Sheep Guarding Llama

Actually in the office physically today.  I took the left over Round Rock donuts into the office to get rid of them because otherwise I would have eaten them all.  Dan brought in bagels for the office too.  So it was not a good morning for my diet.

I got up and worked in the hotel this morning until PSX came to pick me up to take me to breakfast.  So I got in most of the morning of work before we headed out.  Dominica had packed up most of the room for me so there was very little for me to do.

We had a good turnout at breakfast.  The “day after” breakfast is always a very small affair with only the most hard core SpiceWorld attendees making it out.  It’s a good time, though.

Then it was back up to Dallas and working from home for the afternoon.  We couldn’t resist stopping off at Round Rock Donuts as we passed by, of course.

The Ralstons had to be on the road before I could make it home.  I missed them by about an hour.  We had a lot of extra donuts as I had stocked up assuming that they would be eating them too.

Spent the evening hanging out with the girls.

We slept in a little bit this morning.  I was rushing to get down for breakfast before they were done.  I did make it in time to have breakfast with Danielle, Grey, Katie, etc. before getting off to the morning sessions.  Dominica was feeling kind of sick, all of the Austin partying ran her down and she has the flu that has been going around.  So she spent much of the morning in bed and I didn’t see her until she came down for lunch.  But she didn’t get to have lunch with me today as I was at the private “Spicy Peppers” table.

My ride back to Dallas ended up having to leave the event suddenly with kidney stones.  So I had to find a new ride in a panic.  Fortunately PSX is heading back tomorrow and can drive me back home.

After the event wrapped up we headed down to the Highball for the annual “Scott Alan Miller Afterparty” that we’ve been having for four years now.  We had a great turnout this year – about thirty eight people.  We really surprised the Highball with that many people showing up.  We always get drinks and dinner there for the people who are waiting to head to flights and those who don’t want to hit Sixth Street.  We did dinner there and then Dominica had to take off to drive to Houston to see Liesl and Luciana.  Danielle left just after the conference with Kim to drive back to Dallas.  Katie had to leave at lunch to fly to Tampa.

After the afterparty, those of us remaining, which was a pretty big group of nearly thirty, we took cabs over to Touche’s and spent the evening there.  Tons of flaming Dr. Peppers.  I called it an early night, though, heading back to the hotel around midnight.

Tomorrow morning we have breakfast at Denny’s, as we always do, then back to Dallas.

Today is the first “official” day of SpiceWorld 2012.  Dominica woke me up at seven this morning and I shot out of bed and had no idea where I was or how I ended up in Austin.  That was a very weird sensation to say the least.  Under normal conditions I can wake up, keep my eyes close and pretty accurately tell you the date, time, day of the week, where I am, my orientation within the room, etc.  Today I had none of that.  Very disorienting.

So I got up and before eight we were down to the convention (which is held in the same hotel where we are staying so it is just a matter of walking downstairs) to get breakfast with the crew before going on to the first sessions.  I always skip the opening presentations because it is the most general of all of the talks and a good opportunity for me to keep up with work and make sure that the office does not need me at all.  Dominica and Danielle went to the opening sessions without me.

It was a busy but successful day.  SpiceWorld is always fun.  The weather was perfect this year and Dominica seems to be enjoying the conference too; she has been able to attend a lot more sessions than me.

My big surprise of the day was discovering that Symantec came out just to meet up with me.  They did manage to get about an hour of my time so it was decently effective.

The after hours party today was held at the Texas State History Museum which is a really cool venue.  The food was all from famous Austin food trucks which made for a neat variety and some really incredible food.  I spent most of the evening sitting outside as the venue itself was too loud for me to be in comfortably.

After the official party was over it was the usual walk down to Sixth Street.  We all went to Shakespeare’s tonight and spent the entire night hanging out on the balcony.  Dominica wasn’t feeling too well so went back to the hotel a little early.  Andy and I had to carry Kim back as she wasn’t able to walk on her own.

Today is the kick off of SpiceWorld 2012, this is my fourth time attending SpiceWorld.  I don’t like that SpiceWorld starts on a Monday this year but it does make it nice that today is a holiday at work so I was able to sleep in after last night’s late night party and we were able to putter around the house and take care of things before getting in the car around noon, Dominica and I, and driving down to Austin for the day.

The drive down went fine.  It is hard to believe that I have not been in Austin for an entire year.  It is crappy that we live so close yet never take the time to go down to one of our favourite cities.  I guess we really don’t get much time to enjoy living in Dallas either, though.  Life just flies by too quickly.

We got down to Austin with plenty of time to get to our hotel at the AT&T Conference Center and get checked in.  Of course I ran into lots of people even early on like Jenn and Katie from Unitrends, Rob Dunn and others and ended up hanging out with a lot of people early on before even getting a chance to settle in.

We had a large entourage together to head to the first activity of the day which was the SpiceLeader (those who run regional SpiceCorps groups) meetup down on Sixth.  Danielle had driven down separately from us and she and Katie, who are also staying at AT&T right down the hall from us, met up with us at this point.  So about a dozen of us walked downtown to the first event.

The first even was just an hour long and just drinks.  There were some snacks but all meat-oriented so I didn’t partake in any of those.  Even if I had wanted to I was swamped talking with people as they arrived so it was a very busy hour.  It was a nice introduction for Dominica and Danielle who have never met any SpiceHeads before except for those from SpiceCorps DFW.  So this really all worked out extremely well that they knew a few people from SpiceCorps (DFW group sends a lot of people down to SpiceWorld every year) and then had this soft introduction to SpiceWorld with a very limited group so that they got introduced in stages.

After the initial part it was on to “The Stage” for the main kick off party.  That was the party that went until around eleven at night.  It’s always great getting to SpiceWorld and reconnecting with the people from past years and seeing the people that I talk to online day in and day out.  There are always old friends and new faces.  This year Kim knew us from SpiceCorps and even though she had been to SpiceWorld in the past had not really gotten introduced to anyone in the “in” crowd so this year she got to join us and actually get to know people.

From the main party it was, as it always is, off to Touche’s for the real beginning of the SpiceWorld party.  We’ve been starting off the SpiceWorld “in crowd” event now for four years ever since I was first taken to Touche’s by the VC firm after the second night of SpiceWorld 2009 for flaming Dr. Peppers – now a SpiceWorld tradition.

It was quite a night and I don’t remember most of it.  I know that we moved on from Touche’s but don’t know where we went from there.  Everyone had a blast.  It was really great that Dominica was able to go with me for a change.  We definitely appreciated getting a chance to really go out and not have to worry about getting home.  That does not happen very often at all.