elkit in wonderland

Miles and Miles of Texas

"So, Elke, what was the highlight of your trip?" asks Barbara over Chinese barbecue lunch.

Gawd, there were so many ... no way can I just pick one. I counted off a few, and now that I've had more time to think about it, here's those, and a few more:

- when the plane took off in San Jose, I followed along above 87, the Alma exit, Willow Street ... and sure enough, there was my house! First time I've seen it from the air.

- getting off the plane at Austin Bergstrom Airport and being greeted by the Salt Lick and Amy's Ice Cream right out of the gate.

- Breakfast/lunch at Las Manitas on Congress Avenue. They have a homey feeling, and the bestest corn tortillas - white and gritty and almost crunchy.

- accidental sushi dinner at Maiko, when I was looking for Jeff and Mark, and wandered into the wrong place. I'd read that Betsy's Bar was right next to Hi/Lo. How I could confuse a sushi bar with Betsy's, I will never know, but it was a wonderful error to make. I had hamachi carpaccio and a "Texas surf'n'turf roll": sushi filled with shrimp and mango, and topped with kobe beef. (First time I've ever had Kobe beef.)

- staying with Jeff and Barbara and Ellen. Barbara said I was the best guest ever. (For the record: they are the best hosts.) I think we're just a happy match: they give me a key and let me loose, no muss, no fuss.

- Kathy Sierra's "Why are you here?" SxSWi opening remarks. (Here's the mp3.)

- Will Wright's one-million-miles-an-hour speech on storytelling. (Here are excerpts.)

- Alex Steffen's ideas for "greening your geek". I wish this was posted ... great presentation! Meanwhile, check out WorldChanging, where he's the editor.

- Thunderstorms! Glorious light and sound effects, and lots of rain.

- Beautiful sunny spring weather.

- going to the Ducati party at Hi/Lo and Betsy's Bar, and getting to see Jeff's friend Mark, and meeting his Ducati posse. (Mark is the VP at Mototek, Austin's Ducati dealership.) One of many reasons I like Jeff so much, and why I like Austin so much, is how friendly people are. Californians are not bad, but Austinites are great. I made several new friends on this trip, and I am already looking forward to see them again.

- drinking margaritas with Todd and Carol and Craig, toasting to recent management changes that we are all very happy about.

- a long lunch with my Apple pardner in crime and counterpart Bryant, who reigned over French as I presided over German. Now he's king of the world, expanding out in the outer boroughs of the universe.

- Oreo's ice cream topped with strawberries at Amy's.

- grocery-shopping at Whole Foods headquarters. It is HUUUUUUGE. And they have everything. And then some.

- Finding a 5 CD Jacques Brel box set at Waterloo Records.

- Riding to San Antonio with Jeff to drop off his daughter Ellen at his parents', listening to Tim Curry clearly enjoying his narration of A Series of Unfortunate Events, and driving back in the pouringest rain I have seen this year.

- the Liberty Bar. Lo and behold. (Yes, it really is that crooked and tilted.)

- seeing a movie at the Alamo Drafthouse for the very first time, falling in love at first sight with their concept and execution of serving food and drink, and playing the funkiest clips in between movies.

- shopping and hanging out at Tesoros, the store that has such great folk art.

- Carne Guisada and a margarita at Güero's. (Güero, I gather, means "Blondie".)

- leisurely strolling around the brand new mall, The Domain, at Braker Lane right of the Mopac, checking out the new Apple Store, where I had the most high-tech shopping experience ever. There are no registers. The sales people all carry credit readers, and you just walk up to someone with your merchandise in hand, and they ring you up. So I just HAD TO buy something. I perused the iPod cases, and picked out the pretty Japanese Kimono case. Verified that it would fit my 80GB iPod, and forked over my credit card. It didn't occur to me until afterwards that I didn't even have to sign anything. "Would you like your receipt emailed to you?" asked the sales lady. I nodded yes and gave her my email address, and when I got home, there it was ... no paper involved at all. How nifty is that?

Two Out Of Three Ain't Bad

Remember how I said I had a mixed bag at SXSW this year? Sarah, into whom I bumped once every day, reliably, had a similar experience, and we came up with a few things that could be improved about the conference:
- note the intended audience for the panels. Newcomers or old hands? Will the topic be broadly covered, or will it drill down into details?
- for the web site:
-- it's a HUGE site. And there's no search. No search!!! How can this be?
-- it's great that the panelists are listed on the panel pages - but why aren't the panels listed on the panelists' pages? If you are interested in a particular speaker, there's really no easy way to find out when and where they're speaking. Sheee-eeeeesh.
-- and why is the coverage (podcasts from the sessions, for example) in a different section, and not added to the panel listing, so you can find it easily?????

If This World Were Mine

The last day of SXSW Interactive was just splendid, ending the whole affair beautifully. I had a mixed bag this year: Kathy Sierra's opening remarks on Saturday were as entertaining as they were educational (here's the MP3 audio of her speech), and today's features, by Will Wright and Alex Steffen, were a corresponding high. In between these perfect bookends, I had moments when I questioned what I was doing here in the audience, when the panelists had nothing new to tell me, and I wondered whether my first SXSW would remain the best one ... I should not have feared. Today made up for it all in spades.

And I ran into one of my favorite superheroes: MetaGrrrl! Why do I love her so? Because she invented Discardia, which incidentally ties in ever so neatly with Alex Steffen's presentation on Worldchanging 2.0.

My mind is full to overflowing with all the goodness I found today. I'll sleep on it and hope to have words for it all tomorrow.

Texas Wants You Anyway (10/2007)

From now on, I will always remember The Alamo. The Alamo Drafthouse, that is, the fabulous movie theatre that serves food and drink and shows odd old clips in between features. My kind of theatre. They are franchising the concept ... I am hoping for a Bay Area venue soon.

I actually went to the wrong movie, but it was just fine, really. I wanted to see King Corn which synopses thusly:

"Two recent college graduates travel to their ancestral home in rural Iowa, plant a single acre of America's most powerful crop, corn, and attempt to follow its fate as food. In their yearlong adventure they see the realities of modern farming first-hand, explore a fast-food nation built on corn syrup sodas and corn-fed meat, and come to question government subsidies, intensive agriculture and the cheap food we eat."

And I had read a tidbit that one of the guys had had a hair sample tested, and it turned out his hair was mostly corn ... we are all children of the corn, apparently.

But I didn't see it - I didn't realize I was standing in the wrong line, and ended up watching Eagle vs. Shark, a New Zealandian "wry comedy that chronicles the quirky romance of two awkward misfits". It was cute, even though it wasn't about much, and the nerdiness factor was laid on a bit thick. I felt the characters should have been teenagers, not in their late twenties or early thirties (which was what they looked like). Still, it was funny, and I liked the music. But most of all, I loved the theatre. Their web site proudly quotes that Entertainment Weekly proclaimed them the Number One Theatre in America, and I got to say I have no beef with that. It was the greatest movie theatre experience I have ever had. I checked the SXSW film schedule for what was playing at the Alamo, and am certainly going back there before the week is out.

You Can Read It In the Sunday Papers

My picks today:
• User Generated Content and Original Editorial: Friend or Foe
• Scaling Your Community
• Dan Rather Keynote Interview
• Journalism in the Blogosphere: A Legal Guide to Internet "Press"
• The Invisible Blogosphere

Talkin' Bout A Revolution

These are the panels I attended today; just jotting them down for future, umh, embellishment.
• World Domination Via Collaboration (Sarah blogged her notes here)
• Kathy Sierra Opening Remarks
• Unleashing CSS: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Internet Explorer 7
• Mapping: Where the F#*% Are We Now?

Shout To The Top

Last year at SXSW, everybody broadcast where they were with Dodgeball. This year, everybody is all atwitter.

[Yes, me too.]

Nice To Meet You, Hope You Guess My Name

No, I am not the devil (or so I would like to believe), but Tim just walked up to me and said, "Are you Elkit? I recognized you from your pictures." Tim had emailed me a few months ago and invited me to Web Monday, but I hadn't been able to go to any of them, and I today was the first time I met Tim in person.

He told me about the fascinating project he is working on. I don't know how much of it is public knowledge, so you'll have to ask him.

I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane ...

... but I do know when I'll be home again: after South by Southwest is over. See you in Austin within the next seven, eight days?

No Eternal Reward Will Forgive Us Now For Wasting The Dawn

I didn't waste much time thinking about this, and registered early for South by Southwest 2007. See you in Austin in March!