Friday
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It was the scene that best summed up the South by Southwest experience, and I noticed it when -- for the first time all week -- I didn't have my camera with me.
I had already packed the trunk of my rental car for the return trip to the airport and was making a last spin through my hotel room, the usual routine: checking under the bed for orphaned shoes, casing the bureau drawers I hadn't even opened in the unlikely event a pair of boxers stole away there in the night.
I was standing in the door, ready to switch off the lights and depart when I saw them stacked near the wastebasket: an empty carton that once held two dozen cans of Mountain Dew, and a cardboard flimsy holding six empty Shiner bottles.
Stimulants and depressants, the morning and night, yin and yang of SXSW and my pseudo-geek life.
That, however, was the end. It all began on...
Friday, March 10
I arrived in Austin with 17 cents in my pocket, since every ATM I visited before my departure from St. Louis was "temporarily unavailable." Thankfully, the Wells Fargo machine at the Bergstrom Airport was fully stocked and ready to supply. I could hardly imagine spending the week charging a few dollars at time on my Visa card.
Hot and muggy in Austin, a welcome change from the sub-freezing and snow I left behind but a transition that made it quite clear I'd packed all wrong. Ah well, rolled up sleeves it is.
Found the hotel and started mashing the autodial on my cell phone. I knew Matt and Robert were planning early arrivals like me, and we'd made noises about hooking up for dinner or whatnot. It only took Matt a few minutes to call me back and two tries to find his own hotel. We agreed to meet downtown.
Dinner at Jazz on 6th Street was a casual affair, and began a routine that would repeat itself time and again over the coming days. Conversations seemed to start and dart spontaneously; we'd read each other's websites for long enough that the awkwardness of meeting new friends was scarce if there at all.
From there, it was off to the festival pre-party at GSD&M (which still sounds to me like more of a fetish than an agency) and the five-day schmoozefest began.
Quote of the Day: "We have met the paparrazi, and they are us." Digital cameras everywhere!
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