CES 2005 Diary: Day 5 - Heading Home

Our final day at CES arrived, and to say I was relieved would be an understatement. I was a feverish and sickly mess by this point. I really felt overrun. It must be age, because last time I checked, mowing the lawn and digging ditches was grueling work, not writing. Clint was fortunate to have a reasonably early flight, so if I recall correctly, it wasn't too long after our 11:00 am checkout that he would be headed to the airport and flying home. The day ahead of me looked long and I was trying my best to steel myself. I would be leaving Vegas at approximately midnight and arriving home in Fort Lauderdale at around 10 am the next day at which time I'd head off to work until 7PM. So by my calculations, and knowing my inability to sleep on an airplane, I estimated it would be about 36 hours from my 7am wake-up on Sunday until my flu and I got a chance to go to bed. All along I was looking forward to Sunday coming - now I was wondering why.

The details of the morning are a little hazy. Suffice it to say it probably included the now famous ritual of the breakfast buffet/roulette wheel stopover. I don't recall losing anything on this morning, which is a good thing. The weather was still frigid and blustery as I waited outside for the requisite shuttle bus that never seemed to come. A cab pulled up and me and 3 iPod-wearing Asian women decided we would team up and split the fare. When we arrived, the bill was a stiff $15. "5 dollars each please," I said. They thanked me for my American hospitality, and I thanked them for not understanding English and paying my cab fare. Little things like that have a way of taking the sting off a big loss in the casino.

I had made the huge mistake of completely avoiding the press room at CES while I was there and I was really disappointed to find out how well appointed it was on this, my final day at the show. I was kicking myself for not visiting it sooner. First off, they had a very large and very nice hot buffet - free of charge. The actual pressroom itself was equipped with hundreds of Internet-ready Ethernet connections in every nook and cranny you can imagine. They even loaded the leather couches in front of the plasma TV with Ethernet cables. To top it all off, they had what looked like 20 tons of walnut brownies stacked up on a table next to the coffee machine. If I wasn't so sick at this point I'd have been euphoric.

I sat down knowing I'd have to kill at least several hours before I took a cab back to the hotel, got my luggage from the baggage check (I had to check out at 11am), and finally headed to the airport for my midnight flight. My head was pounding and my throat was as raw and rough as wet bark. I ate a huge lunch and crashed on the couch with several brownies trying to enjoy what was left of the Patriots' game on the big screen. Feeling a little more rested, I got back to work and banged out my remaining articles for the site. Luckily, Clint called me and told me he found a Wi-Fi connection at the Las Vegas airport, so I was able to fire him over some articles which he posted before he got on the plane.

The overall feel of the convention today was winding down. The place was marked by exhibitors, antsy to break down their displays, and heaps of useless swag (lanyards and bags) being given out all in hopes of having to carry one less box of crap back to the office on M onday. And trust me, when I say crap, I mean it. Grown men would gladly sling a cow uterus over their shoulder and use it as a bag to collect meaningless pamphlets - as long as it had a logo like SIRIUS or XBOX printed on it. Now granted, this is a convention that ultimately celebrates commerce. At the end of the day, though, you'd think some people were here just to say they were judging by the lines at the CES souvenir booths where those who were not lucky enough to get anything for free were happily paying top dollar for a corporate logo stitched onto a man-bag or backpack.

After a few more hours of brownie eating, typing and surfing, I got a call from Gene and Bertha who were both as anxious as I was to wrap things up and get out of town. They were on a red eye headed back to FL as well, so we all decided a nice farewell dinner was in order before we got our bags and headed to the airport.

We headed over to the Paris Hotel and Casino where I said hello to some twenty five-dollar chips and, just as quickly, bid them adieu. The casino floor was fantastic in this place, if not mind-blowing. We went to a pricey but really good sushi bar where Gene and I des troy ed a few sushi rolls as well as an amazing Vietnamese steak and noodle soup. I remember thinking I needed that to tide me over until 10 am the next morning.

After dinner, and collecting our bags at the hotel, we made our way to the airport and said our good-byes. This trip was the first time I had met Gene and his wife Bertha, and their hospitality and overall coolness was so appreciated on this long weekend. I wished we could have spent more time in Vegas as friends and tourists. Anyway, we both had long nights ahead of us and we were really hoping we would not get bit by the "cancelled/delayed flight bug" that seemed to be plaguing the entire airline industry over the holidays. Unfortunately, my good credit with the airline gods had been tapped by this point and they had a big score to settle with me for my prior months of smooth travel. I guess I should have counted myself lucky up to this point that, while the rest of the US was mired in a lost luggage/cancelled flight nightmare over the holidays, I had hopped and skipped all over the US without as much as a fat man sitting next to me on the plane. Tonight would be the end of that fairy tale.

I walked up to the ticketing counter to find out that my midnight flight to Chicago had been delayed by 1/2 hr. "Ok, not bad," I thought "I can deal with that." It did shave my time down between connecting flights, reducing my chances of getting food or a little break, but it's cool... as long as I was still able to get on the plane, I'd be fine. I just wanted to get home. The ticketing agent smiled and informed me that most likely everything would go smoothly, and that at least I'd get to my destination - even if my bags didn't. Great, now I'd have to at least accept the fact that my bags wouldn't be arriving in Fort Lauderdale when I did. who well, it wasn't like I was planning on doing laundry when I returned anyway.

I got my ticket and sulked to the gate. I was trying to find solace in the fact that all I had to do at this point was just endure the ride and hang in there as best I could. I arrived at my gate approximately 2 hrs before take off and apparently a lot of other people were just as anxious to get out of Sin City as I was. I was lucky enough to scope out an outlet located in the floor to plug my laptop into. I had a few DVDs with me and intended on using them to kill some time. About halfway through my movie, I decided to get up and stretch and confirm my take-off time was still a half hour late and hadn't changed status. Upon scanning the giant computerized boards, I was horrified to see that my flight was now scheduled to leave one hour past its original take-off time. IF this flight were to be in the air at the scheduled takeoff time, that would give me approximately 5 minutes to make my connecting flight, or be stranded in Chicago for another flight to Fort Lauderdale 12 hours later. Mind you, this was still "if" my flight took off at exactly its scheduled delayed departure time. This did not look good.

Now, I'm the last guy you'll see in line during one of these instances complaining. I tend to be of the belief that in these situations, we are helpless to a big machine that doesn't care how tired or angry we are, and that there is little that can be done by the 25 year old behind the counter to remedy the problems of a delayed flight. This was one instance I wanted at least SOME answers however. Most specifically, would they be able to delay my connecting flight for a few minutes to ensure I got on? I was informed that they would probably wait for me as they were picking up several connecting flights. This was of minor comfort as I knew the likelihood of the schedule staying "as is" with an hour to go was slim. At this point, I decided to cut my losses and call in to my boss's voicemail at work at inform her that I would not be arriving at work tomorrow. Just this action alone was a big weight off of my shoulders, as the notion of 36 hours without sleep was overwhelming me and not making an already stressful situation better.

We boarded the plane a little over an hour late as expected. It was a quick affair with little wasted time as I sensed everyone had somewhere they needed to be and no one wanted to slow down the process of getting off the ground. I had eaten some putrid clam chowder from a sandwich shop before boarding, as I knew there would be no meals served and no time to eat at my layover (if I were to actually make my connecting flight). I scarfed the soup down with two Tylenol P M s and kept my fingers crossed that I'd at least get some sleep on board. As luck would have it, I was assigned an exit row and window seat. This was perfect as I'd be able to stretch my gangly legs out and at least lean up against the wall to get whatever rest I could. Whatever time was saved by everyone rushing onto the plane was lost when some bozo CES attendee could not find a place for his stupid souvenir/swag bag loaded with pamphlets and press releases/fire kindling. We seriously sat there for 15 minutes while he and the stewardess played luggage Tetris with this stupid bag. Once they finally fit it in, it was time to take off, albeit way too late for me to make my connecting flight. This sucked.

I was awoken 15 minutes before landing with the great news that in fact we had saved about 20 minutes in the air and would be landing approximately the same time my other flight should have been taking off. With the seeming 100% failure rate of planes taking off on time that plagues the airlines lately, this seemed like good odds to me. I think I was going to be able to make it. As luck would have it, we spent an agonizing few minutes extra on the runway trying to taxi to our gate. M y pulse was racing big time. Once we finally stopped and the "fasten-seatbelts" light went off, I shot up, grabbed my bag, pushed to the front, and BOLTED off the plane. I knew my connecting flight was just a few doors down. I was relieved to see a female stewardess bolting aside me as well. "They'd never leave without her," I thought with a minor sense of relief.

I remember the scene as we approached the gate, both of us breathing heavy and towing our carry-ons as steadily and quickly as we could. We saw two gentleman behind the counter right by the gate to the plane. When we approached, we realized that the two "gentleman" were not employees but rather passengers trying to CALL ONTO THE PLANE TO HAVE THEM OPEN THE DOOR. The stewardess who was with me literally flipped out and started screaming at them. "What are you doing???!! You can't just get on these phones and start dialing numbers??? Have you lost your minds???!!" I wanted to reassure the stewardess that based on the accents I was registering from the two Ft. Lauderdale-bound guys, no, they in fact had not lost their minds. They were just from South Florida . Once the stewardess was done making her point, she took our tickets and scurried us onto the plane "Go, go go!" she said. As we jogged down the hallway to the entry to the plane, we were met by an absolutely LIVID stewardess who obviously was at the receiving end of these bumbling phone calls. She was furious, screaming at us to get off the plane immediately. "Get off now!!!" she railed. We pleaded with her that we were in a real jam and if she could just be human and let us on. Pleading to her soft side was a no-go at this moment. We were ushered all the way back to the gate's waiting area and the door was slammed in our faces. We all stood there silently for 10 seconds puffing and panting, not knowing what to do, when the phone rang (apparently it was OK for unauthorized people to answer the phone.) "Hurry up and get on," we were told by the same stewardess who just booted the four of us off moments ago. This is an instance where I think we were lucky to have an airline employee in tow. I'm pretty sure the stewardess on board wanted to make her point, and now that she sufficiently rattled us it was time to board.

We got on board a packed plane with everyone staring at us. No doubt they saw and heard all the confusion that just went down. I'm sure none of them were clued in to the fact that we were late because of our connecting flight, so they all stared at us like we were the biggest idiots ever. Adding to my embarrassment was a captain who was traveling and decided to take my seat. I felt kind of bad asking him to get out of my seat. One of my idiotic Miami cohorts said "Bro, you can't tell him to leave, he's in the Army." The captain was wearing his Captain's uniform which must have confused my Nobel laureate friend into thinking he was military. I slouched into my chair, my heart still racing, but relieved that I'd make it home in a few hours. I wouldn't have my luggage, but at this point I just wanted to be in my bed. I'd like to say I sat down and took a few moments to think about the profound nature of technology and man that I witnessed at CES, or the world and industry-shrinking effect most of the burgeoning technology would be causing. I could wrap up this tirade with a little bow and present it as a deep, well executed rant about my experience. Instead I just popped more sleeping pills and tried to tilt my head so the cute girl next to me wouldn't hear me snore as I nodded off.