Month: March 2008

My thanks to Rannie and MJ, who rescued me from an hour-long registration line and fast-tracked me so that they could have me perform the opening and closing number for their panel discussion titled How to Rawk SxSW, a guide for first-timers that show them how to make the most of their South by Southwest experience. After all these years, the accordion still opens all kinds of doors.

Here are the panelists from How to Rawk SxSW:

Photo by Yours Truly.

Here’s a photo that one “armiller” took of me playing the opening number, You Shook Me All Night Long:

Photo by armiller. Click the photo to see the photo on its Flickr page.

And by popular demand (which means Rannie), here I am playing the closing number, Baby One More Time:

Photo by armiller. Click the photo to see the photo on its Flickr page.

Here’s MJ posing with the bottle of bourbon that the panelists drank during their session:

Photo by Yours Truly.

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:

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.