The last time I attended CES was 2009, when I had a split personality – attending both as a Blogger for Gizmo Lovers, as well as an Exhibitor for Sling Media. That ended a six year streak which started with my first CES in 2004. In 2010 I wasn’t able to swing it with my then current job, and I was on my hiatus from blogging at the time anyway. 2011 there were a few things that kept me from attending.
I was going to return this year, for CES 2012, but I was getting married on February 4th and I realized that I was crazy planning a trip to CES less than a month before my wedding! In retrospect I’m glad I didn’t go, there was plenty enough to do preparing for the wedding and honeymoon. Not to mention burning three weeks of PTO for the trip. But I still missed scratching that itch.
Now I’m hoping to return for 2013! Registration opened today and I just registered as Press. They’ve changed their requirements since 2009 and no longer have a dedicated ‘Blogger’ category, so hopefully they’ll still consider me a valid Press member. I’m hopeful; I think Gizmo Lovers meets all of their requirements for online media – it qualified before. But if they don’t accept me as Press I’ll register again as a standard attendee.
I’m looking forward to jumping back into the fray. The Cable Show was good, but there’s nothing quite like the zoo that is CES. It’s a consumer electronics geek mecca – information overload. As Stanley Spadowski said, “You get to drink from the fire hose!” I’m looking forward to it.