I missed CES 2019 but I’m headed to CES 2020!
Part 2.5: Take that stage three cancer 😎
Around the time the Sony CES 2019 keynote was set to open its doors to reporters who’d be greeted with a bevy of excited employees, engineers, and execs stationed between covered products that were announced a mere hour later on stage, I was still ‘stuck’ back in Los Angeles. No, not because I missed a flight, but because I was going under the knife, literally, to have a stage three tumor removed from my colon. A month before, at age 33, as someone who routinely exercises, cooks organic meals and doesn’t eat out, doesn’t smoke, and overall has lived a fairly healthy lifestyle, I was told that I had cancer.
From there, the entirety of it is a bit of a blur (as is most of 2019, really), but I went from thinking I was going to rock CES 2019 to missing the show entirely, and a month later starting aggressive chemo that would last till August. I tried to not drop the ball entirely on SRN, but I had more life and death matters to attend to, again, literally.
There’s so much I want to write about regarding my cancer, where I’m at today, and all the people who helped me along the way, but I’ll save that for another time. Instead, I want to talk CES in my ‘obligatory’ I’m headed to CES 2020 post, except this time, I won’t be missing the Sony keynote, nor the entire week-long convention.
In many ways, CES 2020 is going to be different partly because I’m a different person than I was a year ago, but also because I won’t have my partner in crime and SRN Managing Editor Allegra Osati with me due to scheduling conflicts. That in itself should make covering CES interesting, to say the least.
More than any other year, I’d like to film a lot more content — from general show floor vibes to more hands-on time with products. Of course going solo makes all of that harder and each year, Sony has announced fewer products than the year before, which from a business perspective I approve of, but from an “I have a site to run that needs content” perspective, it kind of sucks for me. Here’s to winging it! 🍻
As usual, you can find all the day-to-date from the mega show on the various SRN socials:
so be sure to follow the site on your platform of choice.
As I mentioned, my hope is to shoot a lot more video compared to previous years and try to have them out for you each day, but we’ll see. As for articles, I’ll also be putting them out during CES, but with less commentary and more straightforwardness. Once I’m back from the event and have had a bit more time to learn about the products from my colleagues and the typical trickle of additional info, I’ll be sure to write more in-depth coverage about all the new products and services that Sony announces.
For a long time, I’ve also tossed around the idea of covering other tech products and news that’s not Sony, and CES 2020 could be the year. Being single-handed makes that vision a bit harder to execute, so it’s really going to come down to how my CES is going. Priority one is of course coverage for SRN, but if I do manage to get my hands on non-Sony stuff and I’ve got something worth saying, I won’t be doing it on here. Instead, it will be here,
but again, we’ll see. I‘m not much of a New Year resolution type person, and running a site like SRN requires reading all the time — from gaming to tech, and entertainment — but in 2020, my goal is to read more — books and comics — as well as write material that’s outside of my typical wheelhouse and TRN seems like the right place for it.
Few fun tidbits — for my LA to Las Vegas drive, I’ve loaded up on podcasts and one that I’m excited to listen to is The Official Watchmen Podcast.
Over three episodes, host Craig Mazin (Chernobyl) discusses Watchmen with its co-creator, writer and executive producer, Damon Lindelof. Join Mazin and Lindelof as they divulge narrative choices, explore the show’s connection with the groundbreaking graphic novel, and how it reflects our modern times.
I’m a big — nay, huge! — LOST nerd and general Lindelof fan, so I’m eager to see what kind of behind-the-scenes nuggets Damon offers regarding the show. I’ve heard there’s a lot of references to LOST, so count me excited.
One of the things that helped me get through my countless stays at the hospital as well as general rough times during the past year has been Headspace. If you haven’t tried it, I highly recommend giving it a whirl — from dealing with anxiety to being more focused or needing a little extra help falling asleep, I don’t say such things often, but this app has changed my life.
Meet Movi, a cool Christmas gift from Allegra to yours truly! This is one of my newest tools I’ll be using for CES. I haven’t had a lot of time to learn it yet, so we’ll see how much it impacts my shooting, but I’m excited to put it to use on the show floor.
Lastly, the links below, which you’ve seen before, are quite near and dear to my heart. One helps fund SRN one cup of coffee at a time since I don’t run ads, nor do I place my work behind paywalls. The other is all about the future of SRN — the newsletter is poised for a comeback and it’s going to be the best way for you to get your SRN scoop (and TRN) by allowing me to have a direct connection with you and not be reliant on social media algorithms.
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