MPG Goes to Macworld!

July 10th: The following is our 2 days spent at Macworld Conference & Expo in Boston, MA. We posted 7 entries in total and have taken them into one entry separated by bold-faced titles. Click “Read More” for the entire stories.

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Part 1
Loyal MPG viewers; next week is Macworld Boston and among the few attending, will be the MyPersonalGetaway.com team! We have saved our pennies and done some dumpster diving for stuff to sell on eBay but through it all, we have gotten enough money to buy plane tickets and afford three meals a day at Quiznos (where we ate every meal during MacWorld San francisco). Of course, Macworld is free for us , but the content and editorials will be free for all of you. You can't lose!
Of course, I, Adam Jackson, am going as well as Matt Jackson, and fairly tentative is the attendance of Larry Anderson and Ben Shapiro. Of course, we will have to stop by his summer camp and force him to come with us, but his media passes are there waiting for him.
We are staying with a friend(thanks fink) in the city and are gratefull that he and his girlfriend are MPG fans and are kind enough to let us stay for the time we are there.
We arrive Wednesday morning and will be going straight to the expo. From there, we are attending some parties and will have one more day of fun in some conferences and expo touring. We will at least bring you some interviews and possibly some video footage. Of course, there are always pictures! We leave Boston Thursday night at 8, unless anyone wants to pay for our cab.
If you are going to Boston and want to meet us or go out to dinner on Wednesday, please email me at or drop me a line at 904-794-1189. I know this is pretty public to put my phone number, but anything for our fans. SEE YOU IN BOSTON!

Part 2
July 14th: It is 4AM and I am sitting at the Jacksonville airport sipping a mocha and of course equipped with all of my computer gear. Of course Wi-Fi is provided and I have two guys next to me with PowerBooks typing away as well. We are all headed to Boston. One is my friend Matt, a writer for MPG, and the other guy we just met but happens to be taking the same flight. We take off at 6:50 en route to Washington, DC. From there, Boston, MA. It is funny that seven months ago I was doing the same thing on my way to San Francisco and I hope this Macworld will be better than the other one or at least equivalent. After looking at the first day’s pictures and editorials it seems like Boston won’t be what I expected. Of course if everyone did not go because of that then it would really suck. So I am spending money I have saved up to make the trek to Boston. I wanted to go to Paris for Mac Expo but due to insufficient funds because I am saving up for a Scion SUV, I am settling on Boston.
I have a playlist of music to listen to on the plane, three books on Boston and what to do, and of course about five new Mac magazines (iCreate, Macworld, Macaddict, Macformat and Macworld UK). I may try to get some shuteye on the flight. We arrive at 12PM and will go straight to the BCEC convention center at 415 Summer St. I will get my media pass and meet up with friends that I have not seen since San Francisco. I have some interviews lined up and am hoping to get some of the word out about MPG (https://mypersonalgetaway.com). Let’s hope I am successful and we get a new group of visitors adding to our, now, high traffic.
I will post throughout the day to keep you all updated and what you are missing at expo. I was working on some designs for our gallery of pictures of Expo and Boston when I accidentally deleted my iPhoto library. Luckily I had a backup from a few days back but a few hundred pictures for a client are gone so that is going to set me back a bit. Anywho, check in with you all later.

Part 3
July 14th: We boarded our flight out of Jacksonville a little earlier than expected, in fact 30 minutes earlier. The sodas were good on the flight and we enjoyed ourselves. Arriving in D.C. about 30 minutes earlier; that meant we had a two hour and forty-five minute layover until 10:40. Matt and I just sat in the terminal; played games and listened to music. Of course we did partake in some Starbucks (can someone say White Chocolate Mocha)? I still crashed for thirty minutes after that and woke up just in time to board. We taxied out at 10:50 and then waited. Due to weather, the plane did not depart from D.R. until 11:30.
Instead of arriving in Boston at 12:05PM, it is 12 as of this writing and we are only halfway there. The weather looks great up here. It is really beautiful. The great thing about the wait is I got some great pictures of the National Monument and the Capitol Building from the plane window.
So when we arrive, it will be a dash to make it to the expo. The BCEC closes at 6PM officially but as press we may try to stay a little later. I am meeting with John Tylko (Differentdistrict.com), ZDR (designer extraordinaire), and a few other friends from Spymac. I am hoping to get in touch with Nick DePlume of ThinkSecret and Dennis Sellers of Macminute for some interviews. Of course, my first stop after getting my Media badge and our complimentary lunch is the Spymac.com booth (#110).
I will update you with tonight’s events as they develop. I will also give an update around 6PM from the Press Room about my first day on the Expo floor and how small this event really is. All I can tell you about tonight is I will spend an hour to get the keys to the apt I am staying outside of the city; after that, party time. Check back in about 1AM for more updates as well.

Part 4
July 15th: It is three aM and I am finally going to sleep. I had fun today. The ammount of people that were there for us to meet and greet was great. We are also working booth duty and could see all of the new Macs and hear people totally ammaizedand what is the difference. Aftually, you should get those teeth pretty. After macworld, i went out with some friends and arrive back home at 2AM. I finished up some projects like our Macworld Photo album(you will be in tomorrows) and some other products. Tomorrow is a big deal, time for some sunshine. (Any typos are due to lack of sleep).

Part 5
July 15th: It is our final day at Macworld in Boston. Matt and myself got up at 8AM to the sound of a blasting “In Da Club” by 50 Cent on my computer’s alarm. With that rude and crappy awakening, we got up and thirty minutes later we were ready to go. We dressed for success today and wore khakis with collar shirts. Then, it was to the subway to return the house keys to our friend and thank her for the apartment. We arrived at South Station on the subway and went up to he street for omelets.
So, I am in South Station, the only person dumb enough to open a laptop, listen to an iPod and “dress for success” around more than a dozen people that could eat for weeks on the sale of your precious G4. I push on though, in pursuit of you all getting the best story with the best quality.
It is a beautiful day in Boston. It is about 68 degrees, overcast and still bright enough to not be depressing. We head to BCEC in about five minutes as soon as matt EATS HIS FOOD! Then we will be doing interviews and other things today. I will check in later from the media room.

Part 6: The way home
Today was our final day of Macworld Expo in Boston, MA. My self and Matt were on the expo floor all day. We are both Spymac users and volunteered our spare time to help out in exchange for some hats and the chance to meet some of the staff we know only by screen name. At 10AM, I had a meeting with Beth Wickenheisser of IDG world Expo. Her job entails many duties and I had thirty minutes to discuss things with her about this year’s expo and the next. I will be publishing that interview as soon as I can compile the information. After that, I went out on the expo floor for some PR and discussing new products. A guy got a new Lexus from his parents and he put sixty thousand dollars of video editing equipment including a 60” flat screen TV, Xserve G5 and Raid. It was pretty cool and I had to spend some time looking at all of its features.
At 12PM, I had a meeting with Dennis Sellers of Macminute.com and Macsimumperspective.com. It was a business meeting that we both benefited from and I will hopefully be making some future announcements regarding our alliance and I am sure you will all be happy with it. I took a break for lunch at 12:45 and came back to help Spymac and their booth as well as make some last minute purchases. I got a few things, an STM iPod hard case, iTalk, iTrip, Belkin Pod holder, a Mac. Lovely, Spymac.Case12, two Spymac shirts, 3 hats and I got a few other cases, and iPod cases.
As always, the most valuable aspect of Expo is making contacts with industry leaders, and Mac gurus that can help you out in the future. I also had an informal job interview with Mac Directory this week and will hopefully be writing for them in the near future. Boston did not have that spirit that San Francisco had. I fell in love with that city back in January and really considered moving there. The people of Boston keep to themselves, no one in the city has Sweet iced tea, and the city is extremely dirty. It was nice and historical but not what I expected and I would have liked a little more spirit to it. Don’t get me wrong it was a beautiful city when it came to architecture and the brand new convention center is great oh and I did get out, in fact last night I spent about 3 hours walking around town after seeing a movie with a fellow Spymac member. It was great and I walked around the west and southwest part of Boston without any problems.
We stayed at the expo till five to get some t-shirts and say goodbye to friends. Afterwards, Matt and I got some food and due to traffic it took us forever to get to the airport. We got there as they had final call and made it. Then we had a lay-over in Cincinnati for 1.5 hours. Here I sit. It is 11:34PM and I have been up since 8. I am pretty tired considering I got four hours of sleep last night. Boston was great and IDG said they have booked for next year and will have expo at the BCEC next year as well without cancellation. I can assure you, if you live on the east coast, there is no reason not to go to Macworld Boston. It was very worth it!