All my bags are packed and I'm ready to go.....

I'm heading to the airport (Reagan/National) in just a few minutes to catch my flight from DCA to Houston, to Austin for the spring break of geek conferences, SXSW. I'm incredibly excited at all of the panels that are going to be available for me to attend in addition to all of the conference parties that happen each night (especially the Bigg Digg Shindigg).

Nate Silver of fightthirtyeight.com is the keynote speaker for Sunday.

Merlin Mann (43folders.com) and John Gruber (daringfireball.net) are doing a panel together on Saturday, called "HOWTO: 149 Surprising Ways to Turbocharge Your Blog With Credibility".

Gina Tripani of Lifehacker will be sitting in on a panel called Curating the Crowd-Sourced World.

One of my personal heros, Lawrence Lessig, will be doing a panel called "Politics, Technology, and Pop Culture."

These are just a few I'm most looking forward to. I could go on and on, listing the 20 or so on my personal conference schedule, but names such as Andy Baio, Daniel Burka, Brian Cain, Andy Carvin (NPR & local DC techie), Ana Marie Cox, Jonathan Coulton, Felicia Day, Tara Hunt, Guy Kawasaki, Tom Merritt Kevin Rose, Alex Albrect, Robert Scoble, Christina Warren will be sprinkled throughout the panels over the course of the conference. Representatives from all of the major web companies/orgs/presences will be on hand to meet with, talk to, discuss, etc.

Now can you see why I'm excited? Well - look at the time. Off to the airport!