Glasstec Day Two

Every day at glasstec is really two days--the business sessions from 9 a.m until 6 p.m. and the evening activities which include various receptions, dinners and the obligatory visit to the Altstadt (Old Town) area.

The center of the glasstec universe in the Old Town area is the GPD Pub. Machinery manufacturer Glaston hosts Glass Performance Days (GPD) every other year in Tampere, Finland. It rents out an Altstadt pub for the evenings of glasstec.

Though the Euro may be the currency of Germany, and U.S. Dollars still have some value, the real currency of glasstec are the drink tickets for use in the GPD pub. There is a brisk trade in GPD dollars at the hall worthy of the best black market. And the keeper of those drinks tickets, Glaston's Jorma Vitkala, is a very popular guy around here.

(Now just because I am writing about the pub --shown in photo above by Brian Pitman-, don't think I spent my whole evening there or anything like that. No sir-ee. In fact, I haven't even made it over there yet. From the sounds of it though, every one else has.) A visit to the GPD pub has become a glasstec right of passage.

Day two was filled with visits to many stands and many visitors to our stand. Russ Ebeid of Guardian stopped by and told me he had a hot story, so I plan to try and find him today. If stalk him I must, I will. Larry Johnson of Edgetech explained what it took to get permission to use a replica of a window from an a recently completed job in Abu Dhabi. The exquisite replica, at 70% the original size, sits in their booth.

AGC's stand has been very crowded, the result of their recent new product announcement, as has Glasslam's as well, which features a Rubik's cube about 50 times its original size, though the Porsche standing on glass has garnered much attention, as has glasstec's own version of the bridge to nowhere--the total glass bridge that visitors continue to walk under and over.

With two days in one glasstec leaves little time for sleeping. There will be time enough time for that on the way home.

Deb

P.S.--anyone with extra GPD drink tickets can drop them off in Hall 13, stand C73 which is, coincidentally, the USGlass stand. We will take it upon ourselves to see they get used.