I used this as a fine excuse to take a mini vacation and spend four days in humidity above one percent. I get to drive in on Saturday morning, spend time with friends Saturday evening and Sunday (R Gang Brunch, my friends!), doctors appointments Monday afternoon, Mo’s Monday night, Tuesday to relax and do whatever, Wednesday, drive home.

I’m probably more excited about this than I should be, but I treated myself to a hotel with turn-down service and complimentary toiletries.  I may as well be staying in Shangri La.  I think it’s a fair trade-off if I’m spending part of my vacation having my tits smashed and parts prodded in a less-than-hospitable fashion.

So… yeah. Anyway. I have no idea where I was going with the rest of this post. I got to “tits” and like any decent American, forgot what I was talking about.

Daniel and Richard are on the left, you just can't see them.

So, I live in Las Vegas now. Here I am, a dyed-in-the-wool California girl in the desert… if California girls wore wool. I’m sitting on my familiar couch, typing on my familiar laptop, watching my familiar TV in a totally unfamiliar house and a mostly unfamiliar city.  We dropped Daniel and Richard off at the airport a couple hours ago, Mike just left for work and it’s just me n’ the bun, getting to know this place.


Some things I’ve discovered thus far, in a handy unordered list:

• Drink a lot of water because man, it’s dry.
• This is a lot more house than I remembered and  despite my griping about how much stuff I have, it’s not enough to fill two-thirds of this place.
• Lupo by Wolfgang Puck at Mandalay stops serving at 10pm and one of the hostesses is a snatch.
• Liquidity at Luxor makes a really good martini… after you send back the first one and your waitress rolls her eyes at you.
• I can see the snow capped mountains from my office.
• There is a beautiful view of downtown, the Stratosphere and a bit of the Strip from the master bedroom.
• Lulu was calmer during the move than I was.
• If you live in a certain lovely gated community in San Diego, don’t park your UHaul on the street, even with a parking pass.  You’ll get towed and have to pay $228 to get it out all the while freaking out that your stuff has been stolen out of the back. But you can’t park outside the main neighborhood either because that’s  violating some other rule, so I guess they expect you to levitate your truck a mile above the earth until you’re ready to leave. Bollocks and a half.
• No one makes king-size fitted sheets, only Cal-King. I love you, California, you are my home state, but the whole world doesn’t revolve around your bed size.  Let’s pick one, shall we?  Twin. Full. Queen. KING. Just the one. Cripes.
• It takes three men and a handful of martinis to put together a king-size IKEA bedframe.
• My best gays are truly the best, all around. They drove the moving truck, they bought me vodka, they tolerated my crazy and still love me. And they didn’t even mind that I made them use mismatched towels.
• Don’t listen to virtual strangers when they tell you should look out for scorpions because apparently, this is not a problem. I was also told to wear shoes in the house, just in case I stepped on one, which had me in a tizzy and freaking out for Lulu’s safety and our own. Turns out, there are people who have lived here their entire lives and never seen one, let alone in the house. So that guy can suck it and pay for my therapy.
• There are strippers, minus the strip, that dance around in the middle of the casino floor in the Luxor.
• Speaking of strippers, Little Darlings off the 15 has actual footage of their (still clothed) strippers dancing on a massive screen. It’s no wonder there’s traffic congestion.
• Thanks to the Internet, what happens in Vegas doesn’t stay here.  Girl, please. They really need to retire that campaign.

That’s all for now. I have a few photos and when the house is presentable and doesn’t look like the Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock, I’ll post a little tour.  Now I have to go find what box I put the thing in that allows me to do something that is probably in another box that doesn’t contain what I need. In the garage.  Next to an alleged scorpion.

One major opportunity I can’t talk about yet, which is killing a big mouth like me, but I promised and I’m only as good as my word. I also signed legal stuff, so there is that.

Another big thing is… well, I’m moving.  Yes, again. But this time, I”m not just going across town, I’m moving to Las Vegas!

I’ll give you a second to insert any in a series of anticipated and oft-heard protests:

• But San Diego is so beautiful!
• But what about your friends?!
• But Vegas is so… Vegas.
• Once you leave California, it’s really hard to get back.
• It’s so HOT there!
• Are you insane?!

Done?

I know all these things, but for me, it’s important to make decisions that are good for me and for now, this is a smart move that will allow me to take on less work so I can pursue other interests.  Some of you may know that mikey got a job up there recently and moved there in June. I decided to follow when my lease was up, which is at the end of November.  Here’s the part where some might ask “but… why?”  I can’t say there aren’t going to be some adjustments to living in the desert and away from my San Diego life, but here are just some reasons that are both positive in general and good for me, personally.

• I have a great support system there already. mikey, obviously, who I miss when he’s not around. So does Lulu. Also one of my very best friends, Heika (some might remember her as Macgeezel) — she’s from Vegas and her family, whom I am close with, still live there. Unfortunately, she doesn’t, but I may get to see her more often. There are also some of her Vegas friends that I’ve gotten to know over the years and mike’s got some friends there, as well.
• It’s CHEAP, people. I live in a beautiful, gorgeous city. I grew up here, San Diego is my home. But it’s crazy-ass, mind-blowing expensive here. And as a freelancer, that is tough. Vegas, on the other hand, can provide, for about 30% less than my rent currently, a place 3x the size, newer, in a beautiful new area. And actual house, even.
• To that end, a very large apartment or a house allows me to have an actual office, with a door. It allows me to separate work and life a little better.  Plus, paint!
• No state income tax.
• There’s a Kids Expo in Vegas every year, which means I’ll likely be able to talk Kathy into crashing in our guest room.
• There’s always something to do. Any time you want to do it.
• I’m California-adjacent. It’s only a 5 hour drive back to San Diego or an hour flight. I can come back any time I want and considering I won’t have to work as a hard, I’ll actually have time to do that. Plus, despite living in one of the most beautiful cities, I never really see it that much, as I spend most of my time in my apartment. So, this will allow me to actually enjoy San Diego… as a sort of tourist.
• I’ll probably get to see my friends from other cities more often, as just about everyone wants to go to Vegas, right? People go to Vegas, so it’s likely I may see my friends from all over (even those as close as L.A.) more than I do now.

I already went through all the hemming and hawing and “omg, the heat!” and “I’ll miss my gays” and “what the hell am I going to do in the desert?” hand-wringing.  And I will miss my friends here so much it hurts my insides.  Badly. But I have to move past that part (or rather, stuff it down and cover it with Ben and Jerry’s) so I can be excited about this new adventure.  (I’m already trying to convince Daniel and Richard to move there, too.)  I’m only 36 years old, it’s not like I have to live in Vegas forever. And I’ve left California once already… I lived in Texas for over 3 years and came back to San Diego. Nothing is set in stone, but if I ever want to buy a home anywhere, especially if I want to do it in this very expensive city, I need to start making some changes.

I’m starting to get pretty excited about the change — I’ve always been open to change. But, I’m a little overwhelmed right now — so much is going on and it’s coming really fast.  I’m up to my neck in projects, but I have to dash up to Vegas in early October for an overnighter to pick a place to live. Then within 6 weeks or so, I need to pack this entire apartment, and move to a new state… with a bunny. (That should be interesting.) And all the while maintain my workload.  This is where I take a shot of something strong, followed by a pep talk while sticking my head between my knees.

I’m thinking about investing in a camera after we get settled up there. I think a good way to introduce myself to the city is to photograph it.  Plus, I really, really want to see if I can get into The Neon Museum. Given how much I love mid-century Americana and all that swanky stuff, I think Vegas might be a fun place for me to explore with a camera. Hey, maybe I’ll even find a dumpy dive I can sing in!

I only ask that no one tell me anything bad about living in Vegas. I really don’t want to know. I probably know most of them anyway from my many trips there.  But feel free to share good things!  I’m always open for that.

I left San Diego Wednesday at noon on Jet Blue, who despite the bird-flipping, slide-exiting, job-quitting flight attendant’s recent escapades, is a pretty awesome airline. The seats were roomy, I could stretch out my legs completely in front of me, there was free DirecTV (so I timed my entire trip by how many 30 minute Food Network shows I watched) and the snacks were tasty items like Terra Chips instead of crappy peanuts. And the pilot got us there almost 40 minutes before he said he would, so that was nice.

I took a cab into Manhattan from the airport and proceeded to spastically tweet about how to tip the cabbie. I’m an overtipper and standard tipping here is 20% for like, everything, it seems like, so with a $50 cab ride, I was concerned about giving too much. Of course, despite the encouraging 10% recommendations from Twitter, I still overtipped.

We decided to escape the hub-bub of Blogher, we’d stay elsewhere… so we booked ourselves at Empire Hotel. We found out after we made our reservations that it’s Chuck Bass’ hotel in Gossip Girl, which was pretty funny. While the staff and management at Empire were really lovely, the place was a total Monet. It’s much better on TV.  It looks beautiful from a distance, but when you get up close, it’s much shabbier than the marketing implies. We knew it was a vintage building that had been renovated, but how long ago? There was water damage on the walls, the chairs were pretty worn, our rooms had cobwebs in the corners and the beds… oh my god, the beds. It was like sleeping in a mausoleum — hard, hard mattresses.  HARD.  We both were in pain by the end of the trip.

Oh, also? Apparently, the rooftop deck bar is the hot place to be on a Thursday night. There were lines of short skirts around the block to get upstairs.  If they offer you the 11th floor, despite the spectacular views of Lincoln Center, don’t take it. You’ll hear remixes of Lisa Lisa and the Cult Jam and hooker heels on your ceiling until 3:30am (and heat rises, so the hallways were constantly like, Africa Hot, while our rooms were Meat Locker Cold).  Given that we had to be up at 8am for the conference, we sweetly called down to management — I swear! I even made him laugh — and they moved our luggage to the old people’s floor for us the next day and knocked $75 off our bill for two nights. Like I said, great management, mediocre rooms, granite mattresses.  It does have a lovely lobby bar, though.  We called it our Brokedown Palace. With lube.

Thursday, after we had coffee at Starbucks by our hotel and enjoyed the company of a total character we named LoQuatious (who put lipstick on his forehead and exfoliated with a kitchen brush right there in front of us), we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Loved it, gorgeous, amazing, could have spent a week there. I was especially into a Degas I’ve never seen before called The Tub. I just was entranced by it.

Then we set up for the Green Soiree hosted by Safemama and organized by 3 Green Angels.  That was a lovely affair, though I spent most of it hiding in the corner by the open bar.  I’m not a mom, I don’t blog about green topics, so I was just there as support for Kathy — to help. Once the set-up was done, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Eventually Sommer came over and gave me friendly crap for being antisocial, so I topped off my wine, mingled and had some stinky cheese. Post-soiree, we ended up at the Hilton bar with Sommer, Alicia and Yvonne, follow by the aforementioned Lisa Lisa incident.

The next day, we hit BlogHer.  First we cruised the expo halls, where we saw Padma from Top Chef, Tamra from Real Housewives of OC and my personal highlight — the Jimmy Dean sun.  We saw him with sun and sans sun downstairs at the elevators.  I can see why they hired him — he’s totally approachable and super nice, even out of costume. I can’t believe I didn’t get a photo.  I did, however, run out of business cards the first day.

After lunch, we hit the bar for a mid-day cocktail before the Blog Design panel, which was one of only two panels we attended. None of the topics grabbed our attention this year. I didn’t feel like there were any panels that spoke to me — the single, non-kid-having, semi-wise ol’ blogging sage, web designer. I think we’ve got marketing down and I don’t need to learn how to build my brand as a blog, really.  We’ve been doing this for a while now. So we used that time for signing books and beer. You know, the important stuff.

The Blog Design panel had some really good information presented by Design*Sponge. We especially enjoyed her encouragement to hire a professional and her candidness about how much it really costs and why it’s important for your blog if you’re trying to build a following or a brand.  She talked about textures and being unique and why consistency among all online outlets is important.  That was good info, presented very well.

The other two speakers — well, the 2nd woman (whose name I can’t recall) had some good info, but overall her pitch felt a little like a downer. I can’t put my finger on it, but there was no practical application in her information, really and while she seemed like a nice woman — she basically just told me boys like lines and girls like colors.  And Alex, the (mostly print?) designer (who I really dug, personally; she was charming and funny) had some inaccurate info and presented it in a kind of scattered way that non-tech people wouldn’t understand. In fact, it seemed like even she wasn’t really sure how to do some of the things she was speaking about because she kept referencing CSS generators and programmer friends who help her.  I think she was a little nervous, but like I said, soooo charming (and pretty cute, I might add), that it almost didn’t matter.

I would’ve liked to have seen a Blog Design panel that really gave bloggers practical tips for good blog design practices and maybe explain a little about what CSS is and why you do what you do with it. Touching on SEO, where to place ads (and what size) and how blog design structure is relevant might have been good, too.  While the blog owner’s perspective on blog design was good (Design*Sponge), it would have been helpful, I think, to have an actual blog design professional on the panel — at least one.

But I digress. We are considering pitching a panel for next year (and asking one or two of our esteemed colleagues to join us). Not that we’ll necessarily do a bang-up job or anything — I get nervous, too — but I think if the whole panel had been more like Design*Sponge’s portion of it, folks would have left with a stronger understanding of their blog’s innards and direction.  I’m just sayin’.

Friday night, after freshening up back at the Brokedown Palace, we hit the Voices of the Year Gala, cashed in a drink ticket or two and then I wasted no time in getting up to do a little live band karaoke.  I’ve sung with a live band, I’ve sung karaoke, but I’ve never done both at the same time. It was really fun!  And surprisingly, I wasn’t even nervous. Then we hit up Ray’s Pizza for my first (and only!) slice of Real New York Pizza™. I was NOT disappointed.

Kathy recorded a snippet of  me singing. You can’t really see me, but you can hear me.

Saturday, after a stroll down to Sephora at The Shops on Columbus Circle, we rolled into BlogHer just in time for lunch, then hit the Fitness Blogging panel, which was nice (though was more of a Q&A and less of a presentation).  It ran a bit long, though, so we snuck out early and went for a little walk. I wasn’t feeling very well, for some reason — the pain in my back, neck and arms from carrying soiree swag bags and sleeping on stone slabs took it’s toll, so we headed back to the hotel, where I laid down for a bit while Kathy dashed off to the Green Affair party.

I met up with her and Statia later, feeling much better and we all got our groove on at the Sparklecorn and CheeseburgHer parties.  Both of which were really fun, though Sparklecorn seemed to have a more elaborate turn-out… at least at first. They had a Charm City Cake, they had great pop culture posters, unicorn glitter and a really good DJ.  CheeseburgHer was a bit more intimate, but did end up overflowing by the end of the night.  The best part (aside from dancing with friends and recording The Robot) was the giant cheeseburger-shaped, Tempurpedic-like bed. Had I spent one more second on that bed, I would have fallen asleep.  Empire Hotel needs cheeseburger beds.

I think we ended up down at the hotel bar again after that, if I recall correctly.  Then back to the hotel, where we both laid awake, complaining to each other about the uncomfortable beds and singing songs about pimps.

Sunday, Kathy was off super early to catch her flight and I spent the morning wandering the area in search of quintessential New York foods I wanted to try. I hit Tasti-D-Lite, where I had two bites of my .99 cent soft serve (overrated!). I had a hot dog off a cart in Columbus Circle (near the Park), which I promptly threw away (gross! gross!), I got a pretzel that I nibbled at the benches in front of Trump Tower, but decided I’d have better luck hammering nails with it (tossed!).  I gave up and decided it was all crap and went back to the hotel to catch a cab.

Bad idea. My 90 degree cab ride to the airport was in stop n’ go traffic so by the time we got to JFK, I ended up hurling in the ladies, pre-boarding.  JFK and I have a special bond now. Then I sat on the tarmac for an hour before take off, though despite leaving almost 90 minutes late, the pilot got us in only 20 minutes late, so… not too terrible. Again, kudos, Jet Blue.

So… there you have it. More information than you ever wanted to know about my first trip to New York and first time at BlogHer. I wasn’t sure if I’d attend again, since the panels are really the part we’re paying for and those didn’t really blow my dress up — but I’ve changed my tune. It’s here in San Diego next year (YAY!) and we might throw our hat in the ring for a blog design panel, if anyone decides they’re interested in attending.  Plus, it’ll be nice to have the home court advantage.

Are you going to BlogHer ’11?  San Diego welcomes you.

One thing I did have a hard time with at BlogHer was introducing myself. I really have no idea how to do that anymore. Once upon a time, I was “Tenth Muse” and that’s it.  Daniel loves to reference me or introduce me to people like, “OMGYOUGUYS! It’s Tenth Muse!” but let’s not kid ourselves. I was “famous” (air quotes!) on the internet once, but it’s been a long, long time and I hardly ever blog here anymore.  In the grand scheme of the blogosphere, no one knows who Tenth Muse is anymore — I’m under no delusion.

Sure, I’m one of the Moxie Girls of Moxie Design Studios, co-author of Blogging with Moxie and that has some cred, but we don’t really blog regularly there unless it’s business updates. So… well, that’s not my blog either. And while we were there as The Moxie Girls, Kathy is now the very popular SafeMama and rockin’ that angle all over the place, which is fantastic. (Seriously, I was so proud — people flocked to her, it was awesome. I loved seeing her face light up when people knew who she was.)  It was a conference full of mostly moms and many green bloggers, so she was hot commodity and for the first time… well, I was kind of the sidekick. That was weird for me. I’m usually the extrovert, the talker, the proverbial jazz hands, if you will, but this time, she was the star. And I was happy about it!  I’m not bitter, it was just… new.

I have Put Down the Donut, of course, but… well, that’s also an awkward spot. Once upon a time, we were one of the first fitness/weight loss blogs out there. Or at least, one of the most popular. We were nominated for a Bloggie, we were published in national magazines, but due to the volume of work at Moxie, I just wasn’t able to maintain it. And in that downtime, fitness blogging blew up and despite the many requests for us to come back, I have to work much harder now at getting the word out about the Donut.  Again, not upset about it… it’s just different.

I find myself with a bit of an identity crisis. When people would ask me, pointedly, “Who do YOU blog for?” or “Whats YOUR blog?” I found myself at a loss for words. Do I mention the Donut, even though no one has heard of it? Do I mention Moxie and hope they know who I am? Do I say Tenth Muse and try not to cringe when they look at me blankly?  I’ve been blogging since 2003, yet somehow, I feel like a new blogger.

Now, some might think I’m just being brat, whining about how no one likes me anymore or jealous of the success of others. Anyone who truly knows me would know that’s bullshit. I’ve always said there’s plenty of room for everyone, and I couldn’t be more proud of Kathy or the success of others.  I’m just not used to having to work so hard at being noticed. I just am who I am and people respond to that, usually. Some might consider that demanding the spotlight, but it’s just the way it is.  I’m amiable, approachable and like to think that people enjoy my company.

I am just not sure how to introduce myself anymore, where on the shelf I fit in this blog library.  It’s too complicated to list out 3 identities for people (they check out by the time you get to .com on the first one, anyway, and let’s not even get started on Twitter handles).  I have a couple other projects I intend to launch over the next year… which would make 5 domains I could choose from.  I don’t want to get rid of this blog, for posts just like this, where I need to hash things out and there’s no specific niche topic.  Plus, it’s my first blog and I’m partial to it.  Moxie isn’t going away… it’s only growing. The Donut (I hope) will pick up some steam over the next year and then my other two projects are fun outlets that are likely to do fairly well if I play my cards right.

I’ve thought about choosing one domain name, like my name, joellereeder.com or my original domain name I had way, way back before blogging: joellapalooza.com and using that as a hub — a one-stop shop for all things me.  It’s a way for me to be decisive, definitive and able to introduce myself as Joelle from xyz.com. One domain, the end.  But then I think… is that just adding more confusion? I figured it could just be a simple one-pager, listing all the logos/links to my various homes online. Or, I could just use this domain, tenth-muse.com, for the same thing.

What do you think about this? Does this seem like the way to go when I have 5 irons in the fire and each of them are unique unto themselves?  Or is this just adding more domains to the list of GoDaddy renewals?

Or should I just shut the hell up and blog?

Of course, no travel is complete without a little drama. As soon as I landed last night, I received a metric ton of emails from a client panicking because his site was displaying the WordPress install screen.  I *just* finished his site and signed off completely on it yesterday. It was beautiful, perfect even. In fact, I was pretty impressed with myself!  That’ll teach me. I go away one day and the sky falls.

Normally, I don’t totally freak out about such things because that’s just the nature of the Internet. Things happen. You put in a support ticket and hash it out. But the poor client was at his wit’s end. He’s great, though, I really like the client… he’s just not jaded by the wonky workings of the Internet yet and is new to blogging so it sent him into a multi, multi, *multi* email tailspin.  I had to call Hostmonster and Troy, who is the most patient man on Earth, listened to me rant and carry on. I think there were tears at one point. I explained that I’d been up all night, that I’d been traveling for 7 hours and that I just got off a plane and asked him for forgive me my temporary psychosis.  He was so gracious about it. Kudos to you, Troy at Hostmonster.

Anyway, Troy said he couldn’t help me technically because they don’t support WordPress, but he said he would “take a peek”. I submitted an official ticket to support and told the client that what can be done is being done and that if nothing was resolved by this morning that I would call again.  Well, this morning I was greated with an email from the client that the site was back online, nothing was lost and hallelujah, I can stop drinking antacids.  Thank you, Hostmonster! (Seriously, I love Hosting Matters — we’ve hosted with them for years and years, but I must say that Hostmonster deserves epic accolades.)

Ok, Kathy is back from putting Reilly down for a nap and now we’re off to the movies to see Twilight.  I could go for some popcorn….

So far, I’ve gone to a Cuban restaurant and had the most delicious rum punch I’ve EVER had (red wine, silver rum, spiced rum, pineapple juice, splash of pina colada mix on the rock — mmmmmm!) It was vacation in a glass.  I’ve also been to Target, watched Pride and Prejudice (GFI will be happy to hear that, you know how I feel about corsety period romances), loved on a big fat cat, and the biggest golden retriever I’ve ever seen named Freethrow.

Last night, we went to this “club” called Sting.  I couldn’t possibly express how LAME this place was.  It was one of those club complexes where they’ve got a main dance club, a billiards rooms, a lounge, a restaurant and supposedly… a karaoke bar.  That place was bizarre.  The bus girls kept trying to take our vodka-tonics and they brought us the wrong order of appetizers and never gave us silverware or napkins. And the drinks!  Judas priest!  Heika ordered a vodka-red bull and it was $9.50. NINE FIFTY.  What the hell?  Turns out the one night they didn’t have karaoke, even though it was scheduled on the calendar, was last night.  Hmph!  I didn’t want to sing for you fools anyway.

We left and this friend of Nikki’s, Monk, directed us (us being Nikki, Heika (you may remember her as Macgeezel), Nikki’s friends K. and Monk) to a dive bar in a seedy area. From the outside, we were like, “hmmmm… I don’t know about this.” but once we opened the door, I knew this was MY kind of place.  It was a dive, full of happy, smiling, karaoke-fun havin’ folks.  It was a really good time.  The book didn’t have a lot of the songs I sing, but I found some stuff. I sang… um… “Last Dance” by Donna Summer (the place went NUTS!), “Since I Fell for You” by Lenny Welch, “Someone to Watch Over Me” (which ended up sucking because it was SO high) and then the karaoke host chose a song for me. Ready?  Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles”. I know. I was surprised, too.  It actually wasn’t bad, but during the bridge, I stepped on the mic cord and pulled it right out of the base of the mic.  Rock n’ roll, baby!  heh.

We left at last call, but Nikki convinced the karaoke guy to have me sing “Crazy” by Patsy Cline because she loves that song so much.  I don’t love singing that song, but only because at karaoke someone usually has already put it up or it’s just beaten to death.  But she really loves it and I do like the song itself, so I did.  I got off easy, actually, she wanted me to sing “The Rose”.  hehe!  (When we lived together, she’d make me sing that song to her as we went to bed when we’d come home from a night out..  She loves it!  I personally find it the most depressing song, but who am I do dampen her happiness?)

That bar was great, though. What a crowd!  Everything from khaki-wearing frat boys to overdressed chicks (that would be us) to your typical seedy-dive bar types to the dudes from Medieval Times. I’m totally serious.  The jouster guys were there… though not in full regalia. That would have been too beautiful to express.

Today, we’re enjoying some hair of the dog (or Nikki is, anyway… silly vodka!) down at JR’s in the gayborhood. It’s my favorite place in this town and I’m so excited to see my fave bartender Stephen.  It’ll be the same folks from last night and hopefully anyone else I know in Dallas who happens to read this.  (Raven, I sent you a text, did you get it?)

There will be hardly any photos from this trip because I forgot not only my laptop cord, but my phone charger AND my camera.  I am so full of awesome!

Ok, I better go get in the shower and prepare for more Texas.  Yee haw, y’all.

Saturday night’s Ellis Lab party was really fun!  As was Solspace‘s afterparty.  It was really nice to hang out with the EE guys.  And the lovely woman who poured the wine at Moonshine was generous, so a good time was definitely had by all.  If I recall correctly, I think I not only uttered “boobs” about 40 times, but the evening wasn’t complete without at least one mention of both hookers and vaginas.  It was very formal, can you tell?

Yesterday was such a good day! We were no longer nervous about our presentation, so we were able to relax and have a good time.  We met up with Susie Gardner, Lisa Sabin-Wilson, Peter Flaschner, Lucia Mancuso and Paul Chaney at the Moonshine Grille for our informal “designer brunch”.  Basically, it was an excuse to drink mimosas and pick each other’s brains.  Kathy and I were discussing last night how glad we are that we got to get to know everyone more. I’d met most of them in 2006, but this time, I feel like we all got to bond a little more. They’re all really top folks. 

After brunch, we hit the Exhibition Hall and scored a bunch of free stuff that may or may not make the cut when I repack, but I am intrigued by the freebie version of Microsoft Expressions that we picked up.  I’m an Adobe girl, but I was impressed by some of the features they showed in a Flash-like program they’ve created called Silverlight.  We also chatted with the people at Friends of ED, Izea and Zappos (who was wisely giving out free shot glasses — they know what’s up).

We got separated from the herd during that, but met up with Lisa so we could go do our respective interviews with BlogTalk Radio.  Let me just put this out there right now:  John Haven is a funny, funny man.  He was our host for the interview and also the VP of Business Development.  That was the most relaxed and fun interview we’ve done to date.  And John couldn’t have been more supportive in our endorsement. I think we all just really were having fun… in fact, we were all cutting up so much, we didn’t realize we’d gone live. haha!  Oopsie!  If you didn’t hear it streaming live, there will be a copy on the BlogTalk Radio website later on today, I believe. I’ll also post it here when I get home.  The WiFi cut out a few times while we were “on-air”, so there are some kooky spots, but that’s to be expected when a few thousand geeks are Twittering simultaneously in the immediate vicinity.  I’m looking forward to hearing our interview, as well as Lisa’s, who was interviewed right after us. She did great!

Last night, we hit up the Web Awards After-Party with Geeky. She is just so cute and funny. I’m glad we had a chance to meet up with her.  Again, I’d met her in 2006, but she and Kathy hadn’t met yet and I wanted to see her again, too.  We’re in the same hotel, so we walked over to this place called Emo’s, which is one of those clubs where it smells kind of like stale beer, insecurity and B.O.  Pretty seedy, but probably a decent place to hear bands. We had a couple free drinks, saved Kathy from some dude who wasn’t getting the hint and then walked back to the hotel.  Then Kathy and I ordered some room service and watched Sex and the City in bed… a bit more our speed. 

OK. I need to get my ish together.  We need breakfast and a proper cup of coffee.  Hope everyone has a great Monday!

My flight to Austin for SXSW leaves at 6:40am tomorrow. If I can get everything done, which shouldn’t be a problem, I will probably try to go to bed early, but what usually happens is insomnia. I worry that I’ll oversleep, miss my flight, etc. so I often have a hard time sleeping before an early flight. I can always sleep on the plane.

There are some new developments for us regarding our schedules at Southby this weekend. I’m a little disappointed we’re going to miss the Filching Design panel because I really was interested in what they were going to say about that. We all know how I feel about it.    We’re also going to miss a Core Conversation I was interested in checking out: Growing Pains: Your Web Company’s Getting BIG.  Both of them conflict with our reading and/or prep for our reading on Saturday, but hopefully there will be notes and/or a podcast of them.

So here’s a quick run-down of what we know for sure we’ll be doing. If you are going to be at one of these things, please say hi. Or if you see us walking around, just holler “Hey, you!” Or you could be more discreet. It’s up to you.

Saturday

• 10:00am – Expression Engine 2.0 Sneak Peek
• 11:30am – Book Reading: The IT Girl’s Guide to Blogging with Moxie
• 12:00pm – Signing of our book at the SouthBy Bookstore
  
  (somewhere in here there’s an interview with DocuBloggers)
• 3:30pm – Ellis Lab Open Panel
• 6:00pm – Ellis Lab Party at Moonshine Grille

There are some panels and core conversations in there we might attend, but the majority of the panels we wanted to go to either conflict with our reading or with each other.

Sunday

• 10:00am – Back to Moonshine for informal Designer Breakfast (which I just realized means we’ll miss the panel, Everyone is a Design Critic…)
• 2:00pm – Interview with BlogTalk Radio in the BlogHaus
• 4:30pm – SXSW Clicks: Web Designers (basically a casual meet n’ greet with free refreshments to meet the web designers at SXSW. Sponsored by Adobe.)

Again, there are some panels in there we might attend, but I have to be honest and say that the panel schedule as a whole doesn’t really speak to me this year.  That’s all we’ve got set in stone, everything else is kind of “play it by ear”.

If you’re interested in calling in to the BlogTalk Radio show to ask questions, you can do so by emailing me for the number. You can also call in to listen to the show on your phone (for whatever reason) and it will also be streaming live on both Wiley.com and BlogTalk Radio.

OK… must wrap some client stuff and then I’m off to beautify and find a new pair of jeans that is kind to my ass.

I realized that there was just no way in hell we were going to get all our clients to a comfortable “save point”, for lack of a better term and finish up our redesign before we leave (at 6am!) on Friday morning. Oh, and somewhere in there, I need a mani/pedi, a haircut and a new pair of stylish flip-flops (because my dogs remember the blisters of ‘06 and it wasn’t pretty).  Oh yeah, and I’ll still need to throw a bunch of stuff in a suitcase that, if history repeats itself, will either be crushed beyond recognition or lost. If I show up with clothes that match, I’ll consider myself lucky. 

To say I was bit wound up last night is putting it lightly. I realized that if I didn’t cut something off the list, my head was going to pop right off my neck and I don’t think Continental counts one’s head as an approved carry-on item.  Our clients are the first priority, so that’s not up for discussion. And if you saw my hair right now, you’d agree that the haircut isn’t negotiable either.

We also realized that everyone and their third cousin, Bubba, was probably launching their own re-design, re-opening, new product, (insert geek porn of choice here) in time for the conference, and we don’t want to be just one of many awesome redesigns, thank you very much.  So, we decided to postpone relaunching our new site for the millionth time, but this time it’s by choice as well as necessity. We’d rather wait until all the SXSW ballyhoo has died down. We still have a super-cute, solid site design that we love and rather than tear our hair out rushing to release our new (also fabulous) look, we’d rather go to SXSW with a more Zen approach.

Whew.

Speaking of tips, what is your tipping philosophy?  Like, for service stuff?  At a restaurant, I tip 15% for breakfast/lunch and 20% or more for dinner, depending on how great the service is. I usually don’t go below the minimum for said time of day unless the service was particularly bad. I realize that servers work for tips. I have a friend that says 15% is the default tip across the board, even for dinner.  Ultimately, it’s a personal choice, but which is socially accurate?

When it comes to the salon, I’m usually 20%, which I believe is the standard tip, no?  I’ve always heard that a stylist/colorist gets 20% and if you have separate shampoo person, they get like $5 or whatever.  Which then you’re then basically paying for your shampoo which should be included for the cost of your first born, but that’s another discussion.  I do 20% for my manicurist and waxer, too. I figure if you are going to scrub people’s feet and wax parts one can’t even see without a mirror, you deserve 20%.  Kudos.

Where was I going with this…?