon, good because at least you get it out of the way, leaving you stress free for the rest of the festival.
and ps: “In Between Jobs” is the best job of all jobs!