by Michael S. Kaplan, published on 2011/10/18 07:01 -04:00, original URI: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/michkap/archive/2011/10/18/10226970.aspx
I'm at the 35th Internationalization and Unicode conference in Santa Clara this week.
A great "Day 1" (aka Tutorial Day) which among other things included an awesome set of conversations witn Thomas Milo, as well as several others.
Anyway, we're at Grand Hyatt in Santa Clara.
We are just a few blocks away from Yahoo, which has a special attraction for me on the first night of the conference.
They host a welcome reception with free food and drinks!
How better to support the abusive relationship I'm in with my liver? :-)
Anyhow, the time arrived, I started to roll over to Yahoo, up on two wheels (me I mean, not Yahoo!).
It's a funny thing rolling at 3.5mph, the way that I was slightly faster than the other people. I got to catch up with Rick McGowan from Unicode, and the keynote speaker (Laura Welcher, Director of Operations of The Rosetta Project). I saw another Berkley PhD linguist Unicode colleague (Debbie Anderson), and anyway we all headed into the party.
Shortly after I got there, and before I even had my first drink (thus proving alcohol had nothing to do with the incident!), I accidentally ran over a power strip, and suddenly the slides being projected stopped.
Brave Yahoo employees tried to fix the situation, daring to step in at great risk to themselves since they had no idea if I might run over them too, but they were unable to resolve the situation.
Summary: an employee of Microsoft went to a reception at Yahoo and broke Yahoo hardware.
I want to assure Yahoo that I am responsible for the broken hardware and will fully reimburse for i.
I mean, if I can dun Google for failing to pay expenses1,2, I need to be willing to pay when I make Yahoo have to pay to fix stuff that was my fault!
So Yahoo, I'll pay. Just let me know via the "Contacting Me" link, and I'm sorry for any inconvenience!
1 - ref Attn: Google - Amount due: USD$307.50 (FOURTH AND FINAL NOTICE)
2 - by the way, Google did reimburse me shortly after that blog. They didn't even ask for the receipts and if I had been a less honest person I could claimed more. Lucky for them. :-)
ErikF on 18 Oct 2011 7:26 AM:
If you hadn't run over the power strip, odds are that someone else would have. I have set up many rooms for groups, and learned the hard way that power strips belong under things (small tables work best for this), and power cords should be protected if they are in a high-traffic zone.
The topics at this year's conference look pretty good! I wish I could be there, but my employer would rightly insist that it has nothing to do with my job, and I can't quite afford the cost myself. What presentations are you most interested in (other than the ones that you're presenting, of course)?
Michael S. Kaplan on 18 Oct 2011 9:36 PM:
I still feel bad!
Van on 19 Oct 2011 10:22 AM:
I'm going to go one better than Erik and unambiguously state that leaving a power strip in a corridor such that you could damage it is as little your fault as a venue not having ramps or navigable stairs (I seem to remember carrying your I-bot onto the deck at the Rupiya Unicode party) for your accessibility. They failed to provide adequate access for you, and unfortunately lost a bit of money - no different, but much less expensive, than losing a lawsuit for not having proper ADA ramps.