Yesterday was the 10-year anniversary of a significant event for me. It was on November 29, 1999, that I became an employee of APPX Software, Inc. The way that came about, and what transpired on that day, are worth looking back on. Well, at least they’re worth writing about in this blog.

In early 1998, a group of former resellers got together to purchase APPX Software Inc. from the former owner, Tredegar Industries. After putting together their organization and their plans for both the technical and business sides, it was decided to hold a conference to share the news with the APPX resellers and customers. That conference was scheduled for October 1999, and it provided me with my first opportunity to visit Jacksonville, Florida. (To be completely truthful, I had driven through the city en route to Miami in 1974, but it’s hard to consider that a visit.)

At the conference, APPX President Steve Frizzell and I got to talking, and out of that conversation came an offer to move to Jacksonville and come to work for ASI. The reaction to that news was, shall we say, hot and cold back in Syracuse, where “cold” is the operative word, and where October is the beginning of six months of gray skies, cold temperatures, and inordinate amounts of snow. My wife thought the opportunity in Florida sounded great; my daughter, 12 years old at the time, was not quite on board with it, as you might imagine. The cats remained neutral (actually, neutered…).

My first day was set for the Monday after Thanksgiving. I booked a flight for early that morning out of Syracuse, a nonstop into Orlando, which was cheaper and required about the same amount of total travel time as it would to change planes somewhere and land in Jacksonville. The sun was not up yet when Sue dropped me off at the Syracuse airport, but something else seemed strangely dark. As I entered the terminal building, which was, as expected, filled with people after the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it was quite evident that something was missing … light.

Hundreds and hundreds of hopeful travelers were standing around in the dark. There had been a power failure at the airport, apparently caused by some main trunk line being severed nearby. A few emergency lights were on, but the only place you could really see anything was where one of the local TV news crews was setting up for a shoot. Terminal lighting? Gone. Airline computers? Dead. Luggage conveyor belts? Idle. TV monitors that show flight arrivals and departures? Dark.

Eventually, some airline employees found bullhorns, and started announcing all the flights that would be cancelled. The irony was that there was plenty of power in the gate area, and in the control tower, but without electricity to check tickets, issue boarding passes, and, most significantly, clear people through security (an easier task in those pre-9/11 days), they just could not let passengers go out to the gates.

So, we waited. Dozens of flights were being cancelled. Finally, around mid-morning, they announced that they were planning to start letting a few flights out. Passengers would have to check ALL of their luggage, as they had no way to screen carry-on bags. Seats would be first-come, first-served. The first flight that was authorized to load and depart was, indeed, my flight to Orlando.

So, after standing on a long check-in line in a dimly-lit terminal, and hesitatingly handing over my laptop as checked baggage (it survived), I was allowed to board the plane, and we took off, arriving in Orlando about four hours late. As I recall, after getting my rental car and driving from Orlando to Jacksonville, I walked into the office with perhaps an hour or two left in the day. Needless to say, I was not overly productive that first day.

I was, however, well dressed. I had made it a habit to wear shirt-and-tie when working at client sites in New York, and did the same for my first day at ASI. Quickly, though, it became obvious that the Florida culture was different, and I have happily settled into golf shirts and khakis ever since. And while I’ve certainly endured a few flight delays and cancellations in the past decade, I don’t recall any other time when I walked into an airport and found it completely dark.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 5:57 pm and is filed under Al. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.