First thing I noticed was the TV cut off. Then I realized my laptop was no longer charging. Then I noticed the lights had gone down. Inside this well-lit room at the Shangri-La hotel in Sydney Australia, that latter point was easy to miss, but when I opened the door to the hallway only the emergency exit lights were active. It wasn't just my room. The entire hotel was dark.
Before I headed out to see how far things had spread, I made sure my room key still worked. It's an electronic keycard, and I wasn't about the get stranded with nothing but socks and a bathrobe on. The card worked, but still I propped the door open with a hanger.
Then I realized I had an LED light in my backpack. This is the Victorinox backpack that goes everywhere and is always loaded with toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, multiple macbook pro video adapters and, apparently, an LED flashlight.
So off I wandered around the 15th floor. I ran into some maintenance people and asked if it was just the building or the entire neighborhood. They didn't know. I checked the elevators: dead. I found the fire stairs in case this lasted a while and I needed to head out. Worrying observation: there are no emergency lights in the fire stairs! Back in my room, the phone still worked as did my fully charged Nexus One and iPhone.
That's when I decided to make this short video. Overall, low drama but a bit of fun. I'm off to shower up and head out for some radio interviews. Oh yeah, I'm in town until Monday for the Digital Directions conference. Might become analog directions if the power situation remains uncertain.