It doesn’t seem like it was that long ago that I was getting excited in the build-up to Reading, BarCampLondon, and d.Construct ’06 (all three of which were incredibly fun).

Since then, I’ve managed to get a job at Yahoo! Europe as a web developer, become a regular at Pub Standards, launch a new design for this site (and let it languish, despite my best intentions), and attend a second BarCamp, as well as going to various gigs (to name but a small fraction).

I had thought that I’d experience a quick flurry of activity before things returned to normal. How wrong I was: my definition of normal has been altered to include working with some of the best, brightest, and most influential people I could ever care to work with, having an influence on potentially thousands of people’s browsing experiences, almost 4 hours of commuting every day (most of which is spent on public transport), and a general feeling of awe at everything my life has become in this short period of time.

Everything seems to be happening at an unrelenting pace now: SxSW07 is just around the corner, @media won’t be far behind that, with d.Construct ’07 sure to follow. BarCamps will probably be plentiful this year, too, and I’m going to try to go to Reading again, as well as (hopefully) taking an Outward Bound ‘adventure’. Because of this I’m making loads of new friends and seeing old ones more often, too.

I’m busy as hell, but I couldn’t be happier.

We’ll be be arriving in Austin at about 4pm local time on the 8th of March 2006, having left Blighty (that’s Britain for those of you that didn’t know) at 9:30am on the same day.

We ended up getting a room together in the Radisson; I know everyone says that the Hampton Inn Downtown is where all the cool kids stay, but they were all booked out (save rooms with double beds, and I don’t plan on sharing a bed with Fatty anytime soon). This either means that there are going to be far too many truly cool people in Austin next March, or that the Hampton booking system somehow knows when people who it deems uncool are trying to book rooms, and simply lies to them.

I’m hoping it’s the former.

We’ve then got a day or so either end of sxsw to enjoy the sights and sounds around Austin or, better yet, to get more acquainted with our fellow sucksweers, and we leave at about 4pm local time on the 16th.

I can’t wait.

PS: Let me know in the comments if you’re going too and we can meet up or something!

Also, recommendations for where we can go for breakfasts would be good, too, as such things appear to be unheard of in the Austin Radisson…