Ryan James O'Sullivan

They say you can tell a lot about a person by what apps they have on their first tab…  So here’s me:

Upgrading from iPhone 3.* to iOS 4.0 has reduced the number of page tabs for apps I have from 7 to 3.  The folders system is brilliant and a real joy to use.

So my apps:

• Twitter :: Obvious.  I’m tempted to add this to my bottom bar
• IM+ :: Instant Messaging with Push notifications.  I use MSN, Skype, AIM, and ICQ
• Messages :: Obvious
• Calendar :: Since syncing with Exchange at work this has become a key piece of my iPhone use
• Maps :: Obvious
• Games (folder)
  
• Contacts :: Obvious
• YouTube :: I don’t use this as much I would expect, but it’s good on long bus rides
• WeatherEye :: My favorite weather app
• CIBC :: Mobile banking, it is a great piece of business
• Evernote :: I still haven’t managed to get Evernote in my day to day workflow… I do use it occasionally but not near as much as I’d like
• Facebook :: Good for keeping in touch – also if friends have entered their phone number you can use your friends list to make calls – can be very handy
• Kobo :: I do most of my reading on my Sony Reader but when I’m on the go I like having my library (which is 90% kobo sourced) in my pocket
• Foursquare :: While I wanted Gowalla to win the check-in war it didn’t pan out that way amongst my social group so 4sq it is
• Calculator :: Yep
• Geocaching :: I had two games on my home screen previously so when I put together my main games folder I got a slot on the main page back.  Geocaching won out.  I’ve been using this to find caches while I on the road and I’ve been doing a lot more caching…

There it be… what’s your main page look like?

The new version of Apple’s iOS (the new name for the iPad/iPhone/iPod operating system) went live this afternoon and I rushed home to get it… sadly I am now looking at “Backing up…” screen and have been for almost an hour now…

It seems like this is not an uncommon issue so I’m just patiently waiting taking in as many reviews and bits and pieces of info as I can on the upgrade while I wait.

Things I’m looking most forward to:

• Folders – some argue this should have been a day one feature of the post-app era iPhones (and I agree to an extent) but I’m just glad it is here now
• Spell checking through out the OS – I type at about 140 or so WPM and I can assure you I type faster than I think most of the time.  The result of this has always been a trade off in the spelling department
• Upgraded Mail Client – Unified inbox anyone?
• Apparently the upgrade has a tonne of polish and who would turn down some polish?

Now all I need to do is hope this actually works… The upgrade is going.so.slowwwww

On Friday afternoon I arrived at work and had a strong urge to A) find a way to watch the England Game (I will not weep, I will not weep, I will not weep) B) Get out of the city ASAP.  The only problem was I was at my office with a full work day ahead of me.  So I decided noon was high time to get the hell out.  Confirmed it with the Boss and I was outtie.

We hit the road super quick and managed to get up north before the England game was too far in (20 minutes in if I remember right).  My Grandparents and my sister Amanda were already up there and we got right down to having a blast.  The Saturday forecast was calling for rain (of the thunderstorm variety) so we decided that Friday should be beach day.  We spent a few hours down there and had a blast.  Paige isn’t big on the water (we are working on it) but I managed to get quite a bit of swimming in since Tammy wanted nothing to do with a cold lake (silly Arizonian).

For dinner we BBQ’d some Sliders which were surprisingly fantastic and had some french fries (which I thought were terrible, but everyone else insisted they are fine… so clearly they are crazy…).  Parents arrived up, we went to sleep.  Profit.

Saturday did not bring the rain that was threatened (until later, but we’ll get there) and we ended up having another great day at the beach.  This time my dad, my sister Jess and my sister’s boyfriend joined in on the beach fun.  I even laid out and tanned for a bit and needless to say I’m pulling off the Irish-Red-tan quite well right now… Last season I think I made it down to the beach 2 times all season and here I was pulling that off in one weekend, it was awesome.

After we finished at the beach we decided to head to the Kawartha Dairy to grab some shakes and ice cream.

It was then time for dinner… after dinner Jessica and I decided we would go ATVing.  The plan was to take a fairly short ride out to the main highway and come back.  We got about 75% of the way there and we arrived at a small intersection and Jess asked “what’s that way”.  Of course this type of question between siblings can only lead to crazy exploration and down the street we went towards Murphy’s Corners and Ridge Road.

We arrived at the Ridge Road church and I pulled over knowing that there was a geocache I had failed to find there last year.  We spent some time looking (and I knew where it was this time having asked someone…) and we came away empty handed.  Just as we were giving up the hunt for the cache thunder started to roar in the distance.  Looked up at the sky and holy crap it was black to the south-west.  ”Let’s get out of here dude…”.

We made it almost back home and ran across a deer.  We stopped to watch him eat grass and check us out.  Then it came.  BOOM.  HAIL.  ”Shit Jess, book it, book it”.  The deer was off in to the trees and we were doing the speed limit busting our asses to get home.  Hail and rain falling hard.

We quickly outran the storm (yes that is actually possible) and made it home unscathed.

Sunday we had father’s day pancake breakfast and we were on our way home.  Father’s day dinner was our usual trip to Swiss Chalet.

The above is around 600 words to say this:  This weekend fucking rocked.  I haven’t had that much fun or felt so fulfilled up north in a real.long.time.

Go England!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that that is over with – on to the post!  So it is world cup time and for the first time I am totally engrossed.  Over the last three years I started getting in to English Premier League soccer with this past year dedicating pretty much every Saturday and Sunday morning I was free to watching a few games (I even went in for the $15 a month specialty channel to ensure I could see any team I wanted play).  Needless to say the world cup going on right now is very exciting for me.  This is the first world cup I’ve paid much attention at all and I am loving every minute of it.

In the past I was the typical North American sports fan who didn’t quite get what was going on and would often call out the game for being too slow, or how this game or that game was more fun to play or watch… Not so much anymore as I’ve built up a real appreciation and love for the game…

One thing I didn’t really get in the past was people talking about world cup spoilers… “What the hell is a sports spoiler?  The game ends at 10pm EST and then we all know the result… WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE???”.  Even until two weeks ago I heard my soccer buds talking about not wanting to know scores until they got home to catch up watching the games and I thought they were crazy.  I went in to the first day of the tournament fully ready to refresh like mad sports sites and get my scores as soon as I could.  Within 5 minutes of the first game I had closed my web browser… and closed twitter… and closed facebook… and drove home without the radio on… and, and, and… it got bad real quick and for reasons I cannot explain I just wanted to completely unplug until I could see the game.

I really just love the game… I understand now why it is called the beautiful game and that slower pace is really something to be enjoyed live on the screen…

So if I don’t respond to a dm, twitter mention, facebook message, email, greader or other social network message you send me/intend for me to see just know I’m likely getting caught up on the days games and some time around 11 at night I’ll hopefully get to you

Also today I picked up tickets for Manchester Untied’s visit to Toronto and I’m soooooo excited to go.  I have to figure out who to bring with me now though…