Minor Annoyances

I'm at a conference.  For two and a half days, I sit around with a bunch of other people who have my job up and down the state, and get myself some continuing education.  We get lectures on topics of (at least theoretical) relevance to our job, and generally compare notes with our counterparts.

They've put us up in an airport hotel near SFO -- oh, hey, just in case someone is googling the name of the hotel, that would be the Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport.

When my flight got in, I took the shuttle to the hotel, dashed in line, and managed to get a room even though it was before the check-in time.  Met up with a colleague who had come up a night earlier (on his own dime) and had an absolutely delightful evening moving hotels when the electricity went out in this one (and then moved back this morning when the problem was fixed.)  He was pretty annoyed and attempted to obtain compensation from the hotel for his trouble.  After a fair amount of negotiating, he received, for his trouble, a voucher for a free sandwich at the hotel's deli (worth no more than ten bucks).

So, after lunch, the conference started.  There's another conference going on here as well.  Somehow, their reception area was fully stocked with coffee and tea, but we didn't get beverages until after our first session.  (Cookies arrived, too.  But everyone from our conference attacked the cookies during our brief 15-minute break and they didn't replenish them quickly enough.)  Survived both sessions and went back to my room for a half-hour break before meeting up with some friends for dinner.  Sat down with my book, read for about ten minutes.

... and that's when the electricity went out.