In the shadow of our alarmingly and charmingly pink capitol building, bloggers will be gathering in July for the annual Netroots Nation conference, right here in Austin, TX. Thanks especially to the fine folks at Democracy For Texas for putting together a proposal for why our city is perfect. One huge advantage we have over Chicago is that 95% of what you’d probably want to do if you’re in from out of town for after hours entertainment is in the downtown area; everything is quite walkable. (I can’t figure out from the website what hotels and convention centers they’re using, but if they’re using our actual convention center, it’s three blocks from the famous 6th St. area.) Wireless is abundant here, food is cheap, and so is beer.
45 Responses to “Netroots Nation coming to Texas!”
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Hey Amanda, I’ve been following up on a girl gone missing in South Austin - Zenobia Bechtol (it turns out she’d the daughter of a friend of 2 friends of mine) - evidence points to kidnapping.
So far no news on her being found yet, but in my searches I found this thread:
http://vnboards.ign.com/ac_friends/b5258/105285109/p1/
Titled “why are all these really hawt white teens going missing and making the news? racist???”
And the thread quickly devolves into fat jokes because at age 14 she’s 190 pounds.
Girl is kidnapped and god knows what’s happening to her, and all some fuckers can do is go back and forth between “OMG she’s white that’s all the news cares about” (ignoring that the only news outlet that’s reported it is the Statesman) and playing “flame the fatty” with a) a child and b) a *kidnapped* child.
I don’t know why I’m telling you this - probably just because it pisses me off >:(
Don’t forget heatstroke!
Yay! Texas in July!
I’m going to try to make it this year.
Norbizness,
I offered to buy Duncan a couple beers at Stubbs. Wanna go?
C
Surviving the heat is how we demonstrate that liberals are not wimps. The other Texas alternative was Houston, so really people got off easy, since our climate is a lot more temperate than Houston’s. And if people are really that wussy about walking a few blocks at night in heat (which is not that bad at night, really), the pedicabs are everywhere.
Norbizness,
I told Duncan I’d buy him a couple of beers at Stubbs. you’re welcome to tag along.
C
mmmm. heat.
You’d think we didn’t have air conditioning.
I promise that we are mostly in the 21st century, even if Austinites do have a fondness for the traditional method of cooling off, which is sitting in the shade drinking beer and eating salsa. Now, if we were standing around outside all day, this might be an issue.
That said, I was being whiny last time I was in NYC in March, because it was so fucking cold. I don’t know how people manage winter, for real. I’m probably going to wear a sweater tonight, because god forbid it gets to be a whole 60 degrees out.
Zuzu, if you do come, please don’t dress like the other people from the northeast did when we had DemocracyFest here a couple of years ago. The high temperature was around 100 each day, and an awful lot of those people were wearing heavy dress clothes! That would have been bad enough just walking from car to air conditioning, but several of the events were outside (including the gabfest with Molly Ivins, Jim Hightower, and Glenn Maxey.) I’m surprised no one ended up with heat stroke.
But it’s a shame that BlogHer is scheduled in San Francisco the same weekend.
The image of a bunch of computer-room-tan netroots liberals beating the heat by hopping into Barton Springs makes me very happy.
I think a lot of the complaints about the conflicts with BlogHer are a little ungenerous; the way some people were carrying on, you’d think that the planners of Netroots Nation (though not of BlogHer for some reason) were being criminally negligent to conspiring to shut out BlogHer, and nothing could further from the truth. There’s a lot of considerations, and making them all come together to schedule the same time and place as BlogHer was too much. They tried to make it the same time this year so they can teleconference; I think that’s a good approach.
Good point, Rad. Maybe I should write a post before the conference giving people a rundown of the local culture, things to do, and especially how to dress so they don’t do something uncomfortable like wear too many clothes.
sorry Austin in July, especially if you’ve never been here before could be someone’s version of hell. expect highs of 96 and lows of 76 every day.
it’s great that our town got picked, but…
Chicago isn’t walkable?
magagagas. and you know where.
…btw: i bet some enterprising austin altweekly might be talked into putting together “a things to do” thingie.
Excellent point.
Cooling off by sitting in the shade, drinking beer and eating salsa? Sounds like a good method in any number of warmer climes, including my native Virginia.
beer? salsa? heat? damn. who cares about the convention. i’m sold!
Woohoo — Kate has family in Austin, so she’ll be excited about this one. Please tell me the humidity isn’t as bad as it was in Chicago.
Holy crap, that’s awesome!
Yay! At long last a DKos/NN I can finally attend! I’ll be hitting that one for sure.
Yee hawwww!
This will be a good time. We’ll make the Netroots very welcome here.
“The image of a bunch of computer-room-tan netroots liberals beating the heat by hopping into Barton Springs makes me very happy.”
Watch out for the fire ants!
One of the reasons I live in Austin no more.
Day-uhm! I just might have to make a couple of drives up from San Antone and maybe meet some of my on-line heroes/heroines/role models.
It’s not the heat the gets you. It’s the humidity.
Have you ever sat in a really hot steam sauna then had Al Queda inject hot water into your lungs while placing a ton of bricks on your chest?
That is July in Austin.
I have stopped gluing my rearview mirror back on ‘cause it always melts off in July.
It can be very dangerous.
Trust me.
Pam: Austin is much less humid than, say, Houston, and we also have bats that will eat the mosquitoes.
For those visiting from the Midwest or Northeast: Don’t wear Western wear. People will know you’re out of town for sure.
According ot the site, they have a room block at the Austin Hilton Downtown across the street from the Austin Convention Center.
The rate will be $132 per room. Which is a lot better than Chicago was.
I highly recommend all the brews from Blanco, Texas’ own Real Ale Brewing to anyone coming down for Netroots Nation.
Mmmmmm, mmmmmm good!
I don’t suppose Netroots Nation needs a house band next year…
That said, I was being whiny last time I was in NYC in March, because it was so fucking cold. I don’t know how people manage winter, for real.
Wuss. That was pretty warm for that time of year.
(Feel free to mock me if I start whining about the heat, though we *do* have high heat and humidity here, just not in, like, January). Speaking of January:
Zuzu, if you do come, please don’t dress like the other people from the northeast did when we had DemocracyFest here a couple of years ago. The high temperature was around 100 each day, and an awful lot of those people were wearing heavy dress clothes!
I learned my lesson with that when I had a trial in Houston during January. I’d been told it would be warm, but I wasn’t expecting to be sweating in just my suit jacket and pantyhose.
Um, I had a skirt on as well, in case that wasn’t clear.
Hey, I live in Austin! Woohoo, I’m famous!!
I do kind of think that July was a mistake. I usually never leave the house from June to August. But the heat sure does make for a good excuse to drink beer.
Maybe I should write a post before the conference giving people a rundown of the local culture, things to do, and especially how to dress so they don’t do something uncomfortable like wear too many clothes.
There’s always the no clothes option.
Things may be more spread out Chicago, but at least we’re not in Texas!
And we are proud of our Legislators as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y81boJ0xO50
D TX-25
DJA, if you want to bring your band down, let me know, and I will see if we can make it happen. No promises, but you never know.
I learned my lesson with that when I had a trial in Houston during January. I’d been told it would be warm, but I wasn’t expecting to be sweating in just my suit jacket and pantyhose.
I used to have a job that required pantyhose. I nearly formed a union. When I started working at the university, I had a pantyhose demolishing ceremony. No one—no one—wears pantyhose voluntarily here. 100% cotton is your friend.
I used my old pantyhose to make compost tea. Ah, good times.
Hey, Charles Kuffner, thanks for the link! Makes me wish I was in Austin.
Amanda is correct about Houston having very humid summers. About the only place more humid than Houston is Miami, Fla. Houston’s average high in July is 94 degrees, the same as it is in Aiken, S.C. Houston has record high of 106 (August) and a record low of 9 (December).
Austin’s highest average is in August at 96 degrees with their record high of 112 degrees, 1 degree higher than South Carolina’s all-time record high of 111 degrees set in Blackville. However, Austin also has two subzero record lows: -2 on January 31, 1949 and -1 on February 12, 1899.
…anways, enjoy the Netroots Nation conference in July 2008, Amanda!
Come on now, as everyone who lives around here knows, July is a picnic. August - now, that’s something else… and then, in September, summer starts coming back. I don’t know what season August is.
“I have stopped gluing my rearview mirror back on ‘cause it always melts off in July.”
- you should put it back on,as I hear that is where the best view of Texas is seen.
You heard wrong, Tin, but you know, in Austin at least we enjoy the negative stereotypes, because if people knew the truth, they’d want to move here and then we’d get overcrowded.
Sorry about that, it was “happiness” and “Lubbock” that I heard. Apologies to Mac Davis too.
As for becoming overcrowded, there was a “Lesser Seattle” group around when I lived there, circa 1980. Its goal was the same as your enjoyment. Alas, it didn’t work and now Seattle is nowhere near what is once was. Enjoy what undercrowdedness you have while you have it, because you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone…
And tacos. We’re lousy with yummy tacos.
It’s nice when conferences come to Austin and I can do my politicking mere feet away from the couch.
I guess no one from Chicago wants to step up and mention just how miserable that city can be in the summer. Austin will have a 99% chance of being hot, but I’d take that over the 75% chance that Chicago will be hot. I spent a couple of summers in Chicago and it was absolutely unbearable and I grew up down South. I think A/C in the South must just function better because even the places that had A/C in Chicago seemed like miserable sweat shacks.
Everyone raves about Chicago but those two summers have left me with a negative impression of the city.
Tintinintibet:
Too late. Austin is way bigger now than it was even as little as 10 years ago.
It’s not Austin that’s the problem with migration to Central Texas…it’s Round Rock, Cedar Park, Buda, Hays and all the master planned developments heading out toward Elgin on 290 and heading out toward Taylor on 79.
The unfortunate end result of all that is the region…and Austin…are really getting slammed. It’s the worst “scrape and pave” kind of development, too.