Brian and I arrived in Vegas today for the announcements of Deproduction/DOM's Knight News Challenge award. Vegas is certainly on my short-list of least-favorite cities in the country... and an odd place for this convention, but the city sure is an experience to witness. We showed up early to shoot some video, and had the rest of the day to do with as we please. Neither of us are too big on gambling (or have much money to gamble with), so we found other ways to entertain ourselves.
Another conference was taking place in the Rio besides Knight's Interactive Media Conference, dealing with alternative fuel technology. I drive a Jetta TDI which occasionally is filled with BioDiesel and gets better mileage than most hybrids, so I wanted to see what else is out there. I was so pleased to see VW is releasing a whole new line of TDIs this year with up to 50miles-per-gallon on Diesel or BioDiesel.
The coolest looking car was this Chevy Volt, which is designed to run on battery power only, but also has a hybrid engine that runs only if you drive beyond the charge of the main battery (about 40 miles). Its a brilliant idea, as most of us drive well under 40 miles in a day. Assuming you don't use the backup hybrid engine, you're getting the equivalent of 100-300mpg in terms of carbon emissions required to charge your battery from a clean-coal plant (obviously more if you're getting power from wind or other sources). But if you need it, the car gets over 500 miles on a single charge, plus the backup fuel tank.
Of course, its an american company, so we won't actually see these on the road forever. In the mean time, if you can't ride a bike, you can buy a VW TDI and run it on biodiesel. The new Polo, available only in europe, gets over 70mpg.
Then Brian and I ate at the Rio Buffet, which was absolutely amazing. It was the only meal either of us had all day. it was the widest selection of food I've ever seen. If you go to Vegas, I suggest checking it out. All-you-can-eat Sushi and BBQ Ribs!
We returned to the room to digest and get some work done. We have a lovely room thanks to the Knight Foundation, with a good view of the strip which is enduring yet another construction boom. From outside our window, we had a great view of the $8.5 Billion CityCenter Construction Project, the largest private construction project in US history. 5,000 years after we're gone from this planet, someone will find this city and have a clear grasp of how silly humanity is. Our modern-day kings and pharohs building their modern-day pyramids.
We got a call from fellow NewsChallenge winner Jessica Mayberry, of Video Volunteers and decided to head to the strip and see the new sights. We got to hear about the great work she's doing in India and discuss how our work and tools may overlap. If she's any indication of the caliber of people we're going to be collaborating with in this process, we're in for a treat. I got to see the Bellagio fountains, which was impressive, and checked our a few resorts before heading down to the Wynn, a new casino/hotel which has been replicated with the Encore (over brian's shoulder), set to open later this year. The Wynn was the highlight of our day/night.
We bought a few $14 drinks on the patio in front of this beautiful waterfall and man-made forest-mountain. As it got dark, things just got better, as animatronic puppets and frogs and faces emerged from the forest and water and put on an amazing show for us. Even better than the Bellagio in my opinion.
On the way home, we stopped by the Bellagio to see the fountains at night again. By this time, Brian was annoyed with my photo-taking, but we got some nice shots of the fountains and the Paris mini-Eiffel Tower in the background.
