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Author Topic:   Macworld Expo Report: And awaaaaay we go!
DigitalBill
Alpha Geek

Posts: 328
From: The TiBook, on the WLAN, nothin' but Net!
Registered: Jan 2001

posted July 15, 2002 14:54     Click Here to See the Profile for DigitalBill   Click Here to Email DigitalBill     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Wow... I can't believe how long it's been since I posted anything worthy of note here... Bad Bill.

Well, the next few days should rectify that... I'll scratch down my thoughts and observations from Macworld Expo NY 2002, somewhere in this space.

I'm off tomorrow... Tuesday, at a relatively sane hour of 10:40AM. The airlines say only a 1-hour lead time is necessary now, in the post-9/11 era, I guess that's an improvement over the 2 hours they were requiring back in January.

(Aside: When I flew to Norfolk and back in September of last year, 9/22 and 9/29, I think, nobody had a frelling clue... literally I was in the air the second or third day planes were flying again... I got to Norfolk for the trip back a little over 2 hours early and the airport was a ghost town... The Ticket Agent put me on an earlier flight, rather than wait the 2+ hours till my designated flight!
End of Aside.)

So I've got the rolly-bag, the laptop, digital cameras, and Palm VII packed... and I'll be on my way... more to come when I get to the Hotel Tuesday... I'll have to trek to Javitz Center after I check in, to pick up my badge (I need the stinkin' badge!), and maybe catch a glimpse of some pre-show happenings...

=bd

Hereinafter to be known as "The Mac Guy on the Scene"

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GraphicPower.com
Geek-in-Training

Posts: 32
From: Philadelphia, PA USA
Registered: Mar 2002

posted July 16, 2002 00:24     Click Here to See the Profile for GraphicPower.com   Click Here to Email GraphicPower.com     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
quote:
Originally posted by DigitalBill:
Wow... I can't believe how long it's been since I posted anything worthy of note here... Bad Bill.

Well, the next few days should rectify that... I'll scratch down my thoughts and observations from Macworld Expo NY 2002, somewhere in this space.


Hereinafter to be known as "The Mac Guy on the Scene"


Bill, Look me up at the Expo if you've a mind. Shoot, if you write something interesting I wouldn't mind publishing it on my site. There will be thousands of readers daily.

You can e-mail me.
Scott

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DigitalBill
Alpha Geek

Posts: 328
From: The TiBook, on the WLAN, nothin' but Net!
Registered: Jan 2001

posted July 16, 2002 18:36     Click Here to See the Profile for DigitalBill   Click Here to Email DigitalBill     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
Macworld NY 2002: Preview and around town

As the song goes: "Looks like we made it..."

I'm in NYC, none the less worse for wear... just battered by the 4-year-old on the plane seated next to me.

A short (?) cab ride later and I'm at the hotel, where I can't check in for two hours. That's OK, though... I have THINGS TO DO�.

So I'm in the process of checking my luggage till I return, and who should enter the hotel but Andy Ihnatko! I said hello to him, as I usually do when I see him at the show, but I'm quite certain that he has no frelling idea who I am. Which is fine. He is, after all, the industry's 27th most-beloved personality. I, on the other hand, am just some random guy. But he's polite, and then goes about his business.

<aside>
Andy's ALWAYS been polite to me, every time I've spoken to him. Even when I bugged him about the Newton vs. Palm thing, which led to my first Handspring purchase. He always seems to take the time, which, I suppose, is why he's the industry's 27th most-beloved personality. If you've never seen it, go read his website http://www.cwob.com AFTER you're done here. He's been blogging since before blogging was cool.
</aside>

After I finished handing off my gear to the bellman, I notice Andy's still in the area, so I go back up to him, and this time introduce myself properly, beyond a geeky hello, and tell him how much I enjoy his writing (which I do, immensely, and eventually bits of Andy tend to creep into my style, I think).

Andy comments that "Oh, yes, I guess I have to realize that I'm now under the influence of the MacWorld Reality Distortion Field, where people actually know who I am!"

We chat for a bit... and I offer to buy him lunch, since we both have to wait for rooms, but he has a meeting and he wants to walk to 47th Street, but allows that maybe we can get together later for a drink. I hope so.

<aside value="2">
It's middling strange for a 43-year old man like me to be such a fanboy, but I've dug Andy and his work for so long, he's like a lesser Geek Icon... not quite Jobs or Woz, but up there with Burrel Smith, Bill Atkinson, and Linus Torvalds, I'd say. While that's probably extreme, Andy does what I aspire to do, and that's cool enough for me.
</aside>

I headed off to Javitz Center (I keep wanting to say "Moscone"... force of habit) to collect my badge... the requisite item if you're planning to stand in line for the keynote, and I am.


Outside the Javitz Center

But the interesting thing at the Javitz Center is what you can't see. Take a look at these pics of workers raising a black-covered banner...


...raising a covered black banner...


...that we can't see under (the guy in the brown shirt asked me to stop)...


...which can only mean an Apple Announcement!

Seems to me that this bodes some sort of Apple Announcement�, considering a guy actually asked me to NOT TAKE PICTURES OF THIS BLACK COVERED ITEM. ;-)

For the full peek inside Javitz, just click over to:
http://www.maccenter.com/news/2002/MWNY/Galleries/0716.1.javitz/index.html


After the excitement of a possible new Apple Goodie, along with the further reduction of my disposable income that that entails, I headed back to the hotel, but it still wasn't Approved Check In Time. As I wondered around looking for something to eat, I found myself drawn towards the area known as Ground Zero, the former site of the World Trade Centers. Drawn not by morbid curiosity, but by a sense of honor and duty, perhaps.

I won't say much about this, as "There are no words", scrawled on one of the construction partitions seems to cover it.

I will say, that having been atop the WTC for dinner 2 years ago made it all the more poignant, but even that pales in significance to the event itself.

The other thing, is that it's a really big hole. Both in the sky and in the ground. And it saddens my heart. To get an idea, look at picture 0913 & 0914. You can see a closeup of a big truck. Then you can see the hole it's in.

I hope these pictures speak for themselves.

http://www.maccenter.com/news/2002/MWNY/Galleries/0716.2.GroundZero/index.html

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Snaggy
Moderator

Posts: 1656
From: Canada
Registered: Jan 2000

posted July 16, 2002 20:13     Click Here to See the Profile for Snaggy   Click Here to Email Snaggy     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
mmmmmmmmm, giant covered-in-black-material banner!

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ilovemydualg4
Assimilated

Posts: 373
From: *GASP* THE 3RD DIMMENSION
Registered: Mar 2002

posted July 17, 2002 03:20     Click Here to See the Profile for ilovemydualg4   Click Here to Email ilovemydualg4     Edit/Delete Message   Reply w/Quote
don't get your hopes up, there always are black covers there. it may just be *gasp*more advertising for old products that need to be updated today.

This is the first year in 4 that I haven't been there . I'll be working all morning so i'll miss the live coverage because i'll be outside where i can't get any data service (or phone for that matter) on beautifull menemsha pond, so i'll love to see your pictures this afternoon.

------------------
my geek code
Hazards: "There is an island of opportunity in the middle of every difficulty, miss that, though, and you're pretty much doomed."

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