Hey Elise // by Elise Hu

A post in Mashable today about a new pop-up store in SoHo reminded me I hadn’t blogged about my trip to New York two weeks ago. It was the first of three weeks in a row of short work trips: New York, then Houston, then Eden.

Following a late dinner with some NPR colleagues and supporters, Friend Matt and I opted to walk back from the meal through his SoHo neighborhood. It had rained — monsooned, really — in New York that afternoon, so the streets seemed strangely fresh and clean. And at midnight on a Thursday, it felt like we were the only ones wandering that ultra-glam New York neighborhood, winding up and down streets lined with gorgeous display windows of designer stores.

I only snapped two photos during our walk: Freedom Tower as we crossed the still-wet, shockingly still street, and the breakdown of the SoHo space used for pop-up shops. This is the space now occupied by Baublebar, as featured in the Mashable post inspiring this post. Delta had been its most recent occupier, but as you can see above, the countdown to its big launch had passed.

Somewhere above 9.200 elevation on Powder Mountain. See if you can spot my crew — the tiny dudes in the photo.

Just got back from rural Utah. More specifically, a place called Eden. Wandered high up in the clouds. After riding a rock crawler to nearly 9,000 feet elevation, I followed Summit Series leaders Jeff and Thayer to a point so high I panicked about how I’d “hike” (in my running shoes) back down.

“Hand eye coordination is not my thing,” I kept telling the guys.

But hey, it was for an interesting story about how Team Summit recently closed the purchase of said mountain, the largest skiiable mountain in North America. Note to self: If you get to hang out on a peak overlooking four states for your job, don’t complain.

Tune in for the piece later this month. For the purposes of this personal blog, some notes from the road:

- I drove a Ford Expedition for the first time, because Avis apparently ran out of smaller vehicles. It felt like driving a bus. I was white knuckling it for most of the ride north into the mountains, but eventually I loved it and stopped being scared that I’d accidentally maul an elk.

- Speaking of rental cars, while standing in the garage awaiting my oversized vehicle, I looked across the way and saw a familiar-looking attractive man. I thought to myself, that guy looks like a Romney! Just as I was running through the names of the five Romney boys in my head, a car attendant popped out and said to him, “First name?” and he responded, “Tagg.” TAGG! He’s it.

- Last time I was in Utah was in 2011, when I covered the National Governors Association meeting in Salt Lake and became buddies with the legendary Washington Post scribe Dan Balz. We had some beers with Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, I taught Dan how to tweet a photo and we’ve been friends ever since. The mountains brought back memories of that random weekend.

- On the mountain, the Summit folks live and work in what feels like a dream summer camp for grownups. They have a cook that makes only gluten-free, Paleo diet approved foods at meals they all share and eat together. They also have an ashram, fresh juice each morning, a trainer, and all the skiing and snowboarding they want while it’s in season. Basically I was wondering why I still live in a sometimes soul-depleting urban environment and not on a mountain, instead.

- Almost missed my flight home due to unanticipated traffic, an evil GPS and the slowest possible milk scanning device ever. I’m still nursing Baby Eva and pumping while I’m away, which means when I go through security, each bottle must be scanned with a special device individually. I was the last person to be let on board before takeoff.

- How about that Delta Airlines? I love their cookie snacks, but I also really enjoyed their quietly subversive in-flight safety video. I watched it all the way through because I realized they were hiding little visual gags in there throughout.

Lunch under this amazing pavilion included shrimp and grits, of course.

After last week’s total misery, I needed to get away. So this year’s Food for Thought Conference in my old stomping grounds of Greenville, SC, couldn’t have come at a better time.

My old source and good friend, Joe Erwin, heads an advertising firm in Greenville that started with three employees and has since grown into a thriving agency with major clients, hundreds of staffers and satellite offices in New York and Detroit. A few years ago he got a notion to host a retreat where people across several different fields — entrepreneurship, marketing, communication, philanthropy and more — could come together in his beloved hometown and hear from inspiring people, interact with business leaders, share ideas and do it a.) anywhere but in over-air-conditioned hotel conference rooms and b.) while enjoying memorable meals.

“It comes from the Bible, in which King David talks about being ‘at table,’” Erwin said, as he got the conference under way on in an airy bar overlooking the Reedy River. “It’s when we’re at table that we let our defenses down and do some of our best thinking.”

I was already satisfied that I got to meet interesting people, get exposed to new ideas and move from one interesting physical space to another (the FFT conference has a no hotel conference room rule). But it all the serendipitous meetings “at tables” of delicious food that made this experience stand out.

Greenville is a smallish city but thanks to the strong influence of Southern food culture, it has more delicious restaurants than places many times its size. On opening night, the attendees got broken up into groups of 10 so that each group could go enjoy a different notable Greenville restaurant in an intimate setting. My group was lucky enough to dine in a special apartment above the restaurant Soby’s, where the chef from Greenville restaurant Devereaux’s cooked up a five course meal in the private kitchen. Seated next to Joe and across from Southwest Airlines’ thoughtful marketing man, Dave Ridley, we chatted and laughed about our past experiences, our families and our passions. Sharing a meal fosters such fast, authentic connections — the conference nurtures that notion to exciting ends.

Chef Chris Hastings and sous chef Sadesh in the kitchen of Greenville, SC’s Devereaux’s restaurant.

Perhaps I can’t stop gushing about this confab because I got the opportunity to eat grits at breakfast, lunch and dinner. I also enjoyed flavor explosions in my mouth at every meal. On the second (and my last) night, the whole group of 100 dined together at Devereaux’s, with a guest chef in the kitchen. The organizers flew in Chef Chris Hastings of Birmingham’s Hot and Hot Fish Club to cook for us. He was 2012′s James Beard Award winner for “Best Chef in the South” and dominated Bobby Flay in the sausage showdown on Iron Chef. Even if he hadn’t those accolades, the MAN CAN COOK. The meal he prepared for us last night instantly entered my top three most memorable dining experiences ever. Who knew rabbit pot pie or snapper jowl could be so delicious? Chef Hastings knew.

I had to jet before the final day, which looked amazing. But my short time was packed with highlights, including the amazing Carolina spring weather, my pre-conference catchup time with my inspiring journalist/momma pal Michelle, and becoming buddies with the COO of my ultimate favorite fast food, Taco Cabana. Todd Cuerver randomly sat at the same table at the conference lunch yesterday and I totally geeked out when I found out he was with Taco C. I had so many Taco C moments to tell him about! (Most of them involved drunkenness and flour tortillas.)

To stop the rambling and sum up: If you can make it next year, take a break from your boring lunches at Potbelly and your constant inbox grooming and get away to Greenville. Food for Thought fed my belly, but more importantly, it fed my soul when I needed it the most.

Reeve, Justin, Blake from where I sat across the miraculously empty bar Saturday night.

Conference attendance at the interactive portion of the SXSW Film, Music and Interactive Fest swelled to 30,000 this year, and it showed. Walking around Austin among throngs of people with their heads lost in mobile devices, getting Red Bulls shoved in my face by one brand rep or another, battling an inbox full of one party promo after another felt like an absurd dystopia. Reality of the festival’s girth finally caught up with the years of complaints about it.

I spent way too much time in my rental car just trying to find an unclogged artery to get downtown. Once I got close, I spent too much time trying to find a place to park. And this year, I actually had places to go: I was doing tech and culture coverage online and on-air, and Team NPR was there to launch our new 30-and-under effort, Generation Listen. Thanks to the hard work of GenListen founder Danielle Deabler, NPR HR badass Lars Schmidt, the team at KUT Austin and my Austin pals Jimmy Stewart and Elaine Garza, we were able to go from zero to awesome, geek celebrity-filled party inside of three weeks. (Nerd king Neil Gaiman and his wife Amanda Palmer were there, y’all.)

Despite all the marketing-laden madness and the rushing around to finish the story for Morning Edition (which also wouldn’t have been possible without the friendship and help of KUT)… a few magic South By moments did squeeze into the schedule, serendipitously.

• Justin and I photo-boothed, which has become a real hobby of ours over the years.
• Snuck in some time on the hike and bike trail. I was reporting at the time and didn’t actually EXERCISE, but hey, my feet touched the trail, okay?
• P Terry’s! Tried the peanut butter shake. Mixed a little of it into Eva’s rice cereal and might have given her a sugar high. But I felt she HAD TO try it.
• Took two groups of friends, on separate nights, to a SXSW hideout better known as The Elephant Room, Austin’s basement jazz club that was decidedly not participating in the South By madness. And how wondrous it was, for the first group — a bunch of my favorite people from Knight and MIT — and the second, politico pals Richard Wolffe and Johnathan Kopp, who spent our drinking time reminiscing about all the ‘gates of the Clinton Administration.
• One night, exhausted by people everywhere and stubbornly refusing to stand in any line at SXSW, ever, my old friends Voggie, Blake, Reeve, Justin and I found a respite. A film about craft cocktail bartenders rented out a Rainey Street house/bar and almost no one showed up for the premiere party. We did. We found empty spaces with nonstop craft cocktails to lounge around in, and Friend Matt, who’d had a long day of speaking/presenting, joined us for some backyard chill time. Our friend Niran then showed up randomly, and so did my fave Austin gays – ex roommate Jarrod, ex coworker Tyler, and even more randomly, Bravo’s Andy Cohen, who the boys were rolling with that night.
• A quiet brunch at our Austin hosts Melissa and Brett’s house. Melissa made bacon and sausage and quiche with her homemade crust and baked french toast and a fruit salad; the Rocaps joined us in eating it, with my five-year-old Friend Ellie blurting out “bacon!” over and over. It was pretty much the raddest.
• Catch-up time with my most indefatigable boss ever, Evan. That he even found time for us to hang out despite his schedule was a huge treat.

I have many SXSW regrets this year, because there were too many events and too little time. I didn’t see a single film, which used to be my favorite thing to do during the festival back in the days I didn’t have to be accountable for my time there. I also didn’t see most of my Austin gal pals, who always provide a recharge hard to find from any other source. But the in between moments of socializing weren’t bad, and Eva was awesome to have with us the whole time. Now, I just need to go to sleep for a long time.

The guys from HBO’s Entourage would often just drop into Vegas for an evening, so when Friend Matt said to come on out for his birthday weekend, I called Friend Liz, she said “I love this” and on Saturday, we hopped on a flight.

Knowing we would meet many folks for the first time, I joked on our flight out that I wanted to be called “Kenneth.” It cracks me up when people are named one thing but then go by something totally random.

So during introductions, I said, “I’m Elise. But you can call me Kenneth.” Our new pal, Owen, got the joke right away and made up some name he, too, would go by. The gals next to us also seemed to catch on, laughing gamely. It was amusing for about two minutes before the conversation shifted and the ol’ Kenneth gag was history.

To communicate with his dozen friends in the desert, Matt used a group texting service in which the sender’s name precedes his or her message. I participated in the texting, as did the others, through 24 hours of eating and drinking and dancing and confetti and brunch.

When it was time to head home, we shared a cab to the airport with a gal who sat next to us at dinner the night before. We were discussing the group text system and this is what followed:

Her: Who’s Elise Hu? She seemed pretty talkative on the texting but I can’t remember who that was. She must have been quiet in person.
Me: I’m Elise.
Her: But I thought you were Kenneth.

The spawn, the spouse and I just got back from NewsFoo, an unconference put on by O’Reilly Media and the Knight Foundation. The 150-ish attendees are all involved in technology and/or journalism in an interesting way and I’m certain I was the dumbest person there.

If you’ve never unconferenced, the main idea is that at more traditional and scheduled conferences, all the best connections and interesting conversations end up happening at lunch or during coffee breaks. So unconferences aim to foster the coffee break vibe for an entire weekend by only setting session start and end times — the session topics are all pitched and plotted by the attendees after they arrive. No Powerpoints, no formal presentations, no nonsense. Below, some photos, and after the jump, notes from the Foo and links from my animations session.

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Two years ago, one of my bridesmaids and best friends, April, unwittingly fell victim to a TOTAL ROMANTIC CATASTROPHE. There’s no need to go into the details except to say I learned of this in the middle of a busy downtown street and was so stunned that I froze there on the asphalt as cars honked to avoid running me over.

In the blur of  time following the news, April and I spent night after night out at bars, rooftop parties, dives featuring wood paneling and karaoke, sketchy dance clubs full of cougars, and, you get the idea. All along, we kept our friends Keith and Virginia, parents to a then-newborn, updated with new developments in the TOTAL ROMANTIC CATASTROPHE.

Around that time, Keith had begun a friendship with a super smart engineer named Chad. And he decided that Chad should meet April. So he enlisted my help in bringing the two together. We organized a happy hour, ostensibly to casually hang out, but mainly so the two could meet.

Within a month the two were dating, by Christmas they’d met one anothers families, and by this Easter, they were engaged. Keith and I spent their weekend wedding in the Texas Hill Country gloating over our matchmaking success.

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One of my views out the window, though I can’t remember where.

I’ve been logging a lot of time in the air in the past few years, training and working with NPR member stations, shooting a political video project, hanging out my Europe-dwelling parents, freelancing for the Knight Foundation and just plain ‘splorin.

But my road warrior days are coming to an end next month, when I’m banned from flying due to the spawn in my system. So I thought I’d share some of my rules for the road in case you’re about to, say, be in five cities in eight days and want to avoid spending the night in a freezing cold baggage claim.

Below are my tips, along with travel advice I solicited from friends who log Hillary-Clinton-level frequent flier miles: John Bracken (professional innovation agent), Brad Willis (international poker blogger), and Matt Mullenweg (international man of mystery). Please send me yours or leave them in the comments and I’ll update this post.

UPDATE April 2013: Reader Alex Volnyak found this post useful and he took the time to translate it into Czech for any of you Czech readers out there. Please check it out if you’re interested. And thanks, Alex!

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Due to my status as a slumlord (we kept our Austin house) and because Texas friends are getting married and/or having babies that require in-person celebration, we’ve made three-to-four trips back to Austin each year. I love going back but it’s been kind of pricey, not to mention a pain because flying out of Washington Reagan calls for time-zapping layovers in Dallas or Chicago.

A new DCA-AUS flight that Southwest Airlines introduced this week may be the antidote to my yuppie plight. It’s nonstop service between the only actual DC airport (the others are way too far out*) and Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. I tried it out with my longtime pal Brad yesterday, and flew back to DCA just a few minutes ago. On the return flight was US Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who volunteered for the exit row, which meant she was ready to help us all in an emergency evacuation. Luckily, there were no surprises and KBH spent her plane time just as I typically do — leaned up against the window, taking a nap.

My only travel mistake today was leaving a chicken fried steak sandwich from Dan’s Hamburgers in my carry-on until mid-flight, because the grease ended up soaking through into my stuff and the sandwich was so much less tasty cause of its short shelf life.

Before our bike ride up the montagne at Parc du Mont Royal, a huge green space in the heart of Montreal.

Our timing couldn’t have been better. Friday night, a rare derecho storm blasted into the sweltering DC area, knocking out power to what seemed like half the town. (More than 1.2 million homes lost power in the DC, Maryland, Virginia area.) We miraculously maintained electricity in the home but jetted off to a weekend in the much-cooler Canadian town of Montreal.

Montreal is the second-largest French-speaking city in the world, so all my Spanish-cramming this year was totally useless. But luckily, the French-Canadians in Montreal are far, far nicer than the French in Paris, so we ended up having a fabulous time. My rundown won’t include clubs and bars because I have been off the booze since getting knocked up, but some other highlights if you are looking for a good three-day weekend escape:

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