So, throwing yourself at the mercy of the universe occasionally does work out. I'm on a couch here in Austin, TX, mere miles from downtown and the famous and ever popular SXSW music fest.
The whole journey started this morning, when Sarah twittered about going to SXSW today, to catch some band. So I called her and asked if she could delay an extra half hour, to give me time to get my shit together ( I thought we were leaving tomorrow). She told me she didn't really have shit together either, and so I had time, meet at her house, and everything would be cool.
It took for-ev-er to get out of OKC though- one thing after another kept going wrong, or errands that should have taken just a few minutes took an hour, and on and on. It was like the karmic forces of the city didn't want to let us go. Finally, after something like 2 hours of running around, we were ready to go.
The drive down was good- there was a nice sunset, some McD's, a little nap, and not a few pictures. I drove the last 40 minutes, and after a couple tries, parallel parked the car on an off street east of downtown. We got on our bikes, and not two minutes later were yelled at by some cops. Nice job austin PD, making people new in town feel welcome.
So, jetting away from that situation (nice thing about bikes in a city- there's little chance for someone in a car to catch you), we found ourselves right in the middle of the maddness, on the mainline, we hit the central nerve, etc, etc. Only to be greeted by a sign outside all the official venues: no photography without a press pass. Bullshit I say. The good news is that for the most part we're going to be frequenting unofficial parties and venues; apparently that's where the best parts are.
Went from there to the long branch, which was a cool little joint. Nice atmos, good music, interesting clientele (if you could call them that). I had a couple beers, and that (and a short ride back to the car, and a short car ride) brings me to the present tense. Oh yeah, and there's a crazy jumpy dog in the house we're staying at.
