The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It’s that time of year, peo­ple! Troegs Mad Elf has arrived!

Pret­ty sure win­ter sea­son­als are my favorite, but there’s a spe­cial place in my heart for Christ­mas brews. Goes back to my time in Den­mark, where jule­bryg is a spe­cial event each year. They’re real­ly some­thing to look for­ward to.

This year I’m going the extra mile and I’m buy­ing a two cas­es: one for drink­ing now and I’ll cel­lar the sec­ond for next year. Still have a bunch in my base­ment from last year, too. Can’t wait to sam­ple those babies!

Goodbye Playoff Beard

I start­ed grow­ing this beard the day the Phillies clinched the NL East. Sure, I jumped the gun a lit­tle bit, but when I look back on last year’s scrag­gly play­off beard, I’m glad I did.

Now I look like this.

Loved the beard, but I’m feel­ing human again.

Rally to Restore Sanity

Feel like this sums up the day pret­ty well, but hear­ing Yusuf, Ozzy and the O’Jays pret­ty much blew my mind.

Pol­i­tics, schmol­i­tics. This served as a friend­ly reminder that we have a lot more in com­mon with strangers than we think.

Current iPhone Home Screen

First & 20 start­ed out as one of my favorite iPhone blogs. It had a clever premise: ask tech all stars to share their iPhone home screens.

They haven’t been pub­lish­ing much of late, but I’ve checked back from time to time any­way. Thought I’d share mine again, too!

I just rad­i­cal­ly reset what’s on the home screen and where. I float­ed text, email and phone from the dock into the top row, replac­ing them with apps I use much more often, like Twit­ter, Reed­er, Things and the cal­en­dar app. It’s tak­ing some get­ting used to, but makes much more sense based on frequency.

The sec­ond row remains more or less unchanged. It’s home to my social web apps, with Instapa­per thrown in for those times when I might not be able to access the web. Learned that while rid­ing the NYC sub­way a few week­ends back.

The third row is where I’ve bun­dled apps into con­ve­nient cat­e­gories. News and Enter­tain­ment are pret­ty self-explana­to­ry. Con­tacts is just an easy way to toss the con­tacts app, LinkedIn, and Bump togeth­er on the home screen for con­ve­nience’s sake. Util­i­ties is a broom clos­et for the apps you need but aren’t all that spe­cial, like set­tings, Safari and the calculator.

The bot­tom row is for enter­tain­ment, too. The iPod app is self-explana­to­ry. I keep the Com­cast app at the ready. It lets me know when some­one’s call­ing my house so I don’t miss any calls. Han­dles my r‑DVR, too, which is real­ly great. Tuner­fish is an app I’m real­ly excit­ed about. It’s like Foursquare for tele­vi­sion, com­plete with fun badges and a suite of social fea­tures which lets you share what you’re watch­ing with friends.

Why have I left a space open? You’ll find out soon enough!

My First Day as Chief Blogger

Check out the view from my new office!

Today was hec­tic, but real­ly cool. Had some neat meet­ings. Was a lot like my first day at Com­cast: a lit­tle con­fu­sion and a ton of excite­ment. Met more peo­ple today than I have in three years at the com­pa­ny and that’s great!

Very excit­ed to see where my new role takes me. This office is just the first step.