The Ranch where the b5media crew and friends are staying is a twenty-minute drive from South by Southwest and it’s quite nice. Here are a couple of exterior shots:
Year: 2008
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Footprints in the Sand with Mr. T.
Picture courtesy of Miss Fipi Lele.
So I said to Mr. T.,
“You promised me, Mr. T,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during
the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one
set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most,
you have not been there for me?”
And Mr. T. replied,
“What’s this jibba-jabba?!
The times when you have seen
only one set of footprints in the sand
is when I carried you, foo!”
Yesterday, I stepped into Toronto’s Pearson airport at 5:00 a.m. EST and arrived in Austin at 8:00 p.m. EST, so the total time I spent either on a plane or in an airport was 15 hours. That’s about twice as long as my original itinerary. Still, it’s shorter than time b5media blogger Darren “ProBlogger” Rowse took to get here, but he came from Australia.
We had a good team dinner at Chili’s (Darcie’s always wanted to eat at Chili’s; it has something to do with the fact that the people from The Office always eat there). I didn’t mind, as we’re deep in the burbs and it was nearby. We’re also likely to have less chain-restaurant-y food for the remainder of the trip, with the possible exception of a trip to the Waffle House. Now that I’m full of country fried steak (something that Darren had never seen before) and margarita, I’m ready to hit the sack. G’night, all!
It’s been a rather eventful first day on the job.
To save money and do some team bonding, b5media rented a ranch house outside Austin where we’re all crashing. It’s a great place situated on a 26-acre parcel of land with a nice view, a lot of rooms, a big kitchen, a fireplace, two outdoor fire pits, a lot of liquor, cowboy kitsch, Buddha statues (huh?), goats and an old black Labrador retriever named “Teaspoon”. Since we are a Serious Internet Company, some rules need to be spelled out:
We’ll be throwing a big barbecue party on Tuesday the 11th. If you’re in the neighbourhood, you should drop by!
…the airport has store based on America’s favourite fake news channel, FOX News:
Seen at my very short stopover at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston.
Categories
I Still Own the Phrase!
Now imagine doing “jazz hands” in latex gloves.
Today’s encounter with U.S. Customs (chronicled in this entry) reminded me of a couple of old posts of mine — The Star-Spangled Banner and Anal Sovereignty and A Bag of Squishy Cows is a Bag of Trouble. I did some quick Googling and discovered that the first entry is still the number one Google result for the phrase “anal sovereignty”, with or without the quotes.
I’m not sure what my parents would think of this.
(By the bye, I did not come up with the phrase “anal sovereignty”. Jon Rosenberg of the webcomic Goats did, using it in this strip:
Click the comic to see it on its original page.
…just so you know.)
I’m chilling out during a four-hour stopover in Cleveland Hopkins Airport, drawing power from an outlet clearly meant for the custodial staff, handling some correspondence on $2/hour wifi. Some quick notes:
- The flight was on an Embraer ERJ, which meant gate-checking the accordion. Some minor damage ensued — the keyboard now slopes from the left side to the right — but it’s still playable. I see a repair bill in my future. I’m buying a copy of the Cleveland Plain Dealer to pad my accordion case.
- 7-year old boy on plane to 9-year-old girl: “Hillary said some mean things about Obama, and I hear some of them weren’t even true.”
- Resiting the urge to ask people here if they’ve heard of any of the many unsavoury terms in the Urban Dictionary that begin with “Cleveland”. (Start at this definition and work forward alphabetically — be advised that the text is not safe for work.)
- You know you’re in the American midwest when: the portions at Manchu Wok are way bigger. Good thing I only got the single-item-plus-rice meal; I can only image what the two- or three-item meals look like.