by Matt on November 7, 2011
Ok, you probably realize this now but Pubcon has started. I take my notes via twitter. Anything useful, I tweet. This forces me to be brief and capture the most important points. However, it has the negative consequence that my tweeting goes WAY up during a conference. This means you will see me posting a lot. I like to think I am tweeting useful things, but you may find it annoying. I know I will lose some of you. I always do, but I always gain more than I lose so go figure. Anyway, if you don’t like it, please unfollow me for a few days to a week and then please come on back (if you want to do so).
This conference will be about SEO, Social Media and other things relevant to Internet Marketing. So I think the tweets will be useful to you as well.
by Matt on October 1, 2011
So, I haven’t been to New York City in a very long time. Affiliate Summit East 2011 was going to be the reason to go back after too long a hiatus. So, I decided to go a couple of days before the conference and stay a couple of days after. I enjoy wrapping a mini-vacation around a business event.
The day of my arrival was a day of storms. For someone living in Texas, the storm, and, more importantly, the rain was a welcome sight. I arrived at the end of the day, got to the hotel and headed out into the rain. I walked around for about two hours amidst crowds of people with umbrellas, plastic bags or mad dashes to cover. I didn’t avoid the rain at all especially after being soaked within the first five minutes! This was the first rain I had seen in 2011! If I could have absorbed it like a sponge, I would have. We humans need water. I have always loved rain, but the drought in Texas made me realize how much I missed it. So I walked in the rain. I ended up walking several blocks south of Times Square which was several blocks South of the hotel. As I headed back, I found an Irish pub and had a fantastic dinner of fish & chips with Guinness. Then I headed back to the hotel. It was a fine start to the trip!
On Saturday, I decided to explore New York more. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining and it was warm at around 80 degrees. My main goal was to visit the former site of the World Trade Center, but I wanted to revisit the city as much as possible. So, I decided to walk again. I ended up walking from the hotel East to the Carnegie Deli for breafast and then turning South. The trip to the World Trade Center site took about four hours. I then headed to the southern tip of the island and back through battery park. I headed North for a couple of miles and then headed East over to Soho and China Town. What was neat was that the Avenue of the Americas had a festival on it. After a couple more hours of walking, I ended up getting on the subway in order to get closer to the hotel (at this point, my feet were starting to get sore!). The subway seemed more complex than I remembered it, but luckily I was able to head in the right direction and get back to the hotel!
Overall, it was a fantastic day seeing New York again. It seems much changed to me, though. The streets seem different, although is it changed or am I changed? The one gotcha…sunburn! Now, I have been in Texas for the last several years. We have been having a drought and weeks of over 100 degree days AND I get a sunburn in New York City! Does that seem right to you?