gnarlydorkette said:
So yall need to post after this weekend and tell how it was!
It was HUGE this year—several thousand people. It was so crowded that it was hard to spot people even if you knew that they were there. Not too many alldeaf folks were there, as far as I could tell. Mrs. Chimp and I chatted for a few minutes with Sweet KJ, and we spotted BabyPhat a couple of times from a distance. We didn’t stop to talk, though—she was involved in conversations with other people and we didn’t want to interrupt. (You should see her newest boyfriend, though—he’s
GIGANTIC)!
We didn’t meet Oddball or Tousi, unfortunately. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Christy Smith had a booth there this year. We had met her last year at a trade show in Pasadena, and it was cool to have a chance to talk to her again. I was amazed when she recognized both of us immediately. She congratulated us on our marriage, and signed a quick autographed glossy for us. Other than that, Mayflower ran into a couple of her old high school buddies, and we met up with a couple of old ghosts from my past.
As usual, everybody was focused on the latest communications technology. The T-mobile booth was so swamped that there were over a hundred people lined up in front of it all day. One vendor that also got a lot of attention was a non-profit company that trains deaf dogs. They gave a stage demonstration, followed by a question and answer period. One woman in the back of the audience raised her hand and asked if the dog was deaf too.
One thing that’s changed a lot about Deaf Expo is that now you see CI’s everywhere. 2 or 3 years ago, the Cochlear Corporation booth got very little attention. This year they had a steady stream of people at their booth throughout the day.
All in all, it was a pretty good Expo this year. My only complaint is that they need to rent more space. It’s just getting too crowded. Next year they should expand the floor space and make some of the more popular booths bigger and better staffed. It’s still an enjoyable experience though, and I still look forward to going every year.
The expo was crowded with many, many people around. I saw my old friends from East Coast and chatted with them for awhile. Yes, I noticed different exhibitation booths around including swamped Tmobile (ofc I got new sk 2 for $50, but I have to cancel color sk which it sucks..oh, well..that's life). I bought a glass heart with wings and cool ILY windcatcher (I will post pictures later). 
