Vegas Trip
Last weekend I went to Las Vegas. Jason went to work the Apple booth at NAB, so I crashed in his hotel room. I was expecting to sleep on an air mattress on the floor of the room, but our room was huge and turned out to include a couch with a fold-out bed, so it worked out very well. We stayed at The Venetian.
Trip Highlights:
- On Saturday night, we saw Cirque du Soleil's Zumanity show. My favorite part involved two female acrobats/contortionists in a giant fishbowl.
- Sunday afternoon I walked up and down the length of The Strip. I saw an IMAX movie at Luxor and the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay. One of the most amusing promotions I encountered was the $1 margarita at Casino Royale. Yes, at Casino Royale, they charge you more for a bottle of water ($1.50) than for a margarita. That's Vegas economics.
- On Monday night, we saw Penn and Teller perform at Rio. Penn and Teller kick ass. Afterwards we went to the Voodoo Lounge on top of the casino.
- Tuesday morning, Jason and I took a trip to the Hoover Dam. We booked our trip through Pink Jeep Tours, which offers small guided tours of the area. We were the only people who signed up for the morning tour that day, so we ended up getting a private tour from our very knowledgeable tour guide, Tom. Tom used to work for Enron and lost his pension, so now he's giving tours in Vegas.
- On Tuesday afternoon, I sneaked into NAB. The two most interesting things I saw were (1) Apple's Final Cut Studio 2 (of course) and (2) NHK's Ultra-High Definition TV demo. 7680 x 3420 picture and 22.2 channel sound. They had some footage taken at this year's Pro Bowl. Even when the camera was zoomed out to show the entire field, you could still clearly read the numbers on the back of the players' jerseys.
- Tuesday evening we ate at Thomas Keller's Bouchon. Some of my co-workers would probably yell at me for ordering something as pedestrian as steak frites, but hey, it was really, really good.
I posted some more photos on Flickr.
