Live Poker Questions and etiquette

khiar

I'm still fairly new to playing poker, especially live but I got a chance to put in a session last weekend of $1/2 and I've got a few observations and questions that I'd like to run by you.

Slow play or just a really bad Tell?
So, my third hand in, I get dealt A9cc in the BB. I'll save you the gory details but Limped Pot, Bet on the Flop from SB, I'm the only one to call with 2 clubs. c/c on the Turn and a 8c hits the River.
Now, the SB bets for $100 (Crazy overbet) and I go into the Tank, because I want to make extra-special sure that I have the nuts. There's no straight flush, no paired board. I'm going over and over for at least 60 seconds which feels like an eternity.
I do the super lame, 'I guess I'm all-in,' for $225, push my chips over the line and the SB snaps call. I show, he mucks and says more to himself I think, that I slow played my hand.
I should mention that there were several times where I faced a raise with the nutter-butters and completely tanked for a minute making sure that I indeed had the nuts. I would always then raise and I swear, I almost always got called. I never tanked though when action folded to me when I had the Nutter Butters.
So, I get that it's probably a bad tell that I should work on, but was I slow-playing or God forbid, slow rolling anyone?

Rude opening bet?
I took Jonathan Little's course for a few months and bought a series on Upswing early this year and both talked about opening to 3x the BB, so $6-8 at the $1/2 game. At the first few games I went to, I was shocked(!) when someone had the audacity to regularly bet +$10. What a rude-head!
Then, I watched a few YT videos where they said that at $1/2, everyone at the table will call for anything less than $10.
Last weekend, I tried the $10 open and was AMAZED at how many times I won pre-flop. Amazed. I should mention that I would add an increment for every limper, so it got up there sometimes. So, then I bet $8 and I would always get called by at least 5 callers. I would -normally- call $6 and up, especially if I had a middle pocket pair.
But, was that me being a rude-head for opening so big? I'd hate to be told, even in jest, to go jump on a $2/5 table or something. Because I kinda get it, I think maybe they all wanted to see cheap flops and don't want some rude-head spoiling their time.

Color Up?
What's the ruling on coloring up? I was doing well enough where I had several stacks of reds and people wanted to sell me their greens. Is there a particular balance to strike with chips?

One Hand in particular
One of the last hands of the night was TT from the SB. EVERYONE limped and I was like, 'damn, do I really want to be like, $22 to clear out all of this nonsense? And then get 1-2 callers that hits their overpair?"
So I limp, BB limps behind and BB wins a big pot because they boated their J3o when the flop was J33. Ironically, I'm almost positive I lost at least $22 on that hand.
What's the optimal move in something like this?

Thanks for your help!