There’s always excitement at ESC. Almost always, anyway. I think in 2009, it was mostly just spooky quiet. If I remember correctly, the theme for that year was: “But I’m not dead yet …”
Our booth, 823, is across from LeCroy this year. They do cool test equipment. I visited them a few years back to get humiliated by Guitar Hero on the Wii. I didn’t play Guitar Hero this year, but I did get to watch the line for their beer cart and the longer line to get the little robots from Atmel, also near us.
Being mostly stuck in my booth, I haven’t been able to get out and about much to see what else is here, but fortunately, some of the excitement came to me. At approximately 4:36, the hall went dark in black out. As you can see from the photo, it was completely out except for the occasional dim glow of a laptop here and there. Me and my booth crew considered doing some looting, but we couldn’t agree on who would pick up a chair and throw it through a window or a monitor.
Half a minute later, we had some emergency lighting and about ten minutes after that, the main lights started coming back on with the convention center’s generators. The power stayed out for the final 45 minutes of the show. As frequently happens, stories of unknown legitimacy started flowing around. The best was that the power was our from Gilroy to just South of San Francisco. Record heat was given as a reason in one case. I’m not sure that 80 degrees should qualify as record heat, but who knows.
Back at the hotel, the elevators were running slowing on generator power. I chose to take the stairs. After a brief stop in our rooms, we were going to go out and hunt down a wild beast to cook on the open fires in the street, but the power came back on and we couldn’t find any open fires.
Duane Benson
Tomorrow we we eat ham and jam and Spam a lot.