Digital Arcana

For many years, I have been encouraged by my wife to write this story but I have never taken the time.  Tonight I was told by a very good friend that, if I hadn’t written it yet, I would very likely never write it.  This of course was blatant reverse psychology but I am genetically incapable of backing down from a challenge, so…

Back in 1999 I took my first ill-fated trip to Las Vegas.   It was a business trip and I was not looking forward to it.

A business trip to Las Vegas, you ask!  Surely it was a boondoggle?!  No!  I was traveling to Black Hat/DEF CON, a pair of conferences focusing on hacking, penetration testing and other digital tomfoolery.  At the time, I was doing penetration testing for the Federal Reserve Bank and thoroughly enjoying being a “white-hat” hacker.  To be fair, it is more accurate to say that I was looking forward to the conference itself but not the city in which it was hosted.  To me, Las Vegas always seemed like a very seedy place; a stereotype that has been reinforced by portrayals in television and movies.  In fact, I ultimately found the city to be pleasant, fun, generally clean and even beautiful in its own way.  Furthermore  the conferences were, as expected, very educational and entertaining.  (At least the parts I eventually got to experience.  More on that later.)  However, this is not a story about the conferences, lock-picking classes, table dancing, reverse engineering of the HVAC system of the host resort in the middle of a Las Vegas summer to blow hot air or any part of the conferences themselves.  This is a story about my trip to the conferences, and what awaited me when I first arrived in arid Las Vegas, Nevada.

I was flying from Richmond, Virginia and my flight was connecting with a short layover in a city that I have since forgotten.  I never visited that city because the first disaster of my trip struck that flight, causing the airplane to overheat on the runway.  I was informed by the airline that they did not have another open flight that evening, but they would be happy to help me find another flight that would still get me to Las Vegas that night.  A deal was struck and I was running off to another gate to catch my new flight, connecting through Charlotte, North Carolina.  I needn’t have bothered with rushing, as that flight was delayed by several hours.  I asked the gate attendant if it would be better to find another flight, as I was sure I would miss my connecting flight and I’d rather sleep in my own bed than be stranded in Charlotte.  I was assured that they were holding our connecting flight and so I waited.  We eventually boarded the plane and I was actually happy to be on my way.

Of course, my happiness was short-lived.  Apparently as we were en route, lightning struck the tower of the Charlotte airport and made for an interesting landing and several delays.  Due to complications from the lightning strike, it was decided that my connecting flight had a shortened escape window and could not wait.  I arrived at the gate, breathless, just in time to see my flight begin to taxi away.  It turned out that no more flights were leaving the Charlotte airport that night and I was trapped there with a throng of angry travelers.  Several interesting people-watching opportunities involving long lines, surly airline employees with death wishes and poor old ladies with ridiculously over-sized luggage later and I was in possession of a voucher for the last open hotel room in Charlotte, North Carolina as well as a ticket for a flight to Las Vegas the next day, connecting through picturesque Newark, New Jersey.

I shared the shuttle ride to the hotel with an entire collegiate fencing team and their bag of sabers, foils and epees.  Due to the size of the shuttle van and the relative size of an entire collegiate fencing team, I spent the ride perched, for all practical purposes, on the aforementioned bag of swords.  I called my wife when I reached my hotel room, exhausted and disappointed that I would likely miss the better part of my first day at the conference.  I awoke the next morning and attempted to shower before sallying forth to catch my next flight.  Have you ever been in a hotel with no cold water?  I have.  Due to a satanic convolution in the plumbing, I checked out that morning with a lovely, glowing lobster-red complexion.

I soldiered on to the Charlotte airport, only to be informed upon checking in that the flight through Newark had been canceled for reasons that I no longer remember.  I called my manager at the Federal Reserve and begged to be allowed to simply return home, preferably by rental car, as I was sure any additional air travel at that point would probably involve a plane crash.  I was scolded for being paranoid and told that the conference had been paid for, so I was going to go.  There was more quality time with the airlines and a new flight was booked, connecting through Dallas, Texas.

A mercifully uneventful flight later and I was in the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport starting my multiple-hour layover under bright blue Texas skies.  The black storm clouds that rolled in shortly thereafter moved incredibly quickly but I’m sure they had to rush, assuming they thought they would be meeting me in Newark.  We boarded the plane on time and I was seated in and around a charming British family also bound for Las Vegas.  As we were finding our seats, the skies opened up into a full Texas-sized thunderstorm, driving the luggage crews off the dangerous tarmac.  Most of our baggage lay discarded on the belts.  I vividly remember the voice of the prim and precocious little British boy in the seat in front of me as he looked out the airplane window and saw a large, soft-sided suitcase containing a growing puddle and saying: “Mummy!  Isn’t that our luggage?!”  I didn’t know the word ’schadenfreude’ at the time, but I’m ashamed to say I recognize the feeling now.

Three hours in a hot, unmoving airplane later and I was finally on the final leg of my journey.  I arrived in Las Vegas shortly before 11pm local time at the end of the first day of the conference and dragged myself to the newly-opened Venetian Hotel, exhausted.  I called my wife to let her know that I was, against all odds, still alive.  Twenty-six hours and four different airlines later and I had arrived!

The next day, I woke late after enjoying the absolutely gorgeous room at the Venetian and ran to make the keynote for the second day of the Black Hat conference.  Upon leaving the keynote, I noticed what I thought was a strange fountain pouring out onto the carpet in one of the hotel hallways.  In fact, I was seeing just part of the impact of this: LINK.  Yes, I found a flood in the middle of the desert: the perfect punchline to the joke of my first trip to Las Vegas.  The karmic fallout of my cursed trip meant I had to endure several rainstorms in the desert each time I returned to Las Vegas.  The streak has since been broken, but for awhile I believed I could bring rain to the desert with my mere presence.

In the end, I had great fun at the conferences.  I gambled for the first time, discovered sushi and met good friends with whom I have sadly since lost touch.  My return trip was uneventful and I have a story to tell about my trip and more than a few more stories about being in Las Vegas for the Flood of 1999.  Maybe I will write about those in this blog… in another eleven years.

Posted on February 16th, 2010 under Personal • RSS 2.0 feed • Both comments and pings are currently closed