Just fallen asleep and . . . .
My wonderful hotel stay at 11pm in the evening!
. . . . the Holiday Inn has the fire alarms go off. Hello Mr. Manager . . . . “this is a Birding Conference . . . . we birders wake up extra early in the morning to look for the birds!” Now I am too awake to fall back to sleep, so as you can see I am helping promote the wonderful things you will find when visiting a Holiday Inn around 11pm at night. Please make this your first choice of a hotel to stay at because your safety is our number one priority! Did I mention that it was only a false alarm and couldn’t turn the alarms off till the fire trucks arrive? They sure know how to do wake up calls to the whole building!
Glad this wasn’t a real fire, took them 20+ minutes to get here!
Mon@rch's Nature Blog 
Tom, sorry about your false alarm. I hope you get some sleep.But, check out my site real quick, if you are still up, something really cool happened today. ~nita~
6 October 2007 at 12:01 am
Did check our your site, how exciting! Ugg, now going to try and fall back asleep! Early one tomorrow!
6 October 2007 at 12:18 am
I hope you can still enjoy the day even though you will be very tired. Good thing it wasn’t a real fire if it takes 20 minutes for a fire truck to get there. Happy Birding!
6 October 2007 at 12:58 am
Nothing worse! Hope you get some good birds to make up for the lousy sleep you’re not getting!
6 October 2007 at 2:05 am
Oh no! Poor Tom! I hope you have good birding to make up for it
6 October 2007 at 6:45 am
ouch! Hope you managed to find an extra special birdie to make your day just perfect!
-Kaz
6 October 2007 at 7:22 am
Ugh… hope you can salvage the day.
6 October 2007 at 7:22 am
Oh man. I usually LOVE staying in hotels because I don’t have to clean anything! But this kind of thing would put me in a mood, for sure. I hope your other adventures make up for it…
6 October 2007 at 10:32 am
Tom, same thing happened to us during the Indiana State Basketball Tourney, I coached a team that had a 10:00 tip-off the next morning and our fire alarm went off at 2:00 a.m. We were supposed to be getting up 6:00 am, it made our girls very angry and we went on to win the State Championship later that night 🙂
6 October 2007 at 10:39 am
I had the same thing happen once at the Holiday Inn in Washington, DC in 1986. The entire building had to be emptied and the firetrucks arrived. Quite an experience. Hope you got some sleep and headed out early for the birds.
6 October 2007 at 12:24 pm
Ugh Tom! Sorry to hear about your being rudely woken up by the fire alarm. I’ll tell you sometime about my last stay at a Holiday Inn and how I was rudely woken up. Hope you’re having a great conference though!!
6 October 2007 at 5:53 pm
Wow! Late night excitement. I hope you got enough rest though, have fun at your convention! Rest later:)
6 October 2007 at 7:22 pm
Somewhere I read that a false alarm at a birding conference means a record year for birding.
Okay, I made that up, but I’m glad there was no real fire. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!
6 October 2007 at 8:53 pm
Enjoy your conference. I hope you rested… Stuff happens.
6 October 2007 at 9:17 pm
I think this was an omen that you should have stayed home and continued to set up nets for Saw Whets. That’s what I think.
6 October 2007 at 10:07 pm
@ Erie – was tired but did have a wonderful day. Will start editing picture and writing about it here soon.
@ Moe – I sure did, one was a lifer!
@ Marg – I sure did! Thanks
@ Kaz – We had a few special ones!
@ jayne – At least it wasn’t in the middle of the night! 11pm isn’t that bad of a time for it to go off!
@ Jennimi – It sure was and I was just glad to have internet their but didn’t have a great deal of time to do anything with it! Well except do this post!
@ Bernie – I bet because of the school you had to wake up all the kids and get them outside? Ugg, sorry and glad they won!
@ robin – I sure did and hope their wasn’t a fire their! Ugg
@ Pam – I can’t wait to hear the story! Thanks was good one for sure!
@ Chicago – Will sleep in tomorrow (Monday) for sure!
@ Veery – I hope so . . . wait, did get a lifer! Sweet! I wonder when they called the fire department they told them it was a false alarm and half the reason it took so long?
@ Mary – I sure did, thanks!
@ Jen – winds were not the best but looks like tonight looks positive!
7 October 2007 at 11:35 am
Geesh! I hope you tired birders were able to function the next day.
7 October 2007 at 11:43 am
20 minute ETA on fire trucks?? Did someone from HI call and tell them they thought it might be a false alarm or is that the standard response time? Something’s definitely not right with that!
7 October 2007 at 4:36 pm
uggg….. what was the trick next morning? Did you all bring a cattle prod in case one of your fellow birders nodded off behind their binoculars?
8 October 2007 at 11:04 pm
It sucks, but that’s better than the opposite, right (no fire alarms, real fire)?
9 October 2007 at 1:52 pm