Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Photos from JLC Live! - Pacific Northwest 2006


JLC Live! - Pacific Northwest 2006!


The registration area


My room at the Seattle Grand Hyatt


Last show, an outhouse; this show, a well-lit toilet


It had a shower


And a tub


And a sink


Here's one last picture of the bathroom, the nicest of any hotel I've ever stayed in


View from my room, to the left--space needle is on the right


View from my room, straight ahead, space needle on the left. I was tempted to try to call the people who worked in the office building next door.


View from my room, to the right, where the construction went on all night long


View from my room, looking down on the mall


Tuesday, November 14, 2006 

Tuesday, November 7, 2006

Photos from NACE 2006


My room at Excalibur--well, not really, more on this pic later.


Part of the registration area for NACE 2006.


A wider angle shot of the registration area, after the close of the show.


Oops. This truck was parked near the entrance to the show.


I managed to get to the Stratosphere one night. I came looking for the roller coaster, but I found out it had closed last year.


This is a view of Las Vegas from the Stratosphere tower.


This is a picture of the tower. At the very top of the tower is the Big Shot ride.


Here's a closer look at that. Since there was no roller coaster, I rode Big Shot instead. The blurry red ring is a group of lucky people racing at 45 miles per hour up to a height of 1081 feet!


Another view of Las Vegas while I was waiting to ride Big Shot.


On the way back to Excalibur, I poked my head in to take a quick look at the Star Trek: The Experience entrance in the Las Vegas Hilton. Barry Manilow and Star Trek? I guess that covers a lot of bases.


This is a Star Wars slot machine in the Hilton.


I had a red-eye flight back after the show was over, so I decided to spend a little time in the Mojave National Preserve. My original plan was to rent a Charger. This picture of Kelbaker Road in the preserve might give you some idea of why. Sadly, no Chargers--so I got a Taurus instead.


Still Kelbaker Road. I'd say I drove on the road for about 20 minutes without seeing another vehicle. There were turns in the road, but I just took pictures of the straight parts.


This is a rock formation along Kelbaker Road.


A Joshua tree along the road.


A desert plant of some sort.


This is kind of the last sign I expected to see driving through the Mojave desert.


In case you're wondering where Kelbaker Road goes, this is it--the Kelso Depot.


This is the front of the Depot.


There's one lunch room in the middle of the Mojave, and you know I found it.


Unfortunately, there's no longer any lunch in the lunch room. So I wandered around the depot, which was recently restored by the Park Service.


IT, circa 1930.


A poster from back in the day.


The second floor housed railroad workers. Down this hall was the room I took the picture of.


This is the other half of the room.


A Union Pacific train rolling by the depot.


A short drive from the Kelso Depot are the Kelso Dunes, the third-tallest sand dunes in North America. So I had to climb on them, even if I didn't have enough time to go all the way to the top.


This is an outhouse at the entrance to the dunes. Exciting stuff, I know.


This is another picture of it from on the dunes, as far as I managed to walk out on them in the time I had. It's the small white spot just left of the center of the picture.


This is where I managed to get to before I had to go back or face inconvenient things like the sun setting while I was in the middle of a desert, not being able to get back in time for my flight home, etc.


You can't really tell the sun was setting in that last picture, but this one shows it really is going down!


Did I mention that the sun was going down?


Almost back to the car!


Out of light, out of time, and fortunately, back at my car. I wound up driving over 300 miles before jumping on my flight home.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006 

Sunday, November 5, 2006

International Pool & Spa Expo and Backyard Living Expo


The first room I stayed in at Harrah's. It was supposed to be non-smoking. I had requested a non-smoking room but that put me in a smoking room anyway. So I asked them to take me out of that room and put me somewhere else. They put me in this room. But there was something sprayed in the room--to cover up what I don't know. Whatever it was they sprayed, it burned my eyes.


The room was kind of oddly shaped.


It had these closets.


Not every bathroom is like the bathroom at the Hyatt.


This shower reminded me of one in a gym.


So my first room had something sprayed in it that burned my eyes and was like showering in a gym. I asked for a different one. This is it. It was a non-smoking room and it didn't burn my eyes when I walked into it. Progress.


The bathroom. It was nicer.


This was the bathtub at Harrahs. Also nicer.


This was the closet. It had mirrors. The other didn't. I guess that's nicer.


The view out my window.


The new product area outside the registration area at the International Pool and Spa Expo and Backyard Living Expo.


The registration area.


More of the registration area.


Even more of the registration area.


Yet more registration area.


The entrance to the show!


Where fearsome creatures like this inflated flying elephant lurked, waiting for unsuspecting exposition attendees. They move fast, that's why it's blurry.


The registration area about two hours after the show closed.


The other side of the registration area after the show.


After the show we had dinner at Kahunaville. This was the volcano appetizer.


Befitting the Hawaiian theme: the volcano appetizer, this time with ham.


My own private Las Vegas Monorail car. Number 307, apparently.


My own private JetBlue plane to take me home. OK, not quite.


Twenty paces from my car in the parking garage, back on the east coast.


Tuesday, December 05, 2006