Nothing big today except for the expectations set by my forefathers that today I will drink an excessive amount of Guinness. Unfortunately to bystanders this is one (another) of those expectations that I never fulfill. Part of the enigma of being Tim McGuinness.

Maybe it’s the phoniness of the season. Yesterday I received an email promo from a big website addressed to “Timothy O’McGuinness”. Seriously, if you Google “Tim+Mc+Guinness,” the top result is a bar fight. Do we really have to add the “O’whatever” to Irish-up my name?

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Just got an email promo sent to “Tim O’McGuinness”. Really? They felt the need to Irish-up the name “Tim McGuinness”?

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As a new parent of a teething child, I was in bed at 12:15 last night.

There are a couple plans that I jotted down:

• Be the best I can for my ladies
• Improve the value of my hat collection
• Take SoccerClub, Newport Online, and some new releases to the next level
• Work, success and happiness

Happy New Year.

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As I warned last week, I was out to upgrade my phone. I had been using a used Moto Q that I bought on ebay to replace a Blackberry that did not pass the bounce on cement test. It was also tied to a family plan that I needed to expand since I needed more minutes.

After much research, and plenty of soul searching, I went with the iPhone. Yes, I’m now one of those guys. The choice was based more on selecting the most popular platform for social networking apps than it was based on functionality and tools. Basically I wanted to use what the cool kids had.

I added all the standard apps: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc, but one other I added was iBowl. So far I have thrown 6 strikes in 7 shots and quit. The only non-strike was an attempt to not throw one on purpose to make sure it was possible to not throw a strike. Either I have found my calling or this game is ridiculously easy. Though it should be noted that I was wearing bowling shoes at the time.

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I debated writing this because I don’t want to give away on of the great secrets of the NYC area, the Westchester airport. Planes actually leave here early – at least until today.

My flight to Buffalo connected through Philadelphia. There are many things to worry about on a 6:30 am flight in December to Buffalo, but clouds in Philadelphia were not on the list. The result was a late departure, a missed connection, a flight rescheduled two hours later, sensory overload of “Phillies World Series Champion” keepsakes in gift shops, pushed back meetings, pushed back return flight, and a very late return home that night.

The benefits: my wife surprised me by putting up the Charlie Brown Christmas tree that we got off the clearance floor last year, my daughter surprised me by not pulling it down, and my return flight went through Dulles so I had a chance to get Five Guys with an order of fries.

It also led to a new decision. I need to upgrade my phone.

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