It seemed strange not to be registered for SXSW this year. The past two years have been a lot of fun, combined with learning a lot of new things and saying classic things like “CSS makes my eyes bleed” to Tantek. But the house closing is on Monday, and we have a lot to do before the move itself later in the week.
Then we received an invitation to dinner from Kevin to the second annual roast at Castle Hill. We debated about it, but finally gave in – we weren’t going to be doing anything house related last night, and Austin is just 2 and a half hours away from Houston.
I’m so glad we decided to head over here. Really, really glad. Dinner was fantastic, and the chance to catch up with Moose Mike, Robert, Beta Mike, Jessa, Nikolai, James and Josh. Discussions about penii soaps seemed to never end, and I have some great ideas for my new business. As an added bonus, we discussed business throughout the meal, turning it in to a focus group for me, which makes it a company expense, right? We were definitely the cool table to be at!
I had a chance to catch up later with Jay (everyone’s MT Blacklist hero!), Brad (who I adored before, but do so even more now), Kristin, Min Jung, Sooz, Leia (with the awesome stickers!), Griff Mike (now you see why all the Mikes get nicknames?), and Kevin. I also got to see Matt (I’m still waiting for an answer to my question, Matt…), Jish, Rannie, and Jay. I just saw them last week, so we didn’t really have any catching up to do.
It’s nice to be in Austin, and it’s good to see all the familiar faces. I still really want to try to see Ste before we head home, and seeing Pete would truly be an added bonus.
As we discussed at dinner last night, most noticeable are the people that are not here this year. Some very familiar faces are missing. If you are one of them (Ernie, Heather…) – we are missing you.
Of course, they will be missing me soon too … we have a walk-thru for the house later today and so we are heading for home in just a little bit. *le sigh*