Hah, fooled you.  This is not a blog covering the digital creatives that descend on Austin in March.  I am however in Austin.  I realized my mistake upon arrival at ABIA yesterday.  Conditions inside the terminal were claustrophobic.  Thank God I didn’t try to rent a car.  Still not sure how I scored a ticket on Southwest for under $100.  Must have beat the real crowds by a few days.

DIA was packed too, with home-bound skiers.  As bad as I’ve ever seen it.  Southwest maintains a seemingly random pattern of kiosks in front of the ticket counter for travelers to claim their baggage tag.  People didn’t know how to queue up efficiently.  It didn’t help that an agent walked around barking out instructions that there is no line.  No idea what she meant by that.

The lady directly in front of me panicked when her turn came.  She fumbled around in her purse for identification or her smart phone.  Her bag didn’t just spill, it literally exploded its contents onto the floor.  Apparently stressed, she shrieked like a banshee out of frustration.  Like in a scene from Home Alone, a hundred travelers all hushed themselves to stare at her as she sunk to her knees, sobbing, to collect her belongings.

After all this, my flight wasn’t full and I was able to spread out with my newspaper.  My brother picked me up and we stopped for lunch at some pub in the Domain.  I quaffed a 512, a locally crafted IPA.  Pretty tasty.  Looking forward to some more local food and beverages, and hopefully a few trail runs, over the next several weeks.