roy

MindTouch has rented two one-bedroom apartments in the city. Because the internet at the hotel was spotty, we all moved over to the apartments last night. After a night of fixing up some work items, I was ready to pass out. I took the key and headed downstairs to the second apartment. Thinking I didn't need to take anything (I had already brushed my teeth), I left all my stuff (including my cell phone) in the room.

Now, the apartments we're staying at have some high security; you need to swipe a key in the elevator to select a floor. I knew this as I went in, so as soon as the door closed, I swiped the key and hit "4."

Nothing happened. The button didn't light up ... nothing.

Maybe I hadn't hit the button correctly, or the swipe didn't register. I swiped again: the little black box went "beep," turned green, then turned red. I then spent the next minute trying out all the combinations ("Maybe I'm supposed to hit the floor then swipe"). Nothing. Frustrated, I hit the "Open door" button.

Elevator doesn't budge.

I frantically just start swiping and hitting any floor - and somehow the elevator goes to the ground floor. But it just sits there. It doesn't open. Nothing. I hit door open, and 'woosh' the elevator opens.

The problem here is that I couldn't find the stairs, my key won't work in the elevator, and I didn't have my cell phone on me. This was troublesome.

Being it was late (maybe 2am or so), there was nobody at the front desk to help me. Hearing the familiar whir of a computer, I jumped over the desk and turned on the monitor. I was hoping I could send off an email to my coworkers upstairs who would then come get me.

No such luck. The computer was running some surveillance cameras, and I didn't want to screw with that.

So I stepped outside the building (keeping the door propped), hoping that the apartment number was listed on the callbox. Nothing.

I wandered around for a little bit, trying to figure out what to do.

LUCKILY, somebody went down to the apartment to check up on me, and didn't find me there. He then came down to the ground floor, where I was stuck. Tonight I'm gonna take both keys (the ones that work) and make sure it wasn't my late night frazzledness which made the keys magically not work - I'm pretty sure I wasn't doing anything wrong, but I just gotta make sure...

I'm not liking Portland very much ...