Photo-A-Day #3093

This morning I got up early and headed down to New York City for the Annual Time to Play Holiday Showcase. I’ve been going to this event for years and it is a great one for making contacts and coming home with some of the newest fun toys to play with and review. Taking the train down gets me there after the big press conference and puts me at the event right as the show floor is opening. Not this year.

Driving to the train station I learned that Acela service was cancelled between Boston and New York because of a power issue, but Regional service was running. So I paid it no mind. Then I got the the station and while waiting for the train. I head that there would be major service disruption. What this meant to me was that I would end up sitting on the tracks as the electric engine we used got switched to a diesel engine and then switched back to electric past the electric outage area. This took 3 hours. So, I missed all my scheduled appointments. I was livid. This was my one event each year to get to meet some great contacts for the toy reviews I bring to you on this site all year long.

When I finally got to the event it was 1pm and the event was ending at 3pm. I flew all over the show floor apologizing to many, many people for me being late and missing the meetings. I had sent everyone a message letting them know that I was stuck on the train but not everyone can get those messages while on the show floor. Luckily people were all pretty great about it and were sympathetic.

I was late to get gifting coupons from 90% of the exhibitors so I needn’t have bothered to bring down a suitcase. One of the people that I had scheduled to meet with saw my plight and she kept a very special item aside for me, a Razor Scooter. That is one of Eva’s birthday gifts and will be a later review also.

I was pretty sour overall on the trip. I was supposed to catch up with some other dads after the event and that completely fell apart. Then I had to turn right around and head back and do the whole thing in reverse. The train was over an hour late getting tot eh station and by the time I got home I was 3 more hours later than expected. The photo above was one of the brightest parts of the day.