I had two hours this morning in Las Vegas to see the CES show before heading to the airport. For those of you who don’t know, CES is the largest computer expo in the world. It meets in Vegas every year around now.
I had spoken at an event in Vegas yesterday, so I was briefly still in town. I headed from my hotel to the convention center, and everything went well.
Until that is, I tried to register. Right in the middle of my registering, all of the computers went down. The people running things were very apologetic, but they said they just can’t let anyone in without a badge.
And for anyone to get a badge, their computers need to be up. I ended up spending the next 20 minutes waiting around.
Then, on the advice of a colleague, I went to a different part of the convention center. I waited in another long line, this time outside in the cold. I got to the window, and right in the middle of my registering, the computers went down again.
At this point I figured that maybe I’m some sort of minor god. After all, I seem to be able to bring down an entire computer network simply through the force of my bad karma.
A third line did the trick. I got my badge, having spent more than an hour on various lines, and headed into the show. There were now just about 30 minutes left before I needed to leave the convention center and head to the airport. So I got to see a few things, but not many.
Yet I didn’t feel bad, because the irony of it all was more delicious than the inconvenience: I had essentially missed the largest computer show in the world, because their computers crashed.