AndreasB.Net

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.

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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.

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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:

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The release of WordPress 2.5 makes managing a blog much easier. There is a much cleaner, slicker UI behind the scenes, as well as support for automatic updating of plugins. I think I am going to like this version, although you probably won’t see much of it, at least not yet.

Check the link out for all the goodies of 2.5.

I must admit that I have great enthusiasm for my new camera, and for this particular post, my collectibles.

I have a nice collection of LOTR collectibles, worth a small sum of money, but even for me personally, as a collector. I am also working on improving my dragon collection, and today I bring you the first pictures taken of them. These are highly compressed as opposed to the 7 MB gargantuans of yesterday, but the picture quality is still pretty good, for 300 kb images, at least

• Overview – collectibles
• LOTR Collectibles
• Dragonlamp

I have been playing around with my new camera, and would like to share a couple of the pictures I took. I am quite amazed at the quality from my new camera. (Warning, each picture is 7 MB at full quality )

• Icicles
• Icicles2
• Sun on the lake
• Sun on the lake – 2

With Wrath of a Mad God (Darkwar) Feist closes one of his many riftwar saga cycles, ending the plotlines for the Dasati. And there are a lot of Riftwar books now.

So how does Feist manage to write yet another well written, interesting and hard to put down? Character buildup. A new book invariably presents one or more new characters, and often kills a few of the ones introduced in earlier books, and this book is no exception. And it comes with a very healthy recommendation from me.

There are two main subplots in this book, one closing the Dasati saga, the other most likely setting the stage for Feists next cycle. As the Dasati God threathens Kelwan and the Tsuranni people, the heart of Midkemia itself might also be threathened from another side. One even the Valheru failed to vanquish.

Its been a while since my last post, been busy with work and reading, have a lot of reviews I should write and put up. But for day, i would like to talk about my new camera.

I don’t take many pictures, but there are times when having a camera is a nice thing, and I have been wanting a digital camera for quite some time now. And today, I bought one

The Canon PowerShot G9 is my new little camera, and I love it. There is a nice big LCD screen, 12 megapixels, picture stabilisation, 6x optic zoom and loads of other stuff. Its a bit beyond a mid-range amatour camera, but I am happy anyhow Who knows, perhaps there will be more pictures on this blog in the future?

Cryteks last game, FarCry was a huge success, and their newest game, Crysis, is perhaps an even greater success.

One of the most demanding games on the market today, it sets a new standard for visual quality in a FPS game, as well as having more realistic physics engine. I had great fun cutting down trees with my guns.

Set in a future not to far away, the player is a supersoldier, sent in to investigate a North Korean takeover of an island with a US research team on. The player then needs to investigate what the North Koreans are doing, as well as find out where the research team was taken. However, as you progress, there is clearly something else on the island as well. Something, not seen on Earth.

Graphics and storytelling taken together, this is simply a must-have game.

I moved into a new office at work after Christmas, and decided to buy some decorations to liven it up.

I tried something called sandart, which gives a new piece of art every day. Using just different sands and water, it creates some incredible landscapes and pictures. I will try to document the more beautifull ones in this thread.
Sandart 16-01-2008