NAB and Vacation!

Let's see, It's Tuesday morning here, which makes it six days since I returned from vacation, and this is the first real chance I've had to sit down and write. I meant to get some pictures up here right away, and also to post a quick description of the trip. It's amazing how much can pile up in such a short amount of time when you're gone. It's amazing how many small problems build up into potential large scale conflagrations. It's amazing how quickly I can get sucked back into the work mindset after such a great vacation with my big brother.
I guess it's no surprise then that the only way I could rationalize a vacation in my own mind was to couch it together with a work related function. Steve was right, I'm obsessed with work. 

 So let's recap, Two weeks ago, I flew to Las Vegas for the "National Association of Broadcasters" convention, or "NAB" for short.

You're probably wondering why a guy who works at a camera store goes to a broadcasting convention in Las Vegas? Some of you are probably thinking that I look for any excuse I can to go to Vegas to take advantage of the nightlife, and maybe play the tables and take in a "Show" or two.

Nothing could be further from the truth. I hate that town, Gambling bores me, the shows look like trash, and the clubs are full of Euro-trash wanna-bees. If I could avoid that place, and it's really an ugly awful place with a horrible sewage system. (That's one thing the travel brochures never tell you, is how bad it smells! Why do you think the Casinos spend millions on self-contained environments?)

It's strictly a place to do business, and a jump off point for trips to Zion National Park and the rest of Southern Utah.

Now the convention was a successful trip for me, mainly because I've been working hard these past few years to position the company to take advantage of the changes that have been going through the world of photography and video these last few years, and are still wreaking havoc in the industry. 

If I'm successful, our company will be well positioned to take advantage of a restructured market that will be screaming to refill a vacuum created by the retreat of filmmaking  in the Northern California Film and Broadcast market, in five years. 

Hopefully less, but you've got to plan ahead. I've made some solid contacts at the shows and have seen some of the 

trends that will be governing the changes that are now taking place in my business.

So I've got some new contacts and commitments from vendors in my pocket, so with successful show under my belt, I met up with Steve and we prepared to head out into the wilderness and beauty of Southern Utah.

Thursday Morning gave us a short delay as the rental agency didn't have our jeep ready on time, so Steve and I took what we call a "Short walk" up the strip to find something to eat, and take in the architecture of the Las Vegas Strip. Steve

 was struck by the scope of a new project called "City Towers" which looks like it was taken directly out of "The Jetsons" and is big enough to qualify as a small city in of itself. I was struck by the number of peddlers handing out business cards for strippers. That's the other thing I hate about Vegas, you're constantly being hassled for handouts by people who don't need any. 

After a short two hour walk to New York New York from Circus Circus, (All the while I'm looking for Las Vegas Las Vegas) and the rental car agency not only doesn't have our Jeep ready, but they have NO four wheel drive vehicles of any type at all! (Somebody stop me from screaming!) I reserved it two months ago! "You can TAKE the reservation,  you just can't FILL the reservation!" 

So we took our sedan, which started falling to pieces as soon as we got to the Virgin River Gorge, and made our way on our semi annual trip.

First stop? Zion!

I have to laugh, because when I was checking into the hotel a few days before, I was talking with another hotel guest who looked like he had just driven out from Compton, for a few days of gambling and roller coasters. He took a look at my bags and

 asked how long I was going to be in town for. I told him the truth, The bags were full of camping gear because as soon as my trade show was over, I was heading out of town to go to Zion. The look he shot me told me the whole story. He had no idea what Zion was, other than the underground city where Morpheus and Neo would party while hiding from the machines and the virtual reach of Agent Smith. So I explained in more detail, "It's part of the National Park system, it's considered one of the crown jewels of the country.

His response was priceless. "Is it in THIS country? So they got good rides and stuff?"  

That's where I gave up and wished him a good night. How do you explain a National Park to some one who's idea of fun is Mickey Mouse and Ronald McDonald?

The weather couldn't have been more perfect! It was in the low to mid

 seventies for the whole trip, with night time temps dropping to the low fourties. Th

e only thing that could have made it better was for a light night time rain for Steve. He was dearly missing the light patter of rain drops on the tent. That small factor for him would have been what the sight and smell of a campfire were to me. Just the right aesthetic touch to get us into the spirit of the trip.

 

From Zion we began a drive east, out to the park Steve had described to me in the past, but which I had never heard of before. Capitol Reef National Park. As Steve describes it, it's out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around. "PERFECT!" 

Now, for the record, I thought that the drive from Zion to Capitol Reef was worth the whole of the trip just to experience. It was like an MTV Car  commercial! Sweeping panoramic vistas everywhere, mountain roads that never seem to ever reach a summit, and cold clear air that you can actually feel filling every bronchiole tube in your lungs!

As we got there late in the day, we didn't have a great deal of time to spend within the park borders proper, and had to find a place to spend the night. The campsites within the park were all full, and neither of us liked the thought of sleeping in 

a motel, so we asked the Ranger at the information desk if she had any suggestions. She told us about some "B.L.M." land east of the park we could use which was even further away from anything resembling a town than the campground in the park was. I was all up and eager for the idea, but Steven, having never heard of B.L.M. land before was somewhat skeptical, until he saw it.

Let's get it clear right now, Steve liked the idea of being far and away from civilization, but he just wasn't sure what Bureau of Land Management land meant. 

What it meant was, a campsite that looked more like something out of a John Ford western than anything either of us had ever experienced before. IT WAS FREAKIN GREAT!

That night camping by the river in the middle of NOWHERE in southern Utah had to have been the highlight of the whole trip for both of us! Nothing we have done together has ever

 come close to giving us the adrenaline rush that staying there that night gave us both, With the possible exception of a certain bridge crossing many years ago. 

Don't ask. We're still freaked by it.  

Our tent was nestled under the branches of an old oak tree, and just outside of the tent flap was a slow running gurgling river. And to our south, was a low rising hill, giving us a breathtaking spot from which to take in this panorama. All that was missing was the howl of Coyotes in the distance, because we had tumbleweeds already. Sorry Lynn, no roadrunners.

Sadly, we left this little spot in the middle of nowhere the next day. But I think we've both decided that the next time we go out there, this is going to be a MUST STOP SPOT on that trip. 

From here, we journeyed on to the Colorado river, and Natural Bridges. Steve wanted to camp in Monument valley, but for some reason we couldn't find the campground, and wound up having to travel all the way to Glenn Canyon Dam to spend the night. 

After that, we made our way back to Zion, where we spent the remaining days of our vacation. If you were to ask Steve, it was about at this point that he was able to get me to stop talking about work. Sunny afternoons spent lying in the lawn in front of the lodge on the valley floor, day hikes up to idyllic sanctuaries along the canyon walls, nighttime campfires over which we'd cook hot dogs and steak. The gleaming twinkle of the night sky.

I haven't seen Steve look this happy in years. The parks of Southern Utah really do seem to strike a chord with him, and give him a contentment like nothing else I've ever seen, and frankly, they do the same with me. I remember long ago thinking that deserts were places full of fear and terror for me. Stretches of land as far as the eye can see where the landscape sucks the water right from your bones, and burns out your eyes just out of spite.

Now, I go there and see millenia of history laid bare before my eyes by the erosion of sandstone cliffs, and wonderous vistas that drive the air in and out of my lungs and soul.

The lands of the Colorado Plateau are as beautiful as anything I have ever seen. Leaving our campsite on the Virgin river on Wednesday morning left us both feeling remorseful. Neither of us were quite ready to leave this behind, although in the back of my mind, I was picturing the stack of paperwork and phone messages piling up at work. 

Maybe that's why I was wanting to stay?

Back to the norm.

Well it didn't take long before two distinct pressures came into play and put a TV set back into my living room.

The first, was actually the most interesting. No sooner than I had mentioned at work that my TV set died, than people began approaching me and offering their "Old TV set" And that sparked me into thinking. When did the Television change from being a luxury item, into a surplus item? Like kitchen grease, the challenge in this day and age isn't "What can I do with this" but rather "How do I get rid of this" 

Televisions used to be a luxury item that people regarded as either a pestilence upon our lives, or a portal to the larger world community. Edward R. Murrow waxing poetic over the sight of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Atlantic coast on the same TV Monitor. And now we have reality TV Games where people plot against each other to be thrown off an island, and now we have surplus supplies of sets that have to be given away at any possible opportunity.

A long way from the days of the neighborhood kids rushing home from school to gather at a neighbors house to watch "Howdy Doody", shouting in a communal rush of pre-adolescent ecstasy "It's Howdy-Doody Time!"

The other reason was the sudden crashing sense of SILENCE in my apartment.

When you're a single guy living alone. the human noise provided by the television is a necessity to ones sanity. 

Can you believe that some one just said that about Television?

So I accepted a friends offer, and I once again have a noise box in my home. Ooh. Gotta go. Springers' on.

Small, yet still infuriating inconveniences.

This installment is going to be for Beths' enjoyment. This being a Tuesday, I've got the day off, and it's a beautiful, glorious sunshiny day. I've got the shades open, the windows and sliding glass doors agape with the fresh air hopefully replacing the stale winter air in my apartment.

So here I am, sitting at my desk, checking my stocks with a DVD of "High Noon" playing on my TV when I hear a high pitched squeal, followed by a sharp "POP" and the smell of ozone.

As you can probably imagine, the adrenaline rush sent me into a hightened state of alertness. My senses were all working on overtime as I was listening attentively for the soft gurgling sounds of combustion, the smell of charred plastic, and the dancing light of  yellow flame.

Fortunately none of these things came to be evidenced. except for a slight tinge of ozone and burnt solder. I think you can all forgive a little over-reaction on my part considering my recent history with home electronics in general, and Cathode Ray Tubes in specific.

So with the dulcet sounds of Gary Cooper silenced, and the scenes of "Hadleyville" darkened I came to realize that yet another modern convenience is stricken from my lifestyle for the time being.

So until I decide to make it otherwise, I am joining the likes of the "Gilmores" who held out so valiantly for so many years without a TV at all in their lives.

Beth once called me TV addicted. Well, this will be my chance to conquer that addiction. How long will I hold out? I have no idea at this time. We'll have to take this one day at a time. I won't miss broadcast TV but I will miss my DVD Collection.

The news has been horrible ever since they decided that it was more important to cover Princess Diana, and now Brittany, instead of discussing the politics of the day, the wars we fight, and the changes in the economy, so that's no great loss. I'm too much of a cheapskate to pay for Cable, and Satellite is worse. Maybe this is a good thing?

But I do find it ironic, I'm the manager of the video department at Keeble and Shuchat, and I don't think that television is a necessity in my life.... What will my customers think? This is like the E-Commerce CEO from the late 1990s who once told me "Never buy anything you care about on the internet." yet here he was, selling big ticket items on the internet. What does that tell you?

Maybe I should just get a cheap, used TV set, just so that I can have some professional credibility? Or is that already a cop-out?

I guess I'll just have to live with being a less than credible authority for the time being.

I can still sell the Pro and cinema cameras without feeling like a fraud.

So I'm off for a walk in the California Sunshine. 

Congratulations to Chris and Dave, and best of luck to Alex.