Richard Campbell Blogs Too

We've had such a great time in Texas, I'm almost loath to leave.

Dallas, Houston and Austin have all been great hosts.

Jeff Palermo, here in Austin, went above and beyond: not only setting up the show, but also securing a venue for recording Mondays and hosting a barbeque tonight. Thanks Jeff!

Tomorrow we have a stop over in El Paso before going on to Phoenix for our 15th show.

Today is our longest haul to date, from Memphis to Dallas.

As I write this we're on the I-40 travelling 66mph heading 235, having crossed from Tennessee into Arkansas. The nav system says its an eight hour trip.

Geoff the sound guy was all excited to cross the Mississippi, naturally it was completely fogged in, the water not visible at all.

Last night's visit to the Memphis .NET Users Group brought a welcome relief from pizza - finally some barbeque! Everyone enjoyed some pulled pork sandwiches and beans, and the show itself went really well.

Three stops in Texas: Dallas, Houston and Austin. Check www.dotnetrocks.com/roadtrip for show details.

With the Orlando show cancelled, we got a weekend off to spend in Atlanta.

Lots of housekeeping, catching up work, editing shows, doing laundry, mundane stuff like that.

Today we topped out, visiting the eastern-most Frys there is, down in Duluth, GA.

In case you're not sure, I'm pretty excited about the whole thing, here's the close up:

Not that we bought much, but just walking through a Frys makes me happy.

After that, we hit Benihana for dinner.

Tomorrow - Nashville.

Looks like I spoke too soon - the folks on the ground in Orlando have now cancelled the show.

With evacuations already under way, it just doesn't make any sense to drive into trouble.

We'll make it up to them at some point, maybe a special trip (by plane, of course) in the spring.

Meantime, we have some extra time in Atlanta... this could be trouble.

Well, we managed to time our drive to Baltimore right on top of the tunnel closing. But since we're in an RV with a big propane bottle, we're not allowed in the tunnel anyway and drove around the 695 ring road, avoiding all the fun.

Now we're looking forward to the end of the week, specifically to Saturday in Orlando.

Wilma has the lowest pressure center ever measured, and bumped up to Category 5 in a matter of hours. She also slowed down, projections now putting her in Florida late on Saturday.

Just about the time we're supposed to be doing a show in Orlando.

Now Orlando is a long way inland, and so far a fair ways off the projected track. But I'm not too keen to be in an RV in rain and wind like that.

Also, if folks are evacuating from the south, the resources in the north are going to be stretched and it might be in everyone's best interest if we just keep out of the way.

Its a bit early to be sure of what to do yet, the five day projections are pretty sketchy, but I think by Friday we'll know for sure, one way or the other.

The RoadTrip is under way, we've completed our first two shows in Boston, MA and Hartford, CT.

The crowds were appreciative of our talks, our info and the loot! We gave away some great stuff to Carl's renditions of Clementine.

We've been online on the RV (where I wrote this blog post), using GSM cell phones (courtesy Cingular) through our laptops. Along the way we've used the web cam to make faces at our kids and generally behave silly.

Tonight we're talking in New York, tomorrow at the New Jersey Code Camp. And Sunday we head for Philly to hangout with the Otaku Generation folks and record a Mondays!