Power Connections
--- yellow line ---

The first order of business is getting some power for my hiptop. The nearest Radio Shack is about two miles away. I call to make sure they are open and decide to walk. It is a beautiful windy morning. Here be pictures.

But first, the backup plan - I email Chuck from last night and ask him to drag his power supply to the convention center. Hopefully he will get the message before he leaves his hotel.

Well, everything at Radio Shack is either the wrong output voltage or the wrong size connector. I walk back and catch most of the Designing Entertainment panel. Afterwards, I meet up with Adam and Mike. Soon after back at the convention center, I am spotted by Chuck and Lori, and Chuck graciously surrenders his power supply. I power up for a while and catch up on email.

Afterwards, is the opening keynote by Brenda Laurel, which I found interesting. Or at least, I found it started me thinking about interesting things, which is just as good (if not better).

Somewhere about this time (or before the keynote? time is slippery at events like these) I connect with Molly, Mie and Dav at the center. Molly is a hyper-connector - not only does she remember everyone she ever meets, she keeps a mental database of what everyone is working on and who would benefit from meeting who. It was great meeting and hanging out with her in Japan and great seeing her again at SXSW.

Speaking of Japan, I randomly ran into John Poisson (from 1IMC in Japan) in the hall. We are destined to hang out again later, which was fun. In a later cab ride, he entertained us all with the latest ringtone craziness from Sony. Amusingly, and somewhat annoyingly, the cab driver was all for talking about polyphonics but didn't actually know too much about, you know, where places were located in Austin.

I attended the Small Media to the Rescue panel, and was not disappointed. Although it covered a fair amount of familiar ground, the panelists all had some good points or insights. And of course, choice quotes. Dan Gillmor commented that big media wants you to "eat what they give you and crap cash."

Afterwards, Molly announces it is happy hour at the Hotel San Jose. Everyone is down with that.

Now, there was nothing particulary wrong with my hotel (Downtown Hampton Inn & Suites), but there was nothing particularly right about it either. The hotel San Jose, by contrast, is an oasis, an island, a portal to a serene place where life is good, the bar has fine wine and Mexican Coca-Cola, and you can relax outside among the bamboo and gracklesong. Plus, a heated pool.

So, after a particularly happy hour or so, we flow back into town to the Milkshake party. It is crowded and loud, but I manage to meet some more folks. Soon I hook up with Dav and Mie and we head out for something to eat with a local friend of theirs. We end up at Crimson where I have a gigantic and delicious plantation salad (poached pears, blue cheese, lettuce, candied pecans, etc).

Afterwards, we check out the frog design party for bit. Very crowded but with interesting nooks and crannies filled with video games, design work and a place to plug in my hiptop for a bit, now using Dav's charger. There was a separate room to contain the line for the bathroom, prompting one woman to comment on her phone, "I'd rather pee on the street than wait on this line." (She opted for the middle ground, peeing in highly stylized light fixture. Ok, not really. She just stood on line with everyone else).

Onwards to the Barlow party at a very cool loftspace nearby. I meet up with Chuck and Lori again and meet Danah Boyd, and give her some hiptop cases and a tshirt :)

A bunch of us also met David Hughes, who seemed like this really old-school hacker with more stories than he could possibly tell in a conversation at a party. Later, when I am perusing my SXSW program back at the hotel, I notice he is also a speaker.

I get to bed early that night, relatively speaking. Thanks to sporadic charging I have a little bit of power left on the hiptop.

< back to Friday | On to Sunday >