For your viewing pleasure, the Team Newman SXSW Interactive video montage:

Seriously! We showed up at 6:58 (registration started at 7 p.m.) and we breezed through the line and secured our lanyards. We go back downstairs to find at least 500 folks standing there like dominoes looking at us like we’re walking by them wearing The Precious. And we were. SUCKERS!

I love being a dork.

After a two-hour ice/sleet/WTF-is-this-weather delay, Team Newman arrived safely in Austin this morning around 11. We moseyed to our fabulous hotel with complementary wireless, got a little work done and then headed out to have the world’s best margaritas at Cantina Laredo. Oh, yes. We know it’s a chain. We don’t care.

Then it was on to the Starbucks to pick up a match to our everyday china, and now we chill in the lobby counting down the minutes til we wait in a very long line for our SXSW Interactive lanyards (cue heavenly host angel chorus).

It feels good to get away on a mini work/play-cation. Need anything from Austin? Lotta beer here. Lotta coyboy hats. Feels a lot like Nashville, honestly. 

Oh, and thanks, Amy, for Twittering this grub suggestion. We’ll totally check it out this weekend!

You know how it’s good to every now and then boil or put your tooth brush in the dishwasher to kill the germs? Well, you aren’t supposed to do that to the Sonicare toothbrushes. You are supposed to REPLACE THEM.

Just a little FYI for you…and me.

(sigh)

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Woo Hoo! Team Newman is just three days away from descending upon Austin for South by Southwest Interactive.  Although it’s not a total vacation (we’ll still be working on the road) we are ready to get out and about and learn something new… an expectation that makes me a little nervous.

See, SX has traditionally been a predominantly male, Apple product lovin’, geek haven. As attendees, we’d feast our eyes on new technologies, books and ideas that would debut there. And here’s the catch: the stuff really was new. Three years ago, Twitter launched at SX as a way for festival peeps to keep up with each other as we moseyed about Austin. It fell off the radar for a while and then suddenly, about 16 months ago, Twitter popped back up to the surface. And now CNN and MSNBC are hailing Twitter as a “new” social media site. But, you see, it’s not new. At least not to SX-goers.

Which brings me to my point about this year’s SX — there’s a lot of social media stuff on the slate and I just PRAY there is something new, something fabulous, for me to learn this year. I will just DIE if I get there and sit through six days of “How to use Twitter” or “Social Media 2.0″.  What if I get there and instead of the geek crowd it’s nothing but normal people? What if the “new” stuff is nothing more than the popular/mainstream stuff? I really think I’ll cry.

So, I’ve got this little bit of fear going on; that said, I simply can’t wait to touch down on Austin soil, stand in line for two hours to get my prized lanyard, drink free beer, meet fabulous new friends, find my online peeps, hold hands with my hubby and learn new stuff.

Oh! And I’m sure I’ll also do something completely random this year like dance at a goth bar and put temporary tattoo on my forehead just to get a free t-shirt (a la SX 2007). No worries, I’ll be blogging, taking photos and rolling video from SX so you’ll totally feel like you are there for every odd and geekish thing we do!  Stay tuned!

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Check it out! Got to meet Steve Sullivan AND tell him about how I cried when he came back. He was sweet, but I think I scared him a little. And that complete GOOBER look on my face is the result of a couple of sips of wine and having just sprinted down the floor after Sully once Dave spotted him.

Anyway! Team Newman had a blast at the Preds Disco Ball. We met just about every player…and by “met” I mean I ran up to each dude and begged him to let me take his photo and then I would giggle and Dave would snap the picture. We had a blast!  You can check out a brief video of the go-go dancers here.

The food good was good, the music was great and the people were fabulous.

Here are some photos for ya:

Ah, the tortured existence of a teeny tiny dog. Lying in the sun, trying to keep one eye on her daddy while fighting off the sandman. Being a poodle is HARD. Staying awake is even harder:

So, Kriste Goad and I decided to take a stroll down Commerce this afternoon to check out the rumored concert and free Hot Diggity Dogs thinking it would be a few folks and a the city’s best beef franks. It actually turned out to be hundreds of peeps, Hot Diggity sans coleslaw, and some of the best people watching I’ve done in a while.

We turned the corner and saw Jamey Johnson on a huge stage smack in the middle of 5th and Commerce. His faithful masses had apparently camped out since early morning just to get a glimpse of this bearded wonder. They knew all the words to every song, did a lot of WOOOOOOOOOOOO! ing, etc. And I was all, “who the heck IS this dude?”  Then I heard him close the show with this tune, “Give it Away,” which I remember hearing George Strait sing years ago. Johnson wrote it, so that made me feel a little better.

Anyway, here’s an itty bitty recap in case you missed it:

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• Watch Jamey Johnson’s Thursday performance live on the internet (nashvillegab.com)