10.22.2007

Operation world series tickets


Today at 10am World Series tickets went on sale (on-line only).

Dave has been prepping for this moment all week. He recruited everyone willing to help him buy tickets. The more the press talked up the ticket sales, the more stressed Dave got.

To emphasize Dave's conviction to this cause consider the following:
1. Dave set up 4 computers for me to run from home
2. Yesterday Dave made me do several "dry runs" with the Rockies web site to ensure I was ready
3. Dave couldn't sleep last night. He was too anxious.
4. During our morning prayers he said "please help us to get world series tickets."

Poor guy, he wants it so bad.

We started bringing up the website at 8:45am. Even that early the site was so overloaded it kept timing out. At 10am sales opened, but when you would click on "buy tickets now" the browser would either time out, stall, or shut down completely. Dave instructed us to press "buy tickets now" over and over again.

At some point during the process Dave's company blocked the Rockies site on their internal network and Dave could no longer contribute to the cause. Around this same time his brother's company took down their server for an upgrade.

Unable to focus, Dave decided to come home and help me man the 4 computers at home. He called me from his work parking lot totally defeated saying "I left the lights on to my jeep and now my car battery is dead. Everything is working against me." I gave him a pep talk, he got his car started, and raced home.

Between family members we had 14 browsers going on 8 different computers. Minute after minute ticked by and no one got through. I made Dave a sandwich, but he was too stressed to eat. Here is a clip from the email exchange of team "operation world series":

10:27AM, Rob: Having trouble getting past the first tickets page. Will keep trying
10:34AM, Missy: I'm stuck on the countdown page
10:46AM, Carrie: I've got 4 computers going - no luck so far
10:57AM, Missy: how long do we do this?
10:59AM, Dave: Until we get them.
11:04AM, Carrie: He would make an excellent boss in a sweat shop
11:29AM, Rob: Dave I'm wearing a pair of depends so I won't have any reason to leave my computer.

Around this time my dad called me. Dave had asked him to help buy tickets, but I never would have dreamed he would hang in there for over an hour and a half clicking "buy tickets now."

He said "Carrie, I have a bloody nose, and the doctor thinks I need to go to the hospital to receive platelets. Unfortunately I'll have to stop trying to buy tickets for a while."

Have you ever heard anything cuter in your whole life? What dedication! I love my sweet dad so much!

Finally around 12:15pm the Rockies management came out with a statement:

"Due to the overwhelming traffic to the site, Major League Baseball's ticket vendor experienced a system wide outage. Less than 500 seats were sold before the outage. Tickets sales have been suspended until further notice."

And that is where we are now. Waiting for further notice.

Feel a little un-satisfied? Would you like to know if little Dave will make it to the World Series or not?

Join the club.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dave
We feel your pain, Emily, Greg, and his friend Ryan have been doing the same thing alllll day. As us Rockies fan stay true to the cause the Rockies will win the World Series. Go Rocks!

di said...

okay--reading that made my pulse race! i cannot wait for part 2 of the saga!

Amanda said...

Maybe Dave's operation was the cause of the system outage. Good luck Dave!

Janice said...

I am eager to know what happened?

sara said...

oh dad. i love how no one was spared from getting rockies tickets... even the man who's just finished another round of chemo.

dad rules.

sara said...

upon further reading, i'm surprised dave allowed any emailing during ticket purchasing.

carrie said...

seriously