Las Vegas

MTV and Microsoft are sending me to Las Vegas in early January for the International CES. For anyone who doesn’t follow the tech world, it’s basically the IFA but American—bigger, louder, absolutely certain that revolutionary products are about to change everything. Casino halls full of speeches from Google and Facebook and Sony, every gaming company and film studio showing off their latest thing. The standard hype machine about the future of living rooms and kitchens and bedrooms.

I’m getting a Windows Phone 7.5 and a new laptop out of it. Microsoft’s essentially treating me like a field correspondent. MTV wants me on camera occasionally, talking into their rigs about whatever’s happening in the convention halls. It’s not dignified but it’s a free trip.

The real trip starts after CES ends. I’m taking a bus down to Los Angeles alone. No preset agenda beyond the things you’re supposed to see—Hollywood, the studios, Chinatown, whatever. I’ve made it this far without visiting LA and it started feeling like I was missing something obvious.

The drive from Vegas to LA is when it stops feeling like a business obligation. Eight hours on a bus, leaving the conference behind, heading somewhere that actually feels like a destination instead of a corporate event.

I keep joking about not buying a return ticket, about staying and finding work on Sunset Boulevard. It’s the kind of joke you make about any trip, but there’s something real underneath it—the fantasy of just not going back. I know I will go back. But I like that the thought exists at all.