SXSW craziness ends with a trip to the beach

The blog posts. The pictures. The videos. The RSVPs. Keeping track of everything in the past few weeks hasn't been easy. I knew covering the South by Southwest Interactive Festival and Conference would be challenging, but I think I still underestimated the amount of work and energy it would take to do it properly.

And boy did it wipe me out.

We went to Port Aransas/Corpus Christi on Sunday to recharge (I didn't even take my laptop!) and now we're back. Here's a quick recap (follow the links to read/see what I posted) in case you weren't skipping and jumping around Statesman.com, Austin360.com and Twitter to follow as I was doing it:

Wine Library TV video blogger and marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk and I did a video ahead of his awesome SXSW panel.

Tyler Florence was in town promoting his line of baby foods.

I covered SXSW panels on how social media is changing how we think about our "friends," what it was like blogging as a teen in the '90s when everyone didn't have an online journal, why professional blogging is bloodsport for women, why Web 2.0 is a woman's world, why we should try to do something epic with our online lives instead of create gimmicky projects, what new trends we'll see for mobile technology (ie buying groceries with our phones) and how the Internet is making sustainable food easier to access.


I, along with Austin360, Whole Foods Market and the Go Texan wine program, hosted a party for food and wine bloggers on March 16 that was a huge success. About 80 food and wine bloggers and their guests ate food from Jesse Griffiths of Dai Due Supper Club and Tyson Cole, above, of Uch (that's Maggie of Maggie's Austin, a local food blog). Hope to make this a yearly event.

Over on my food blog, Relish Austin, I wrote about eating pork belly for breakfast at the Uchi SXSW party, Hudson's on the Bend chef Jeff Blank opening a trailer to sell the famous chicken cone and Rachael Ray's big SXSW party, which featured the New York Dolls and the Hold Steady, both of whom Erin and I mingled with in the artists' lounge.

Did you see the video Rachael and I did? She's a sweet, hard-working girl whose constant cheer still annoys most people, even her fans. Shorter than me, but dressed cute as a button in her best western wear.



And a personal highlight was speaking on a SXSW panel on food blogging. I did a live chat with some of the bloggers the week before the festival, and when they were in town, we chowed on crawfish and cupcakes. My new friend Emily, receiving her very own plastic bib, right, wrote about it for Gourmet.com.















Did I mention we celebrated Ian's birthday with a lovely dinner at Ranch 616?



Whew. When it was all said and done, we headed east, to meet a man about some lamb (or rather for a story about a man with some lamb) and then to the beach, where Julian played in the sand and waves for the very first time. (He's also started drumming with Daddy in the garage.) More photos to come when I get caught back up at work (ie, next year :)).