Brisingr continues where the last book, Eldest, left off. The Varden has started their assault on the Empire, the elves are marching to war, and the dwarves are discussing who will be their next king.

Amidst all of this, we follow Eragon, and his cousin, Roarn, one a dragonrider learning what it truly means to be one, the other a soldier and leader to be. They both struggle with their horror of killing, and wonder what makes their taking of lives just.

We learn how the dwarves select their new king, gain an insight in how the Gods function, learn about the positive sides of Eragons parents, and the truth of Murtaughs multiple hearts.

All in all, this is a very good continuation of the series, I got the book on Saturday around 12ish, and did not put the book away until I had finished reading it.

It has my heartiest recommendation.

Yesterday was a success. We streamed the introduction by the head of Lillehammer Kino, Ruth Mjøen, and the invited guest, Tor Åge Bringsværd to cinenemas in Oslo, Tromsø and Trondheim, and to be in SD made with VLC, in quite good quality.

Tonight, and two additional nights will repeat this, with new guests, and as such, our first test of this use of technology, has proven to be a success.

To Lillehammer I go for work this time

We are going to test our streaming plans by streaming parts of a Literature festival, and I am excited to see how it will go, even though it will only be in SD for this event.

I close this short post up with pictures of the hotelroom. Very nice, and quite cheap. Expensive hotels tend to be small rooms, cheaper ones give you better rooms in my experience

I watched a show last night, called the Tournament of Kings, set in the Arthurian era, fittingly enough, for a hotel called Excalibur. It was one of the most athletic and fun shows I have seen, along with some nice horsecontrol, which even included jousting. If you are ever in Vegas, visiting the Tournament of Kings dinner show is something I can strongly recommend.

I even played a bit more craps, I love that game, and the sudden cameraderie that develops amongst the players as everyone hopes for the shooter to roll the good dice. Quite fun.

However, I am not very impressed by the so called heightened security on US airports. Its nothing more than was standard in Norway pre 9/11. Heading back, I passed through one security checkpoint. Heading into the US, i had to pass four at Gardermoen. First the security scan, then into the international airport lounge, then a passport control, and then another passport contral and security scan at Continentals lounge at Gardermoen. I guess for some reason, letting terrorists out of the US is OK, while letting them in is a big no no, its crazy, but nothing I can do anything about.

Ah well, spring has come to Norway as well, so I am happy, tired, but happy.

Having found what I came for at NAB yesterday, I decided to take today off, and see and do other Las Vegas things. I walked a significant part of the strip, from the Excalibur to the Fashion Show Mall, and that photo series will be available through the read more link.

I originally planned to photo everything before 12:00, when there was a free craps lesson, but my camera ran out of battery power halfway through, so I took the Deuce back to the hotel to charge it up, and take the craps lesson.

The Deuce, is the name of the busroute going up and down the Las Vegas strip, 24/7. One trip costs 2 dollars, a 24 hour pass costs 5 dollars, having bought one yesterday, and also using it a couple of times today, it was certainly worth the money, and also a good example of how public transport should be. Cheap and easily available.

Craps is an interesting game, and almost everyone have seen people play it in any move involving casinos. I must say, it looks like a complication game, buts its not. It is really easy and fun. Its now my number one gambling game, displacing roulette which I learned on a cruise a few years back.

In the afternoon of day four, I must say I have loved staying in Las Vegas. Its not a city, its an experience, and I have seen soo little of it, and I am definitely going back.

Some have called it the Disneyworld of adults, and I agree, even though they have added many things for the kids the past 20 years, its still a haven for adults. So many different shows, so many casinos, so many sights to see.

They have a saying in London: “When you are tired of London, you are tired of life.”, I think that would be better phrased as “When you are tired of Las Vegas, you are tired of life.”

Walking the Las Vegas Strip:

Otherwise I am still planning what to do tonight. Probably buy some suvenirs from the the Excaliburs giftshops, perhaps head over to the Luxor, which is a pyramid with an egyption temple style building in front, and see what that is like.

As for tomorrow, I am unsure. I will go to downtown Las Vegas to see the sights and get a few more pictures, perhaps another tour of the Convention Center, but I believe I have seen what I need to see, at least for this year. The halls are big, and I have probably only seen a small part in detail, but I would estimate at least ten full days to truly dig into the bottom of every exhibitor. In addition comes all the keynotes and supersessions, I only managed to attend one of those, which was the technology luncheon. I think going back here next year would be very interesting indeed.

Who knows, perhaps I will even have time to gamble a bit tonight, its a bit silly having been in Vegas for full three days now, and not gambled one cent.

Being in Vegas and not seeing the Grand Canyon, that was not an option for me. Taking a break from the Las Vegas Convention center was also a welcome thing. The images are available through the link at the bottom of this post.

I was picked up at the hotel by the tour guide, and with the Excalibur the last stop, we were on our way, after finishing some paperwork with the tour guide, named Don. For some reason, there were also three other Norwegians on the tour. Later, at the ranch, I would learn that they were from NRK, and like me, primarily visiting NAB, but they too, were interested HD streaming amongst other things.

Our first stop was at the Atlantic Air Terminal to watch a security briefing video, as we were going to see Grand Canyon from the air in a helicopter.

Then it was out of Las Vegas heading down the interstate, and leaving Las Vegas valley for Black valley. And as we entered Black Valley, we also entered the Mohave desert. Black volcanic sand and a warm sun makes for quite the oven, and hikers die in Black valley every year, mostly young males, who fail to bring enough water, or underestimate the amount of water the body looses in such extreme heat.

Driving to Hoover Dam first, we passed through Boulder City, which was built by the Federal Government to house the workers who built Hoover Dam. Then through a “city” (small town), called something springs, before we reached Hoover dam itself.

The above picture is a panorama built from images taken by holding the camera, and manually sweeping over the area. It not perfect, but it gives an OK overview over the dam.

Hoover Dam created a lake called Lake Mead, which gives water to Las Vegas, northern California and a few other cities. However, due to the massive expansion of Las Vegas, Lake Mead is quickly running dry. Current estimates project that Hoover Dam will shut down in seven years, and Lake Mead itself history in 13 years. Plans are in motion to run a pipeline from Canada to the area, along with water restriction plans. However, as new settlements relying on Lake Mead are still allowed to be built, it is still loosing water at a rapid rate.

Grand Canyon West Ranch, formerly know as the Diamond Bar Ranch was our next stop. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had used this ranch to launder the gold and money which they stole from the railroad companies, and they had walked the same ground as we did. A couple of the cowboys (and they did still herd cows at the ranch), had a small mock gunfight, showing how bountyhunters prefered taking their prisoners dead over alive.

From the ranch, we took a short diligence ride over to the helipads, four of them, from which we did a 20 minute flight over the Grand Canyon, and that is a sight I will never forget.

Then it was back to the ranch for lunch, which was beans, chicken and corn, along with a cowboy singing for us. He said that lassoing those chickens had been a nightmare. It was a nice lunch, typically cowboyish in an autenthic location.

The ranch was a part of the mormon trail, and had originally been built by a family of mormons, which used the artesian well to establish a small farmsted with a garden and fruittrees, to provide food to the settlers which would arrive later on.

A small horseback ride was taken, it was great to ride through the ground where cowboys and villains once had ridden themselves.

Then we headed back towards Las Vegas, stopping in the Joshua forest, to take some pictures of the Joshua trees. (Technically they are linee flowers, but they look like cactii trees.)

And with that, another eventfull day drew towards a close.

So day 1 in Las Vegas. I decided to visit what was named the Roundtable Buffet here at the Excalibur. Quite nice, loads to choose from, not very healthy, but livable.

Then into the courtesy bus and onwards to the Las Vegas Convention Center and the NABShow 2008. I must say, that is a very, very, very big convention center. I spent an entire day in what they call South hall, lower floor, with a short peek on the upper floor, and still there is a central and a northern hall to visit. Suffice to say, the chances of seeing everything is very low. On the other hand, I did find three or four companies with HD live streaming solutions, along with three more I need to check up on come Wednesday.

It was a long, interesting, but tiresome day of walking, and my day at the Convention Center ended with a cocktail reception held by VBrick, which unfortunately did not have any public information on a HD system, although they were supposedly working on something.

Then it was off to the Atlantic Air Terminal for a heli tour over Las Vegas from a company called Best Tours. It was quite a nice tour, giving an overview over Las Vegas, the strip with its hotels is an immence world covering very little space, but holding 18 of the 20 largest hotels in the world. Las Vegas itself, is so much larger. Home to 2 250 000 inhabitants officially, but probably 3 250 000 inhabitants adding illegial immigrants, Las Vegas has come a long way since the mafia set up the casinos right after WW2.

In the last 20 years, Las Vegas has turned further away from its roots, and is now a lot more of a familiy place to visist than stricly adults only.

The Excalibur is quite a large hotel. Featuring 2 towers with 30 floors, each floor with at least 76 rooms, in can hold quite a large number of people. It has six resturants managed by the hotel, two starbucks coffe shops, and a food court, with amongst other things, a small McDonalds.

Tired, but happy, I head to bed.

Photos taken from the helicopter are available by clicking on the link below.

I am going to Las Vegas, Nevada, to check out the NAB Show, looking for live HD streaming technology to use in our projects.

Unfortunately, its quite a long way from Norway to the westcoast of the US, so the trip took 17 hours, including a 2.5 hour stopover in Newark Liberty Airport, New York, to pass through customs and immigrations and change the plane.

Oslo to Vegas GPS track

Flying Continental Airways on economy class is like most other trips in a Boing 737. There is a bit more leg room than a short-range 737, actually it was more than enough for me.

17 hours later, and with a TZ difference of approx -9, I arrive in Las Vegas. And what is the first thing you see when you get into the terminal? Slot machines, quite a lot of slotmachines. Even more interesting is that we have to take a subway from the landing terminal over to the part where we can retrieve our baggage.

Then it is off to the Excalibur Hotel and some well deserved sleep.

And for those of you who wonder what the hotelroom might look like:

I paid a bit extra for it out of my own pockets, but I think it is worth it.

More about the hotel a bit later on.

Check the link out for all the goodies of 2.5.