The Future is Almost Here

I came back to Lexington a little more than four years ago after being gone for some 20 years. What I found surprised me. The little old convention center was brand new and certainly not little any longer. It looked more like very nice hotel convention space with all the latest technology. The layout is well thought out and is very workable yet very flexable. It has the second largest ballroom in the state of Kentucky (18,000 sqft). And the interior design is quite sophisticated.


I also found something else that surprised me. The Hyatt Regency Lexington and the Radisson Hotel had not changed in the last 20 some years. Unless you call decomposing a change. As I looked around at the convention package I had been charged to sell, I started to pray for two hotels that match the quality of the center. Somebody answered my prayers.


The Hyatt Regency is just wraping up a $32Million renovation and it looks FABULOUS. This is a view of the lobby and certainly conveys a warm sense of arrival.




















The Radisson has made an even bolder move. In addition to a $16M renovation, the are changing flags. Later this summer they will officially become a Hilton Hotel! They are currently part of the Hilton organization (reservation system and HiltonHonors).



The interior work is underway and the public space will rival the Hyatt Regency and the Lexington Convention Center. The picture below is a 20 panal photo by Doug Prather and will change 4 times a year (seasonally). It is located on the convention floor landing, just above the lobby.

As more work gets completed at the "Soon To Be Hilton" I'll pass pics along. In the meantime, you better reserve your space at the Hyatt, Hilton and Center before dates are all GONE!

Off Message but on Task

I fully understand the premise of this blog, but I seemingly need to digress. In preperation to the games, I have felt the need to upgrade the way I (we) view competetive events from the luxury of my (our) home . . . what I am saying is, I (we) finally pulled the trigger on a big screen tv. . Now, I am not one to fool around and I didn't this time. I did an enormous amount of research and decided on a Panasonic 46" HD Plasma (TC-P46G10). The local retail outlets are not going to carry this model so I ordered from Critchfield (critchfield.com). Great price, no tax, free delivery by two guys who brought into house, set up and took packing away. Perfect.

Blu-Ray also needed to be part of the package and I (we) bought one, too.

Please pay attention now because this is the entire point of this article.

If you are to connect all the components correctly to ensure the very highest quality picture and sound, conventional advertising says you should pay up to $100 per cable (I needed 2 HDMI and 2 Fiber optic cables) in addition to the normal speaker wires.

But hold on there. The reviewers at cnet.com said "we strongly recommends cheap HDMI cables widely available from online retailers instead of the expensive counterparts sold in your local electronics store". They went on to refer me to monoprice.com where I place an order for the 4 cables and they cost $5.77 each and were in my mailbox 2 days later.

So what's my point? I don't have one other than I love my new TV.