For those of you who logged on at 7 p.m. for live blogging from the Lee County Republican Party’s annual dinner, I have just one question for you:

You know that guy Murphy? I’ve kind of had it with him today.

Actually, I don’t have anything against Murphy. It’s his law that’s been the trouble. You know, that whole if-anything-can-go-wrong-it-will mantra? Well, that’s been the theme of the day for me.

I won’t go into all the details, but suffice it to say that I was 35 minutes leaving my previous commitment and heading over toward Opelika and the Marriott for the event, which started at 7 p.m. I headed that way at 7:35. Not a great start. I knew it would take 20 minutes to get there, and that wasn’t considering getting inside, getting set up, etc. I honestly considerd ditching the entire thing because I just knew that by the time I got there and got set up, the governor would be finished.

I arrived just before 8, and I thought I had caught a break when a man headed back to the ballroom told me that Riley hadn’t spoken yet. I hurried to the ballroom, scoped out a seat in the back against the wall (it was actually the only unoccupied seat I saw) and opened up the computer. I’m all set, I thought.

But then, there was Murphy.

Ten seconds in, I realized I didn’t have an open internet connection. Two minutes later, I had talked with a hote employee who had good news—the room was wired for access—and bad news—no wireless capability. More bad news: Although the room has jacks, they were covered up by the tables. More bad news still: It would take 20 minutes to set up. The bad news kicker: They would charge me for it once they did set it up.

It was a non-starter for me.

Obviously, I was disappointed. I’m sorry it didn’t work out the way we had hoped. But I figured I would stay, because I thought Riley would offer some good nuggets for us political junkies (he did—more on that in a minute). I hope you find them as interesting as I did.