(Zennie62Media NMX, CES 2014 coverage sponsored by MaiWorld.com, the leader in affinity USB Flash Drives)
Saturday, January 4th 2014 was the hardest travel day of my entire life, and this video gives you a taste of what I went through.
First, as I write this, I just arrived at my hotel, Hooters Casino and Hotel. (Which I’m happy I picked for its location and value for the money. While I have MaiWorld.com as a sponsor, I’m not into spending a ton of money for a room I’m not going to be in a lot of the time in Las Vegas.)
Anyways it’s just turned midnight and I’m massively fried, and even though the prospect of hopping over to the iBar to catch Calvin Lee and join in the fun is attractive, I’m more drawn to the idea of a good meal and a good night of sleep. See, I’m here to (video) blog stuff – it’s what I do.
But that aside, this day started at 4:14 AM PST, when I woke up, then was already pretty-much packed, so took Super Shuttle to San Francisco International Airport. I was to go out on the United 7:54 to Las Vegas – but it was cancelled. Fortunately Super Shuttle got me to SFO early enough to be able to try for the 7 AM to Vegas.
So I did, and waited, and waited. The damn flight had a mechanical problem such that it wasn’t until almost 11 AM that United killed that flight, too. Two down. And on top of that, SFO was blanketed by a super-thick layer of fog – the densest I’ve ever seen.
So, I came up with the idea of going from SFO to Denver, and then from their to Las Vegas. That flight, which was to leave at 7:24 PM (yep) didn’t leave until 9:30 PM.
The flight itself was a blast considering I was in the middle seat – but I was between two lovely UNLV Women’s Basketball players: Amy Calloway and – well, I’m going to leave her name out because the poor thing got massively sick. She had a headache and it turned into dizzy spells – the worst thing to happen on a flight. We got her ice and eventually she was much better. But for a while I thought she was going to upchuck in the seat.
Thankfully, it didn’t happen.
But I’ve arrived and am excited to go to the New Media Expo, and already got my CES 2014 badge at the airport. A nice new service for 2014’s International CES.
I am upset that I missed a whole day of the New Media Expo,including interviewing bloggers and social media practitioners, so I’ve got some catching up to do.
But I have to say, in retrospect, I enjoyed meeting so many nice people in San Francisco, Denver and Las Vegas airports and on the United Airlines flights. There’s a great vibe developing in America. I’m not sure what’s fueling it, but a lot of social barriers are coming down fast and you can feel the new energy and happiness – even on a day like this one.
A day where I discovered that thousands of people were plagued by flight cancellations and delays – I’m pretty sure this day saw a record number of them. I’ll check on that, later.
Stay tuned.