The WHY

"Why are you guys DRIVING to Texas?!" This has been asked by many. The simple answer is, "At the time we decided to go to Texas, the air fares were ridiculous. It was cheaper to fly half-way across the globe than to fly within the US." There. are you happy now? No? OK.... the air fares have gone down since then but the facination of driving through states I've never been to, and the road-side attractions they hold, are reason enough for us to stay the course and drive our fricken asses down there.

The long-winded explanation is:
National Instruments, based in Austin, Texas, has a technical symposium every year for 4 days in August. They have done this for 10 years now. It is basically an NI propaganda-fest. They announce releases of new, upcoming products. The hold classes on how to use their technologies in different situations, etc... Usually, I would not stand for 4 days of in-your-face marketing, but NI is a good company that makes some great products. Especially LabVIEW which is a graphical programming language that allows for simple intergration of hardware and software. This is the primary reason for our attending the event.

This web log will be used to track our journey. We are armed with much consumer electronics... 4 laptops, 20Gb Mp3 player (just about full), Digital camera, 2 cell phones, GPS system, etc... We're hoping to find (and document) some Wi-Fi hotspots along the way. This will be our primary method of uploading.

We are leaving Friday afternoon... jeez I still need to do laundry... =) Chuck