Way Back When and an Aiming Low Party

Back in October, I had the privilege of attending the Aiming Low/HP party in Boston. For the record, I hate driving in Boston. I’m not one of those people who are paralyzed by fear, but I just always end up frazzled and annoyed by the time that I arrive at my destination. For those of you who aren’t from the area, I am convinced that the horrible driving conditions are what give Boston drivers such a bad name. How can you be a friendly driver when you’re faced with a maze of unmarked streets, some of which turn into one-way roads half-way down? It’s enough to make anyone snarky.

Anyway, I arrived at the party all out-of-sorts and only had a few minutes to adjust before being ushered away from the lovely spread of food and into the ballroom area. I stayed frazzled and distracted through the presentation and such and didn’t have a chance to relax until I landed in front of a gorgeous HP TouchSmart PC. Wow. Shiny computers and peripherals have a calming effect on me, it seems. Even more so than the yummy pomegranate signature cocktails. Anyway, I watched a few other bloggers printing and playing before I pulled out my USB drive and went to work.

I printed up a storm of pictures. I did some small 4X6’s, a few black and white 5X7’s that I’ve been meaning to print forever and even an 8X10 picture calendar for my husband to put on his desk. I kept the HP minions (what are they officially called?) busy getting me paper in different sizes and replacing ink. I told them that I wasn’t going to stop printing until they pulled the power. And I wasn’t kidding. They were literally taking the walls down around me at the end of the night and I was still printing.

While all this was going on, HP and Aiming Low gave away all sorts of good prizes. While I would have done a happy dance for an HP Mini and a TouchSmart PC might have made me faint, I was really coveting the printers. Ours had lived a good life, but was dying a slow death. So, when they announced the winner for the first printer, I was all ears. Much to my surprise, they announced the name of the person standing next to me. The person, I might add, who I had to nudge to even put her name in the running. Jill Notkin who said, “I never win anything,” was walking away with the first printer. Sigh. Still, I’ll admit that it was fun to watch her walk cautiously up to the stage and say something along the lines of, “Are you sure you have the right name?”

There was still one printer to be given away – the newest, gadgetiest (is that a word?) in the HP line – the HP Photo Smart Web Printer. At the end of the night, I was chatting with some other bloggers as we tried to squeeze in as many prints as we could, when they announced that they were giving away the last printer. I held out hope, but wasn’t all that confident. I joked with my new-found printing buddies, “Hey, I was standing next to the previous winner. Maybe I’ll bring you luck!” No sooner had the sentence left my mouth when I heard my neighbor say, “Hey, that’s you!” to her co-blogger (hmmm… for lack of a better word, since I’m not sure if they are married or what). Yep, jen+tommy won the last printer. It was fun to see their excitement as well, although it would have been more so to be excited in my own right. At least they appreciate my home-town, Lowell, for all that it offers…

I went home with lots of pictures and plenty of goodies from Staples (love the OXO line of office supplies, btw!), but no printer. So, when Angela from HP contacted me about reviewing the new HP PhotoSmart Web Printer, I read her note several times over to make sure she wasn’t really offering to send one to someone I know. Nope. Apparently, my enthusiasm for gadgets (and printing!) were more obvious than I intended. HP wants to know what I think of their newest printer.

So, this was intended to be my first-impression review of the HP PhotoSmart Web Printer, but I got caught up in retelling my Aiming Low experience. I’ll do a separate post for the printer. Here’s a hint though, I LOVE it.

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