PDC05: Day Two (The Blackout)

With the talk by Jim Hogg running about thirty minutes into lunch, when it ended we all headed rapidly to the dining area. The lunch options included several good salads; I selected the Cobb Salad and chatted with Robert. His session on Architecting .NET Frameworks was very informative. As we walked to the second part of the session the lights all over the conference center went out. We looked out the window and saw the traffic lights were out as well. With there being no power, we decided to head back to the hotel and drop off some items. I also wanted to change into my PDCC 1997 (San Diego) t-shirt.

LOS ANGELES, Sept 12 (Reuters) - A utility worker overloaded an electrical circuit and caused a massive power blackout across much of Los Angeles on Monday, snarling traffic, stranding office workers in elevators and sending fire trucks with blaring sirens racing around the city

Some two million people were hit by the outage, which plunged busy intersections into chaos, jammed cars on the freeways and sent office workers streaming out of downtown buildings to mill about on sidewalks. Those trapped in elevators made frantic calls for help.

The utility worker "directed too much amperage into a circuit that did not have the capacity to handle it," said Kim Hughes, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. ...
Reuters

Robert and I sat down in the "Tools & Languages" area of the Big Room to blog while we waited for the sessions to be reset to new times. Unfortunately, there was no announcement of the sessions being restarted and I missed Brandon Bray's second presentation. I did manage to see the presentation by Jeff Peil.