Please bring Apple to the Grove

May 6, 2013

png;base642a762af21ef25036There is a retail space in Coconut Grove Florida (3000 Grand Ave), which has sat empty for 3 years now. It has something like 18-20k square feet of retail space in it, adjacent to a parking lot, accessible to street and garage parking, and frequented by tons of pedestrian tourists. I think it would make the perfect location for an Apple Store.

An Apple Store would bring a ton of new traffic to Coconut Grove. It would be a destination, or an anchor so to speak in an otherwise flailing retail environment. Apple would be able to do whatever they want with the space, no architectural boards would stand in their way like in Lincoln Road on South Beach. The closest existing Apple store is in Dadeland mall which is roughly 5.5 miles away.

The only reason I can see Apple not wanting to invest in this geographic area is if they already have plans to put a store in the new City Centre mall being developed in Brickell, which is aiming at high end luxury shoppers. However, that won’t be ready for 2 more years, this location is available now.

Now I obviously know this is fantasy, and even though I’d love to see it, I am not holding my breath. Coconut Grove as a neighborhood has been largely reluctant to embrace change and adapt in the face of its growing municipal competition. So if the landlords and the business owners don’t want to change to embrace 21st century tastes, what can I do? I guess all I can do is dream.

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Setting new habits for personal optimization

April 16, 2013

As I sit here at my home office desk, I glance over and see a pile of books sitting waiting for me to dive into them. This pile has grown over the last 2 years, such that I suspect it may topple over any one of these days. This backlog of books is caused by 2 things: thinking I don’t have enough time to read, and my inherited fascination with buying books I find even remotely interesting (you should see my dad’s home office!). The second cause is easy to fix, I am not buying another book for the rest of the year; boom, solved. The former though is harder. As someone who is self-employed and has a modicum of freedom over his schedule, its a self-imposed myth that I don’t have time. I do have time, I just have to be more efficient about using it.

So I’ve decided I am going to start making small improvements in my daily routine in order to optimize my life. Often I find myself still sitting at my desk after 10-12 hours of work, and realize I’ve only accomplished maybe 3-4 hours of productivity. So clearly continuous stretches of working don’t work well for me. Here are my ideas for optimizing my days to be more efficient. Now my plan isn’t to maintain these schedules obsessively, but hopefully the idea is if I stick to some of these new things, my mind, body, and general quality of life will all improve.

1. Daily jolt of energy: start each day with exercise.
By running a modest 2 miles each morning with my dog TJ in tow, I can knock out a quick sub-30 minute exercise regimen and jumpstart my daily metabolism. Also will help when I tackle the ING 2014 Miami marathon again. I’ll end up doing 8-10 miles during the week + another 8-10miler on saturdays or sundays.

2. Find inspiration every morning
Most mornings I make myself a simple breakfast consisting of eggs, protein, and veggies. So from now on I’m going to also watch something mind-opening every morning. Be it a new TED talk every day, or some documentary on netflix while I cook and eat my breakfast. Hopefully this will get my creative juices flowing and translate to my work-day.

3. Diversify my mental activity
Every morning, and afternoon, take 30 minutes each time to read. 30 uninterrupted minutes of reading in the morning and afternoon will hopefully help me plow through this pile of books in record time. Perhaps even adding 15-30 minutes of reading before going to bed, however that might be replaced with a cool-down activity.

The idea behind this being that if I can set a regular pattern, it becomes second nature, and thus easier to maintain.

Do you have any simple life hacks you do to optimize your day?

Comments: 1 Posted by: Categories: Brian

Fitness goals for 2013

April 9, 2013

So it has been a while since I publicly issued any challenges to myself. This time the entire Miami branch of the Breslin clan is taking on a collective challenge to lose weight and improve our physical fitness. We have given ourselves (both my parents and my sister too) our own individual target goals for weight loss, and we have each put our money where our mouth is. So the general overview is, everyone puts in 12,500 frequent flyer miles into the pool, and we all have from April 1 until October 1 to get to our target goals. Winner (he/she who gets closest to their target goal or surpasses it) gets the 50k frequent flyer miles on American Airlines (we just tend to fly them more, they aren’t involved in this wager at all).

So my starting weight on April 1, 2013 was 168lbs, my BMI is somewhere around 15-16%. My target weight for October 1, 2013 is going to be 155lbs and hopefully in the 10-12% BMI range.

So what am I going to do to achieve this goal and how can you join me in this quest?

I’ll be adopting a strict hybrid Slow-Carb diet/Paleo/”Clean” eating schedule. So I’m reducing my cheat days to just half a cheat day on saturdays. So no breads/pastas/rice/simple-carbs most days.

From an exercise standpoint I’ll be continuing cross-training at EliteU fitness (3x-4x a week 1hr), but targeting a slightly modified regimen of lifting and high intensity interval training. In addition to that I’m going to start running regularly again (10-12 miles per week max, probably 400 miles by year end), adding in some more regular biking (15-25miles per week max, likely 1x saturdays), and weekly swim (25x50meter 1-2x a week).  So the goal of this regimen is also not to wear down too much, but to effectively hit the “minimum effective dose” of each exercise type.

I’ll do my best to post updates on or near the first of each month.

All of this is part of my plan to run another marathon in 2014, and beat my last time by at least 30 minutes.

Comments: 0 Posted by: Categories: Brian

My latest obsession – 3D printing

April 8, 2013

Over the last couple of months I’ve been working on a semi-secret new project in the 3D printing space, I’ll post more details on that shortly as we get closer to the launch. However I’ll back track a bit to why I’m so excited about 3D printing.

 

Right now 3D printing is getting a lot of hype, TONS of hype, perhaps more than it needs. However, I think 3D printing is poised to revolutionize manufacturing, just not in the way you are thinking. I don’t see 3D printing eliminating more jobs. I see it creating more jobs.  3D printing is going to usher in a new generation of “makers” who are fabricating things, prototyping things, and building more specialized products than ever before.  This will in turn translate to more products on our shelves.

 

3D printing isn’t going to eliminate factory jobs, because 3D printing isn’t suitable for mass production of anything yet. 3D printing’s sweet spot is in helping people design and manufacture their prototypes at a fraction of the cost and time that it used to. Being able to go from idea to prototype in hours or days instead of weeks or months is HUGE. Having the ability to show a factory the sample of what you want (that you’ve already iterated on) is an incredible time saver. The modern factory will still be cranking out tons of product, they will just need to be more nimble in order to compete and crank out tons of different items.

 

By reducing the cost of building an initial version, 3D printing could in fact drive demand for mass quantities of product, something that American factories can definitely help facilitate. The future factory workers of america will have to be versed in running more dynamic types of machinery; perhaps the repetitive nature of the factory of yesteryear is gone, but the factories themselves still are very much in demand.

 

It boils down to the fact that 3D printing is democratizing creation/manufacturing on the small scale and helping people’s ideas come to life. That is why I love 3D printing and am super bullish on it.

 

Comments: 1 Posted by: Categories: Tech

SXSW pro-tips (or how to actually enjoy yourself)

March 7, 2013

I’ve been going to SXSW since back when it was still slightly niche (2006 was my first year). I attended all but 1 in the span stretching to this year. So let’s just say I know how the conference works, and know where the value is in it, and where there isn’t. I’m also a bit wiser now vs 7 years ago. Note, this stuff only applies to the interactive portion, I have yet to brave the music segment (which is admittedly much more intense).

So first things first, SXSW is indeed like spring break for geeks. It can be either a total shit show for you, or very productive. Its a matter of taking into consideration all the things going on and deciding how you want to attack it. SXSW is about strategy.

For a huge number of the people rolling into Austin for the interactive portion, they are coming from areas which aren’t as exciting as the weeklong party that Austin becomes. I’m from Miami, so it takes a pretty effing awesome party to impress me.

So here are the tips in bullet format, since I’m already too tired to write any more (I’ve been here 8 hours…).

  1. Pace yourself
  2. There will always be more free booze, you don’t need to drink everything you see right now.
  3. Chill the eff out. Everyone else is just as excited as you to be there, but just be calm about it. No one is passing out million dollar bills anywhere, so you don’t have to worry about missing anything amazing.
  4. Focus on the conversations. Don’t try to exchange business cards with 500 people. Focus on the 50-100 people who you can engage in meaningful conversations with.
  5. Pack light, and remember, if your clothes get dirty, there is always a thousand free t-shirts to be had tomorrow.
  6. If the line is an hour long to get in to a party, there is almost certainly another party going on without a line, which will be way more fun.
  7. Hydrate. Trust me this will help you avoid any hangovers or other disasters.

So try to enjoy yourself. If you find yourself trying to hit every panel, every party, every tweetup/meetup, you’re going to burn out. So pace yourselves.

Comments: 0 Posted by: Categories: Travel

Community building is not a zero sum game

March 5, 2013

The other day my mother told me I am practically a full time event planner.

This scared me.

You see that week I was responsible for co-organizing two events that spanned 3 days and would attract hundreds of people. I never considered myself an event planner, but I guess I have definitely been thrust into that role. However I don’t make any money doing it. That’s not why I do this though. Yet money isn’t really what this blog post was meant to be about.

A zero sum game is one that is defined in economic theory as one whereby the winner’s gains are balanced out by the loser’s losses.

I think the idea I want to bring to the table is that community building should not be considered a zero sum game for the organizers and organizations. If my group is successful, that does not mean your group will be inherently unsuccessful now as a result. If my group is able to raise funds and get sponsorship dollars, that doesn’t mean yours can’t, and definitely does not mean we are taking money out of your coffers in doing so. The more success any community driven organization receives the more the community as a whole benefits from it.

A rising tide floats all boats. That saying is entirely relevant in the community building goal. More small and individual successes in any community lead to larger awareness of the community as a whole.

The momentum we are currently experiencing in Miami’s tech community is exciting, and should be seen like a train barrelling forward. This train should be seen as a means to transport us all, not one you should fear being pushed in front of.

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Run with me in 2013 (and 2014!)

January 30, 2013

So running by myself is kinda boring. That being said, I would love to see you all join me on a bunch of adventures/challenges this year. I don’t get anything financially out of you signing up for these races other than camaraderie.

So here are the races I am going to run, and if you want to join me, great! Ones in bold I have already registered for. Others I’m tentatively going to signup for. Feel free to leave other suggestions in the comments.

So if you want to race with me, or have suggestions for other races/obstacle races, etc. Let me know. I’m always looking for a challenge.

Comments: 0 Posted by: Categories: Sports

Making 2013 better for you

January 4, 2013

So I am curious. What can I do to make 2013 better for you?

Add your response in the comments section. If the answer is reasonable (I determine this), I will do my best to make it happen.

Comments: 2 Posted by: Categories: Brian
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