I saw the Beatles "Love" show in in The Mirage Resort in Las Vegas on Sunday, April 8, 2007.
It was quite beautiful and arty.
Most Cirque du Soleil shows are more athletic and gymnastic and tend to feature various "acts." This show was different; more of an ensemble feel, lots of activity going on, lots of ensemble and group dancing, high energy with the occasional trapeze or rope artist or other sorts of things, including solo dancing.
Great sound, great lighting and effects. The show is in the theater that used to be the Siegfried and Roy space. It's in the round and I can tell you that the show uses every cubic inch of the space; every square inch of stage and all the way to the ceiling.
I had front row seats and everyone in the very front section ringing the stage is inside one of the effects; the rest of the house saw the outside, we saw the inside and were part of the show; we were allowed to manipulate part of the set. It must have looked really cool from the outside because it got a huge roar from the crowd when it finished.
The show is considerably longer than the soundtrack; there are other songs not included plus there is some great great great inter-action set pieces featuring projections of actors (in silhouette) portraying the Fabs acting to dialog created by edited-together interview statements, studio banter, maybe even some flexi-disk stuff. You don't see the actors as anything but silhouettes so you aren't distracted by a less-than-look-alike.
There are large video screens around the venue that add video effects and occasionally other screens are dropped from the ceiling showing Shea Stadium clips and other performances.
Both "Something" and "While My Guitar gently Weeps" are very poignant set pieces as well. Sniff sniff (tear? what tear? I wasn't crying! I had something in my eye!). "Help!" is a high energy very fun section of the show with rollerbladers and "Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds" has a gorgeous starry sky. "Revolution" has hippies and riot cops squaring off on trampolines.
There is even a reference to drinking tea(!).
If it's not the most expensive show in town it's close but both of us really enjoyed it and being front row was quite frankly worth every penny of the $165 per ticket price.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Monday, April 2, 2007
Linköping, Sweden
I spent a week in Linköping, Sweden last week.
Outbound I had 3 flights; LAX to FRA, FRA to CPH and then CPH to my final destination, Linköping, SE.
The FRA layover was tight to begin with, only 1:45, but the plane left late and never made it up so I had to "walk briskly" to my connecting flight. I made it OK but then I was REALLY late for the final leg. I made it though with about 2 minutes to spare after being asked a stupid question by the counter person ("Why are you so late?" "Ask Lufthansa and SAS, I did my part.").
The week was pretty boring at times so I ended up re-writing a spec for the software guys since they didn't know how to do it themselves and only partially participating in the meetings. While I was there I saw 3 Swedish National Championship hockey games on TV; the hometown team won all three.
Going home was only slightly better; I took the train from Linköping to Stockholm, overnighted at an airport Euro-Motel 6 and then got up waaaaaaaaay too early to head home with that plane ending up being late and my 2 hour layover being reduced to a brisk airport walk again only to find out the homeward leg was 1 hour late, too.
By the time I'd gotten home I'd been up 20+ hours, feel asleep too early and then woke up at the wrong time so last night I fought to stay awake until 9 PM.
One thing that really love about my job is that we are getting more and more international on each successive project. My San Diego location has gotten away from writing software and are now more of a hardware design and systems engineering location. For example, for this "Japan" project we have a team in Japan as main interface to the customer. The hardware and systems are being done in my location and the software is being done in multiple locations; Linköping, Sweden, St Petersburg, Russian and Bangalore, India.
We had folks from all of those locations in Linköping last week. During lunch one day last week, we discussed where we wanted to have the next meeting. Mikhail from St Petersburg commented that he was only about an hour or so flight from Stockholm. I looked at him and said , "I would love to come to St Petersburg. That would be the most incredible trip I've ever taken."
I was thinking about how amazing my career had changed in 20 years; to go from ultimate Cold War Doomsday Machine aerospace asshole to Silicon Valley start-ups to international travel for a huge high tech company to a place I would NEVER have been allowed to go to even 15 years ago by my first employer.
Photos
Outbound I had 3 flights; LAX to FRA, FRA to CPH and then CPH to my final destination, Linköping, SE.
The FRA layover was tight to begin with, only 1:45, but the plane left late and never made it up so I had to "walk briskly" to my connecting flight. I made it OK but then I was REALLY late for the final leg. I made it though with about 2 minutes to spare after being asked a stupid question by the counter person ("Why are you so late?" "Ask Lufthansa and SAS, I did my part.").
The week was pretty boring at times so I ended up re-writing a spec for the software guys since they didn't know how to do it themselves and only partially participating in the meetings. While I was there I saw 3 Swedish National Championship hockey games on TV; the hometown team won all three.
Going home was only slightly better; I took the train from Linköping to Stockholm, overnighted at an airport Euro-Motel 6 and then got up waaaaaaaaay too early to head home with that plane ending up being late and my 2 hour layover being reduced to a brisk airport walk again only to find out the homeward leg was 1 hour late, too.
By the time I'd gotten home I'd been up 20+ hours, feel asleep too early and then woke up at the wrong time so last night I fought to stay awake until 9 PM.
One thing that really love about my job is that we are getting more and more international on each successive project. My San Diego location has gotten away from writing software and are now more of a hardware design and systems engineering location. For example, for this "Japan" project we have a team in Japan as main interface to the customer. The hardware and systems are being done in my location and the software is being done in multiple locations; Linköping, Sweden, St Petersburg, Russian and Bangalore, India.
We had folks from all of those locations in Linköping last week. During lunch one day last week, we discussed where we wanted to have the next meeting. Mikhail from St Petersburg commented that he was only about an hour or so flight from Stockholm. I looked at him and said , "I would love to come to St Petersburg. That would be the most incredible trip I've ever taken."
I was thinking about how amazing my career had changed in 20 years; to go from ultimate Cold War Doomsday Machine aerospace asshole to Silicon Valley start-ups to international travel for a huge high tech company to a place I would NEVER have been allowed to go to even 15 years ago by my first employer.
Photos
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