Got up yesterday at 3:00am to catch a ride to the airport. Arrived in Austin at 2:30pm their time.

Getting badges at the Austin Convention Center was pretty fast considering their looked to be at least 1,000 people floating around.

Austin is a beautiful city. It's sunny and the older buildings are designed much like they are in Mexico. Seamless transitions from the inside to the outside, no vestibules to keep out cold that never happens, thin windows. There are trees everywhere. From my hotel window I can see light growth all the way to the horizon.

My cab driver tells me that in the summer it gets very hot. He said last year it was over 100 degrees (37ºC) from May to October. Right now it's 25ºC throughout the whole day.

Some friends from iStock Photo, who are veterans of this conference, showed us around last night. We had dinner with them and far too much to drink. It was nice to get some insight on how to best see the thousands of things going on here for the next 10 days.

Today my roommate Brian Clegg and I will drag our sad and hungover selves downtown to start seeing some of the interactive panels.