Happy New Year!

We started out the year in Palm Springs at the JW Marriott by playing a round of golf. This is one of our favorite past times in that we get up and out before everyone else and can be first one’s on the tee.

I believe that what you do on the first day of the year depicts how things will go for the rest of the year. So I always try do a fun physically active activity. In previous years we’d travel to far off destinations to doing full day activities such things such as Scuba Diving in the Pacific, Skiing in Salt Lake City or Montana, or skating in Lake Louise. In off-years when we’ve done some major traveling before Christmas, we’d keep more local and go golfing in Palm Springs. The difference with this year is that I was so busy with traveling everywhere with work, that I just didn’t want to stray too far from home. But next year we have a few big plans as well – aka Australia and the Florida Keys.

But for the beginning of this year, I fixed up the backyard a bit, went for misty morning walks down at Yorba Linda park, and just took it easy for the month by slowing getting back into a few things that I put on hold over the last 2 years.

Ayano really wanted to go to CES this year. We skipped the year before because my business had shifted away from needing to know what cutting edge technology was out there. It was a good thing we too, since I ended up being sick for the whole of January last year. But this year we headed out to see what was new and exciting.

Google had a big spread on AI and smart homes, there were a number of companies promoting 360 degree video, and VR was starting to make some in-roads. We even had a change to see Bell’s future of human automated drone flight, not to mention how tech is innovating the farming industry.

But I guess my favorite gadgets at the show were the ‘portable underwater transport systems’ for scuba divers. Now those look like fun!

We almost broke even with all our Vegas spending by winning a few dollars in slots. In the end, even with cash to spare, I took home a GoPro Hero 5 from the show for creating video content in the upcoming months… Once I get back into programming, I plan on using that content for my Virtual Runner program… or just for fun home videos that I can put up here!

What ever the case, hello 2019. My goals are in place, so let’s see what we’re going to be up to this year.