Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Christmas

Here's hoping every one's holidays have been enjoyable. We have certainly taken advantage of taking a few days off from work to spend time together. Our Christmas was simple and relaxing. Darren appears to be relaxing a little too much in his snuggly gifted to him by a "good" friend.


Camryn went retro with her hula hoop. She should have been born decades earlier because she really new how to rotate her hips.

Our traditional Christmas morning picture of the kids. We still make them wait at the top of the stairs before rushing down to see what Santa brought. We think that Taylor and Darren still believe.


Thursday, December 17, 2009

Las Vegas - City Center

Kristi, Darren and I went to Las Vegas last week for work and a little relaxation. Darren and his friend Quincy had purchased tickets to a concert by Muse and we thought it best to accompany them. The timing worked out well as I had to be in town to help test rooms in the Aria Hotel which are controlled by my company's technology. The Aria Hotel and the City Center development which opened this week are amazing. The complex consists of three hotels, three private residence towers, a shopping complex, a convention center, a monorail and a theater where the new Elvis Cirque du Soleil show will be shown.


The project cost $8.5 billion dollars and was the largest privately funded development in the world. They had to hire 12,000 people and almost all of them were there last week being trained. It was amazing to see the coordinated effort involved in opening a hotel of this magnitude.



Our technology controls the guest experience in the room from automated blind control to lighting and welcome scenes.


The above picture is of one of their standard guest rooms. The high roller suites which are on the top four floors are unbelievable. I'm sure I'll never set foot in that type of hotel room again.



The above picture is of the bath in one of the luxury suites.



We all had to wear hard hats and reflective vests.