Pier 94, Manhattan
Oct. 16-18, 2009
David said their flight was great and they arrived about 4:15 PM (with the
time change) and checked into their hotel before it really started to
rain. They were mid-town and Serena lives downtown, so they had to take
two subways and then walk to meet her for dinner. David said the rain
was so bad, he took a cab home.It was 93 and sunny when we left Fort Lauderdale for Baltimore. We ended up with a weather delay in Baltimore, waiting for our plane to arrive from LaGuardia. It showed up an hour late. Then when we taxied out, they put us on ground hold far another half hour, until a landing slot opened up. We arrived two hours late to gridlock both at the airport and on the drive through the mid-town tunnel during rush hour. Luckily there was this terrific Chinese restaurant across from our hotel with hot soup!
Friday we got up early – caught a cab in the rain and went over to Pier 92 to get our badges and set up for David. He arrived at 11:30. We had a odd table set, a high table with a bar stool that I didn’t think David was going to like climbing up into, but he was fine with it and hopped in and out of the chair all weekend.
I had some pre sales I brought up for David to sign, so he did those and Amanda came up from St. Louis with Brynn and they had a great time buying and taking pictures. Darleen and Debbie also came to visit. We were busy until about four; a lot of press photographers came by to take David’s picture. David left around six to met Serena for dinner at a restaurant she had chosen. He said it was very good.
When it got slow, I showed David my 10 inch net book computer. He was
fascinated by how small it was. So I let him check his email via my
broadband connection. He was in good spirits all day, teasing everyone.Saturday was pretty steady all day, Karen came early to visit. She always comes to the New York area cons to see David. A lot of the fans brought their own books and DVD covers for David to sign. One fellow brought him a built Seaview. The place was packed. The con set a building attendance record for the Pier 94 facility. We had lunch in the green room and I shared mine with Nichelle Nichols and John Schneider. John said there wasn’t anyone there when he was there, but the food.
UFragTV came and interviewed David and then put the clip up on YouTube, so I was able to show David his interview while he was still at the show.
Sunday was a bit quiet, we told David to come in at noon and he did and made some sales. He stuck it out longer than most; then left some autographed books and pictures for me to sell after he was gone; which I did. I put him in a cab to go uptown to have dinner with a friend and got a good kiss and hug goodbye.
David was great fun all weekend, everyone loved meeting him. They came out despite the miserable weather. It didn’t rain all that hard, most of the time, but it was damp, and cold and windy. David had his defense drops and I took Airborne so we both seemed to have survived it. I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with David at his table for three days. I even sold out of our Fly at Fifty book! That’s a good show.
-- Diane Kachmar
