Julie's comments are in BLACK and Judie's are in BLUE and italicized

Tuesday

Since the TECHXNY exhibits weren't going to open till 10am, we weren't going to break our necks getting up at an insane hour on our 2nd day in New York (not to mention the fact that we were up past 2am the night before writing the first installment of this trip report).  So around 9:30, we headed downstairs for Judie's standard Starbuck's latte and to catch the shuttle bus to Javits Convention Center. A short 10 minute ride later, and we found ourselves walking into the building ready to traipse up and down aisles of gadgety goodness.

We got our first clue about what was awaiting us at the Javits Center when we boarded the shuttle bus and there was only one other person on it...

Like most conventions though, our first task upon arrival was to check in at the upstairs press registration area to get our badges and check out the computer area. It was here that we received our second clue that TECHXNY might not be "all that"... As we were waiting for our badges to be printed, we noticed through a gap in the sectioned off press area, that there wasn't ANYONE in there...

Well, there were maybe 10 guys in dark suits, which is not what you usually see in a happening event. We are used to having to fight over vacant computer terminals, passing on the slim pickings of the vast wasteland of obligatory press kibble, and perusing aisle after aisle of press releases before hitting the event's floor. Let's just say that none of that applied in this instance. We were starting to make jokes about how PC Expo might be as lame as the wireless event we had attended in San Jose while Sharp Event in 2001. But we didn't really believe that. We just thought maybe everyone was already on the floor. So we took the escalators down and figured out our plan if attack.

We began in the far left section of the exhibit floor, which seemed like the logical place to start. We figured we would work our way to the main exhibit area from there.

This section appeared to be mainly foreign business exhibit booths, many of which basically catered to companies wanting to outsource their services. There was a conference in progress in the back of the room that was being put on by IBM. Since we saw their large logo hanging from the ceiling in that area, we thought we would see some actual hardware products. Instead, we found ourselves in the midst of a seminar on how to outsource your company  being put on by IBM. We toughed it out, wandering through a bunch of booths that were not interesting to us in the least. Of course, this was the first section that we came to, so we weren't that concerned... yet...

As we left this section, entering the next, we saw a booth with actual product! At this point, I will admit that it could have been a less than exciting item and we might have been just as overjoyed to see it. But in fact, the Case Closed Bags display was pretty darn cool. They were displaying a selection of cleverly stylish laptop bags that cater to women that don't want a boring black bag. Some of the bags had colorful graphics on their exterior, and some were more conservative - but all had colorful interiors and contemporary lines. We hope to be able to get some samples in the near future so we can see if they perform as well as they look.

While Judie had noticed the laptop bags, I instantly noticed the colorful iPod cases.

We continued walking past various booths, and noticed a cappuccino and coffee line being sponsored by AMD. Judie didn't even attempt to get in the line because it was so long. In fact, it was the longest line of people we had seen waiting for anything at the show so far.

I was just fine though. I had just finished a venti latte, after all!

The next interesting booth that we came upon was from a company named Neovo, which had beautiful flat screen monitors on display. They had the best image quality that either of us had seen before. The company representative explained that their monitors were different than standard offerings, due to the very strong glass used in their screens which have a surface hardness of 6. While this number probably doesn't mean anything to most people, it will surprise you to learn that steel has a surface hardness of 6.5.  Wow!  We will be sending out sample request emails ASAP...

 We continued to walk the floor...and all of a sudden we found ourselves back in the main open foyer. Julie and I figured that we had seen everything on that floor - time to head to the meat of the show! After all, we had read that Palm and Microsoft were exhibiting and we were hoping to catch a glimpse of something new and different. We walked down the steps in to the ground floor, but not seeing anyone else milling about, we became suspicious that we had missed something on the floor we had just vacated. We climbed up the stairs again, and looked at the show before us. Julie and I bantered for a moment about whether we had really exited from the section on the right, or if we had missed it somehow. Figuring anything was possible, we walked up closer...and then we saw a booth that we had definitely already visited. We asked a security guard that was checking badges if there was something else that we had missed. She said, "Nope - that's it." At which point Julie and I felt our hearts sink. We decided to give the floor one more go round and as we were walking in, a gentleman heard us commenting on the pathetic offerings of the trade show.

He introduced himself as Neal Weiner from Akira Technologies. He lamented with us and mentioned that four years ago, the trade show had taken up all three floors of the Javits Center and had even needed a outside pavilion. Then last year he said that the show had at least used one entire floor. We had to laugh, when he make the comment, that the biggest line at the show was for coffee. He followed us back into the show area as we decided to make one more round through the exhibits to see what we had missed. We were sure we had to have overlooked something interesting. As we walked along the back edge of the booths, we peeked behind the draping and saw the vast empty area of unused show floor. It was a very sad sight.

We did a leisurely walk-through which only confirmed our earlier findings. As we were walking down an aisle, we heard "Judie, Julie!" We turned around to see Joel Evans of Geek.com.

Joel agreed with us that this was the poorest excuse for a trade show ever, but he said that we had missed one product that would be worth mentioning. It just so happened that it was in the booth we were standing in front of with him. The product was a teeny-tiny little USB card scanner; it was so cute it looked like a toy! But the WorldCard by Pen Power is actually a very powerful scanning tool that will read your business cards and enter their information directly into Outlook. This device was so portable that road-warriors that need this type of device should not even feel the added weight when they add it to their gear bags.

After viewing the card reader in this booth, we were done. Totally done. All the way done. There wasn't any more. It was done.

Judie and I probably repeated to each other at least 20 times that we couldn't believe that this was it! I don't think we spent a total two hours at the show, if that - and we even went through twice! As we walked out to catch the shuttle back to the hotel, we realized that the one day that we had set aside to see the sights of NYC, had just increased to 2.5 days. We were asking each other what we wanted to do to fill the time. With only one day to sight see, we knew we would just hit the high lights such as the Empire State Building, Ground Zero and if we had time, the Statue of Liberty. Now we had 2.5 days to fill! So we decided to do what had worked for us on our trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. We would take a bus tour around the city to get our bearings and a general lay of land. Then we could pick the things we wanted to investigate further. 

Disclaimer: from here on out, this article is no longer the TECHXNY / PC Expo trip report article... it is now the how to see New York City in 2.5 days article. Hey, we can roll with things as they come. ☺

As we were riding back to the hotel and formulating this plan of action, we were surprised and slightly impressed to see a large Navy Destroyer docked in the harbor. We didn't see a sign, but we surmised that we were looking at the Intrepid Sea-Air Space Museum. On the deck of the ship, we saw several Tom Cat fighter jets and a black plane that I at first thought was a Stealth Bomber because it looked...well, stealthy! Looking at the website, we now know that it is an A-12 Blackbird which when first flown in 1962 was the fastest and highest flying manned aircraft in the world. Evidently, it still is - even after 30 years!

We looked at some of the visitor information in our hotel room, and decided to take a city tour with the Gray Line company. We had seen their red double decker, open top buses tooling around the streets, and knew that such a bus would offer better picture taking opportunities. We booked our Classic New York tour at the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Our ticket enabled us to take the downtown, uptown, Brooklyn, and night tour loops during a 48hr period. We also received a ticket to ride the ferry to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty. Soon, we were seated in the open air section on the top floor of the bus, with Reggie as our tour guide.

Reggie was a blast as he explained all the sights as we wound our way through the downtown loop.

Behind Reggie is the Empire State Bldg.

Julie and I behaved like typical tourists and snapped pictures of everything we saw that looked remotely interesting. Here is a sampling of some of the sights and buildings that caught our eye...

       
From left to right: The Courthouse, the two outer buildings in the middle picture are both owned by insurance companies - and you wonder why our premiums are so high, & the Flatiron Bldg.

   
Trump's new World Tower Bldg. According to Reggie, Bill Gates bought two multi-million dollar apartments and made them into one gigantic living space

After three hours on the bus, Julie and I decided to get off at the Rockefeller Center stop. The courtyard was an explosion of Japanese pop art, because Takashi Murakami has an exhibit there. From the Mr. Onion Head statue to the colorful toadstools you could sit on, Julie and I decided that his artwork was a cross of Hello Kitty meets the Teletubbies on hallucinogens. 

Frankly, I think that he is laughing at the people who like his art, or maybe it is those that don't like his art - case in point: the two giant black balloons that he placed in the courtyard in front of the Rockefeller building. I am not going to say anything else about it, I will just leave you with this picture...

Otherwise, the Rockefeller Building was beautiful and the gold statue in the sunken lower level was stunning.

As we turned the corner, we saw the familiar marquee of Radio City Music Hall. We didn't see any Rockettes, though...

Less than 10mins later, we were back in Times Square...looking at some idiot who calls himself the "Naked Cowboy"..

The back of his tighty-whiteys said his stage name...

By this time, we were starving. Luckily for us, we were able to get into Carmine's, the restaurant that had been too busy the night before. We decided to order an appetizer of Calamari to start. As we ordered it, our waitress warned us that the food there was served family style, which meant very large portions. We were advised to order one entree and split it between us. The Calamari arrived before we placed our dinner order. This was a good thing, due to the fact that the appetizer could have fed a family of 5 easily! It didn't take Judie and I long to decide that we were not going to have any room left for the main course. We couldn't even finish the appetizer.

Carmines was an awesome place, with a casual atmosphere. Even though we didn't order an entree for ourselves, that didn't stop us from salivating as we saw the mutant sizes portions the waitstaff were delivering to their patrons. Case in point, this was our calamari before we tore into it:

...this was what was left after Julie and I were full. Yes, the portion was that huge!

May I add that this was easily the best calamari I have ever had. Those of you that have read all of Julie's and my trip reports know how much we love the stuff, and how we usually get it at least once on every trip - so this is high praise, indeed.

After eating, we headed back to the hotel so that we wouldn't miss our new favorite drama, The O.C. Once again, we are up until all hours writing this report - so we may have to sleep in again in the morning.

Tomorrow our plans are to finish our bus tour, see Ground Zero, ride the ferry to Ellis Island to see the Statue of Liberty, and whatever else might strike our fancy. Hope you are all enjoying the report (even though it is severely lacking in gadgets) so far!

Monday Wednesday