Philly Beer Week is here and Yes: There IS an app for that!

My weekly calendar here will be on hold for the next two weeks as most of what is going on around Philadelphia is on the official Philly Beer Week Calendar. There are, obviously, a few other things happening that are not on the PBW Calendar, and you can find most of them over on my monthly Calendar of Events. Here's a quick rundown of what's on my mind in terms of Philly Beer Week 2010, now that it is finally upon us. I was going to follow the same template as last year in terms of giving you day-by-day rundowns of what's going on and what I do, but that may not pan out this year. We shall see how it develops over the next week and a half. ~ the iPhone app has finally been released. It's living up to almost every spec I laid out for it last year. I'm a huge smartphone fan and believer that it's one of the most siginificant advances in personal technology in recent years; so I'm obviously thrilled to see PBW embrace it. I'd tell you specifically what I like about it, but Adam at BB2 has hit on most of the salient points. Plus, I haven't linked to him in a while...two missions accomplished :) ~ there's a lot more going on during Opening Tap (looks like tickets are still available) on the first Friday than ever before. That's a good thing for those looking for PAYG-type events on Opening Night. ~ The Hammer of Glory tour looks pretty damn cool. Wonder how many people are taking off work in the afternoon to join in? ~ I've created my own personal priority list each day for both a suburban-based agenda and a city-based agenda, so that I can react to what I feel like doing each day as they come. But, I already know with the busy-ness of life in June, I'll be doing significantly less than in either of the past two years. ~ Busy-ness includes things as mundane as house, lawn, and garden work. I'm hoping Mother Nature will cooperate tomorrow so that I can get the mowing and trimming, etc. done before the weekend hits. But, unless there's a drought, I'll be back at these chores again during the next week. ~ in the past two years, I've had my 10 days of PBW fairly well planned out ahead of time, knowing what I'd like to do each day, knowing which days I was definitely going to do things, which one or two days I was taking off, and allowing for some flexibility for those "things that come up/calls and texts that you get along the way." ~ this year, so far I only know for certain that I'm going to the Monk's lambic dinner on Tuesday, Beer Geek Finals in Manayunk on Thursday, and my running event at Dock Street on the last Sunday (there's a cookout and live music afterwards---you don't need to be a runner to show up at Dock Street) ~ there are two big homebrewing events (at Jose Pistolas and at Varga); I'd love to make it to one of them. ~ did I mention that I'm a judge at the Philly Beer Geek Finals? jury too :) ~ so, for those of you have asked, my calendar still has barely been set in pencil ~ a primary reason I can't really nail down a preference for what to do otherwise is that I've convinced myself that a list of 1000 events is too many....I've heard many others say the same ~ which reminds me of a couple of PBW "principals" who mentioned after PBW 2008 (when there were merely a couple of hundred events scheduled), that 200 events were too many and that in future years they should concentrate on quality and not quantity...even if it meant less than 100 events ~ I wonder how many smaller events will suffer because there are only so many attendees to be spread across, say for example, 140 events on Wednesday? ~ Which leads me to a question I've raised in each of the past years: What constitutes an "event"? and, How is "success" defined? ~ Needless to say, once all of the kvetching is done and we get our collective PBW's on, there will be plenty of stories to be told and urban folklore to create. I, for one, can't wait to finally get this thing started! What are YOU doing? Will I see you along the way? HAPPY PHILLY BEER WEEK 2010!