Austin, Texas

This week, I'm in Austin, Texas. I've written about Austin before, as I've been here many, many times. If you want to know more about the city, check out my previous post (here), particularly if you want to read about the bats (yes, I said bats).

I'm here this week to attend the Austin Game Developers Conference. This is the exact reason I was here one year ago. the AGDC is a gathering of game developers from around the country. This is one conference - in a series - for game developers. The largest of these is held in San Francisco, in March. They hold GDC Canada, GDC Europe, and GDC China (which I'll be speaking at next month).

This year, I'm here to deliver a talk on programming graphics for games (here) - using the latest technology. Most folks that stop by this blog won't know what I'm talking about, so I'll skip the tech details. Consider yourself lucky. Here's a picture that one of the attendees took, while I was speaking today:

Yes, a little dark...but it does prove to my wife that I was actually working...

In my opinion, Austin is one of the best cities in Texas (my son certainly won't be happy to hear that). However, this is still the South - and you'll always find things like this to remind you of that fact:

Yes, Tony...this is for you...

I'm staying at a hotel along the river (actually it's called Town Lake), which runs along downtown Austin. Here's the view from my room:

Not bad, eh?

Last night, I went to dinner with some business associates. They took me to a fantastic restaurant called Fogo de Chao - a Brazilian steakhouse. My brother-in-law J would be quite jealous ; ) This is one of those restaurants that only carnivores should visit. The waiters would bring skewers and skewers of meat, right to the table:

You know, come to think of it, my father would really like this place. We had unlimited access to filet mignon, lamb, top sirloin, bottom sirloin, rib-eye, sausage, chicken and meats-wrapped-in-bacon. J could probably help me with the Brazilian names, as I didn't understand all of them. They offer a salad bar, but that's just a rookie mistake ; ) Needless to say, we were stuffed. I think I should have arranged for a roller barrel to get home....

After my presentation today, I went to lunch with some other AMD employees. They decided to show me some real Texas BBQ. I didn't have the heart to tell them that I was already at my quota on meat for the month. At any rate, they escorted me to a popular place called the Iron Works:

The Sampler Plate

It was good. Really good. I've added this to my short list of great BBQ places in Texas. Lots of reasons to come back...