The 2nd Annual NYC GTG Of Online Watch Enthusiasts

Day 3 - Saturday, May17th 2008

Saturday morning Rigano and I were chomping on the bit to get some out door shots - the weather forecast called for sunny skies which seemed hard to believe given the weather we'd experience in the prior 24 hours, but one step outside our hotel confirmed the forecast - beautiful!  Here's a shot of the New York BMW building, which you could see from right outside the entrance to the Holiday Inn :

So off toward Central Park we started walking:

 

We saw some beautiful sites on the way to the park:

In a city like New York, you're bound to see some homeless people.  "There, but for the grace of God go I."  A reminder for me to pray for those less fortunate .

The entrance to Central Park:

 

Once we entered the park, we saw a marathon was being run that morning:

 

 Central Park in Spring - beautiful!:

 

We wandered over to the John Lenon Memorial: 

 

Seemed like a good place for a watch photo:

I stood there looking at the message "Imagine"...so I did! Though I think my imagination isn't quite what Yoko had in mind...what if Strawberry Fields......

.....looked a bit different?

 

Just imagine! :)

Rigano and I headed back toward 5th Avenue and found a street festival going on:

 

My intrepid traveling companion:

A shot of me with some of New York's finest:

 

Rigano and I split up at this point as he wanted to do the Circle Line boat tour (which Karen and I did last year), and wanted to get some more city sight seeing in.   Here's Radio City Music Hall:

  

Rockefeller Center:

 

Of course, a shot of Rolex USA's headquarters:

 

I can't think of a better spot for a wrist shot:

 

 

I then headed down toward Times Square, but that's a darn long walk...I got tired.  Ray's Pizza to the rescue!

 

Ray's is just down the street from the Ed Sullivan Theater, which is the home of the David Letterman Show:

 

I then went into the M&M store in Times Square - it's hard for me to accept that you can have a three floor store dedicated to M&M's....how many of those things do you have to sell to pay the rent??: 

 

It was starting to get later in the afternoon, and with the official Get Together scheduled at 3pm Connolly's Pub (same as last year), I needed to start heading back to the hotel and change.  Along the way, I passed Carnegie Hall:

Rigano met me back at the hotel and we got cleaned up for the main event of the weekend.  This year, the event went even more smoothly than last year.  As you can see in this photo, Milos is actually relaxed:

We walked in barely after 3pm, and the private room Milos had reserver was already buzzing with attendees:

I was pleased to see our friends from Germany made themselves at home:

Both Orbita and Ball Watch had some very nice product displays, and both companies donated some exceptional prizes:

Here's Harry with Kevin from Orbita proudly displaying his edition of perhaps the best selling and well known book about Rolex and their watches, "The Best of Times" by James Dowling and Jeff Hess.  He dragged that book all the way from England to get it signed by both men, who attended the GTG this year.

I got to meet both James Dowling and Jeff Hess in person for the first time - I spent some time with James picking his brain about new Rolex Parachrom Blu hairspring.  :)

I enjoyed myself walking around talking to people and snapping photos:

Some people snapped back at me too. :)

Milos actually got some time to spend with people this year:

Soon it was time for Milos to welcome everyone to the event and begin passing out prizes.

My beautiful wife assisted Milos with the handing out of prizes last year, but since she was knee-deep in a landscaping project at our home in Ohio this weekend, Milos got stuck with me as his assistant. But thanks to my buddy John Rigano, who took several of these photos, we didn't loose any pictures in the process.

Hannes donated some fantastic Rolex catalogs - full size versions which are not available in the US on behalf of The German Rolex Forum at  www.r-l-x.de.  On behalf of my site WATCH TALK FORUMS I donated three copies of my book MACRO WATCH PHOTOGRAPHY FOR BEGINNERS.   I don't know about how the other prize donators did, but it was EXTREMELY successful for me to participate.  All I had to do was donate three CD's, and two days later practically everyone who attended the event joined WATCH TALK FORUMS and started participating.  :D  :D

The main prizes were given away at the end of the event - first up in the main drawing was the copy of "The Best of Times" which James Dowling donated:

Next, Mr. Chuck Agnoff of Orbita came up and said a few words:

Then came the drawing for the watchwinder Orbita donated to the event, and was presented by Mrs. Agnoff and Kevin:

Next up was Jeff Hess, President of Ball Watch USA to address the audience...

Followed by the drawing for the watch Ball donated to the event, presented by Jeff Hess and Dan Hall who is the VP of Promotions for Ball - it's the 2nd year in a row that Ball has donated prizes:

Then it came time for the traditional group watch shot for the event. This was the only disappointing part of the evening...everyone was so engrossed in conversation, we couldn't get their attention long enough to bring over their watches....so there were far less represented than the 80 some attendees brought:

Once again this year I was called upon to take the group photo of the attendees, which brought an official close to the 2008 NYC GTG. I suspect next year it will be the official WATCH TALK FORUMS GTG in NYC. :D :D

I hope, schedule permitting, to see everyone again next year!!

 *All text and images contained in this review are the original work of the author, John B. Holbrook, II and are copyright protected. Use of any of the information or images without the permission of the author is prohibited.

Please note that the Author and this site are in no way affiliated with or related to The Rolex Watch Company Limited. All trademarked names, brands, models and designs mentioned herein are the sole property of The Rolex Watch Company Limited.

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