CES 2008: Viva (Snow-Free) Las Vegas

Greetings from sunny, albeit somewhat chilly, Las Vegas; I’ve just arrived. I was originally supposed to be here two days ago. Actually, to be precise, I was originally supposed to fly out of Reno the morning of the 1^st, to do my traditional pre-CES solo backpack of the Grand Canyon, but forecasts of wet-and-cold weather encouraged me to reset those plans for prior to or after NAB in April. Then I was going to fly from Reno directly to Las Vegas on Saturday. Well….

That same wet-and-cold weather front that hit the Grand Canyon, since it originated in the Pacific Ocean and moved west-to-east, nailed my High Sierra home a day earlier. Some of you may have heard (perhaps even on the national news, according to my mother back in Indiana!) that Truckee, CA got a ‘bit’ of snow Thursday-through-Sunday. To clarify, I thought I’d share some snapshots I took mid-day yesterday.

First off, for those of you who didn’t already view its visage in conjunction with my recent hands-on feature article, here’s what my place looks like in a snow-less state:

Yes, this is the railing on the east side of the front door (i.e. the railing to the right of the front door, as you’re looking at the door from the outside)

The turn-around view looking out the front door from the inside

The side deck.

Ditto. Only about half of it is exposed in this shot. Yesterday evening, I finished digging out the deck, to a snow depth of 4.5 feet. I now have an 8 foot (peak) fallen, blown, and thrown snow berm around my deck…and I’m running out of places to toss snow

The view down the front walk

The accumulated snow is level with the bottom edge of the kitchen windows…that’s around 10 feet deep, folks

Another big-picture perspective

And another

Fortunately, aside from a few brief brownouts, I didn’t lose power the entire time. And my DSL connection was rock-solid, as well.

Now that I’ve finally escaped and arrived, watch this space for show reports over the next few days!

p.s…the Toro died on Friday ;-( It’s covered under 2-year warranty, but I now have serious doubts that it’s up to the task on a long-term basis. Anyone got a 7-series Honda snowblower with treads that they want to sell me?