Tag: Austin

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Blog Texas USA

Report from the Nerd Break at SXSWi

As suspected, not a lot of burning family travel news to come out of my time at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference last week, but here are two items of possible interest to parents….

***  The research work of Dr. danah boyd (yes, she spells it lowercase) into social media usage of people in general, but especially teens.  She argued strongly that privacy is not dead, but you must take much more control of your privacy than you did before the ubiquitous Web.  My feeling is that parents must help in this area, but how many of them are tech-savvy enough to do so?

Here is a video excerpt from her opening keynote and here is a summary of her presentation on the excellent site ReadWriteWeb (with the so-true quote, “By and large, teenagers, according to Boyd, are more conscious about what they can gain by being public, while adults worry more about what they could lose.”)

***  The explosive growth of smartphones continues and will continue as more and more new models and services are offered (my own teen does not have one, but I can see the day coming – for now she works on her mad texting skillz.)   What does it mean when your kid has the Web in his/her pocket?

The biggest techy buzz out of “South by” this year was location-based games like Foursquare and Gowalla, where people can “check in” to different locations and collect virtual prizes for doing so.  The games are more addictive than you’d think (I play and I normally dislike games, and on Foursquare you don’t need a smartphone to play) but there are security implications to revealing your exact physical location to the whole planet, via the Web.

I strongly recommend talking about that with your tweens/teens before they jump into these services.

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Philosophy Texas USA

My travel goal: one new local place or event per month

Travel Guide Kitteh says Pace Yourself (Courtesy I Can Haz Cheezburger)I don’t know about you, but I’ve kinda run out of travel gas.

Not for me (I’ll jump onto a plane or into a car anytime by my own crotchety self) but the idea of a family trip these days makes me want to lay down and take a nap.

Squabbling siblings in the back seat.

One kid who tends to carsickness.

Flat wallet and no lottery wins in sight.

Living in a huge state (Texas) that takes 3-4 hours to get OUT of by car.

General post-holidays lassitude.

Bleh.

So, here’s my plan for getting some travel-ish action going with minimal mental effort on my part….I’m going to look at our Austin Big Weekend Calendar, pick one new place or event every month that’s close to home, and drag the family to it, arguing and barfing the whole way.

January’s almost finished, but for the next 30 days I’ve targeted the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center (free admission in January) and either a Texas Roller Girls Roller Derby bout or a Texas Stars ice hockey game.

The wildflowers aren’t up yet (so at least one kid will say, “Why are we here looking at dead plants?”) and we’ve never gone to either a roller derby or ice hockey game (so at least one kid will say, “Why are we here watching a) women slam into each other or b) men slam into each other?”) but I don’t care.

That’s the plan to overcome travel ennui.

How about you?

(Update:  My teen said this morning that since she and a friend saw the derby-based movie Whip It (set in Austin) she actually WANTS to see live roller derby.  Who knew?!)

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Texas USA

Classic kid movies in classic theaters – yay!

Enthralled movie watcher at Atlanta's Fox Theatre (courtesy hoyasmeg at Flickr CC)There is great excitement in our household – the schedule was released yesterday for the annual Summer Film Series at our downtown Paramount Theater in Austin.

Everyone wants to see Mary Poppins on the big screen, especially our favorite number set on the rooftops of London, “Step in Time.”

Sainted Husband and I are wondering if our 9-year-old son is ready for getting through Casablanca without his teen sister (and us) smacking and shushing him too much. I’m going to try to explain Free and Occupied France during World War II and show him a map of Morocco ahead of time, so the story makes sense.

I want to see From Here To Eternity on the big screen; maybe a date night?

And that’s just on the first weekend of the series, in mid-May. Bliss!

In June, we’ve got to go back for Fiddler on the Roof, perhaps the Streisand weepie The Way We Were (get my teen surreptitiously bawling, I’ll bet) plus Singin’ in the Rain, the hilarious Some Like it Hot….the Paramount even brings in live musicians to accompany some of the silent movies, and they sometimes show old cartoons before the movie instead of obnoxious multiplex-like ads.

We’re considering simply moving in, pitching tents and ordering pizza delivered to the lobby.

My Dad, a native Austin-ite, still talks about the first movie he saw at the Paramount, when it was called the Majestic; “It was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man in 1943. Scared the hell out of me!”

The Executive Director of the Paramount, Ken Stein (who writes the fun blog Off-Stage with Ken Stein) freely admits that the Summer Film Series is not so much a money-maker as it is a way to keep the theater active during slow summer days, and to bring people into the Paramount who may have never considered going. Once patrons see the gorgeous interior and enjoy their experience (without a big entry price, either) they often come back for the more expensive concerts and performances at other times of the year.

Does your town, or one nearby, have a classic theater like the Paramount, or maybe the beautiful Art Deco Fox Theater that I just visited in downtown Hutchinson, Kansas?  See if they have any classic summer movies, and take your family to see them as they were meant to be seen, on a truly large screen in a lovely theater.

If they don’t, well, try to convince the owner/manager that such events help to draw people into sometimes-struggling downtown areas that are working on redevelopment.

When you travel, even to small towns, poke around ahead of time to see if there’s a classic downtown theater that has something going on while you’re there.

A few positive movie experiences can make lifelong classic theater fans out of your children.

Now, pardon me while I go see what’s playing in steamy-hot July and August…

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Blog Texas USA

Reflections on an excellent travel blogging panel at SXSWi

sxswi-travel-blogging-panel-courtesy-bj-mccrayThe room was packed as Pam Mandel and I launched our Blog Highways: Travel Blogging for the Wanderer panel at the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference here in Austin.

For Twitter-networked folks, the hashtag was #sxswtravel and the live-tweets were flying from Shannon (@Cajun_Mama) of the Traveling Mamas and Kelly (@kag2u) from Travellious, to name just two.

Thanks also to the biceps/triceps of Canadian travel and tourism marketing expert Todd Lucier, who streamed the panel live to the Web as it happened, using Qik from his cell phone (see Part One video of the panel and Part Two video.)  I’ve shot video from a Flip Ultra, and your arms start to ache holding the camera extra-steady, so I appreciate Todd’s hanging in there for an entire hour.

UpTake’s Elliott Ng attended and wrote a summary post on the UpTake Travel Industry blog; thanks also to writer Laura Moncur and the Austin American-Statesman for their coverage. My co-panelist Pam had her own insights on the panel.

Since others summarized the meat of the panel topics and discussions, here are some of my Big Picture thoughts:

*** Ensure that your audience is comfortable and involved, both in the room and out.  Pam and I scoped out the panel room ahead of time and rearranged everything to bring in more chairs and move a table.  We knew there would be floor-sitters, but we tried to ensure that they had good sightlines. We arranged in advance for people to live-tweet and live-stream, to serve those watching in other timezones around the world. Details matter if you want to step up and bring your A-Game as a speaker.

*** Try to have info nuggets for both newbies and experienced people. Pam discussed basic blog design issues like “yellow on black background is NOT readable,” because she still sees things like that all the time as the Travel Editor at BlogHer.  It’s apparently not too “basic” for some out there.  I spoke briefly about using Utterli to make audio blog posts from your cell phone (for bloggers who are ready to move beyond icky yellow font conundrums.)

*** Experts in the audience enrich the discussion, but speakers must always keep the discussion on track. We’ve all seen conference panels hijacked by big mouths “asking questions” when they’re really making rambling statements. As a yakky, opinionated person myself, I have an inner “Shut up, Sheila!” button that I often poke at conferences. We did NOT have that problem at all; in fact Todd Lucier and Matthew Cashmore of Lonely Planet had super-valuable advice in response to a couple of specific questions from our audience. Don’t be threatened by experts if you’re a speaker; they can enrich your content immeasurably as long as they’re on topic (plus, Cashmore later showed me the new Lonely Planet iPhone app — how cool is that?!)

*** I need to do a better job of creating content on the fly during events/conferences. This post should have gone up days ago; I’m too slow. Every travel blogger has his/her own style – I edit carefully and need quiet time to write full posts, so I need to learn to create other types of content that I can post rapidly without obsessing. Twitter is perfect for me and I use it, but with some concentrated effort I could toss up more photo posts, more to Flickr and TwitPic, more to Facebook, etc. This blog basically went dormant for a week, which is unacceptable to me. The total irony is that my main SXSWi presentation was about how to find maximum blog post material in a short period of travel time, by “thinking like a blogger.” I’m great at finding the material, but not efficient enough in quickly producing timely content from my thoughts.

*** Grab good ideas and go with them despite the extra work, i.e. our travel swag bag at the panel. Pam and I pulled together and bagged up a bunch of travel-related gifts and goodies for the first 45 Blog Highways attendees (I’ll be writing about the bag contents in more detail soon on UpTake’s Travel Industry blog.) It seems to have gone over well, and the surprise added excitement and buzz to our presentation, so it was worth running around town getting things and navigating the tons of stuff piled up in my living room.

I’m so happy to have had the opportunity to present at SXSWi, collaborate with Pam and meet so many other travel enthusiasts, both in person and online. Thank you for the encouragement and support.

There are other travel blogging panels coming up in 2009 – Travel Bloggers as Boundary-Breaking Evangelists on Saturday, July 25 at the sold-out BlogHer conference in Chicago, the Travel Blog Exchange meetup in Chicago on July 26, a travel track has been added to Blog World & New Media Expo in Las Vegas October 2009 and Travel Blog Camp in London, on November 10 and hosted by the UK’s Darren Cronian of Travel Rants.

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Photos Texas USA

Photo of the Week: My Guest Room

hotel-knucklehead-bfwThis Three Stooges sign is on the door to my guest room.

I’m running around cleaning it (and the rest of the house) because Austin’s South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) tech conference starts this Friday, March 13.

As a resident of the Austin metro area and a traveling guest-room-borrower myself, I’m happy to host fellow geeks at this event.

This year’s guests include social media communicator extraordinaire Liz Strauss and the multi-talented Becky McCray, who specializes in small businesses in small towns and rural areas.

On Saturday, March 14, I’ll be speaking at SXSWi about travel blogging (our panel is called Blog Highways: Travel Blogging for the Wanderer) with Seattle-based writer and photographer Pam Mandel.

We intend to pack our panel room in the Austin Convention Center….but first, Hotel Knucklehead has sheets to wash and vacuuming to do!

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Photos Texas USA

Photo of the Week: Ode to Amy’s Ice Creams in Austin

Have you noticed that my family hasn’t traveled anywhere lately? Yeah, we’ve noticed too. 🙁

I’m moderately sulky about it, but I’m determined to fill in the void by exploring my own backyard, in Austin and Central Texas.

We ran around downtown last weekend trying to get to the annual Kite Festival in Austin’s Zilker Park, but the traffic and parking were too crazy (it was a gorgeous, perfectly windy day, too.)

We decided to drown our sorrows with some Crush’ns at Amy’s Ice Creams, an Austin institution since 1984. My son had M&Ms crushed into Vanilla Bean ice cream, and Sainted Husband and I had Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups crushed into Belgian Chocolate ice cream (for me) and Dark Chocolate (for him.)

Amy’s doesn’t use a cold mixing board like Marble Slab or Cold Stone Creamery – they claim a room temperature board does a better job of bringing out the flavors. Their zany, joking staff brings out the laughter, even when the customer line snakes out the door, as it did when we visited.

We love Amy’s!

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Texas USA

A day out with kids in Austin, Texas

I don’t know about you, but lack of time and cash flow have both combined to really crimp the ol’ travel plans this winter.  Too bad, because you can find lots of bargains in January and February, when many places are in the off-season and people are busy cocoon-ing in their houses.

This past weekend, we had a nice Saturday in downtown Austin, Texas, and even though it wasn’t a “trip” per se, it was at least a day out of the house despite rather crummy weather.

Our main reason for heading downtown was a summer camp fair sponsored by Austin Family Magazine. Yes, it’s already time to think about summer camp options, and we wanted to get on the ball because I’ll quite cheerfully admit that we blow it every year and my kids tend to end up in front of video games instead of leaping into some Hill Country lake, as they should be doing during a sweltering Texas summer.

If we hadn’t gone to the fair, we still might have had some fun at the excellent Austin Children’s Museum or maybe the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, which has three floors of exhibits and a popular IMAX theater.

The Texas Capitol is also in Austin and is always good for a stroll, especially when the Legislature is in session. There’s a good Visitor’s Center to get you started.

We also keep meaning to check out the O. Henry House (the famous author lived in Austin for awhile) but I particularly want to take the family to see the annual O. Henry Pun-Off, held every May. My Sainted Husband and son adore puns!

As for our personal excursion, once we finished at the camp fair, we drove over to Zilker Park to see if anyone was swimming at Barton Springs, a lovely freshwater spring pool that is open year-round, with a constant 68 degree F water temperature.

That means that on a 45 degree day, the water feels positively balmy, and we watched a couple of lap swimmers motoring through the 3 acres of clear spring water.

(We also needed to make a bathroom call for the kids. Don’t they ever go at a convenient time?)

After admiring a nice view of the Austin skyline from Zilker, we headed back down Barton Springs Road to find some dinner. Local Tex-Mex joint Chuy’s is a perennial hit (the downtown location has a room with the entire ceiling covered in car hubcaps) but I was feeling burger-y so we went to Hut’s on Sixth Street.

It’s been around forever and serves up excellent burgers, fries and humongous onion rings. The waitstaff is friendly and efficient, and there are lots of kids.

We wanted a reasonably quick turnaround, because we were wrapping up the day at the venerable Paramount Theater on Congress Avenue – they were playing a beautifully restored 70 mm version of the movie West Side Story, on a big screen, the way it was meant to be seen. My nine-year-old son likes music and dance, and he loved it.

The Paramount has a popular summer film series that’s a don’t-miss here in Austin, but they play special movies throughout the year plus lots of superb live performances, many quite family-friendly. The theater’s Executive Director even writes an excellent blog, Off-Stage with Ken Stein.

My Dad went to the Paramount as a child, and he always comments that his first movie there was Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, which apparently scared the daylights out of him.

I promise future Austin and Texas highlights, as we continue to travel close to home. Let me know if you have any particular requests.

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Texas USA

First Night Austin: family-friendly music and theater

I’ve been semi-unplugged for a few days (long overdue, I might add) but want to recommend that you keep a lookout in December for any First Night celebrations – we’ve gone to several with our kids and they’re a nice way to spend New Year’s Eve.

This year’s First Night in Austin, Texas included the usual excellent Congress Avenue parade (here’s the parade video that I shot last year) and some fun new toys and performers.

My son played on the Mobile Vertical Xylophone (by John Rossini) which as described in our First Night brochure is a

“….massive interactive three octave xylophone designed and constructed out of common construction materials….galvanized pipe and ipe [wood]….”

You drop the wooden note onto the pipe to make music, which sounds better than you’d think.

We also watched a live theater performance (under a bridge overpass – great acoustics!) with the performing group Debutantes and Vagabonds; lots of sound effects and goofiness.

It was part of their full production of “A Brilliant Revolution” that will premiere at a local Austin theater in March.

Over on the Perceptive Travel Blog, I covered the highlights of another First Night act, Austin-based ArcAttack and their electronic music made from giant Tesla coils.

It was a Happy New Year for all of us….

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Blog Texas USA

We’re talking travel blogging at South by Southwest

//sxsw.com) Well, hurray for success the second time around….

Last year, I sent in a proposal for a travel blogging panel at SXSWi (the South by Southwest Interactive tech/online media conference) here in Austin, Texas, but it was not selected.

I only pouted for about a week, really.

Always bull-headed, I tried again this year and re-submitted my proposal, since I figured that it was a good idea that deserved another try.

The conference organizers apparently agreed; I just got an email telling me that Blog Highways: Travel Blogging for the Wanderer is on the docket for the next SXSWi, to be held in downtown Austin March 13-17, 2009.

My outstanding co-presenter will be writer/photographer Pam Mandel —  she is the BlogHer Travel Editor, writes and takes photos on Nerd’s Eye View and corrals a lively crew of bloggers on the Travelblogger’s Forum.

There will be a gaggle of experts in the audience as well to lend their insights and advice; I hear that Condé Nast Traveler‘s Wendy Perrin may attend, and Leif Pettersen of Killing Batteries unless he’s stuck in Italy during March updating the Lonely Planet Guide to Tuscany (let’s see….Austin or Tuscany? Hmmm, tough call.)

Thanks to all who have supported this idea and left wonderfully supportive comments through two Panel Picker iterations, and I look forward to seeing all of you in person at “South by.”

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Blog

South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive, travel blogging and you

South by Southwest banner, Austin Convention Center (Scarborough photo)One of the biggest creative blowouts of the year is down the road from me in Austin, Texas: South by Southwest (SXSW.) It’s actually a three-parter conference of Interactive, Film and Music.

The organizers describe the Interactive portion as a conference for “the brightest minds in emerging technology,” including bloggers.

Hey, that’s me!  (Well, the blogger part – I dunno about the “brightest minds” part.)

This will be my third consecutive SXSWi coming up March 13-17, 2009; I would not miss it.

Technology is changing the world too much, including the travel world, for anyone to remain intimidated by the pocket-protector crowd….and as far as I’ve been able to tell, there’s never been a single pocket protector around, just a lot of interesting, fun people with glowing laptops and iPhones.

I have a blast when I attend  –  who knew that so much of Interactive is panels about blogging, podcasting and online media? As a writer and Web 2.0 geek, I’m in heaven.

This year, I’ve proposed a panel on travel blogging for SXSWi 2009, and I’d like to request your assistance in commenting and voting, because this process closes after tomorrow, August 29th.

The “Panel Picker” lets possible SXSWi attendees indicate which panels really interest them, and that weighs heavily into whether a panel is ultimately scheduled for the conference.

If you’re thinking about infiltrating SXSWi (and there’s something there for everyone, with 1,300 panel proposals) or are simply a travel blogging enthusiast, then I would request that you complete the quick/free registration process and please vote for my proposed panel:

Blog Highways: Travel Blogging for the Wanderer

Either as a speaker or audience member, I still plan to attend and get my geek on.  Thanks so much for your support!