Sheep Guarding Llama

We were all dragging this morning when we got up in Austin for SpiceWorld’s second full day.  Today is the day when I am speaking and I have very little voice left after two nights of shouting at the bar all evening.

We were not as early this morning over to the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar where the conference is being held.  Yesterday was way too early.

I drove in to the conference today to make things easier since I have to leave at the end of the day anyway – no drinking for me today.  It is a lot more convenient to drive than to have to deal with the cabs all day.

My talk on Open Storage seemed to go over very well this morning.  It was a mostly packed house as I talked about the “history” of storage technologies and looked at the big picture of how storage applies to small and medium businesses today.  I think that it went well.  I was the one session to work without using PowerPoint slides.  I used cardboard boxes and duct tape for my presentation.  I got a lot of good response after the talk was done.

Work was very, very busy today which was rough as I was at the conference and had to miss all kinds of things while I attempting desperately to keep up.  I had to set up my laptop in the hallway and work from there much like I did last year.  I did receive some notifications and a special “only two people have them” t-shirts to honour my awesomeness.

After the conference was over I actually got stuck working for an hour or two, alone, in the lobby of the Alamo Drafthouse after everyone had left while I waiting for the evening deployments to complete and then for my Windows machine to complete its updated and shut down.

Once I was finally free I went over to the Highball and joined everyone who was there having dinner.  This was the serious conference crew who knew enough to schedule time to get together after the main event was over.  So we had a good time with the people who really knew each other hanging out for several more hours.

Kevin and Pam (yes, from Newark) showed up at the Highball with their friend and we hung out and had dinner too.  That was a bit of a surprise.  Kevin got to meet a bunch of people that he talks to on a regular basis but has never met previously.  It worked out pretty well.

With all of the people hanging at the Highball I ended up staying in Austin far too late.  It was around nine when I finally pulled out and headed north.

No sooner than I came through Round Rock on I35 going north than I blew the right rear tire right off of the Mazda.  Ugh.  So I had to get that changed to the spare and because it was so late at night I could not drive up to Dallas to get the tire fixed tonight.  So back to the hotel for me.

The crew had migrated to the hotel and was out on the patio when I got there.  So I joined them and got to hang out all evening which actually worked out really, really well in the long run.  We had a really good time hanging out.

I crashed on Watson’s hotel floor tonight.  Tomorrow I have to be up and working at six in the morning which is going to suck.  Then I have to deal with the tires as well.  Then drive to Dallas.  That is a lot for the day after the conference.

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I woke up this morning at five thirty.  A full thirty minutes before my alarm was set to go off.  I was pretty surprised to be awake so early of my own accord but this can often happen when I have been drinking a bit the night before.  For some reason I just don’t need much sleep in that case.  I only got two and a half hours last night.  But I felt pretty good this morning.

I got up and showered.  I was ready by six thirty when Watson’s alarm when off.  A few minutes later Souder came knocking on the door to get me up and working.  He was already ready for the day as well.  So we went down to the lobby to get tea and to strategize while waiting for the rest of the entourage to awaken.

It was seven thirty, when everyone gathered in the lobby to load into the taxis so that we could get on the road to SpiceWorld 2010.  We ended up getting there pretty early before they were even open for breakfast.

The conference went well today.  The first day really focuses pretty heavily on the keynotes and general sessions.  There were three hundred and ten people at the conference this year and the main hall was completely full so instead of attempting to cram in there several of us made our way to the staff and vendor room and watched the events via the broadcast.  Being in the mostly empty room meant that we could easily sprawl out and relax rather than being crammed in.  Much more comfortable.  Of course Souder fell asleep almost instantly and we all had to post about it on Facebook.

One of the fun things about conferences now is that everyone at the conference, especially a partially social media conference like SpiceWorld, is on Twitter, FaceBook and blogging.  You can go online live and be a part of a secondary conversation going on about the live conversation.  If you skip the social media you are actually missing a large portion of the conference.

The conference this year was much like last year – tons and tons and meet and greet opportunities.  It is, in many ways, a huge party for people who almost never get a chance to see each other in person.  It is a lot of fun.  Although I hate being away from my family.

After the conference was officially done for the day the party moved next door to Highball where we had our after-party last year.  The Highball is an awesome venue.  We had a great time hanging out with the gang at Highball.

We went until one thirty in the morning then back to the hotel for what little but of sleep we could squeeze in.

Today is going to be a very busy day.  No way around that.  This week begins a long string of being very, very busy.

Work was quite busy today.  I was scrambling to keep up and to try to get everything possible wrapped up so that I would be able to get out of town at a reasonable time tonight.

At lunch I came home and Dominica and I worked to try to get me as ready as possible to be able to go.  I had hoped to have been able to have had the car packed and ready to go but that did not work out.  Too much to do and way too little time.

I was in the office all afternoon and instead of being wrapped up, in the car and on the road at four thirty it ended up that I didn’t even manage to set foot out of the office until after six and then I had to run home, finish packing the car and set out from there.  It was more like seven by the time that I actually made it away.  Dominica did a ton to get everything ready and get me onto the road.  There is always so much to do when you have to travel and work.

So I was dramatically later getting onto the road than I had planned.  I needed fuel immediately too.  I mean the car was completely empty.

So I stopped at the station just down the street and grabbed food while I was there too.  I discovered that they have an awesome tunafish salad sandwich on wheatberry bread there.  Who would have guessed that there would be great sandwiches at the gas station but it was really tasty.  I will go back there again for sure.  Not the type of gas station that would lead you to believe that their sandwiches would be so good.

I was barely south of Dallas on 35E when Watson, Souder and Dave were looking for me.  The whole day has been a fury of emails as people that I know from all over the country begin to head down to Austin.  The guys who were already there when I was setting out met up with Grey and headed out somewhere for barbecue.

I was very late getting into Austin.  I knew that I was going to miss the bulk of the party at the Speakeasy on Congress but it really could not be helped.    I was very proud of myself making the drive from Irving to downtown Austin, finding the Speakeasy and getting parked without missing a single turn the entire way, without a map or GPS.  I am rapidly becoming a Texan.

I arrived after most of the official festivities and free food were gone.  When I arrived Dorfman was outside which caught me by surprise because I did not think that he was coming this year so seeing him there was quite unexpected.

I got to meet lots of people before I even made it into Speakeasy.  I was outside for more than an hour talking with people as they exited the bar before Dorfman and I even made an attempt to go inside.

Once we got inside we realized that pretty much anyone with SpiceWorld had already disappeared.  We searched around for a while and finally discovered that crew and about half a dozen others up on the rooftop terrace having drinks.  We joined them and hung out at Speakeasy until we shut down the bar.

We had a really good time tonight.  It was good getting to meet lots of “new” people – people that I have been talking to on SpiceWorks for years but have now met in person.  Just like opening night last year, it is so cool getting to make personal contact with all of these people that we talk with every day.

Unlike last year where everyone seemed to stay somewhere on their own, this year most of us all got rooms at the same hotel which made life far easier.  Not only is the transport situation easier but everyone is able to share hotel rooms, find out what is going on easier, coordinate, etc.

It was around three in the morning when Watson and I finally got to sleep.

Today begins another day of waiting and wondering what is happening with the house.  No one seems to be particularly concerned so we are taking that as a good sign but still, given how things have gone with the other houses, we are understandably nervous.  We are especially nervous as we really like this house far more than we had liked the others.

Today became errand day for us.  I worked until around eleven thirty when I had to run home, grab Dominica and head out to take care of a number of important errands that have been building up.

Our first stop was at the Verizon store to get Dominica a new phone.  That ended up taking absolutely forever.  About an hour and a half to get her new phone set up and everything moved over.  She was undecided when we went to the store as to whether she wanted to try a Droid 2 or a Droid X.  The Droid 2 has a physical keyboard but the Droid X has a bigger screen while being smaller and has a better camera.  After playing with both, she decided on the Droid X.

Then it was over across the street to sign some additional paperwork for the new house.  That didn’t take too long but even a short trip across the street here is going to take twenty minutes.

We had lunch at TGI Fridays.  Dominica had decided that she was just in the mood for it.  Once we got there though she realized that they don’t do anything vegetarian so that really did not work out well at all for us.  I was able to get some seafood that was okay for me but not for Dominica but, in the end, it wasn’t really very good.  We really should remember to just not go there no matter how inviting it looks.  Applebee’s likewise took everything vegetarian off of their menu while we were living in New Jersey and we found that there was nothing that we wanted to eat left there.

Then we had to run into Dallas to go to the BMW dealer to pick up the car.  That was almost $1,900 in repairs that we had to have done!  Ugh.  That was not fun.  It took way too long to pick up the car as well.  Not an efficiently run dealership at all.  Not nearly as bad as it was when I had dropped it off but still way too slow.  And after how painful it was to drop off the car I was in no mood to deal with this dealership again.

I rushed back to work and went on with my busy afternoon.  After work we had planned on going to La Cima for dinner but decided that we were too tired and had too much to do that would be better if we were home.  This is my last evening at home for the week so I need to be all ready before going to bed tonight.

It was a normal day with no news on the house or the car until around eleven when Dominica called to tell me that we had a one o’clock appointment with the foundation expert to see what would need to be done on the house before it would be in good shape.  So we had to drop all plans and figure out what to do.

I ran home at twelve and walked Oreo and got the family ready to go.  The inspector was running late so we were in good shape and left at twelve thirty.  We drove over to the office and picked up Dan who had offered to come look at the house with us and give us his opinion as well.

We went to IHOP for lunch since we had time before the inspection.  That worked out well as we were all very hungry.

The inspection went pretty well and pretty quickly.  Ten piers are needed to shore up the foundation which will cost four thousand dollars.  Not cheap at all but far from the possible numbers that we were looking at like ten to thirty thousand at an extreme.  Four thousand is a manageable number and hopefully will be covered by the seller as the work already needs to be done and the walls have already taken damage from the foundation shifting.

Dan liked the house and gave it his seal of approval.  He felt that, overall, the house was in good shape and there was nothing too major about which to be concerned other than the foundation.  Everyone who has gone through the house really likes it which has made us a lot happier about the decision to move forward with the house.  Of course, after the inspection today, it will be at least two days before we can get any feedback from the seller and find out what they are going to do about the foundation.

After the inspection it was back to the office.  I worked very late as there was a lot to do and I was out for a while during the day.

We never heard about the car so we have to wait until tomorrow, I guess, before we can pick it up.  It is going to cost $1,800 to get it fixed.  Just what we need this month.

We ordered in Italian tonight and tried to relax and did some planning for my presentation at SpiceWorld on Friday morning.