“... and its the start of March break, the airports are flooded with hundreds of kids out to enjoy the sun and fun.  If you’re travelling today, get to the airport extra early….” I hear as I flip through the radio on my way to the airport Friday morning.  I’ve only got 1 coffee into me, and I’m not off to a good start.

A pretty customs officer says “And where you heading to today?”.
“Austin by way of Houston”
“No you’re not.”
“... um… sorry?”
“Why would you fly all the way down to Houston to go to Boston?”
“No, Austin by way of Houston” I chuckle nervously.
“Oh” she said unimpressed, “why?”
“Business”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a web designer, there’s a big conference I’m attending.”
<awkward_silence />
I volunteer, “It’s called South by Southw…”
“I didn’t ask you that!”

And thus starts my otherwise incredible trip to Austin.  I lurch (literally, the plane was really small) into my seat, and the pilot squawks out “we’re a few minutes late, but don’t worry, we’re going to cut a few corners and get you there on time”. 

“Did he just say ‘cut a few corners’?” I ask myself and start to wish I was on a flight to Boston.

Anyhow, the flight turned out great, got there on time, and was greeted by Rick, Paul and Derek on arrival.  Les came a few minutes later, and the newly minted EllisLab team was together.  We head to the airport, exchange a few Canada/America jokes, listen to Derek’s dead-on Family Guy impressions and then head out for dinner where I enjoyed 3 raviolis.  What is it with so-called high-end restaurants and their portions?  Every one of us was looking at our pitiful plates.  I thought Texas always did everything BIG!  The cheque came and Rick wonders aloud when diner will be served.

From there, we went and checked out the Moonshine Pub, which we rented out on Saturday for our big party.

Actually, let’s skip all of Saturday and jump right to the party.  I got to meet a bunch of current ExpressionEngine users, the rock-solid foundation of EE.  What a cool group!  Its neat to get to know people outside of their screen-names.  As hard as it was for me to believe that people actually had lives outside of EE, everyone did.  And interesting ones.  The community is 1 part of the “special sauce” of EE.  I also got to meet a bunch of prospective users (and a bunch from Canada also, way to go guys).  I’m confident that I’ll see lots of them soon, because they were asking questions about security issues in EE (1 in the history of the product, vs what… dozens in the last month for Drupal?) the flexibility of EE (unparalleled) and staff dedication.

And actually, “staff dedication” is a brilliant transition.  If the ExpressionEngine community is 1 part of the success of EE, then the dedicated team around it is clearly the other.  I have never met a group quite like Rick, Paul, Les and Derek.  Dedicated, smart as hell, serious but knew how to have a good time, and if I may say so… darn good looking!  In all seriousness, ExpressionEngine, CodeIgniter and all of EllisLab is in great hands.  We are talking about a bunch of guys who live and breath EE, and desperately want it to be great.  I’m honoured to count myself among them.

If you weren’t able to make it to the party (Oh yeah, free food, free booze and free tshirts), there’ll be another one next year, even bigger, and even badder.  Start booking your travel plans now, I know I have.