An arrangement of short clips from our trip to Ireland.

We’ll be heading to Ireland in a few months. According to these two screenshots from Google Maps Ireland is ready for our arrival.

The Irish Pub is a true pub. The drinks were cheap but good, the food was reasonable and excellent, and the company was as greasy as the fries (which is a good thing). Contrast that to the “bar” that is inside our resort – where the drinks were $14 each, we had no company, and they didn’t serve food. These types of touristy-flashy places have their place in the world – I just prefer the dives, the diners, and the pubs.

In every city I’ve ever been in the side streets, the alleyways – anywhere off the beaten path – has been where the best places are. This is why Eliza and I rarely plan our trips – we’d rather let them happen naturally by digging into the crevices of wherever we are.

We both highly recommend The Irish Pub. If you see Bill, the guy that looks like Leprechaun, tell him Colin and Eliza said hi. He’s great.

Example: Want to know what is going on in the music scene tonight in Hawaii? Check out the music category. By doing so I found out via Dr. Trey that tonight, from 6 to 9 at Jimmy Buffet’s I could have listened to Mailani Makainai.

Too bad I’m not on Oahu at the moment.

As more Twitter users that are in Hawaii added to the site its value is sure to skyrocket. I think the real time searches of the entire Twitterverse add even more value. Such as anyone that has recently mentioned Hawaii on Twitter. I’d love to see more geographic areas and keyword searches added to the list. This way when you’re out and about you can find on what is going on in the area you are, rather than just in Hawaii in general. With a little hacking of the URL you can do this yourself. I did a quick hack for Hanauma Bay (one of my favorite places on the planet). But imagine if you could quickly find out where everyone was surfing today. Valuable, marketable, and useful stuff.

I’m sure Barefeet Studios has many more ideas for InHawaiiNow. I’m glad Hawaii has a service like this and I think many travel destinations should definitely consider doing something similar – perhaps somehow even on their official sites for their area.

A more geeky reason that I like this site is because Shane used Code Igniter, a PHP MVC framework, that I rather adore. More on this later.

Wow. This could be a really, really long list. I would say most people’s favorite places are within 2 hours from their home because, well, they are relatively close to their home. Obviously I have some favorite places on this earth that are no where near where I live (which is in northeastern Pennsylvania, btw). Hawai’i, New York City, some places in North Carolina and Florida, as well as various locations in California all immediately spring to mind. But they don’t count!

So, since this list will be too incredibly long to deal with – lets focus for a bit and simply create a tag here on the blog to create this list overtime. We’ll call this tag 2hourfavs.

Watch that tag. It will probably get pretty big.

No Reservations Australia was about food. Not necessarily Australian food either. More like food that happened to be made in Australia. Like so many other places on this planet, globalization is in full effect in Melbourne, Australia. The food is heavily influenced, if not outright made and served by, people from other cultures around the world. This episode, rather than focusing on the Australia we all think we know (shrimp on a barbie, Aborigines eating bats in the outback, and kangaroos) it focused on the side of Australia we probably never knew was there. I blame Crocodile Dundee for my skewed view of Australia.

I suppose Tony’s little black book being chocked full of amazing chefs all over the world helps – since we undoubtedly saw a side of Melbourne cuisine that most of us probably couldn’t afford. But I’m ok with that. No Reservations is the world through Tony’s eyes – not mine. Through Tony’s contacts, budget, and experience – not mine. And every single week I look forward to that… whether or not it depicts an experience that I could ever have or not.

I decided to make something a little different for this episode. Yes, I made shrimp but I decided to add a little bit of an Italian flare (read: make my own basic tomato sauce and throw it over pasta). There was no indication that Italy has had any real effect on the food in Melbourne, Australia in this episode (although I’m sure it has)… but there was a lot of showing many other areas that obviously have had a huge impact. British, Lebanese, and Sichuan influences were highlighted the most. I need some Sichuan food at my next opportunity.

When No Reservations focuses on food everything else seems to fall into place.

To say that I’m excited, wouldn’t be enough. You all know where I will be on Monday. Sitting on my couch, mouth gaping, a warm pool of drool at my feet, staring at my television – listening to the snarkiest man alive – Anthony Bourdain – talk about meat, fat, butter, and probably cheese in Chile.

That’s an evening of entertainment friends.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

Though I can count, on one hand, the number of times I’ve been to Chicago – I know that I don’t particularly care for the city. It may have to do with the bad experiences I had there – I mean, I did see a few million dollars slip through my fingers during a trip to Chicago, but that is a story for another time – or it may just be that I’ve really never seen the city in the right light.

Being the half-way point on a drive between Pennsylvania and South Dakota, where some of my family have lived for years, I have gone through Chicago in a car, a bus, and over it in an airplane. So far I’ve preferred the airplane.

The only food I’ve ever eaten in Chicago was delivered by room service at a not-so-great hotel. Oh, wait – there was that danish I had from the vending machine at the bus station on West Harrison Street. So, in all honesty and fairness, I have absolutely no idea what Chicago has to offer me in the food department. Which is probably why I’m, again, looking forward to tonight’s episode of No Reservations – Chicago.

Here are five questions that I hope are answered during this episode. And, if they are – I’ll update this post as they happen.

1. What food is Chicago famous for?
2. Will Tony mention anything about the Mob?
3. Isn’t pizza big in Chicago?
4. Why on earth did Tony choose Chicago?
5. Any mention of Oprah will warrant a shot of whiskey.

Ok, so that last one wasn’t a question at all. But – now I’m hoping he mentions Oprah at every single opportunity.  Do you have any questions about Chicago that you’d like to see answered in tonight’s episode? Or, perhaps you’d like to add more shot rules?

PS. I did see on Tony’s blog that he mentions the “mother-in-law” sandwich. My interest is piqued.

As 2009 begins many reflect on what has happened this past year. I’ve read many reflections, updates from last year’s resolutions, countless thoughts on World events, and some have jotted down a list of the places that they traveled to in 2008.

I had the privilege of traveling to many places inside of the United States over the last year. Something that I always find fascinating is that, even though I didn’t leave the country, I have experienced many different cultures. Every city I’ve been to felt very much American yet each had their own history, traditions, and of course food woven into their cultural tapestries.

Being that I’ve lived on the east coast of North America, both northern and southern, for my entire life no other city “feels like America” to me more than New York City. Whenever I travel I feel as though New York City is my barometer for how much a particular area “feels like America” to me. I expect those of you from other parts of the country can relate.

This past year I found myself in close-to-home areas like Philadelphia, New York City, the Finger Lakes region in New York, and even small towns that don’t register on Google Maps unless you zoom way, way in. You know, until all you can see are blocky images of what should be trees. I also visited Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, and the island of Oahu, Hawai’i. In each of these places I never felt as though I left the United States — though I knew that I wasn’t home.

During a recent trip to NYC I had lunch with a few friends at Thai Basil, a restaurant no wider than a large hallway, on 9th Ave. and W 56th St. The food was extremely good and the tea service was a welcomed warm-up from walking the windy streets in midtown Manhattan. In Philadelphia I chose Pat’s over Gino’s every single time. Visiting my brother’s family in North Carolina resulted in my having the very best onion soup of my life during a day trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains. In Las Vegas, of all places, I had an incredible italian meal with some friends from all over the world. In Hawai’i, between the Luau on the beach and the highly Japanese-influenced culture of Waikiki, I managed to scarf down a delicious Puka Dog (pictured) in the very same place that Anthony Bourdain did in the Hawaii episode of No Reservations.

No matter where I traveled this year the culture was always slightly different, being influenced by innumerable factors. I wonder though, does the various cultures that make up the America that I know ever end up influencing the very cultures from which they all originated? This country is incredibly young after all. A new year has begun and I’m very much looking forward to doing some traveling outside of the United States. Maybe I’ll be able to answer this question myself by the time the next year rolls around.

On Monday a new season of No Reservations is starting that will take us, by way of the magic of television, to Mexico. When I first saw the promotional videos for this season and saw that the first episode was Mexico, I immediately wondered how much Mexico “feels like America”. Being one of only two of our mainland neighbors Mexico is about as close as you can get geographically without actually being in the United States. I’ve been to Texas. I’ve seen the influence that Mexico has had on the culture there (Not that it hasn’t had a major influence all over our country.) On Monday, while I’m watching the season premier and eating a gordita filled with some sorta of greasy meat (thanks to my newly-married friend Josue Salazar for the suggestion), that is what I’ll be looking for. Is the influence reciprocal? Is it even palpable? Will Anthony even mention it? I’m excited to find out.

The rest of this season will bring us to Venice, Washington, D.C., the Azores, Chicago, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam. For posterity I’m going to say that I’m most looking forward to the Venice and Sri Lanka episodes. How has Sri Lanka recovered from the Tsunami in late-2004? It seems so long ago now. Was the No Reservations crew drowned in Venice?! All these questions, and more I’m sure, will be answered in the latest season of No Reservations.

I have a goal to get to London next year, so this list will come in handy when that happens. For that reason, and because I think everyone visiting London should take a look at this, I’m sharing it here.

Simon Willison put this Google Map together and I think it is a fantastic list of places to see.

Source: Places to see in London (for geeks). (Opens a Google Map.)
Via: Simon Willison on his blog.

Michael Mistretta, easily the youngest author whose blog I’m subscribed to, recently took a trip to Zambia.  In “Going Beyond Automatic: Photography in Africa” he gives the broad strokes of what the “Automatic” setting is on your camera, and how it takes practice to master “Manual” mode. He also talks a lot about why it isn’t important to focus on the gear you have but the way you look at shooting.

In the very first sentence of this piece I see Michael being slightly frustrated by something that ends up happening far too often to me.  He says: “I haven’t had the chance to write down much of what I experienced and accomplished while in Zambia.” I find I often “move on” to the next thing and forget to reflect on where I’ve just been – and writing seems to help me to reflect.  I need do it more.

Michael’s photos from Zambia are striking.  What an excellent opportunity for someone I’m sure will be an incredible photographer for many years to come!

Source: Going Beyond Automatic: Photography in Africa.

Thursday, March 8th

12:33pm – In preparation of the trip from the northeast, to south by southwest (fittingly) – I picked up some shorts and got my hair did (photo). I managed to get these two tasks done fairly quickly and get back to my office for a few “last minute” things that I need to get done before we set sail.

Right now I’m waiting on the WineLibrary TV crew to get their latest episode completed. I’m helping them integrate their show with Viddler‘s system so that they get the most benefit out of it. Yesterday’s show was a huge success and today we’re hoping to add even a little more value for the Vayniacs.

People are really coming around with how Viddler works in situations like this. I think WineLibrary TV’s episodes are the perfect candidate for Viddler’s technology. Check out this comment.

“Man, after being a naysayer yesterday, I have to say that these new tags are awesome, and I’m now a total convert!” — Kent I

As this service matures, I think many people will start to enjoy interacting with their video in this manner. Stay tuned – because today’s episode should have a few new features that I think their audience is going to love.

2:35pm – I think it is amazing how many people are going to this thing. I’ve gotten more instant messages and emails today than I have in a very long time, and most of it is about trying to get together in Austin. In one hand; exciting. In the other; overwhelming.

I’m still going over our itinerary with a fine toothed comb. I have a lot of friends that are speaking on panels, and it’d be really nice to see all of them on stage, but I doubt I’ll get to see anyone since they are mostly there for “Web dev stuff” and my primary focus will be on Internet video while I am there. Well, back to the calendar.

4:20pm – I had the privilege of helping to prepare WineLibrary TV Episode #196 using some new Viddler features. Things went really smoothly and so far it seems that their audience really enjoys it.

Now I’m packing my suitcase, going to see if I can get a small nap in this afternoon before I pack up all of my “technology stuff”. I have to leave at 4:00am..

10:51pm – Just packing up my “tech stuff”. Heading to New Jersey in 5 hours or so to catch a jet plane to Austin, TX. My next update will probably be from an airport or something.

Friday, March 9th

11:02am – On Continental Airlines Flight 350 at 34,000 feet: Our ride this morning was, well, interesting. I was supposed to be the navigator for Mike and I to get to Viddler HQ, pick up Rob, and head to Newark, NJ to catch our flight.

Mike and I got to talking and I managed to allow us to pass a few exits, a few times, so we did a lot of U-turning. Then, after we finally met up with Rob – we were on our way to Newark International Airport and Rob forgot his wallet. Another U-turn.

Morgan Spurlock and I
Newark, New Jersey

We finally made it to the airport, all of us having to pee like crazy, and managed to get on Mike’s flight (we were on standby for this flight). Mike is about five rows behind me right now, looking at some girl in a rather inappropriate way probably, and Rob is next to me (photo). Next to Rob is a nice guy named Jeremy who is also heading to South by Southwest with Morgan Spurlock (of SuperSize Me fame), who I had a chance to meet and have a short chat with. (I will upload a photo once I dump my cameras contents).

James Bond: Casino Royale is currently playing on the screen as I am listening to Dan Benjamin interview Cindy Li on the latest Hivelogic Radio. I’m going to finish listening to Hivelogic Radio before I move onto watching the latest episode of Heroes that I downloaded before I left.

4:38pm – @ SXSW – 2nd floor: – Just got registered. Going to see if we can fit in a panel here at the convention center. The first panel we wanted to see is at a different place.

6:14pm – From the back of Austin Cab 451: – Rob and I are in Best Buy parking lot, in the back of a cab. We just bought some things we needed for the HD camera (since we now have a press pass), and we want to be able to tape some of the panels we’re attending.

I was twittering with Chris Messina and I saw him and Tara sitting at a table. If it wasn’t for them I would have never figured out that there was “big bags” to get full of cool trinkets. Most of them are purely marketing material, but that’s cool. There was piles of papers that people threw out of the bags onto the tables.

I just met up with David Seah just before leaving the convention center. I did an interview with him while he was trying to put together some legos. Video coming soon.

9:21pm – At the Double Tree Room 609: – Just got back to the hotel after eating at The Boiling Pot on 6th. Very cool place, nice and spicey. Alex, Rob, and I ate crawfish, potatoes, corn, and other stuff that was spilled out all over the table. Sound familiar Eliza?

Now we’re trying to get our Internet connections working. Here are some photos that I took today.

Rob and I in Taxi

Rob and I in Line

David Seah

The Capital Building

Wanna ride?

Our food

Poor guy

Friday, March 9th Gallery

I have some more photos, but I’m only going to do a few a day until I can get home and have the time to go through them all.

Saturday, March 10th

8:43am – At the Double Tree Room 609: – Woke up fairly refreshed this morning. Definitely need some breakfast and a coffee before heading to SXSW. Anyone having breakfast anywhere?

10:15am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – Room 12AB: – In the Video is worth more than 1,000 words panel. Going over some of the trends, some of the history, and some of the future of social video.

11:13am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – on the floor: – Panel is over. Met Chris from Adobe. Still can just barely get the internet. Port 80 sucks.

11:56am – @ SXSW 2nd floor – Room 19AB with Jeremy Keith and Andy Budd: – Just published my interview with David Seah on the Viddler blog.

7:10pm – @ Logan’s on the Sixth: – Ate some dinner, talked to my brother-in-law on video chat for the first time. Having a Logan’s Lemonade, very good. More video on Viddler coming soon! Stayed tuned.

8:05pm – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Dumping photos, video to our hard drives. Checking a few things, getting a shower, short nap – then off to see the Ze Frank + BuzzFeed party, then to the Virb party till 4am supposedly? Should be fun, we’ll shoot video.

9:15pm – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Just posted our Saturday lunch update, and our Saturday night update to our Viddler blog. Here are some photos from today.

Alex

Chris and Rob

Shawn Grimes

Jonathan Snook

Matt Mullenweg

Greg Storey, Paul Nixon

Anton Peck

Lunch update

Nathan Smith

Erik Sagen

Tag, You’re It

Overlooking Austin

Mike Stickel

“Niero” Gonzalez

Free beer w/ Zach

MeToday

Saturday, March 10th, Gallery

4:14am – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609, after the Ze Frank party: – Ze Frank, BuzzFeed and another company threw a party at the Molotov Lounge. It was pretty good, Ze did a funny bit on airplane safety (which will be on Viddler later). Then there was free drinks for a few hours. Thanks to all the sponsors, it was a cool place to hang for a bit.

Here are some photos of the people I met at Ze’s little bash.

Bill Streeter

John Gruber

Irina Slutsky

Ze Frank

Jeremy Keith

Mike Stickel

Shaun Inman

Adam Michela

Peter Flaschner

Garret Murray

Ze’s Party Gallery

It was really great to finally meet everyone. It kinda makes me wish we all could do this every month if for no other reason than to bounce ideas off one another and chat about the stuff we love. The world is such a small place, thanks to the Internet, yet it remains so large that I feel as if I am going to lose “contact” with everyone the moment I leave South by Southwest. We’ll see…. I guess I can still Twitter spam for Adam.

Sunday, March 11th

10:58am – @ Double Tree, 15th Street, Room 609: – Stayed up until 7am playing around with something “special”. Alex and I will put some polish on it today/tonight and release it. It is the culmination of the brain power of myself, Rob Sandie, Adam Michela, Peter Flaschner, and several other contributors. Should be fun.

Now I have to get over to the conference center so that I can show up fashionably late to the second panel of the day after finding some coffee and a muffin or something.

1:14pm – @ PF Chang’s for lunch: – Spent most of the morning getting things prepared for the rest of the day. Had a great discussion with Molly about some of the stuff she’s able to accomplish with Microsoft, I definitely wish her all the best with everything professional and otherwise.

Now we’re eating and planning the rest of our day.

4:50pm – @ SXSW Ballroom F: – Waiting for the next panel to start, so I might as well fill you in. (I won’t have time for many links or photos so I will update this from the hotel later). I finally was able to meet up with Irina Slutsky to do The Vloggies Show (which is a new show she is doing so be sure to stay tuned as it will air this week). Spoke to a guy from Microsoft about Expression Web… he said there was a lot of things going on in the pipe and that the initial release is only the beginning. Being an ex-Frontpage 98 user, I hope they are able to build something that is relatively solid for their audience.

Allen Stern of CenterNetworks.com asked what the little black guy was in the big bag you get here at South by Southwest. I figured it out. If you go to the exhibit hall, find Vital Stream’s booth, you can throw it at a dart-like board and win a shirt. I got a bulls-eye on the first try and won a shirt.

We only were able to attend one or two panels so far today, and hopefully tonight we’ll be able to see Morgan Spurlocks doc “What would Jesus Buy”.

11:28pm – @ Hilton Lobby: – Just had a nice conversation with Irina and two guys that did not give me their cards because they had run out of them (if you are reading this, email me your contact information). Talking about ad networks and how to display ads based on content within a video on Viddler rather than just the content on the page. Pretty cool stuff.

We’re sending all of our HD video that we’ve captured to a professional video editor, so I am excited to get all of that back and have it up on the Viddler blog soon enough. If anyone would like to do an interview, or has not signed my shirt, please grab me. I’m hoping to have content being published regularly over the next few weeks.

Monday, March 12th

3:00am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – After hanging in the Hilton’s lobby for a few hours I heard through Twitter that the 9rules crew was hanging out in the bar. I ran over, had a drink with Molly (thanks for the shot Molly), Paul Scrivens, Mike Rundle, and Mike’s fiancé Eleni.

Back to work though as we headed for our hotel and I featured a video that was taken during one of the panels here. Rob and I managed to record many of the panels we went to, and we’re hoping to get that video up slowly over the next few days. We have someone helping us with that too, which is great – because Rob and I are stretched pretty thin.

Even though I am starving, I am going to head to bed and see if I can’t get up on time tomorrow.

10:22am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – Awake. Slept in a little, somehow our wake-up call never happened. Today will be another busy day. I didn’t have the chance, nor the energy, to go through all of my photos from yesterday and get them posted, but I will try to do that if there is any downtime during the day.

Remember, if I “know” you, but I have not met you yet, please make it a point to run over to me. I’d like to meet everyone at this opportunity. I’ll be the blonde guy in the Viddler tshirt.

2:46pm – @ SXSW Room 12AB: – Just ate lunch at the Spaghetti Warehouse for a discussion about OpenID. Very interesting stuff and I am definitely going to recommend that Viddler make it part of their development roadmap. For anyone that has not looked into OpenID be sure to do so, especially if you’d like to be prepared for the future of online, cross service, authentication.

On my way back from the lunch, I saw Paul Nixon running and we both said I should have been running with him. Damn him and his Nike+ package and the motivation to run while in the Texas heat.

Right now I’m in an interesting panel about whether or not User Generated video is considered film or not. Sounds really niche, and it definitely is, but it is also incredibly interesting as a discussion topic – and I never ever thought it would be.

Tuesday, March 13th

Robert Scoble

10:33am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – Good morning! Sorry that I haven’t updated since early afternoon yesterday but things went a little hectic there. After watching Luke W‘s panel on the various interface libraries (which was absolutely packed and should have been much longer), I needed to be outside in front of the convention center to go to The Salt Lick, which is a BBQ pit about 45 minutes outside of Austin, with Robert Scoble, Chris Aarons, Sarah Beck, and Patrick Nichols of AMD, an extremely nice gentlemen from AT&T’s Web department, and Jim Posner from IBM who was in Apocolpse Now (more on all of this later).

After that I headed to the Great British Booze up, which was just about ending at the time. I hooked up with the entire Forty Media crew (there is a lot of them), and went to the next party where I ended up spending most of my time talking to Larry Halff about all things Ma.gnolia and Ruby on Rails. It was a great discussion and having never used Ma.gnolia – I can say that it seems like a service I should have been using for years. I’m going to give it a try the moment I can find some free time with wifi (aka: when I get home).

So now I gotta hop in the shower because Rob and I are going to do a Lunch Meet.

2:03pm – @ In the Hilton Ballroom, 6th Floor, for Will Wright’s keynote: – Our lunch meet got postponed by a few hours. Hard to get everyone in one place at the same time. So Rob and I are recording the Will Wright keynote. I am definitely looking forward to seeing a demo of Spore.

Tuesday, March 14th

10:44am – @ Double Tree, Room 609: – The demo of SPORE was really awesome. Will Wright’s keynote alone was very good, but the demo just tops it off that Will actually does what he feels.

I have a ton to more write about. I’ve kept this “live blog” as up-to-date as I could considering the circumstances with time, internet connectivity, etc. So instead of writing a huge wrap up to what is already one of my longest posts ever, I will be writing single entries that highlight very specific panels, discussions, lunches, and parties after I get back home to Pennsylvania.

As a short overview of what happened since yesterday’s keynote – We recorded one or two more panels, went to Logan’s again for dinner, then hit up the VIP at the Media Temple party.

After that it was a bunch of sad goodbyes, as most of us know that we’ll only be in contact virtually for awhile… but overall the experience was good.

Thanks to all that kept up with me over the conference. Those that came over to say hi, those that signed my shirt, those whom I met for the very first time, and those that I will be friends with for a long time to come.

Sorry to any of you that were looking for me, or didn’t have a chance to talk to me for whatever reason… send me an email and maybe we’ll get together sometime.

Stay subscribed, a ton of stuff to come.

[tags]sxsw, austin, texas, pennsylvania, new jersey, travel, conference, festival, live, winelibrary tv, viddler, photos, video, robert sandie, alex hillman, rob sandie, john gruber, shaun inman, ze frank, adam michela, mike stickel, ma.gnolia, larry halff, openid, the salt lick, bbq, robert scoble, amd, chris aarons, Bill Steeter, Irina Slutsky, Jeremy Keith, Peter Flaschner, Garrett Murray[/tags]
[slug]live-sxsw07[/slug]