Our next big tournament has been announced.

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I’ve been thinking since last weekend that I should write something up about the ELEAGUE CS:GO Major that  just happened. This event was a watershed week for our business, but also a marker in my career.  This is from my perspective, and I should be clear that this is from me, not my employer. Any opinions are my opinions, and not theirs. The facts belong to us all though.

For those who might not be familiar, or weren’t following along, this tournament was one of the most successful in esports history in a number of ways. It was the first CS:GO Major tournament with a televised Final, which was on TBS here in the US. It was a tournament with some of the best and most competitive gameplay in the history of these tournaments, something we clearly can’t take credit for, but which is a testament to the state of competitive CS:GO. A team named Astralis triumphed in the end, and during that final amazing match, we broke the all time Twitch maximum concurrent users record for a single channel, smashing the previous high mark by over 200,000, and becoming the first channel to ever go over 1 million concurrents.  There’s an awesome Instagram video, captured by a Twitch engineer friend, which captures my awkward enthusiasm in the moment that we crested that 1 million mark.

The tournament was held here in Atlanta, first at the ELEAGUE studio on our campus in midtown, with the quarterfinals, semifinals and finals then being held at the Fox Theatre, a venue at which I have attended concerts, plays, and even a movie or two. It was incredibly cool to work an event in my adopted hometown of almost twenty years. While I have worked many NBA All-Star games and golf events while working for Turner, none of them have ever been here in Atlanta. That somehow made this more real and meaningful for me.

In many ways, this  event was no different, from a work perspective, than one of the seven NBA “season starts” I worked on, or an NBA All-Star Weekend, or a PGA Championship, or the Ryder Cup that I wrote the software for onsite the week of the tournament. This event left a huge 14-day gaping hole in my life, every waking moment those 14 days I was thinking about or doing work. We spent well over a hundred hours the week of the tournament getting ready for each day, working the competition, and making sure that things were updated at the end of the night. These kind of hours have an impact of those around us, and I am more cognizant of that than ever these days. I’m not the only one in our home who is exhausted from the long days. I missed my kids and my wife, and they assure me that they missed me. When working with live sports or live events, this is how it is, what it takes to be successful. There are a multitude of details that need to be carefully tended to, and it has to be on a specific time scale that is not negotiable.  I am incredibly proud of the entire team that worked on this event. There were no major outages, our Twitch stream stayed up with no downtime. We ran our Game Command player for more matches in a week than we’ve ever run it before. In fact, I believe we ran it for more hours for the Major than every other time we’ve run it combined.

So with all this background information, what did this event mean to me? To understand that, I need to provide just a little more context. First, it was the culmination of an 18th month journey for me. I was asked to first help with, and then work on, Turner’s esports initiatives. I had an amazing job working on the NBA’s products in the US at the time, and I personally took a big chance on esports because I was passionate about it and ready for something new. I had no idea what it would turn into for Turner, and there were no promises about what my role would be moving forward. We started 18 months ago with a vision for what we wanted to do, and the rest has been a wild ride right into this weekend.

I could have never imagined that Valve, the publisher of CS:GO, would choose us to host a Major in our first year of existence. I couldn’t have guessed, even the morning of the Final, that we would break the single channel traffic record on Twitch. So much of that relies on the quality of the matches, and the interest of the fans. If the match had ended after two maps, we never would have broken the record. In any case, even if we hadn’t broken that record, we’ve accomplished so much in a short period of time, starting from nothing, building a team, hosting events. Not everything has been perfect, nor has every decision been a winner, but we’ve learned from every mistake, and taken all the fan feedback very seriously, and I think it shows. That’s how we roll.

So, this meant a lot to me, more in some ways than anything I have helped build in my career.  I may not work in esports forever, but the memory of this event, especially, across everything we’ve done with ELEAGUE in it’s first year, will always be with me, a reminder that if you just keep going and try hard, and do your best, good things happen.

I’ve been quite busy with work related items for the last couple of weeks. I realized this weekend that my hosting provider had upgraded some of the software that this site runs on, and in the process, they broke everything.  I logged in yesterday, and fixed the problem, but then also realized that I was sick of what the site looked like, and hadn’t updated it in forever.

I am starting fresh with a new theme that I should be able take to places the other one was equipped to go. For a bit, this is going to be a work in progress.

What went wrong was very simple. We never made enough money.

I really like(d) Vesper, but it never stuck for me. I was a day one user, mainly because I am huge fan of all three of these guys, and also consider their QA lead an internet friend.

I don’t know what they could have done differently, especially with only three of them, I do think that, for their core audience, there are three platforms that matter:

1. mobile/iOS
2. Desktop Mac
3. Web

Only Brent, Dave and John know for sure, but from my outsider’s view, this was a part time job for all three of them. I suspect that if even one of them had made this more of a full time job, it might have generated perspective and possibly drive to succeed. Just guessing on that bit, and I could be completely wrong.

I’m currently using Apple Notes as my primary phone/tablet/desktop text tool. iCloud sync has worked great for me.

ESPN: What ELeague got right, wrong in Season 1

I don’t often post about work related things to my site. I’m averse to getting in trouble for expressing work related opinions on my personal publishing, and I have a lot more to lose than gain in that department.

ELEAGUE has been a very interesting ride for me, particularly because I was literally the first person working full time on esports at Turner.  I may be able to write more about that ride at some point, but I have to say that I’m really proud of what we accomplished right out of the gate. We’re not perfect, but we’re constantly learning, and will be better each time we do this.

Here’s an infographic with some of the consumption numbers:

I am link blogging again over at kungfumaster.ninja

You’ll likely find more posts from me over there than on this site.

TextExpander from Smile Software is one of those indie apps that feels like it's been around forever. TextExpander has saved customers countless hours of typing by letting them define short abbreviations that it expands into longer snippets of text. Today, Smile released TextExpander 6 for Mac, TextExpander 4 for iOS, and even an all-new Windows […]

Trying to not overreact to this. Not sure this is worth $60/year to me. Going to look into alternatives.

I love this t-shirt from the Brooklyn Computer Club. Added to the varsity t-shirt rotation. 

I really think this is one of the best ads Apple has ever done.

Since reading Matthew’s review, I decided to jot down a few thoughts on this item as well. I’m not sure when Nock will make it available to regular people via their site, but well, home field advantage. Update: These are going live at Noon today, November 30th, 2015. 

I picked up one of these cases in waxed canvas a few weeks ago when Nock Co. had a booth at a pop up shop for American made goods at Ponce City Market here in Atlanta. Like Matthew says in his review, this thing is boss. I like mine so much that it’s become a permanent part of my backpack load out, and I think I want to pick up a second one.

I have been using Field Notes for my Bullet Journal pursuits for the last few weeks, and so this is a good match, I keep a couple of recently filled notebooks, and the next one I am going to use.  I have been carrying three pens, each with a different load out.

I also keep a few Frictionless Capture Cards tucked in.  Sadly, they went out of business, and once my current supply of these cards is gone, I will probably move on to these Nock Co. DotDash Cards.

I’d read or heard, I think on the Pen Addict podcast, that the case doesn’t quite hold an iPhone 6 Plus, but mine actually does hold one and zip up. That’s actually why I think I might pick up a second Sinclair case, as I have a work 6 plus that I keep in my daily carry backpack monstrosity. Here’s a shot of my 6 plus tucked into the Sinclair.

I’m totally sold on this case, and highly recommend it. Nock Co. makes really high quality product right here in Atlanta, and I’ve never had any issues or been disappointed with anything I have bought from them. I think I might grab a couple of zipper pulls from them after seeing Matthews configuration, but otherwise, this is the perfect carry for my Field Notes, Word Notebooks, and three pens, which is the most I really would use anyway.

I’d also love to see one of these in a larger size that was designed to hold a Hobonichi Techo. There’s such a lack of good cases that are meant to hold the Techo, and it’s gotten more popular. Seems like a real market opportunity to me.

Origami, Gonzalo Garcia Calvo

This towering ginkgo tree is located within the walls of the Gu Guanyin Buddhist Temple in the Zhongnan Mountains in China. Every autumn the green leaves on the 1,400-year-old tree turn bright yellow and fall into a golden heap on the temple grounds drawing tourists from the surrounding area.

Source: Colossal

The L16 from Light, pictured above, is all over the web this week. You can reserve one at a reduced price by putting $199 down by November 6th. It’s an Android based, slightly-bigger-than-phone sized camera that looks to replace DSLR cameras by utilizing an array of  cheaper and smaller cameras carefully orchestrated by software.

I’m a sucker for things like this in the gadget space, but I am having a hard time convincing myself to put down the money now for something I won’t get until Summer 2016. All this without an chance to try the device myself, or even have someone I trust with hands on experience vouch for it. The movie in the Core77 article provides a little additional information, but I think i will be debating this until the November 6th deadline.

I have been debating selling my whole Canon DSLR setup of late. I am not using it nearly as much as I used to. I wonder if I wouldn’t be better off with the smallest nearly equivalent camera.

Source: Game-Changing Product Design: Small L16 Camera Replaces an SLR and a Bag Full of Lenses - Core77

This looks like it could be delightful.

Up until a week ago, my main carry phone was an iPhone 6. I replaced it with an iPhone 6s Plus, which arrived on launch day, but, due to some work travel, I have only had it since Sunday, for five days. Here are some high level observations from those five days of using this new device.

Overall, I’m quite pleased with the new device itself, especially the obvious hardware improvements. Having said that, and I have had every iPhone to date, this was the least smooth transition from one phone to another on the software side. I am still working on getting my new phone to the place my old phone already was. This is not intended to be a comprehensive review, I don’t have the patience or time these days to do that.

This phone feels ridiculously fast, faster than my iPad Air 2 even.

The battery life seems a little worse than my couple of months old iPhone 6 Plus.

My initial observation was that this phone is heavier than the existing iPhone 6 Plus, but still comfortable to me for extended use and carry. I purchased an Apple silicone case, I have been very happy with the 2014 silicone case that my work iPhone 6 Plus is in. I am a little disappointed in the 2015 silicone case, it’s got a smoother finish, and feels less grippy in your hand. As a result, I feel the phone slipping in my hand a little when I am not expecting it. I may end up getting another case that has a better tactile feel to it.

I’m a huge fan of Touch ID, and it’s significantly faster with the new phone for both Apple Pay and unlocking the device. It’s so fast, in fact, that I am sometimes accidentally unlocking the device when I wanted to wake the phone up to see the time.

3D Touch seems to have a ton of potential. It turns out that I am a “hard presser” to begin with, and so my long touches are often being interpreted as a 3D Touch. Once I understood the pressure differential, mainly while I was re-organizing my home screen, things locked into place, and now I have the hang of it. It will take even longer for me to get into the routine of thinking to use it.

The camera is noticeably better, and was one of my main reasons for upgrading the phone. Focus is faster, and low light photos look better to me. I am not sure that I am that enchanted with Live Photos, but that may just be that I haven’t taken many yet. Since a lot of what I do with my pictures is sharing via Instagram and Facebook, I am not sure I will use Live Photos much until they are supported on those platforms.

So now a few words about the transition from my iPhone 6 to this new phone, which has not been a good experience. First, I was a part of the iOS 9 public beta this Summer. Not the developer releases, but the public beta. I did this because I thought it would mean a smoother landing when everything came out this fall. I was wrong. They rolled the people in the iOS 9 public beta right onto 9.1. Once you have backed up on 9.1, you can’t restore onto 9. So I had to start with my last good backup from earlier this Summer. I understand what running a beta means, that there may be sharp edges. I think someone at Apple should have thought through the customer experience before just rolling everyone on to 9.1.

The transition between phones for Watch is terrible. You have to un-pair your watch from the phone, deleting everything off the watch, then re-pair it with your new phone, finally restoring from whatever your last backup was, and losing some data pretty much no matter what you do. So much room for improvement here.

Finally, I have relied on the Health app and Activity app as my primary activity and fitness trackers for the last few months. Shame on me for not looking into this more, but that data does not get backed up via iCloud backup. You can back it up by doing an encrypted iTunes backup, which I will now be forced to switch to. There is a way to migrate this data using two third party apps, and I am going to spend the time to try and do that this weekend. Very disappointing from a user experience standpoint though, seems like they are making the customer do too much work. I wouldn’t expect to have to manually migrate this data myself.

Update: It seems that Health and Activity data is in the iCloud backup after all, but some folks, myself included, are having issues with getting it to the new devices.

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The newest Word. Notebooks are really nice looking, both the blue colorway pictured above, but also the black color way.  I ordered a pack of each, but I am starting to struggle with my talent for acquiring cool notebooks compared to my velocity with filling them up. Maybe I should start giving more away?

Smart looking new Baron Fig Confidant Notebooks with Work/Play theme were released this morning. I’ve filled up two of their regular Confidant notebooks in the course of my Bullet Journaling. Aside from some annoying fraying of the bookmark, which I think they are working on mitigating, I’ve really like them from a paper, looks and durability perspective. I ordered three of the new ones.

Similar to the Arts and Sciences Field Notes, but reversed, each spread has a “Work” page, which is dot grid, and a “Play” page, which is blank. I’m actually currently about halfway through a Sciences Field Notes right now.

Update: Brad over at the Pen Addict has had access to these, and has posted a review that’s worth reading.

I couldn’t agree more with 8 Things I Learned After a Month with the Apple Watch. If I were writing a similar article, I think I would have written about the same 8 items.  I need to get up and move around more.

Really nice line of black gear and kit from Ugmonk. I hopped right on this and ordered myself the “Plus Minus” shirt pictured below. I was/am a fan of the band of the same name, who are not related to this in any way.  There are a lot of t-shirts out there, but these are among the nicest designs, tasteful, yet still fun.

Source: Black Series | Ugmonk

On the whole, WWDC 2015 brought less news and less change than its two immediate predecessors. Apple is still on top of the world, but this year, it's about refining and polishing, not wide-reaching changes. - WWDC 2015 Debrief — 512 Pixels

I’m looking forward to the iPad enhancements, and to the watchOS (rhymes with nachos) with real apps etc.  I’m worried about the strain this puts on developers with limited resources at the same time.

How I would describe 2015 so far.

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I definitely love my Apple Watch. I ordered the Stainless Steel Apple Watch with a black sport band at 12:01 am on the night they went on sale, received it the very first day they shipped, and haven’t really taken it off, except for charging, since. I really like the black sport band, but have wanted to pick up more bands as well.  I see the sport band as a good every day band, and only really liked the black color. I wanted some variety, but found the other Apple options to not really be for me when I tried them on in store.  A few weeks ago, when the Monowear bands went up for pre-order, I placed an order for Monowear red nylon band.

I received the band while I was away at WWDC, and was pretty excited to try it out when I got home. I liked the red color as a contrast to the black band I have been wearing. I have to say that I am not disappointed in this band in any way.  I like it so much that I may be ordering additional bands from Monowear in the near future. Given the current dearth of third party bands that are available, and the premium construction, I don’t think the $59.99 price tag is unreasonable.

The band installed flawlessly on my watch, as easily as any of the Apple bands. Removing and re-installing my Apple Sport Band also proved to be a breeze.  I was definitely concerned about this the most of the various aspects of this purchase, and this band passed with flying colors.

The band itself is well made, and its metal matches the Apple Watch hardware color perfectly. This includes the three band loops, as well as the small pieces that attach the band to the watch body. I can’t find any flaws there at all. The nylon is what I would expect from a premium nylon watch band. It came out of the packaging a little stiff, and so will be a little itchy/scratchy the first few days until it’s fully broken in, but I think that’s to be expected.

Overall, this band is a good option for those seeking a red band, something Apple does not offer. I’d really like to try out their leather bands next, but may have to wait for my next paycheck to make that purchase. Keep in mind that I have only had/worn this band for about 36 hours, and my opinion may change with wear, but, for now, it’s a definite go ahead and buy rating.

Image Source: Nylon - Red Band with Chrome Loops — Monowear

Studio Neat recently introduced a new free app named Highball. I was just thinking last week that there didn’t seem to be a lot of good apps for storing cocktail recipes, surprising given how in vogue fancy cocktails seem to be at the moment. The price is right, and the app is responsive and well designed. It’s a natural extension of their Neat Ice Kit and Simple Syrup Kit products, both of which are on my future purchase list.

More interesting to me is the way they have implemented cocktail recipe sharing. You can either take a picture of the card some else has shared, which has an embedded QR code, (It’s small, but it’s still a QR code.) or you can enter a unique number that is assigned to that recipe in their database of recipes. Definitely a pretty elegant solution to a pretty thorny problem. Send me your recipes!