After what's been nearly a straight month of travel and suitcase living, I'm glad to now be home for a rest. This past week was especially brutal. What should have been two easy days in NYC and a day trip to Atlanta had me racking up more travel follies in one trip than I've experienced in the past three years.

I managed to have one of the worst overpriced hotel experiences of my life (I suggest you never ever ever ever stay here - I swear the place is haunted) and out of five flights for the week only one wasn't delayed for over two hours. And you just gotta love when you leave the gate for a 2.5 hour flight only to have to sit on the plane an extra 2.5 hours before taking off (and then of due to the delays you miss your connection home and have to spend an extra night in a hotel and the flight home the next morning is delayed over two hours too). No REAL complaint there though - I'd much rather be delayed for a flight so the mechanics can do their fixes vs. the alternative.

While I'm glad to be Home For a Rest — especially now that winter is over and the weather is nice — I am looking forward to my next trip as I'll be heading to Montreal to cheer on Team Mercedes / BlackBerry at the Canadian Grand Prix! Between now and then I've blocked off a big chunk of my calendar so I can go heads down on writing and producing some fun content, which I'm truly looking forward to. As seems to happen to frequently, I've been a little too quiet around these parts lately. With it being a quiet Memorial Day Weekend, I'm going to get started on fixing that right away and make some noise.

But first, a little Editor's Desk catch up:

CrackBerry Mom
  • Props to my BlackBerry / BBM using Mom, who's one tough cookie - I arrived home from my travels Thursday afternoon, and my mom went into the hospital on Friday for surgery. She was supposed to be in the hospital for three to five days, but everything went super well and she was discharged on Saturday, so she's already at home and resting up. It was interesting to see how different of a hospital experience this was for our family thanks to our always on, always connected smartphones. It's been nearly six years since my mom was in the hospital for surgery, but before that she went through several rounds of hospital visits while she went toe to toe with cancer (colon, liver, thyroid). Back then, you weren't supposed to have cell phones in the hospital - at least that's what all the signs said, and she never had a phone with her. So unless we were visiting, you never really knew how she was doing. This time around she kept her BlackBerry Z10 her. What a difference! With our family on BBM, we were able to communicate back and forth with ease once visiting hours were over, and she kept us in the loop the next day on her breakfast and what the doctors and nurses were saying. And for me personally, it was just a huge peace of mind knowing she could reach me at any moment if she needed anything. When my dad and I picked her up at the hospital to drive her home, the first thing she mentioned to me was how much she loved having her BlackBerry with her all night. Thanks BlackBerry!! And love you mom!
  • Spoiler Alert: JUNE is Fitness Month at Mobile Nations - Some of you noticed that we didn't have Fitness Month this February as we had the past two years. That's because we were putting it off for June! Everybody wants to get in beach body shape for the summer, so the month of June is when we're going to help aid in that process. More details will follow early this week. I'm really looking forward to it this year. I've personally made 2014 about getting my health and fitness in check, and have had great success these past few months. I'm down 20lbs in body weight, and pretty much feel a decade younger. I'm looking forward to having some fun kicking it up a notch for the month and writing about all the cool stuff that's out there in the area of mobile fitness these days. I think we're planning on doing a bit of a Fitness Tracker challenge too, so if you don't have a Fitbit yet, get one! Stay tuned for more details.
  • Montreal CrackBerry Meetup Plans - We'll follow up soon with a post and send an email to everybody who said they're in for the event, but as of now we're aiming for two meet-ups over the course of the weekend. First, I'm thinking we'll aim to get together Friday early evening for some karting action at Action500 (I'll give an awesome prize to anybody who can beat me on the track.. I'm fastttt), followed by food and drinks someplace. Then on Sunday, maybe after the race we'll make our way over to the Casino and hit up one of those delicious F1 weekend buffets (for the sake of Fitness Month, everybody will have to keep me from over indulging). Again, stay tuned for details - more to come. Fingers crossed Montreal can somehow make the Stanley Cup finals. It would be EPIC to be in Montreal during an F1 / Stanley Cup weekend.
  • Buh Buh Buh BlackBerry - Between the announcement of Project Ion and BlackBerry's decision to allow BlackBerry phones be managed by other mobile device management solutions, we're really starting to see an evolution to the company we've been following for so many years. Last year it was all about gunning for BlackBerry's comeback. The thing with that notion though is that it implies BlackBerry is making a comeback in the same game. That they were down and needed to score a bunch of goals. As 2014 continues to roll on, it's becoming very clear that it's no longer about a BlackBerry comeback, but about BlackBerry changing up their tactics to play a whole new game. I like that strategy. Change is good.
  • Forums Help - Looking for a little help from the community on this forum thread. Let's see your answers!

Ok, that's it for this one. Keep it locked to CrackBerry. It's going to be a fun week.

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