Aruba - Day One

We arrived in Aruba on Sunday morning. The weather is absolutely beautiful. The trade winds are always blowing and help cool you off from the heat. We stay the first night in the Renaissance which is in downtown Oranjestad (the Capital city) and by the port where the cruise ships dock. Sunday was the final day of their week of Carnivale. There was a six hour parade of music and dancing that passed by in front of the hotel.

There is a stark contrast in wealth between the tourist areas and the places where the locals live. You travel through these areas on the short ride from the airport.


We watched this guy kite surf for about a half an hour. While everyone else struggled to get up on their board, this guy ripped up and down the beach and occasionally got some pretty good air.



With the exception of a private island beach at the Renaissance, all of the beaches in Aruba are public. These local girls saw me taking pictures and started giggling and posing for this shot.

On our way??

We now know a little how Heather and her family felt trying to leave on their vacation last week. Our flight to Aruba is through Atlanta which was hit with a whopping 2" of snow. Apparently, that is enough for Delta to cancel over 1,100 flights in one day. Fortunately, while our flight was cancelled, we were rescheduled for on a flight departing in the evening. We'll have to stay overnight in Atlanta, but we are relieved to be on our way. We are sitting at the airport with our fingers crossed hoping the weather is cooperative.

Apparently Kristi looks a bit suspicious because they patted her down at the security check point. There is no better way to start your vacation.

New Flip Camcorder

Taylor was excited as I was about our new Flip Camcorder. Everyone should have one of these. They record two hours of HD video and are smaller than a small digital camera.

Stay tuned to our blog for more videos.

Jazz vs. King James

I lucked out and got invited to the Jazz vs. Cavaliers game last night. I saw some amazing things:

• Lebron James making at one point 3/4 shots from half court during pre-game warm up. Seriously, what other player on any other team would the coach allow to take about 25 shots from half court while the rest of the players are practicing shots they'll take in the game and stretching.
• A white guy blocking King Jame's dunk attempt. It happened in the first half when Kyle Korver rejected Lebron on a fast break.
• An amazing run by the Jazz bench to take a 12 point lead with less than 4 1/2 minutes left.
• Lebron James scoring 36 points including 18 in the fourth quarter when he single handed took over the game and led his team on a 22-4 run, turning a 12 point deficit into a six point lead in less than three minutes.
• Lebron's fourth quarter dominance included two deep three point shots (maybe those half court shots help) and dunk and foul in traffic.

What I didn't see was the Jazz's rally from six points with 25 seconds left. Seriously, who would think it a risk to beat the traffic. I mean what are the odds that an undrafted rookie on the last day of a ten day contract is going to hit his first ever three point shot to win the game at the buzzer. Exactly what I thought.

New Year's Celebrations

Don't let it be said that we don't know how to have a good time celebrating the new year. After considering such options as a drunken party, salsa dancing, mud wrestling, etc. we settled on going to a movie and putting together a 2,000 piece puzzle. Before you minimize our accomplishments you should know that the movie started at 10:00 pm and we actually stayed up until midnight (in our time zone). We took the kids to see Avatar in 3D at the local IMAX theater. If you haven't seen it - its got to be in 3D and preferably at an IMAX.



We went to dinner with Mom and Dad at Johnny Carino's over the holiday break.

As a warm up to our 2,000 piece puzzle, we completed this 750 puzzle of Time Square.

This puzzle of Las Vegas took all of us nearly two full days. Even the dogs helped, eating seven pieces before we were able to finish. Since no one was willing to follow the dogs around the yard to retrieve the pieces, we ended up with a 1,992 piece puzzle.

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.

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.