CES:: Day 2

It was another day of lines. First, having decided that I'd brave Starbucks rather than have no coffee at all, I headed downstairs where Starbucks has a presence right by the elevators on the first floor of the casino. Mind you, with the exception of my friend Carl, I know no one who actually likes Starbucks. I think most of my friends tolerate the coffee if nothing better is available. That certainly describes my own feeling about the brand. But, beggars not being choosers, Starbucks was my only option for a 16 oz hazelnut latte, what I'd normally make for myself at home. Off the elevator, I turned to the right and found--yes, a line, a long line that wasn't moving. Rather than hunt for another coffee shop (I did remember seeing another Starbucks nearby, but couldn't remember just where), I took my place at the end of the line and tried to be patient. Shortly thereafter, a man came by and announced "There's another Starbucks directly upstairs from this one, and there are only ten people in line." Well, that was enough for me, so upstairs I headed and became number eleven. Much to my surprise, no one else from the first floor line joined me.

I got back to our room in time for Kevin to announce that we had to leave for the Las Vegas Convention Center. Back down the elevator, heading for the Monorail, and, yep, you guessed it, another line. No one was being allowed onto the loading platform (one flight down from the ticketing kiosks). We wondered about this, until we heard a train come into the station. Once it departed, the line moved forward as those in front got to go through the barricades. It took a second train before we were allowed through, and I was the last one in our group. On the loading platform, there was no room for anyone else. I guess that's why they were holding people upstairs. The trains were running every four minutes, and Nokia was providing entertainment in the form of a young man twirling a contraption made up of square metal rods.

Our train arrived just as the young man was finishing his act, and we squeezed on board for the short ride to the Convention Center. This isn't Japan, so we didn't have pushers, but I don't believe that any more Americans would have been able to fit in the car. I have been on a train that was more crowded once in my life. In 1965, my father took me to Japan where I had the experience of riding the Tokyo subway at rush hour. Looking across at my father, I asked if he had ever been anywhere where all he could see was hair.

Off the train, following the crowd, we crossed a parking lot, dodged taxis and limos that were unloading passengers illegally, and headed into the center. First task--find breakfast. Once more, a line. But a quick reconnoiter and we determined that this line was for, why couldn't I have foreseen this, Starbucks. There was no line at the booth where they were selling scrambled eggs, sausage links or bacon, fried potatoes and peppers, and biscuits and gravy. All for $8.00, or so. Once we had filled our bellies, it was time to brave the beast and enter the arena. For today, I chose to stick close to Kevin, and thus found myself looking at lots of cables, cell phone battery packs, cell phone cases, etc., etc., etc. I quickly decided that I'm not nearly enough of a geek to fit in here. Half the time I had no idea what Kevin was talking about when he'd speak with the vendors.

This is a predominately masculine crowd, and I saw men of all sizes, shapes, races and religions. I was surprised by the number of Hasidic Jews I saw wandering through the aisles. There were a number of very handsome men, some vendors, some buyers, some just observers. I was taken by the t-shirt mottos that manyof the vendors sported. Jaybird, a company specializing in wireless headphones (as near as I could tell), dressed their reps in black t-shirts with the motto "Wires are for puppets."

The next thing I noted was that many, if not most, of the booths were offering products made in China. The company names all seemed to start with the hometown of whatever was being manufactured, with most items coming from Shenzhen, Guongdong, Shanghai and Hangzhou. I began to wonder if there were anywhere other than China manufacturing things today.

As the day wore on, I wore out. I don't know if it's a form of claustrophobia or agoraphobia, or just what, but in crowds similar to what we were facing, I have trouble breathing and start to go into panic mode. Eventually I told Kevin that he was on his own, and I was heading back to our room. Leaving him in the middle of the hall, I searched in vain for an exit. The longer I spent walking, the more drastic my need to escape. Alas, it was as if I were trapped in Sartre's play No Exit. I asked two different folk how I might leave the place and got two different answers. On the way, I did find a booth offering photographic equipment--Kenko tripods, Tokina lens and Hoya filters. Finally, something I understood. No one seemed interested in talking to me, however. A few booths further on I found a very friendly vendor showing portfolio cases for digital images. She didn't know Montana, but she traveled to Spokane, Washington once a year and told me that her product was available at Michael's, a store I frequent in Missoula.

Based on what I saw today, I'd have to say that the most plentiful "toys" being shown were headphones, flashdrives, cell phone cases, and tablet or notebook computers. What I've read in the press is that this show is heavy on something called ultrabooks. Apparently an ultrabook is a notebook computer that is super slim, some of them roughly half an inch thick at their thickest. No one seems to know if anyone really needs something that small, because you have to give things up to gain sleekness. The diet these ultrabooks have followed rules out such things as disk drives and USB ports. Sorry, but if you want to be thin, you have to sacrifice.

Also in the press I've read that somewhere on display at CES there are vibrating razors and mattresses designed to allow you to use your electronic gadgets. Gee, I'm doing that now, without the benefit of an electronics-friendly bed. But there are so many booths, and so many different vendors, that I'm not sure a person could see everything if they spend all day, every day wandering through the displays. The U.S. Postal Service has a huge booth, although I have no idea why. Other large booths belong to Verizon, Samsung, Sennheiser, and other names familiar to electronics buffs. I saw robotic vacuums, toy animals, a Lamborghini, and several motorized bicycles.


And in the end, I saw the way out and took it,only to find myself in yet another line--the line of those trying to escape. The monorail back to Harrah's was just as full as the one we'd taken in the morning, but I found myself surrounded by a group of Florida bears. I told one of them that I always felt safer in the company of bears, and he agreed that he did too.

There were several booths showing different electronic massage tools, and I tried one out. Fifteen minutes of electro stimulation of the muscles in my shoulder and lower back, and I felt much better. So much better that I actually bought the unit. (And this is supposedly a no-no. The show is all about demonstrating products, NOT selling them.) Back in our room, I broke out the new unit, put the slippers on my feet and the electrodes on my neck and shoulder and sat through another fifteen minutes of bliss. Then a nap until Kevin came in and said it was time for dinner.

For our evening meal, we caught the monorail back to the MGM Grand, and thence to New York New York where we had the Original Fulton Fish Frye's fish and chips. After wandering the streets of old New York, and crossing back past the lion's den in the MGM, we returned to Harrah's for a dessert of IcePan ice cream. I can't really describe the stuff, but Kevin had mint chocolate chip and I had pistachio with almond. You choose your flavor, your dairy (skim, 2%, whole milk or soy milk), and they make the stuff in front of you. Never have I seen anything like it. But it was good, and we carried it upstairs to our room for dessert.

Kevin has now gone to bed, and Iwill join him just as soon as I finish this up. The last image above is the Las Vegas skyline as seen from the Convention Center Monorail Station. We've had glorious weather while we've been here, as you can see.

And by the way, on another front, my friend Terry Cyr just was honored by being featured in the blog of Martin Brant, The Enlighted Male. Just last week I had told Terry about Martin's blog, and now the two have connected. If you are at all interested in superb imagery of the human male, I recommend Martin's blog. Here's the link to the post that features Terry.

CES: Day 0

I lied yesterday. The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) doesn't really start until Tuesday. Oh there were a few press events on Monday, and Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, gave the keynote address, as has some Microsoft official fourteen times in the past sixteen years. But this is the last. Microsoft has announced that they will no longer participate in the CES. Lots of other folk were participating, though (some estimates say 140,000 attendees) and there was one event that Kevin and I had to attend. To gain entry to the exhibits, you must have an authorized pass badge, and that badge has to be in an authorized plastic holder on an authorized lanyard. To get all this, you had to show up at a registration desk in one of three locations. The closest to us was at the Venetian, so Kevin and I headed over there at noon to get in line. Now understand, we had pre-registered and pre-paid, but we did not have our badges. Turns out it didn't really matter. There was one line for people with badges but without holders and lanyards, and another line for those of us without even the badges. Both lines were long, snaking through hallways at the Venetian. It reminded me of the line I stood in to see The Exorcist at North Point Cinemas in San Francisco. That line took four hours and was the best part of the evening. This line was even longer in length, but took a mere 45 minutes, much of which occurred when we found ourselves second only to a fellow who hadn't pre-registered and whose credit card was rejected. It never fails, no matter if you're at the bank, the grocery store, or CES, you always get in the wrong line.

That's not how our day started, however. You see, yesterday turned out to be a monorail day. Las Vegas has a monorail that runs from the Sahara at the north end of the strip to the MGM Grand at the south end. It doesn't get you downtown, or to the airport, or anywhere else off the strip, but it does connect up all the major casinos on the strip. Having showered, dressed, and headed out the door, the first thing we did was buy one-day passes for the monorail, which conveniently stops right at Harrah's, our hotel. We rode north past the Convention Center station to the end of the line, the Sahara. Unfortunately, the Sahara is also at the end of its line--at least for the time being--and is closed to the public. The Stratosphere was visible to the north, but as we approached, I began to wonder if this was a case of "you can't get there from here." Every other building we saw offered oriental massage, and they were separated from each other by empty parking lots and chain link fences. We found openings in the fences, crossed the parking lots, and at last reached the entrance to the Stratosphere.

Now the Stratosphere offers the best view of the strip and of Vegas in general, but to access that view, you have to ride an elevator to the top, and that costs $16 per person. Sorry, I've got too much Scotch blood in my veins to pay for an elevator ride, so you'll have to bear with me and forego that vista. Instead, here's what the building looks like from the outside.

After a disappointing breakfast (the coffee looked like mud and the eggs were iffy), we caught a cab for the nearest Verizon store, arriving there one half hour before they opened. Fortunately, a McDonalds was just across the parking lot, and I was able to get a mango pineapple smoothie to clear my palate from breakfast. After determining that Kevin's iPhone battery was so depleted that it would take a major miracle to recharge it, we took a second cab back to our hotel, and prepared for the lineup I mentioned above.

Kevin spent the afternoon in the casino while I retired to our room, hoping to get my equilibrium back. Between the breakfast and the crowded lines, I had completely lost any interest in being out in public. This does not bode well for the rest of the week.

We stopped at one of the discount ticket kiosks and got ourselves tickets to Cirque du Soleil's show Zumanity, picking up a discount voucher for dinner at Embers Restaurant in the Imperial Palace at the same time. If you're going to Vegas, it pays to visit these outlets as the savings are considerable. The tickets I found on-line for Zumanity ran close to $200 each, and we were able to get orchestra seats for half that, plus getting fifty percent off our dinner ticket, which put dinner in a range more closely aligned to Montana prices. The one catch was that we had to get to the theatre early in the day in order to get the best seats available in our price range. This meant another ride on the Monorail, this time to the southern terminus, the MGM Grand from which we had to find our way to New York, New York.

By the time we picked up our tickets and returned to Harrah's, it was almost time for our dinner reservation, so instead of turning right from the Monorail platform, we turned left and entered the Imperial Palace. This is the casino where Bill Harrah houses his famous car collection. I have yet to see that, but it's on my list of things to get done before leaving town. I'll probably go by myself, as Kevin is not a car guy. On the fifth floor of the Pagoda Tower, several restaurants share a bar and lounge area, and Kevin and I found a nice table where he could drink his Pepsi while I sipped on a mango margarita. I was feeling quite comfortable when our reservation time arriced, and somehow I managed to carry my drink into the restaurant without spilling too much of it.

Embers is an elegant venue, all dark paneling and wall paper with flickering candlelight on each table. The menu is mostly steaks and seafood, with offerings ranging from scallops served over couscous to Chateaubriand for two. Kevin and I both chose the Filet Mignon, he with salad and baked potato and me with salad and garlic mashed potatoes. Our steaks were delicious, as were the potatoes, the salads, and the bread. When dessert was offered, I chose a cream puff filled with cherry filling and shaped like a swan. I posted a picture of it on my deviant art site as my picture of the day.


Another Monorail ride returned us to the MGM Grand where we followed the hoard of CES badged conventioneers down one hallway, into another, thence to yet another, finally finding ourselves at a major press reception to which we were NOT invited. Pressing through the crowd we found a door leading outside the building, only to learn that we were as far away from where we needed to be as possible. Some of these casino/hotels are huge, and the MGM Grand is one of them. Unfortunately, the doors we took to get outside were one way, and did not open from the exterior. I began to think that once again we were in a situation where we couldn't get where we intended from where we currently were. After wandering the grounds outside the MGM, we finally found a door allowing us to re-enter the building, only to have to retrace our steps all the way back to the Monorail platform. Turns out that in following the crowd, we had turned right when we should have turned left, and now we had to traverse the casino in the opposite direction just to get outside across the street from New York, New York. My experience so far is that the signage in these casinos leaves a lot to be desired. The signs all direct you to various places within the casino, but rarely to any exit. Of course, the casino owners don't want you to leave the building, so why should they show you a way out. I was beginning to feel like Charley on the MTA, walking forever through the halls of casinos, and turning into the man who never returned.

When we finally found our way out onto the street, it was once again the wrong exit, and instead of having a skyway crosswalk above the street, we faced a barricade and no crosswalk for three blocks. I wish I had a pedometer to show me just how much we walked both through the casinos and up and down the street. Once we had successfully navigated the vicissitudes of Las Vegas street crossings, we reached the Zumanity theatre where we took photos of some of the cast members out in the lobby. Kevin even got one of me with a handsome, scanitly clad, male cast member.

If you have a chance to see Zumanity, and I really recommend that you do see it, be prepared for vulgar language, topless women, and ninety minutes of double entendre. Be prepared as well for breathtaking dance routines, awe-inspiring acrobatics, and some of the fastest set changes I've ever seen on stage. This is an adult show, no question about it, and it involves audience participation, so if you're seated on an aisle or in the front row, you may end up on stage yourself. Like all Cirque du Soleil shows, the action is fast paced, and there's a three-ring circus mood as something is always happening in the foreground, in the background, and in the center of the stage. Acrobatics are,by their very nature, sensual, but the sensuality is usually implied. In Zumanity, it's explicit. I will say that I've rarely enjoyed an evening of theatre as much as I enjoyed this evening.

CES : Day -1

The View from the 27th Floor

Las Vegas, Nevada--Januiary 8, 2012

NOTE PLEASE: I have not put any links in this post. Certain phrases seem to show up as links, but that has been done by Google, not by me. I know of no way to remove them. Also, as always, clicking on a photo will open it full sized in a new window, but the way Google handles the pics has changed as well. Once you open the new window, all five pics are available for your viewing pleasure.

I’ve heard it said that the journey is more important than the destination, and if so, our trip to Las Vegas where we will be attending the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was definitely an experience. Our flight on Allegiant Air was due to leave Missoula at 10:10 a.m. and we figured that meant being at the airport no later than 9:00. Since it is Sunday, a day when we normally have breakfast with our friends Mike and Norm, we arranged to meet them at the airport restaurant at 8:00. Of course, the way I’ve been sleeping, or more correctly not sleeping, my day began at 2:00 when I gave up, got up, and starting reading my e-mail. Kevin and I had packed on Saturday night, but there are always last minute things that have to remain out of the suitcase until you’re ready to walk out the door.

Mike had e-mailed me Saturday afternoon asking for our flight details, and I had written him back with the 8:00 a.m. suggestion, but I hadn’t seen anything indicating that he had seen my reply. That message came at 6:50 when Mike sent an e-mail saying that he’d get Norm up and try to be at the airport by 8:00. When I finally saw Mike’s reply, it was clear that we would not be there by 8:00 so I tried to call Mike and tell him to relax a bit. My phone dialed his number, but I heard no ring, and Mike did not pick up. I tried again, a few minutes later and again my phone indicated that the call was going through, but I heard no ring. Figuring that my phone was not working properly, I asked Kevin to call Mike, but he had the same experience. He next tried to call me, sitting right next to him, and no ring. Finally he tried texting Mike, but that didn’t work either. When we got to the airport, we learned that sunspot activity overnight had knocked out Verizon’s service across western Montana (at least).

Whether it was sunspot activity or something else, our phone service wasn’t the only thing not working properly. At check-in, the attendant informed us that our flight would be delayed an hour or so. Allegiant couldn’t be specific about just when our flight would leave Missoula—in part because the plane hadn’t yet arrived in Missoula. Come to find out, it hadn’t yet left Las Vegas, its point of departure some two hours by air away. Well, we thought, at least we won’t have to hurry through breakfast.

Jedediah’s is the new (to me at least) restaurant at Johnson Bell Field, AKA Missoula International Airport, and they have a fairly extensive breakfast menu. The five of us ordered, started drinking our coffee, and soon enough the waitress brought our food. I had a relatively ordinary serving of two eggs over easy, patty sausage, hash-browns, and an English muffin, all of which was fixed properly and served in an attractive fashion. John Steinbeck, writing in Travels With Charley, notes that he never had a truly bad breakfast or a truly good dinner while on the road. I cannot make the same claim, as I’ve had inedible breakfasts and superb dinners while traveling, but this morning’s breakfast was fine. (Well, Kevin ordered sourdough pancakes and got regular ones, but even he had no real complaint about the taste and presentation.)

One of the many water features--this one at Wynn's

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, both Kevin and I have phones (his an Android, mine an i-Phone) with an app that allows us to track flights. Using the flight number for our return next Sunday, we searched for the Allegiant flight coming from Las Vegas and bringing the airplane we would board for our flight south. By 9:00 a.m. mountain time, that flight had not yet left Las Vegas. 9:30 came and went and no northbound flight. Finally, around 10:00, our Flight Aware App noted that Allegiant Flight 561 had departed McCarren Field, heading north to Missoula. Mind you, that flight was supposed to leave Vegas at 6:10 a.m. pacific time, and the passengers would have been expected to be at the airport no later than 5:00. They had thus been waiting at the airport for four hours prior to take off, and we would have been in the same situation had we not arrived an hour earlier for breakfast.

When you eat at Jedediah’s, the restaurant will validate your parking for three hours. We sent Ron, Mike and Norm off just before 11:00 so that they wouldn’t have to pay any extra parking charges. Kevin and I proceeded through security, emptying our pockets, pulling out the laptops, Kindle, cell phones, etc. (Did I mention we’re going to the Consumer Electronics Show?) , removing shoes, belts, coats, hats, and passing through the scanners. Once we reassembled ourselves, we headed upstairs to the departure lounge to await our flight. Kevin picked up my book bag and said it felt light to him. Where had I put my camera? Oh, that. It’s home on my desk. DAMN!!! What kind of a photographer goes off and leaves his primary tool at home? A quick call to Mike, then one to Ron, and I arranged for Ron to grab my camera, take it downstairs to Mike who would pick it up and deliver it to me at the airport. Of course that meant that I would have to go through security a second time.

I removed my shoes, leaving them with my cap, my coat, the contents of my pockets and my bookbag in Kevin’s capable hands, and headed back downstairs and through the airport lobby in my socks. Mike was there in no time, and once more I passed through the scanners. Had the plane been on time, I would have been forced to use my phone’s camera and my Nikon Coolpix Point and Shoot to record the next week’s activities. I’ve heard it said that God looks out for fools and drunkards, and I’m not a drinking man, so I apologize for all those folk whose day was disrupted by the good Lord delaying our flight and thus making sure that I had time to get my camera.

Our flight, scheduled to leave Missoula at 10:10, actually backed away from the terminal at 1:00 p.m. The rest of the trip was uneventful, and I read most of the way south. Upon our arrival in Las Vegas, the flight attendant told us to head to carousel 12 to claim our baggage. A group of very tired looking people gathered around carousel 12 and waited. And waited. And continued to wait. Turning away from the unmoving track, I saw my bag disappearing on carousel 10. As I began to run after it, an announcement came over the loudspeakers saying that baggage for the Missoula flight would be on carousel 10 instead of 12. (How could I see my bag from that distance? Well Kevin and I made so many trips to Phoenix last year that we put very distinctive stickers on our bags. I dare say that to date, ours are the only bags I’ve seen anywhere with a rainbow colored “MONTANA” sticker plastered on the front of the bag, and a rainbow colored flag wrapped around the handle. Don’t get any ideas about copying our ingenuity.)

A small bauble (around five feet tall) at a shop in Wynn's

And no, I didn't check the price. Figured I couldn't afford it.

We got to the hotel shuttle just in time to be told we’d have to wait for the next one—this one was full, and when we finally arrived at our hotel, Harrah’s, we found the registration line snaking its way across the lobby and out toward the parking lot. When our part of the snake reached the registration desk, the clerk offered us a choice. We could either take a room with two queen beds available now, or we could wait another two hours for the room we had reserved to be ready. By this time, I could barely stand, my blood sugar had dropped precipitously, and I felt desperate to drop off the bags and find something to eat. We accepted the room with two queens, and took the elevator to the 27^th floor. At 5:00 p.m. (mountain time), having been awake for fifteen hours and having had nothing to eat since 9:00 a.m., I collapsed on the bed taking time to call Ron and Mike letting them know we had at last reached our destination.

Having caught our breath and refreshed ourselves, we went back to the lobby and stopped at the buffet. When I was a child, just shy of my tenth birthday, my family moved to California, passing through Reno on the way. Every year thereafter, we returned to Montana for a month at the cabin, and most of those trips involved stopping in Reno to eat at Harrah’s buffet. It’s changed. Mind you, I never paid for the meal, but I know that my parents didn’t pay $25.00 a piece for our meals, as Kevin and I did this evening. Now some of that price increase is due to inflation, of course, and the food was excellent, with a much larger selection than what we would have enjoyed back in the 1960s. But $25 for a buffet?

One of the hunky pirates in the outdoor show at Treasure Island

After dinner, I pulled a sweater over my t-shirt, and Kevin and I headed out to walk the strip. Most of the photos I’ve included in this post were taken along our six block stroll. Three things come immediately to mind: 1) Las Vegas really is a fantasy land where one block offers you Venice, complete with gondolas, the next offers soaring waterfalls and brightly lit trees, and across the street you can choose between pirates attacking sirens or a volcano exploding. 2) You’d never realize that we’re in the middle of one of the worst economic times in our country’s history. The amount of money being put into the slot machines or played on the poker, craps, roulette, blackjack tables is truly astounding, as are the baubles available in all the fancy stores along the strip and inside every casino/hotel. 3) Las Vegas sits in the middle of the great American desert, but you’d never know it with every casino having a major water feature, and the roses in full bloom along the sidewalks.

Day Minus One ends with fireworks at Treasure Island

My biggest concern at this point is a simple one. Do I have the stamina to spend five days wandering through exhibit after exhibit at the CES? The show runs Monday through Friday, mid-morning till early evening, with literally thousands of exhibits to draw our attention. Kevin’s main interest is communications equipment while mine centers on photographic equipment and the related peripherals. We’ll both have lots to see and comment on, and I plan on keeping you all informed. Too bad that neither the Missoulian nor the Independent seemed interested in talking to me about having a live correspondent at the show. Oh well, their loss. More tomorrow.