Events
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Academic
In 2006, I was on the committee the organized Texas Linguistic Society 10, or TLSX, putting a fair amount of effort into it, and deciding not to use it as an opportunity to publish, since that might seem questionable, though it's common in academic circles. It was fun, but reminded me of the narrow focus of linguistics as a discipline, despite its universal application. Linguists really need to realize this and find a way to make their work relevant or face extinction. Seriously.
Professional
One of my IM chat parsing projects made it to the CPP conference in Boston in 2008.
I attended SXSW Interactive in 2010 and had a wonderful time. The enormous breadth of topics presented, coupled with the mix of cultural theory, innovation, and downright technological insurrection amazed me. I will go back every year I'm in Austin in March.
Gaming
(my other profession...)
For most of the years we've had our house, I've held a number of short-span one or two day events I've been calling EmotiCon.
Finally, after many years, I got back into gaming conventions in 2008, attending Millennium Con in Round Rock, just the road from Austin. It was fun; we ran our Battletech Arena of Death and had a decent turnout, even though the other Battletech game hosts in the same room talked shit about us. Fuck 'em, the haters.
In 2009, I attended GenCon, another conference I would like to attend every year from here on out. Four days of non-stop gaming made it so I didn't sleep more than a few hours a night. i was running on adrenaline and tea by the of it. I took a few of my games, but ended up just playing a bunch and talking theory and culture in-between. Met a new friend and became better friends with another along the way, which made it all extra worthwhile.
In February 2010, Adam and I drove to Houston to attend OwlCon 2010, which sported the slogan, "the year we make CONtact." Cute. I was very impressed with their organization and focus, though the Rice University vending machines ate a number of my coins, returning nothing to me. I should know not to trust aged mechanical machines.
In April 2010, ChimeraCon is being held in San Antonio. We're considering attending.
Inspired by OwlCon, we vowed to host our own con in Austin in 2011. I think it'll be called UniCon.
Sporting
I haven't been to many sporting events. I remember going to a few O's games back in the early 90s, which were pretty fun. But I find baseball pretty damn boring. I'd be up for
