Ed Brayton is a freelance writer and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
There's some good and some bad to report. I went to Detroit on Tuesday night and got a hotel room so I could get a good night's sleep before my flight on Wednesday. The problem was that I couldn't connect to their wifi. I spent an hour and a half on the phone with their tech support and they couldn't get me connected. Then I had to spend a half hour arguing with the manager to refund my money so I could go to another hotel. Finally got that done. I had work to get done last night and had to be online.
Today got better. Got upgraded to first class for my flight to Austin - go me. That made the flight to Austin much more pleasant and we actually landed a half hour early. Ran into Josh Rosenau by the baggage claim, which was good because he'd forgotten his cell phone back in San Fran and I wasn't gonna be able to reach him if I hadn't run into him. Good fortune for both of us since we had to speak together later.
DarkSyd picked us up from the airport, over to the hotel to change clothes and wipe off the sweat - it's seriously hot here - and we were picked up by Clare Wuellner of the Center for Inquiry - Austin, who took us to Ruby's BBQ. Good stuff, had dinner with Steve Schafersman of Texas Citizens for Science and Chris Comer, the former science specialist now suing the Texas Education Agency for wrongful termination.
From there we went to the joint meeting of CFI - Austin and Texas Citizens for Science, where Josh and I gave presentations. They went very well, got some good laughs with the same speech I'm doing for the conference on Friday. Then we all went off to some pub for beer (or coke, in my case). DarkSyd's comment: "I leave you alone for two hours and you wander off and find a college party." Yep, that's me: party animal supreme.
Tomorrow the only thing I really have to do is the dinner with my readers from the area. I'll get registered at the conference, probably take in a panel or two and get caught up email and other stuff.
Comments
I thought it looked like the heat and humidity was getting to you two. I'm an Arizona transplant and it took me a while to get used to the humidity. The "at least it's a dry heat" joke is true!
Really good talks from both of you. I found the meeting valuable as a way to get the information for the organizations that are fighting local creationism. Since I'm cooped up in the lab most of the time I don't know much about local politics even after three years.
Posted by: Joshua White | July 17, 2008 10:13 AM
What exactly were you thinking? "It's the middle of the summer, I think I'll fly South!"
Posted by: Herod the Freemason | July 17, 2008 12:50 PM
I'm sure Ed's used to humidity, it's the heat that got him. Austin isn't even the humid part of Texas, really.
Posted by: Andrea | July 17, 2008 1:00 PM
You make it sound like jury duty or something. I can see it now, "I'd really like to join you guys at the strip club. But I have to do this dinner thing with my readers." :-p
Posted by: Abby Normal | July 17, 2008 3:57 PM
Rudy's BBQ is some of the best BBQ in the universe. I swear by the moist pork. Oh, and the creamed corn. I would go there even in July/August, and that is saying something.
Posted by: Rachael | July 17, 2008 6:33 PM
Excuse me, I meant *Ruby's*. Long day ;)
Posted by: Rachael | July 17, 2008 6:36 PM