With the manicured green lawns, giant palm trees lining the streets and the beautiful coastline in Southern California, it’s easy to forget that it’s predominantly the desert. But the beautiful thing about living is California is the variety it provides. Where else can someone go surfing at the beach, skiing in the mountains, or find sand dune in the desert all within a 2 hour drive?

Recently we had a solid week of intense rain (well intense for California – probably mild by hurricane prone states) and even though it forced most of us to dust off our umbrellas and raincoats, the residual effect was a fresh coat of snow on the mountain tops. For a perpetually shorter and shorter winter season, the ability to see snow sends many of us racing into the mountains to pretend we live in a winter wonderland every so often.

Below are two pictures of us frolicking in the snow, which judging by the plentiful of Joshua trees and lack of large pines shows we really are in a desert rather than lush mountainous valley.

Sometimes, for our own sanity, we all just need to sit back and take in the beauty that surrounds us. All too often we are so focused on work or other matters that we forget that the world around us offers so many simple pleasures. My co-worker Marcio took the below picture of a sunset overlooking a parking lot in our hometown of Alhambra, CA. It was such a serene moment that I had to share, enjoy!

Below are photos from staff members at the CES 2010 convention which showcase just how much all the major manufacturers are pushing for the 3-D experience to be available in the home.

They say pictures are worth a thousand words, well then below is a whole novel of information from our exhibition at CES 2010:

Our staff did an excellent job setting up our booth and positioning our equipment so that visitors could appreciate the large array of offerings we carried

Our staff were extremely helpful as they helped answer questions for the many visitors that stopped by our booth

CES 2010 is over, time to head back to the office

The start of a new year always brings with it a new CES trade show where cutting edge companies can show off their latest and greatest innovations and even their tried and true general products. This held true to its billing and although many publications made mention of the record attendance at the show, one thing was abundantly clear to those exhibiting and attending the show, there was a considerable decrease in the number of companies exhibiting at the show. Some of that is due to natural attrition and a good portion is due to economic hardships brought on from the current financial crisis, but a number of previous exhibitors that I spoke to simply felt the show did not have the appeal it once did.

You always can tell when a show is loosing its pull with exhibitors when the show floor begins to shrink (as was the case in the south hall where nearly a quarter of the 1st floor was curtained off and a far greater than before amount of space was dedicated to dining and rest stations where booths normally occupied). In fact just 2 short years ago, CES not only filled up the entire LV convention center (there were no curtained off or dining/relaxing space on the show floor), but also took up about 3 quarters of the Sands Expo Convention Center as well. There was a glaring difference in the feel and size of this years exhibitors, not so much with the major fortune 500 companies but from the small to medium business which count on these trade shows to get the attention of both the general public and corporate movers and shakers to grow their businesses.

Even with the reduction is attendees, we managed to have a very productive show and had numerous quality meetings and discussions with potential customers and venders. So our commitment to exhibiting at CES is unchanged, but I merely hope that it can regain its luster and appeal as the worlds most prominent electronics show.

As a surprise early birthday celebration, my wife took me to the Los Angeles Clippers vs. Portland Trailblazers basketball game last night. As a basketball fan, it’s exciting to see any professional teams play in person. But these tickets were exceptionally good and it made the night even more exciting as you can see from these photos taken during the game:

One thing that I realized is that HD broadcasts are so clear, it’s almost like being at the game. In fact, even though I was in the front row, the clarity of the HD picture gives you clarity you couldn’t get anywhere else, even at the game. So there’s no question that everything will be in HD and anyone who wishes to produce video content will have to do it in HD. In order to produce HD content, you have to use the much higher capacity of Blu-ray discs, so it’s only a matter of time before all videographers switch over to Blu-ray to shoot their videos. Just an observation.