My trip home has been delayed by a happy coincidence: The huge Consumer Electronics Show is happening in Vegas starting tomorrow, and as I was already driving through and Marcy is here with a room with two beds and Disney is being too cheap this year to send me (well, they’ve never sent me, but that’s no excuse), I am crashing. Yes, I’m crashing CES. Should be fun.

But I am so tired. I’ve had no sleep on this trip, and now I get to walk around the biggest trade show in the universe (no, really) trying to have the energy to do so with perk and vim.

So why am I not sleeping? Because I have two pictures to post, and because Sven is here, too, and I’m gonna go meet him for dinner. Cashews, Grape Nuts, and Swedish Fish have been my sole source of sustenance today, so I get to go out for a meal on Disney (or Fox).

Here’s only one view from the spectacular drive through Utah today:

Okay, not a terribly spectacular pic, but I loved the cloud patterns. Trust me, it was much more beautiful in person. Yes, the pic was taken going 80mph on I-15 with my real phone. And everyone told me to drive safely. Oops! At least I wasn’t holding the camera out my sun roof. Now that would have been dangerous!

Marcy’s is staying at The Four Seasons in Vegas, so I, by proxy, am doing so as well. Here’s what the view from our 36th floor room looks like. That tower is THEhotel (don’t get me started on the stupid capitalization issues), which happens to be the hotel Carol, Steve, Marcy and I stayed at when we came out to Vegas several months ago.

So far, The Four Seasons is a very nice hotel (duh), and I’m sure they wondered why this scruffy guy in jeans and a dented Civic was checking in.

Because I’m MONEY, baby, that’s why!

Being worn out from the day, I fell asleep by 8:30pm, while screening a work-related DVD on my computer, and with my desk lamp on and bedroom door wide-open exposing my fully lit closing scene – Me in bed, cuddled with my blankets, still in my work clothes, exhausted. At one point, perhaps around 11ish, I woke up briefly and thought to myself, I should get up, turn things off, wash up and get undressed but instead I drifted right back to my dream…

… I was jumping from roofhouse tops to roofhouse tops (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon indeed) trying to find my way back home. I say trying because it was quite dark and I wasn’t quite used to the bird’s eye view yet so my path was unsure. Still, with no time to loose, I swiftly moved forward – with the belief that your destination unfolds itself when moving about rather than standing still. With loose debree crashing to the ground and dogs barking in the night, I finally made my way back to my room. Sensing that I might have an audience still, I immediately jumped into bed, not wanting anyone to notice just how hard I’ve tried in getting there. But at the same time, since I didn’t want people to NOT notice me, I deliberately left the lights on. As I waited and waited for someone to visit, I began getting frustrated at my dilemma. How do I let people know that I’m home without announcing it like the needy kid that I am.

Just then, I heard someone approach. I turned over. It was my mother… and as she has said many times before in my youth, she sternly but compassionately ordered, “Go to sleep. It’s late. I’m gonna turn off your lights and your computer for you.”

With that I woke up to see that indeed, my computer was still running, my lights still on, and it was now 1:30am. Half expecting my mother as well, I was dissappointed to realize that she was back home on the east coast and nowhere near to urge me to get proper rest.

And so I’m up now… wondering about my next move.

For life unfolds when you are moving about, not when standing still.