South By Southwest Interactive is now just over a month away. Last year, Chevrolet conducted a Road Trip Challenge: get 8 teams from across the country to compete in a race/challenge/scavenger hunt thing from their home towns road tripping to Austin from New York, Detroit, San Diego, etc. It was a great program, and I know (from spending hours on the phone with various teams) that participants had gobs of fun!

So when I was invited, thanks to a strong nod from Henry Balanon (who rawks btw, if you dont’ know him! Can’t believe it took til BlogWorld this year to finally meet!), I knew right away I, and BNOTIONS, had to jump on! But we couldn’t just do it like everyone else, we had to make it our own cause, y’know, we’re weird that way.

First Up, The Team: Team Autofollow

Before we get into the “value add” that BNOTIONS is bringing, I thought I’d share our current team: Myself, Guy Gal from The Biz Media, Mark Reale from BNOTIONS and Sean Ward from Sean Ward. We will be leaving March 8th and absolutely booting it for 35 hours (almost straight).

So let this serve as notice to all the other teams: Canada is coming and we’re going to absolutely dominate. Unless you’re offended by that, in which case we’re really sorry for dominating, eh? ;-)

Also, we have one extra space in the car if anyone else wants to hop in!

The Chase Car

In addition to the standard Chevy car, BNOTIONS will be sending some help. Not with the contest, cause that’d be cheating (and we don’t need to cheat to DOMINATE), but with filming, networking and just plain awesomeness. So not only will you have Team Autofollow plowing it’s domination-laden path to Austin, you’ll also have our Chase Car there to document the whole thing (and clean up after us).

Oh Yeah Baby

<Insert conclusion paragraph with witty repartee and jabs at the other teams, especially Henry, here.>

Recently I was a bit sick, so worked from Starbucks so I wouldn’t get the rest of the BNOTIONS team sick. I happened to sit down next to a young woman in the middle of a life coaching session. Or something.

She was 2 feet away. Impossible to ignore. Even when I tried. Eventually I gave up and just started tweeting choice quotes. What follows are some of her best quotes, and actions, archived for posterity. If they seem crazy, know that @hildavidson was sitting here for most of it and we spent much of the time trying not to lose it!

• Girl sitting beside me in coffee shop is doing her life plan. It’s entertaining. Married by 30. Done kids by 35. Gonna marry “best friend”.
• “I have 2 years to meet my best friend” she says. What is she the best in the world at? “Making friends”.
• She is now self-clapping. This is a bad sign.
• “Why do you have to wait for what you want?” she asks… “I want what I want now, there’s no point in waiting til I SHOULD have it”
• “I think everyone should commit themselves to just enjoying life” ed: this has been my problem all along, a big commitment to NOT enjoying life!
• “If I don’t tell the universe what I want in a guy, I’ll get whatever randomly comes out”
• “I am the soundtrack to my life”
• “I want to work for an animal activist company or help homeless people find more food… or get a nobel prize” ed: don’t put all your eggs in one basket, am I right?
• “20 years from now, I want my kids parents to come home and say ‘Your mom is a MILF’” ed: yes this is a quote, at least she included “parents”, right?
• “I want to balanace my life goals between stuff *I* want and stuff the world deserves from me”
• “In order to hit that goal I’d need to do 3 classes a week, and I”m afraid that’ll distract me from the actual goal”
• Poor girl. She’s stressing about whether she should do morning or evening classes. 7 years from now.
• “It’s just stupid career stuff, it keeps getting in the way of my life and goals”
• “Hot yoga, I don’t think I”ve ever spent that long on my back before”
• “I’m already stretchy. And bendy.”
• “I want to be the hawtest 80 year old woman ever, I just don’t know in the next 5 years what I can do to get there” ed: dream big #coffeelifegirl, dream big.
• “I’d love to live in Texas, but I feel like if I had a job in Ohio that’d take precedent”
• “5 years from now I want to be paid for the job I’m working”
• And her parting comment is……… “This is why I want to marry a jew”

And, yes, I managed to get two client proposals done while this was going on, so I was working!

I was recently down visiting #thecrush’s family for American Thanksgiving, so thought I’d cook a little bit. I ended up doing more than just this recipe but really any cooking makes me happy. This is partially because cooking is fun / I can impress the family, and partially because the freeform, untrained way I cook just fundamentally annoys #thecrush. So all in all it’s worth it!

The standount “what the hell is he doing?!” recipe was definitely my spicy cranberry stuffing concoction. I didn’t manage to take pictures, but it worked out really well (I saved some of the broth to ensure the stuffing stayed moist while baked):

Ingredients

• 1 package of bacon, lean
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1-1.5 cup celery
• 3 cloves garlic
• 1 medium onion
• 1 cup white wine
• 1 (16 ounce) can whole berry cranberry sauce
• 1 (4 ounce) jar jalapeno peppers
• 1 (4 ounce) can green chile peppers
• 1 cup chopped nuts (pecans, walnuts, etc)
• 2 (14 ounce) packages cornbread stuffing mix
• 1 1/2 cups chicken stock

Prep

• Cook bacon til crispy
• Drain bacon on towel
• Crumble bacon
• Chop celery, onion
• Mince garlic
• Dice jalapeno, green peppers, soak in honey
• Toast pecans, walnuts (together, cinnamon/nutmeg/butter)
• Mix stuffing per directions, add chicken stock, stir til moist
• Cook stuffing til brown on top, 30-40 minutes (9×13 baking dish)
• Cool stuffing, cut into small squares
• Prep chicken broth and heat
• Preheat oven to 375

Cooking

• Melt butter in LARGE skillet over medium-high heat
• Cook celery/garlic/onion until onion caramelizes
• Add wine until heated, then cranberry/peppers
• Cover til boiling
• Remove from heat, add nuts/bacon

Stuffing Mix

• Stuffing in bowl
• Add ingredients
• Add chicken broth to taste
• Bake if necessary (too wet)

Conclusion

While I wouldn’t actually recommend using this recipe, it was alot of fun, tasted nom (everyone but #thecrush enjoyed it) and had everyone wondering what “that silly Canadian” was doing.

Good  times!