This Week in Mobile Tech Manor #71: Last CES?

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It’s the end of the week and we know what that means kiddos, time to share how I spent my time since our last visit. And that visit was a long time ago given the holidays and that big trade show in the desert. Besides the big show I went on vacation, attended a wedding and read a lot of e-books. This week’s column is dedicated to Steve Rubel, read on to find out why.

The first week of the long hiatus from writing this column was my vacation, which was wonderful. We didn’t go anywhere, my wife and I simply hung out at the house and did the sort of stuff you do when you don’t have to work each day. I read lots of good books and we had a wonderful holiday period as a result. I did miss writing this column far more than I thought I would. I came to realize that I really enjoy sharing my weeks with you, and I almost broke down and wrote a column during my week of vacation. I came to my senses, though, and kept at the vacation as I should.

The holidays held an unexpected joyous event, as my step-daughter got married on New Year’s Day. She married a great guy, a firefighter who has his head on straight. They had intended to get married later this year but he has an opportunity for a great job with another fire department for a lot more money, and since they are expecting their first child they were concerned about the health insurance situation given the job change. They decided not to risk losing coverage so they got a judge to marry them in his chambers on January 1st. It was really cool as the judge is the same guy who married Sheri and I 11 years ago. Talk about coming full circle.

Sin City

Of course the biggest time filler over the past three weeks was the big trip to Las Vegas for the CES. I won’t get into a lot of detail about the trip as I covered it on the site. But I do have some observations/ ruminations about the CES that are worth sharing. The week was so action-packed that there was a lot I couldn’t cover through normal show coverage so I’ll dump it on you here.

The CES is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) show of its type for the press in the U. S. Each year thousands of us register for press credentials that provides access to press events and allows us to use the press facilities at the show. Each year the CES organizers along with Toshiba give each press registrant a press kit that is contained in some sort of laptop bag or backpack that can be used during the week. The bags are yours to keep, and it’s not unusual to see these distinctive bags at other events throughout the year as some start using them full-time going forward.

I had accumulated so many of these press bags that in the past few years I have not brought them home, I would give them away to someone in Vegas before leaving. Not this year, as I really liked the messenger bag that the CES handed out. It is a really good messenger bag that will handle a laptop and all the assorted gear one normally carries with one. I like it so much I’ve been using it quite a bit since returning from the trip. Thanks CES and Toshiba for providing a useful piece of gear this year.

The show was smaller than in years past, a reflection of the economic conditions affecting the industry. I did find that everyone at the show was highly optimistic about the near future, and that feeling was contagious. I returned from the show feeling quite good about the way the industry is headed, and about things to come this year.

The show floor seemed as crowded as ever, and I grew quite tired of getting pushed and shoved while walking around the convention. One thing hadn’t changed this year, the prevalence of folks racing through the crowded halls while pulling a rolling laptop case behind them. I must have tripped on these things a dozen times, and I absolutely hate that people will use them in big crowds like this. I so wish they would be banned by the organizers, but I know that’s never going to happen. I wonder if anyone has ever been sued for injuries caused by these rolling bags? It’s definitely a big pet peeve of mine.

Without a question the best part of the CES week is seeing friends that I interact with online but rarely get to hang out with in person. Kevin and I hang out all week, which is cool, and this year we got to spend a fair bit of time with podcast co-host Matt Miller. Matt’s a great guy and I love hanging out with him so it was a real treat. The three of us had a great dinner at the beginning of the week and it was a lot of fun. Matt’s dinner was pretty spicy and it was funny watching him sweat his way through it.

Both Kevin and Matt ordered a Nexus One from Google and had them delivered to their hotel in Vegas. Talk about geeks, that’s about the geekiest thing you can do. Of course I was jealous, what kind of geek wouldn’t be?

One of the strangest things about the CES each year is that it runs alongside the Adult Entertainment Expo. This makes for some very amusing scenes indeed, with scantily clad people walking all over Vegas alongside scores of geeks with pocket protectors. I was walking back to my hotel room in the Venetian one day and spotted a small group of women walking through the middle of the casino, and they were wearing thongs and not much else. That will make you stop what you’re doing.

What made this scene memorable was another couple also walking through the casino at that time, accompanied by their two small children. Why anyone would take their kids to a Vegas casino is beyond me to begin with, but given this scene even worse. What do you say to your 6 or 7 year-old daughter about this, anyway? “No dear, that is highly inappropriate, but it’s OK in Vegas.” I don’t think so.

One of the best things I did in Vegas, and I don’t mean the scene I just described, was having dinner with Steve Rubel. Steve and I had met once before this, and I always enjoy time spent with him. Steve is one of the first A-list bloggers, and his lifestream is one I follow religiously. He’s one of the smartest people I know, and he has a great knack for getting to the core issues of any topic under discussion. I always learn a lot chatting with Steve, and it was the best thing I did all week. I was glad Kevin got a chance to meet Steve in person at this dinner.

I must admit that I was quite embarrassed when Steve told our waiter that jkOnTheRun is the best technology web site on the web. I don’t think the waiter really cared, he probably just wanted to get rid of us and go on a break. It was nice of Steve to pimp us out, though.

This column is dedicated to Steve, as he confessed something that made my entire trip worthwhile. It seems Steve finds this column his favorite thing that I do, and he emails the column to himself each week. This lets him have the entire column on his phone, and he has developed a ritual where he reads This Week in Mobile Tech Manor on the weekend in a coffee shop while he has a good coffee. This is just so cool I can’t tell you. Sorry for the long hiatus, Steve.

He spends 2/3 of his time traveling on business, and he is a true dedicated road warrior. He told us he has taken to leaving his laptop at home as much as possible, and just using his smartphone on his trips. He does this by using his phone for any content he creates of less than 1,000 words. I know I couldn’t do that, but he claims it has made his traveling so much easier that it is well worth it. That’s a true mobile geek.

Last CES for Me?

I haven’t made up my mind for sure but there’s a very good chance that the CES trip this year may be my last. It’s not easy for me to give up something I enjoy so much but I found this trip to be almost too much for me to handle. I suffered a severe back injury 20 years ago that has resulted in two different back surgeries over the passing years. These two laminectomies have been due to the initial injury and then re-injuring it years later.  In each of these surgieries they had to remove the lowest disc from my spine. These surgeries were tough, and required a 6-week recovery each time where I couldn’t risk damaging my spinal cord. The disc is the shock absorber between the spinal vertabrae, and when one is removed extreme caution must be taken to prevent permanent damage, even paralysis, until scar tissue grows back to replace the removed disc.

Both of these recoveries went well for me, but an end result is that standing for extended periods, or even walking, can cause nerve pain that gets quite bad. In years past, given the tremendous amount of walking around the CES (up to 8 miles a day), by the end of the week my back has made its presence known by causing back pain and worse, cramps in my calves. If you’ve ever had a cramp in your calf you know how painful that is.

This year I was troubled to find my calves cramping up the very first day of the show, and it happened again every day I was walking around Vegas. When the cramps hit, all I can do is sit or stretch out until they pass. Then I was able to continue for a while until my legs started cramping up again. By the end of the week it had almost gotten to be too much for me, and I seriously started thinking that this would be my last trip to cover the show.

I must also admit that the extreme exhaustion that is caused by the massive effort to cover the CES scares the hell out of me. Casual readers probably don’t realize that I had a small stroke two years ago. That traumatic event was one of the most frightening of my life, and I relive it every year at CES time. You see, that stroke happened less than two days after returning from covering the CES that year. There’s no way to know for certain that the exhaustion from the constant walking played a role in my stroke, but the doctors at the time admitted it could have played a role.

You can perhaps see now why I approach the CES trip with a fair amount of trepidation. Hell, I might as well admit that the trip scares me a great deal. That fear actually gets worse after returning from the exhausting trip, and I find I am watching myself closely for any adverse effects. I’m thinking it may be time to hang up my CES bag.

Help for Haiti

The devastating earthquake that hit Haiti is on all of our minds currently, and they need all the help they can get. There are many aid programs in place to accept donations, and the tech community is rallying to help in case you are interested. Xavier Lanier of notebooks.com is spearheading an effort to match text messaging donations for the people of Haiti. It’s a great cause so see if you can help out these poor people in this devastating time.

I can only imagine the ordeal that Haitians are facing right now. The coverage of the earthquake I have seen has been troubling to say the least. I’ve only been through one earthquake myself, and that was frightening enough even though fortunately it was not close enough to my location in Venezuela when it hit to be very damaging. Even so, to be on the 12th floor of a skyscraper that was swaying dramatically back and forth was downright scary, so I can only imagine what Haiti is like today.

e-Books of the Weeks

The long hiatus gave me plenty of time to read lots of good e-books, so I’ll only mention my top picks this time. I read the second and third installments in David Hewson’s great Nic Costa series. The Villa of Mysteries and The Sacred Cut were both stellar mysteries, and I quite enjoyed seeing how David has developed the characters in the series. That’s one of the joys of finding a good series, watching how the novelist advances the characters, as well as watching the writing get better and better. Hewson weaves very intricate, picturesque stories, and I am anxious to read the other four novels in the series.

I read a lot of books on the new Kindle 2 I got for the holidays, and was happy to find some free books on Amazon’s top 100 list. One of them was a great find — Serial by Jack Kilborn and Blake Crouch. What happens when a serial killer who preys on hitchikers picks up a serial killer who hitches rides? A great story, that’s what. It’s still free, BTW.

I found another series that I am really getting to like, the Alex LaDuca series by Noel Hynd. The first two books, Conspiracy in Kiev and Midnight in Madrid were action-packed mysteries that had more twists and turns than most novels. I am looking forward to continuing this series, too. Both of these books were free from Amazon, but I see they are not free anymore. They’re good enough that I’d have no problem paying for them. This shows it pays to check the Amazon list often for free novels.

Wrap-up

This has been a long piece for you to wade through, and I hope you enjoyed it. The CES dominated this week’s column, due to the huge show that it is. I am getting asked what gadget I liked best at the show, and invariably my answer is the Lenovo U1 Hybrid Notebook. I spent an hour with one in Vegas and I want one so badly.  Until next week, take care.

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