Saturday, January 10, 2004 – I got up this morning and made the trip down the strip and over to the convention center in time to meet Vinny and Minnie at the TechTV booth; of course they were late and missed Leo, but Vinny did have a chance to say hi to Becky and Yoshi, also we all got free TechTV books and signatures. At noon we were going to head over to hear Leo’s KFI broadcast but we couldn’t find the booth. We went so far as to call KFI and ask for directions, they told us they didn’t know where he was but “it shouldn’t be that hard to find someone with a microphone and an intercom doing a broadcast” obviously they have no idea what CES is about. After getting directions from Yoshi and still coming up without finding the booth we eventually got to a kiosk with internet access, hopped in the KFI irc chat room to see if anyone there knew where to go, but no one there did either. After much searching we finally located the phone booth sized broadcast room that Leo was using. Walking by the door Leo waved us in and we got to see a little bit of Leo in action before clearing out to make room for some of the actual show guests. We do plan to drop by again tomorrow with Darci and Kevin to give a shout out to Leo. Of course the best part was watching John C. Dvorak load his rolling backpack up with pop from the broadcast area before leaving after his segment. After we dropped by the KFI broadcast we headed past the CEA stage where TechTV was going their “Best of CES” awards where we said hi to Robert the “TechTV lab rat” before continuing upstairs to the PC Magazine “Last Gadget Standing” competition. This is what the “Best of CES” award should have been. The meeting room was packed with journalists and companies giving brief timed product demos (we got to see some cool up and coming technologies, especially relating to mobile video devices) and then the audience voted on their favorites. Just as the voting was finishing up Darci and Kevin gave us a call and we left to meet up with them. Our first stop was a drive by at the TechTV booth where we took a great picture of Darci and Kevin in the cutout poster. After picking up some beverages we continued on to the second level of the South hall where most of the IT gadgets are. We cruised the floor for a while looking for wireless and VoIP technologies but were unable to find very many (I expected to see more VoIP and wireless technologies here.) Our next stop was going to be Woz’s suite in the Hilton but when Kevin called him we learned that he was on his way to LA to see his daughter so we decided to pack it in for the day and meet tomorrow at Leo’s radio show. After we left Darci and Kevin we headed over to Minnie’s ordered in some dinner and had a great time just sitting around and shooting the breeze. After a few hours Vinny brought me back to the hotel where I’m planning to get some sleep (imagine that!) before I get up early in the morning to move down the strip to the MGM Grand for tomorrow night.

Friday, January 9, 2004 – I took the bus down the strip last night but the place I wanted to go for desert in Excalibur was already closed so I continued down to Mandalay Bay then back up through the Luxor looking for a good desert, not finding anything interesting I continued back up the strip ending up at New York, New York again where I tried a pretty good chocolate torte. I also did some more nighttime photography before heading back and turning in for the night. I slept in this morning until 10:30 and got to CES about 11:45 starting out at the opposite end (South Hall) where most of the pro-audio and home theater stuff is housed. My legs felt much better and I quickly covered the first floor of South hall in about an hour picking up much more literature than yesterday. At one I was going to go to a HDTV roundtable, but when I got there the line was horrendous so I sat down by the TechTV booth to plan my next move when I bumped into Minnie and Vinny who had just arrived. Vinny took some photos of the TechTV employees struggling to get up the “analog chain” for crowd control and then we headed off in search of the Adobe booth. Though we eventually discovered that Adobe didn’t have a booth we did have a nifty experience that demonstrates why not to keep batteries and keys in the same pants pocket as Vinny had a AA battery in his pocket get quite hot by shorting out on his keychain. After cooling the battery we walked the central hall for a while checking out the DLP displays at the TI booth, the set-top DVD recorders in the Panasonic booth and the tablet PCs at the Toshiba booth where Minnie did some sample artwork. About five o’clock we caught the shuttle back to Vinnie’s car and drove out to Fry’s Electronics which was a fantastic experience as I have often heard the store mentioned but never experienced it. After purchasing a souvenir mouse pad we drove up to Macaroni Grill for dinner where more conversation and hilarity ensued. By the time we finished dinner it was ten o’clock so Vinny dropped me off at my hotel and we plan to meet tomorrow at the TechTV booth around eleven. About half an hour later I headed out to catch a bus downtown to the Freemont Street Experience which occurs every hour from 6pm-midnight. Most of downtown Freemont Street is only open to pedestrians and has been covered by a huge light display, every hour they turn off all the other lights downtown and do a light and sound show. The entire area felt like a shopping mall to me which was interesting considering its all outdoors. I took a number of pictures of the downtown area and had quite a bit of fun watching all the people before I returned to my hotel. I was very comfortable with the Freemont Street environment, I think even more so then the Strip, and although I can’t qualify why that is I really enjoyed the experience. I’m planning to get to the convention by 11 tomorrow so I should be off to bed.

The first in a series of 2004 CES posts. -Ben

Wednesday, January 7, 2004 – It was a really long day today. I got up at 4:45 this morning so I could get to the airport and make a 6:30 flight to Denver. On the plane I watched part of the Indiana Jones DVD set bonus disc and continued to read Kevin Mitnick’s “The Art of Deception.” After arriving in Denver I moved down a few gates to catch my fight to Vegas which was leaving in about an hour. United discovered that they had way overbooked the flight and even as they were giving away free tickets for future flights were having a hard time getting people to give up their seats as they couldn’t confirm you on another flight until 11 Thursday morning. At the last minute they apparently got enough people to give up seats and assigned me a seat. Though I had checked in at Minneapolis I had not been assigned a seat on the Vegas flight yet. After I got on the (very full) plane I discovered there was someone in the seat assigned to me so they re-assigned me to another seat which I took, then the guy showed up for that seat! After waiting a few tense minutes (yeah, I held up the flight) they bumped the guy in the seat they had originally assigned to me. It looked as if he had agreed to be bumped, got the free tickets and then boarded anyway. Eventually we were on our way, though I was worried for a bit that I wouldn’t get here until Thursday which would have caused much complication. After landing in Vegas I collected my luggage and picked up my CES badge holder at the airport, took a free shuttle to the Key Largo Casino & Hotel for my first night. With all the time changes it was only 10 by the time I arrived at the hotel and checked in so after getting situated and downloading my email over a 9Kbps cell phone connection I decided to go out in search of some food. I thought it would probably be a good idea to take in “the strip” and find somewhere to eat all in one fell swoop so I headed down the street towards the strip. One thing you learn quickly here in Vegas is that they have long blocks, really long blocks. I eventually reached the strip near Bally’s and the Belliagio and decided to turn South. I took a stroll through the Bellagio and I must say that it looks like a fantastic hotel; you can tell that they take excellent care of their guests. Unfortunately none of the restaurant options there particularly appealed to me at the time so I continued down the street stopping to walk through New York, New York, where I ended up having lunch, the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, the Luxor and Excalibur. All this walking took some time and was quite hard on my legs so a little after 3 I decided to head back to the hotel for some rest before going to Bill Gates’ pre-show keynote. I thought I’d be doing well to make it back to the hotel in an hour from the south end of the strip (Excalibur) as it turns out it took almost an hour to make it back to Bally’s at which point I still had about a half hour walk back to the hotel. I got back about 4:30 and knew I probably needed to leave by 5:00 to get a seat at the keynote, I snuck in a half-hour nap as I was exhausted (from walking and being up since 4:45 central.) At five I started out for the Hilton where all the keynotes are held. It took an hour to walk there (I kept my eyes open for a bus, alas I saw none come along though there were shelters) I probably could have made better time had my feet not already been shot. When I got to the Hilton I found huge numbers of people in lines, but eventually got seated in an overflow seating area, so I saw it on TV rather than in person but they had free ice water which was great considering all the walking I’d been doing. I’m sure that notes from the keynote will be available all over the net so I’ll spare the details here other than to say we had a little excitement with a fire alarm in the middle of it, though they told us to stay where we were while it was investigated and eventually found out to be false. After the keynote they had shuttle busses back to the strip which I took with the idea of getting some desert at New York, New York that I had eyed when I was there for lunch. I did get a slice (massive) of cheesecake which was quite good. Of course I was back towards the south end of the strip again and almost as tired as I was earlier, yet I pressed on heading North and taking some photos of the strip at night. Of course I got to see the fountains at the Bellagio which was a fantastic display. When I got to Bally’s I was dead tired so I found a city bus (which took quite a long time to show up, but I digress) to take me the rest of the way. I stumbled back into my room, set my alarm for eight and was promptly sleeping. So what do I think of the city so far other than the long blocks? I liked the interior of the Luxor best because I didn’t expect it to have the vast open space inside that it did, I like the number of food options best at New York New York and the hotel best at the Bellagio and MGM Grand. If I were to gamble I would feel the most comfortable at the MGM Grand or New York, New York though I can’t qualify why that is. I also think the Hilton Casino looks terribly dated.

Thursday, January 08, 2004 – Though I had originally intended to make it to the opening keynotes this morning I decided against that last night when I was dead tired and thought the sleep would do me better anyway. After getting up, packing and checking out I took a shuttle to Harrah’s (the Taxi line at Key Largo was taking far too long) where I walked several blocks North to the Frontier and caught a cab to EconoLodge although that in and of itself was slightly adventurous as the cabbie had no idea where he was going, I got him there after pointing out he had driven past the place (he wanted to even drive further) needless to say his tip was not large at all. After I checked into my much more expensive and not nearly as nice hotel room (where I get to spend three nights as everyone else in town is sold out) I caught a southbound city bus to the Rivera where I caught a shuttle to CES. My first stop at CES was the TechTV booth where I had my picture taken with Leo and got the obligatory autographs. I started out browsing the show floor (all 1.5 million square feet) and got to see some of the up and coming set top DVD recorders, the DVD-RAM booth, the worlds largest (80″) plasma screen and was just about to chat with a Kenwood rep about ham radio when I got a call from Vinny that he and Minnie had arrived, I set a meeting time in fifteen minutes with them at the TechTV booth. I spent a few minutes with the Kenwood rep and had a fantastic discussion with him about the future of digital communications radios. I soon met up with Vinny and Minnie of Leoville, having met MissDaisy over the summer I had prior experience with the “known you for a long time but this is our first meeting” thing. Going around the show with Vinnie and Minnie was an absolute blast the sense of humor these two have is fantastic and makes a trade show so much more interesting, of course the fact that Vinnie knows everyone can’t hurt either. When 3:30 rolled around we were getting hungry so we packed it in for the day and headed over to Palace Station for dinner which was great fun. I have discovered that doing anything with Vinnie is an adventure, on the way back to drop me off at my hotel Vinnie took several wrong turns leading me to believe that no one in Vegas has any idea where they’re going or what they’re doing, but taking a turn down a dark, deserted ally gave Minnie and me quite a laugh. Come to think of it I still have a headache from laughing so hard. I’m resting my feet at the moment, but I think my next move will probably be to take a bus down the strip to find some desert, possibly at Excalibur where I spied some good looking food the other day. Tomorrow or Saturday night I’ll probably go the other direction towards downtown for the “Freemont Street Experience.”