You may be thinking Montreal and Quebec aren’t beer towns. That’s where you’d be wrong. Both towns have a passion for beer that trails only their passion for hockey and gravy covered cheese curds and fries. Though the spoken language may be different, these towns share a love for the common language of good beer, and most interestingly, what seems to be a particular specialization in excellent Belgian style ales.

Superbowl Sunday. While most people are just waking up and beginning to think about making wings or what commercials they want to watch out for, the crazy runners in New York are up running a four mile course of Central Park. During the meeting of Peyton (Bud Light lover) Manning and Cam (I’m going to hide under a towel until everyone goes away) Newton at Super Bowl 50, I joined these crazies around the park.

I was recently asked how I manage to travel often, run nearly every day, read 80 books a year, and write blog posts. Well first of all it’s humbling to have someone think that I’ve actually figured out a way to manage my time this well. With a job that I am passionate enough about to spend extra time outside of work to do things like recruiting and traveling, it isn’t easy.

Earlier this week, Toyota announced that it would be killing the Scion brand, its entry level car brand aimed at first time car owners. Scion may not have pioneered the “no haggle, no hassle” form of car buying, Saturn started it, but they continued in that tradition and I would argue made a bigger impact with it by focusing on college kids and recent grads. The death of the company felt like a long time coming, largely due to what felt like a lack of interest from Toyota, though what really put the nail in the coffin was the move toward ride sharing services, primarily Uber, and a sharp decline in car ownership among the college age demographic.

If 2015 had large overriding themes in the world of technology, among them would be the proliferation of devices, continued move toward mobile, smartphones most among them, and the internet of things. What all these themes have in common is that it is becoming increasingly difficult for companies of any size to build experiences for their users on all of the devices said users would like to interact with. A typical user in 2016 may use an iPad while on the couch, a Mac at home, a Windows computer in the office, an Android smartphone, Ford Sync in their car, Xbox and Roku for their TV, and Amazon Echo in the kitchen.

I’ve been doing a lot of reading (ok listening) of big life altering experience themed books, like hiking the Pacific Crest Trail in Wild, the Appalachian Trail in A Walk in the Woods, and Mt. Everest in Into Thin Air, and it got me thinking about what I want to one day check off. Our culture, and particularly generation has been recognized as focusing on experiences rather than destinations or things in life, and I’m no different.

As an update to my previous post on creating an Alexa skill to control Nest thermostats, in which we got an account pin manually, and used this for making calls to the Nest API, I was able to use the account linking methodology in Alexa to allow any user to authenticate with their Nest account, and thereby control their thermostats without this tedious step and code changes. Here’s how to do it.

It is a blisteringly cold, but sunny January Monday afternoon and the call of the wild speaks to Hershey. The wind carries the whisper of his forbearers hunting through the wood and plains. The scent of snow and squirrels wafts like dead leaves upon the air. Bundling up in galoshes and a fleece line coat, Hershey and I (also in winter clothes) head up our street where a hidden path joins the trail system of the state forrest.

Going into the running season of 2016, ok we are still a way off, but still, I wanted to share my favorite running gear. It’s only been about two years of real running for me, so I haven’t found the best items everywhere, but for the most part, I’ve at least found things that work well enough for me to finish three marathons and ten halves. Many of these items would work fine for other activities like cycling as well.

Every year in New York City, millions gather around Times Square to revel in memories of the previous year, celebrate the upcoming one, and see the ball drop. At midnight, the immense ball descends the tower, and confetti sprays across the whole city. Revelers cheer, toast, kiss, or possibly do all three. Several blocks uptown, another group, a somewhat smaller and less warmly dressed one, watches fireworks in Central Park, and begins running a four mile loop of the park on the stroke of midnight.