Vegas to Mt. Baker

This past week I went to Las Vegas to be a part of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). Probably the most ridiculous consumer tech show on the planet. I don't think there's been another show that saw Bill Gates and Slash on the stage at the same time... Over 100,000 people came out for the show, so it was a bit busy.

Anyhow, I was manning the booths, and in partner meetings all week, so it was really non-stop from the start. I had the chance to see the show eventually, and also had the chance to hang out in Vegas a bit too.

Pictures cannot describe the magnitude of this show, but here are a few I took anyhow...

Me outside:

Biggest guitar hero screen ever:

Cars, flatscreen TVs:

Random stuff:

 

Here's an article talking about the top 10 booths at CES...

Out on the town I had the opportunity to walk through many of the popular locations on the Vegas strip, and see a few free shows such as Bellagio's water show, Treasure Island's pirate show, and the MGM Grand lions. We were able to get into some great clubs such as Pure, and of course some of the food was pretty good too.

Fountain show outside the Bellagio:

Inside the Venetian:

New York New York:

 

I was set to leave Vegas Friday late afternoon, back in Washington the snow was falling in the mountains, so Cheryl booked us a place up in Mt. Baker for the weekend. Friday afternoon I flew to Seattle, and then Cheryl and we drove straight to Mt. Baker for a weekend of skiing. That was a long day, but we had a chance to ski with Jen and Glade in some decent snow.

Cheryl's skis are still in storage in Vancouver, so she had to rent skis from REI. Turns out they don't have high end rentals, so she was stuck with lame skis. She still had fun, but certainly doesn't want to have to rent those again. We skied all day Saturday, with bad visibility, but good snow. The snow was plentiful, but got a bit heavy near the end of the day as the temperature warmed up. Roads were pretty good, but the parking lot was slippery enough to incite a donut competition amongst a few ski buffs.

We stayed in Glacier which is a town just outside of the ski area, and in the morning my back was in rough shape, so we opted to head home rather than ski a second day. There wasn't any new snow, so I don't think we really missed that much.