NAB 08: Lessons Learned

ONE WEEK removed from our Vegas adventure and Weaver and I are still picking sand out of our teeth. Still, we learned much from our sojourn. Here are a half dozen lessons that more or less wrote themselves...

Your average GPS unit works surprisingly well when suctioned to the inside of an airliner's window seat, giving you approximate airspeed, altitude and a better idea of where you're flying over - though it's sure to freak out your flight attendant.

Used for Good, teleprompters allow news presenters to look deep into the eyes of viewers and read the words of others. Used for Evil, they can make the likes of Ozzy Osbourne and George W. Bush seem coherent. At first, anyway.

Las Vegas isn't just a glittering oasis in the Nevada desert. It's a soul-sucking capitol of ill-intent and gross consumption that will someday swallow the entire International Home Furnishings Market and, soon after, the rest of planet Earth.

You CAN make it to Hoover Dam and back in time to catch that flight to the East Coast, but only if your buddy driving has Nascar aspirations, Road Runner delusions and the courage to push a low-end rent-a-car to the outer limits of its ability.

Unlike the real Elvis - a simple Southern boy who lost his grip on reality only after The World was handed to him on a rhinestone platter, most Elvis impersonators begin as absolute tools and devolve from there.

No matter how many strangers compliment your blog, no matter how much free bourbon is foisted upon you by new best friends, no matter how special you're made to feel far from home, in seven short days you'll be back to shooting robberies and ribbon cuttings.