Omniblog

(Author’s note: Crap, this thing sat in “Drafts” for a week. Whoops.)

I have not been to ACL since 2003, and even then I was a volunteer (both 2002 and 2003). So, this year I decided to suck it up and go and not volunteer for once. Good idea, yes, did anything cooperate, no.

I learned a lot about ACL, and things I forgot about needing since I have not been in so long. These things should have been pretty damn obvious: (The only one I didn’t follow was the chair. I had, or did, everything else in this list.)

1. Take a damn chair. Seriously, take a chair. Yes it’s one more thing to carry around, but your feet will love you for it. Academy sells some for $5.99. They’re perfect for ACL.
2. Be prepared for anything. Even rain, heavy downpours possible too.
3. Watch the weather forecast. Yes, it’s Texas, but any information you can get will help.
4. Get there when you feel like it. I am thinking next year, I might just go for the headliners at night.
5. Take your own hand sanitizer. The ones ACL provides usually stop working around the second day.
6. Taking a backpack to haul any crap you have around is wonderful. (If it’s going to rain, make sure you have some way to cover it. Water resistant is not water proof.)
7. Take your own water bottle.

I went for a long while on Friday, but left partway through Kings of Leon because my allergies acted up about 2 hours after I arrived at ACL (around 1:00). It was bad, but I learned to not forget to use my Flonase.

Saturday: I got there at 12:30-1:00. I was there until 5:00 (did I mention that Mute Math and Flogging Molly totally rock?). I left, went home, got dry and clean, and watched some college football.

Sunday: Didn’t even bother going. Not even for Pearl Jam. Why? The idea of wandering around in the mud, which I later learned more about, just didn’t tickle my fancy. So, I stayed home and watched football. Do I regret not going, no, not really.

All in all, ACL is a fun experience, but be ready for anything when you go. I will admit the idea of moving it to October was a great idea as the heat wasn’t a huge problem.

Some idiot, somewhere, bitched about moving it to a time which was “during the rainy season”. What? Since when does Austin have a rainy season? If we had a rainy season, we wouldn’t be under stage 2 (or 3) water restrictions. Nice try Einstein.

It’s that time again. Time for a big ass music festival that rocks. And, thank God it’s in October.

It doesn’t look like it’s going to be near 90 the entire weekend. Sweet. Now, I have not been to ACL since 2003 (its second year). I volunteered the first 2 years, but things got in the way and I never really went back.

This should be fun, but that’s not the purpose of this post. This post is meant to show up somewhere in Google for people that have AT&T and a 3G phone (in my case, an iPhone), and they are attending ACL this weekend.

As most of us know, AT&T’s 3G infrastructure in Austin blows donkey wang. I mean, seriously big donkey wang. So, there’s a possible solution that actually never entered my train of thought:

If you are going to ACL, turn off 3G this weekend.

See if it helps. Rumor has it, any major event: UT game, festival, etc, it’s best to turn off 3G if you use AT&T.

Yes, your ACL iPhone App or Facebook or whatever else might run a little slower, but damn you can make calls and send text messages to find your buddies. And in a big ass festival like this, that is quite important.

Happy festivaling! Stay hydrated and cool and I’ll see you around Pearl Jam, Kings of Leon or Dave!