Greetings Rails Gentlefolk!

There are many visitors are coming to these lands and welcome them, we will! SXSW is about to get underway, and we just wanted you to know that we’ve created a gathering spot for the web geeks among us to grab a drink, some appetizers, and chat about web technology.

Please join us for our annual SXSW Happy Hour at Buffalo Billiards on Monday night, March 11, from 6-9PM. We’ve reserved The Lodge, which has tons of billiards tables, shuffleboard, darts. There are also gaming consoles in the adjacent bar which will be fired up and ready to go.

Please take a moment and sign up for any events that you are interested in!  Secondly, please tell your RailsConf-bound friends, especially those who are not in Austin, by forwarding this post to them.

Awesome News! Barry Cox and Carlos Cabrera (the designer of the AoR logo) have put together a web site to buy the new Austin on Rails shirt!

We are rushing through the first order (must order before Monday, 5/2) so that those going to Railsconf can show their Austin pride.

Next Monday night (3/10/2008), we are having an AOR SXSW Happy Hour (sponsored by FiveRuns). The event is from 6-9PM in the Recreation Room at Buffalo Billiards (upstairs). There will be games galore (including Wii), beer, appetizers, and Rails geeks from all over the world. The first 100 attendees shall receive a very choice “Rails at SXSW” T-shirt. So, do come early!

You do not have to be a SXSW Interactive attendee (but if you are, just bring your badge) to enter the party. However, if you don't have a badge, please send an email to "sxsw [at] fiveruns.com" to reserve your party spot. If you're feeling particularly social and geeky, you can add your name to upcoming.org (currently over 70 Attending so far!)

In lieu of our December meeting, we are going to celebrate our 2nd Anniversary as a group by having a holiday party. Yes, it’s become an annual tradition by now…and a darn fine one at that.

We are going to meet at Buffalo Billiards on 6th Street (map) on Tuesday, December 11th from 6 to 9 PM. We currently don't have any official party sponsorship this year, so we are going to just meet up and grab some pool tables and hang out downtown at Buffalo. Should be fun!

Here are the links for the slides:

Rob Mack's Performance Tuning Your Rails App

Rein Henrichs' REST and Rails: Web Services for the Rails World

The Working With Rails site has been updated with a bunch of new features. One of them is a Groups feature, so I decided to create the Austin On Rails group today. Feel free to join if you are a regular attendee of Austin On Rails.