Armadillocon Thursday

I set the alarm for 4:45 am. I woke up at 4:43 and decided I could sleep another hour, so I reset the alarm.

Up at the appointed hour. I do the final loading of the truck. I'd done most of it the night before. The only stuff left was the art that would ride in the bed of the truck on the way to Austin, and the bag of clothes for the weekend.

With a quick stop at Shipley's, I was on my way.

Took the Beltway around, up to 290 and off in the direction of Austin. Traffic was a breeze and, when the decision point came, the timing was such that I decided make the detour to Taylor for kolaches for the weekend.

Onward to the hotel. They had my room ready, so I off-loaded everything into the room. It took me about 5 trips with my dolly.

Then on to various local errands.

Frist stop: Central Market for root beers for the weekend: Frostie, St. Arnold's, Hank's, and one other (maybe Weidman?). Not impressed with the one whose name I can't remember, but the others were quite nice. Frostie is my favorite, but I need to do a blind taste with the other two.

Next stop: Aikido of Austin. I was going to miss the sessions back home, so I thought I'd try to watch a session while in Austin. It was cool. They did jo work, which is not something we do in our classes.

Texas Store Fixtures. I bought some stuff for the slatwall in my woodworking shop: baskets and shelves and such.

Hung around the hotel a bit, calling some artists that I was trying to meet. then we started unloading the art show steel. That went quickly and by the time we were done, it was time to head off to dinner at Threadgill's.

I was blessed with the task of getting the Guest of Honor, John Scalzi, to the restaurant. I was given general directions and made it to the general area of the restaurant quickly. At that point, I knew not how to proceed. So, I asked for directions at a local tire store. The restaurant was just one block away at that point. We made it safely and drew a round of applause as we arrived.

After dinner was a trip down to see the Congress Street Bridge Bats. They decided to fly out from the bridge over the river instead of straight up into the air. Our viewing pleasure was reduced because of this decision of the plying mammals, but it was still neat.

Then on back to the convention hotel to set up the steel for the Art Show. We managed to finish around 11pm.

Off to the Con Suite for a brief break and then to bed.