I’m not really sure if simply getting here counts as day one or not, but we’ll just go with it. We’re all checked into the hotel and, as you can see, the wireless is working. It took a little under four hours to get here but the trip was pretty uneventful, as it should be. We did stop at Buc-ee’s, the international rest-stop of awesomeness. Honestly, those stores have everything. I limited myself to a giant piece of homemade jerky, which I’ve already eaten.

After we got here and checked in at the hotel we ran downtown to the Austin Convention Center to get our packets and badges. The conference officially opens tomorrow at 7am, but I had little doubt that the line were going to be crazy, so I wanted to get that stuff out of the way early. The expected turn out for the conference is 4500, not counting exhibitors and lecture guests. They’re also giving away tshirts… so that should be, well, nuts. Something tells me 4500 tshirts are going to go fast.

After that we drove around a bit to try and plan our parking strategy. There isn’t any parking directly for the convention center or in the adjecent buildings, so we’re going to have to get a bit creative. Our thought is to park at the Mariott downtown, which is the “sister hotel” to ours. Hopefully flashing our room keys will be enough. It’s worth a shot. If that doesn’t work, there’s a downtown garage a few blocks away. That will have to do.

I was just flipping through the information packet about the vendors and sponsors and low and behold, SCAD will be here as a “platinum sponsor”. I’ll have to try and get a tshirt off them. I was going to bring my SCAD hat, now I’m regretting having decided to leave it at home. Oh well.

Now we’re just chilling at the hotel, waiting for the third person in our group to arrive at the airport. They’re renting a car and doing their own thing, but we had made plans to get some dinner with him. I hope it’s not much longer, I haven’t eaten since this morning, not counting the jerky.

Anyway, lots of rest tonight, lots of walking tomorrow.

Matt out.