The march to PDC 2005 ...
As I'm looking at traveling to LA in the early AM, here's hoping I do better traveling to PDC 05 than I did to TechEd 05.
My first convention was TechEd 2005 which I attended shortly after I joined the Windows Installer team as a new PM. I'd like to think it went well for all the mistakes I made.
- I left the day before I was supposed to be on the convention floor on a cross country flight going East. I was scheduled to land in Orlando, FL at 11 PM which I figured would give me 5-6 hours of sleep the night before. What I had not counted on was O'Hare. See folks that fly East often warn you about O'Hare but I thought it's just bad luck not a institutional problem. Well, bad luck or instutional problem, I got bit by
- scheduled flight crew that was over their FAA allocation of consecutive flight hours
- next available flight crew wasn't on the ground for a couple of more hours (so that was the minimum bar)
- that crew was too small for the plane flying from Chicago to Orlando so we had to wait for the next crew
- meals that had been scheduled for the on time flight were not available (and that fact was not announced)
- after finally getting on the plane to Orlando, the guy sitting next to me was on a special (faith based) diet but the flight had nothing he could eat.
- So I ended up on the ground at about 2:30 in the morning (3 and a half hours late). Grabbed my rental, then my bag, then rushed off toward downtown Orlando. After a half hour driving, I realize "Ooops. Convention center isn't downtown." Now maybe there is some part of Orlando is a happening town but everything is closed on Sunday night (really Monday morning) at 4am. So next I check my map and find the convention center but I don't have the hotel on the map (oops).
- Too tired to think, I drive back to the airport to look for someone that can give me directions but we had to be the last flight in because there are no taxis or any staff. Next best idea is to find the nearest world wide hotel and ask for help. Luckily the Hyatt is right there at the airport so I drive up and ask the Valets. No luck. They ask the security guard. No luck. These kind people agree to watch my car while I go upstairs to the font desk. I rush upstairs and ask the front desk guy. No luck.
- Luckily the front desk guy offers to check the web for me and after a 10 minute pause, he comes back with a map quest map of where I need to go. Wow, troubles are over now, right?
- Wrong. Turns out the hotel is buried behind another hotel of almost the same name (something with extended and suites). So I drive up to the front door of what I think is the hotel and the door is locked. I then buzz the manager to wake up and let me in. They politely amble to the desk, open the door, and tell me they have no reservation for me. Oh great. I then dig through my bag to find my hotel reservation and pass the paper through the locked grate. They fumble with the paper and the computer for 5 minutes before they notice the name on the top of the reservation is not their hotel. Oops. I apologize. They point me to the hotel in back of them. I thank them and I'm almost there.
- Wrong. So it's the same routine with the night manager as above and this time they have my reservation. They sign me in, give me my keys, we're off to our respective beds. The keys wouldn't work. I spent 15 minutes trying every combination I could think of but nothing worked. Finally I give up and go back down to wake the manager (again!) and explain that I can't get the door open (and feeling like a complete idiot, which I had been to this point). This time it wasn't me as the manager tried the keys too and couldn't get the door to work either. Finally, she lets me in with her master keys and tells me to check at the desk in the morning.
- Almost. For a native North Westerner, the Florida heat and humidity even at 5 in the morning is unbearable, so I crank up the air and it takes another half an hour to finally get to sleep. After 2 hours of sleep, I'm up at 7 for the 7:30 start time. Running on adrenalin, I get in a quick shower to wash the humidity off and I'm in the car at 7:15 and at the convention parking lot at 7:30. I'm finally here, right?
- Wrong. Turns out the Orlando Convention Center is so huge it take a half hour to walk end to end. I know because I parked at the opposite end of the facility from the Microsoft function. Ouch.
There are a lot of ways things could go worse, but I sure hope not ;^)
See you at the PDC,
Robert
