WISHLIST 2012 Posted on 11/20/12 at 4:15PM
[ mandlar ]

I’ve simplified my birthday/Christmas list this year by using Amazon’s wishlist service. You can find my list here.

WISHLIST 2011 Posted on 12/06/11 at 1:02AM
[ mandlar ]

Here’s my annual birthday/Christmas wishlist. In no particular order.

Xbox 360 games:

• Deus Ex: Human Revolution (~$35)
• Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2 (~$20)
• LA Noire (~$20)
• Red Dead Redemption (~$50)

Books:

• Neverwinter by RA Salvatore
• These can be used:
  • Code Complete 2
  • The Mythical Man-Month
  • I have a list of a bunch of WW2/Europe history books if anyone needs more ideas

Other:

• Running shirts or other running gear (more socks or winter gear, such as wind breaker, running pants, etc.)
• UNC shirts, etc.
• a new Firefox shirt?  Android shirts?
• polo shirts for work
• giftcards
• Galaxy Nexus accessories (if it ever will release, won’t know accessories until after Dec 9, maybe)
• Any sort of French stuff, children/young adult reading level, videos, etc.

WISHLIST Posted on 11/21/10 at 1:46PM
[ mandlar ]

Since I’ve been asked to make a wishlist for my birthday/Christmas, here it is.  Nothing is really in any sort of particular order.  I listed cheaper games separately because I’m fine with getting more of older, cheaper games, than one or two newer games.  Prices fluctuate a lot, so be sure to actually check out the links.

Xbox 360 games:

• Rock Band 3 (Need Keytar too)
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (~$40)
• Fable III (~$55)
• Red Dead Redemption (~$40)
• Star Wars: Force Unleashed 2 (~$60)
• Medal Of Honor (~$50)
• Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (~$60)

CHEAP Xbox 360 games:

• Green Day: Rock Band (~$35)
• Assassins Creed 1 (~$20)
• Assassins Creed 2 (~$20)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum (~$30)
• Mass Effect 1 (~$20)
• Mass Effect 2 (~$20)
• BioShock 1 (~$20)
• BioShock 2 (~$25)
• Borderlands (~$30)

Books:

• Gauntlgrym by RA Salvatore
• These can be used:
  • My Century by Gunter Grass
  • Code Complete 2
  • Peeling the Onion by Gunter Grass
  • The Mythical Man-Month
  • The Pragmatic Programmer
  • I have a list of a bunch of WW2/Europe history books if anyone needs more ideas

Other:

• UNC shirts, etc.
• a new Firefox shirt?  Android shirts?
• polo shirts for work
• giftcards

BOWMAN GRAY STADIUM RADIO FREQUENCIES FOR DRIVERS Posted on 08/26/10 at 8:01PM
[ mandlar ]

My brother, his wife and I have been going to a lot of Bowman Gray Races this year.  Towards the end of the season, he started using his scanner to pick up on the chatter that the drivers and their spotters were having during the races.  So I ordered myself a scanner too, a Uniden BC72XLT, which has an awesome close call capture feature that will pick up radio frequencies within about line of sight distance.  That feature alone beats scanning a frequency range if you are close enough to the action.

We’ve started compiling a list of drivers and their frequencies in a Google document that you can find here: http://www.bowmangrayfrequencies.com which is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.  That means you can use it, share it, do whatever you want with it so long as you attribute Scott Denny and don’t sell it.

You can also find my bank setup for my scanner here: http://bit.ly/BryansScanner which includes local radio frequencies for Stokes, Surry and Forsyth county, as well as the frequencies of the  Bowman Gray drivers broken down by both banks and sorted by driver number.  The spread sheet document is separated into three separate sheets called Local (banks for Stokes, Surry and Forsyth), Bowman Gray (banks for Officials, Stadium Stock, Street Stock, Sportsman, my favorites, and Modifieds) and Drivers (list of drivers and their frequencies sort by their car number for quick look-ups at the track).  My spread sheet document is also licensed under the same Creative Commons license.

A NEW CHAPTER Posted on 02/06/10 at 11:59AM
[ mandlar ]

The past five months for myself have been not quite what I would have predicted when I graduated from college in May.  I never would have expected the unexpected nor would I have ever imagined I would be where I am right now. Roads diverge apart, converge with new ones, and sometimes simply cross with others briefly in this life of complexities that we live in.

The beginning of adulthood is also a challenging endeavor. In society today we are pampered up to and through high school all the way to college and beyond. College teaches you partial freedom in that you are living on your own with your own responsibilities, but you are still tucked safely under the wings of your parents if things get too tough. And post-college it is difficult to leave that sanctuary. When do you take the first big step in the direction of your own choosing? It is a question I often ponder but am not nearly ready to answer. I do not know what to expect or to do next as I have already established a good foundation of a college degree and stable job. I am also steadily approaching my one year goal of paying off my college debt (or at least the part that is in my name; my parents also share a fair amount).  What goals in life do I want?

Stability and happiness.  Those are good goals, right?

But sometimes those goals are challenged by difficulties. And September was quite a difficult month for me. And it felt like it was never ending (wake me up when September ends). I will not say much here other than Rebekah and I went our separate ways and the rest is water under the bridge. I hope she finds what she is looking for.

Despite going through life’s difficulties, I know that giving up on life is never the answer. Everything happens for some reason or other. I will continue onward and learn from it, hence my mantra “We learn from our past in order to be better prepared for our future.” Throwing it all away is a waste when it can be resolved through time and understanding. There is so much to learn about life, so many questions to ask and even more answers yet to be discovered.

The spontaneity of life is also amazing. Through it I have met Shannon and we both cannot describe exactly how we have become “stuck” together. I have known about Shannon for quite some time as she was the ever elusive friend of Steven that I always heard about but never knew much about. We started randomly talking in December and one thing led to another and now here we are. I never would have been able to predict this, but I would not have it changed in the slightest.

I was not happy five months ago, but I am happy now. I do not know where this road is going, but when have I ever known that?

WISHLIST Posted on 11/29/09 at 4:00PM
[ mandlar ]

Since I’ve been asked to make a wishlist for my birthday/Christmas, here it is:

Xbox 360 games:

• Dragon Age: Origins
• RockBand Beatles (disc only)
• Batman: Arkham Asylum
• Assassins Creed 1
• Assassins Creed 2
• Left 4 Dead 2
• Gears of War 2
• Lego Rock Band (disc only)
• Borderlands

Wii games:

• Wii Fit 2 (disc only)

Nintendo DS games:

• Final Fantasy IV

Books:

• The Ghost King by RA Salvatore
• These can be used:
  • Professional Android Application Development
  • Hello Android
  • My Century by Gunter Grass
  • Prague in Black by Chad Bryant (one of my history profs)
  • Code Complete 2
  • Peeling the Onion by Gunter Grass
  • The Mythical Man-Month
  • The Pragmatic Programmer
  • I have a list of a bunch of WW2/Europe history books if anyone needs more ideas

DROID accessories:

• Car Dock
• Car Charger (may come with Car Dock?)
• Battery Charger
• Belt-clip case?  Non-magnet kind.
  • Pro-tip: use promo code ACC20 if you buy from Verizon online for 20% off

Other:

• UNC shirts, etc.
• a new Firefox shirt?
• polo shirts
• giftcards

I LOST MY PRICELESS GEM Posted on 09/20/09 at 4:56PM
[ mandlar ]

Today I lost what I love more than anything in the entire world.  I lost my priceless gem.  I’m heartbroken.

FAMILY TREE AND GENEALOGY Posted on 08/09/09 at 3:27PM
[ mandlar ]

Sorry for the lack of updates recently, but I’ve been busy working on a new project in my spare time: my family tree!

I’ve only currently been working on the McHone side of my family, but you can see what all I have here.  I’m still gathering information about the rest of my family.  Feel free to share any information I might be missing.

SOCIAL NETWORKING: TWITTER AND .NET Posted on 07/01/09 at 10:30PM
[ mandlar ]

I’ve recently become quite an addict of Twitter.  I just really seem to prefer it a hundred times more than Facebook, and you can see this preference when you compare the number of status updates I post to Twitter and Facebook.

Many people just don’t seem to “get” Twitter, especially when compared to something like Facebook.  They might say why use Twitter when Facebook does the same and more?  What they don’t really realize is that Facebook has actually been evolving over time to be more and more like Twitter.

Another high point about Twitter is that all relationships between people are asymmetrical: You can follow me, but I do not have to follow you (Facebook Page’s replicated this relationship).  This enables thousands of peons to follow their favorite celebrity, but the celebrity does not have to follow them back (yet some do, such as Collective Soul).

But at the same time, both of these services are needed in today’s world of Social Networking.  Although they both do similar things, they each have their own feel and vibe.  Facebook’s focus is on closed social groups:  You, your friends, your family, etc.  Facebook originated essentially as a contact book between friends.  Sharing photos on Facebook, in my opinion, was probably the best promotion of the service.  Unlimited photo uploads (side note: 200 photo albums now!) plus tagging of friends gave users another reason to keep coming back and checking regularly.  Facebook chat gave another means of communication beyond wall posts and status updates.  Applications expanded the possibilities immensely (but suddenly gave the feeling of a new MySpace era — and I absolutely hate MySpace).

Twitter’s focus is the best part about it: how public and open it is.  And here is where I turn to my main point, from the view of a developer: Twitter’s API is ridicuolously easy to access, whereas Facebook’s API requires a few more hoops to jump through even to do something simple like access your own Status updates to put on your webpage (which I managed to find a work-around for).

Here is an example using one of Twitter’s many API libraries called Twitterizer for C# .NET 2.0:

1
2

Twitter t = new Twitter(UserName, Password);
t.Status.Update(UpdateString);

So simple that it requires but only two lines of code!

However, since my last post on how to get a Facebook Status, some changes have been made to the Facebook API in February to make things a bit more simpler to update/get a status.  And not only that, but Facebook is additionally opening up to the idea of allowing people to post public status updates like Twitter.  Since Facebook failed to buyout Twitter, it surely seems like they are trying to keep their edge on the competition against them.

And of course: I, for one, welcome my new Social Networking overlords!

POST-GRADUATION Posted on 06/16/09 at 11:41PM
[ mandlar ]

 A lot has happened since I’ve donned my Carolina blue cap and gown.  (And just in case you missed any pictures, you can find mine here and my brother’s here).  And for those of you who skim, I even included pictures!

A Day at the Zoo with Gracie!

I went to the NC Zoo with Gracie, Rebekah, Courtney and Devin.  I took a lot of photos.

I graduated from UNC

Which I’ve already written about.

Carolina Beach with Bekah

Rebekah and I went to Carolina beach for a couple of days.  Although the ocean water was freezing, we still had a blast.  A few key points were going to the NC Battleship, adventuring to the rock wall at Fort Fisher, visiting Kure Beach Pier, exploring the local park and its inhabitants, watching beautiful sunrises over the ocean water, and eating at Granny’s Country Kitchen.  Sadly, it rained on the last day and we were unable to go to the NC Aquarium because apparently everyone else had the same idea (there was absolutely no where to park).  Again, I took a lot of photos.

Family Graduation Party

My wonderful mom put together an awesome family/friend graduation party at my house.  There was a lot of good food, fellowship, and even some RockBand.  My brother also took some pictures of the happening.  Perhaps the best (and cutest) part of the whole event was watching Gracie and Landyn playing together for the first time.

I started work for the rest of my life

As of May 18th, I am officially an employee of SouthData, Inc which is located in Mt. Airy, NC.  My official title is Programmer, but I pretty much only deal with web related projects.  I’m already quiet familiar the place and job since I interned there this past summer and Christmas breaks.  I’m really excited about having the opportunity to work there and consider myself quiet lucky/blessed to have a job straight out of college, especially since I know so many people from UNC that are still seeking employment.  The primary technologies that I deal with there are C#, .Net, SQL, and Javascript/JQuery.  And if you are familiar with any of these technologies (and have a B.S. in Computer Science or similar), then you should apply for a position as a programmer at SouthData.  We just had a couple of positions open up and you can find more info about them here.

I moved the site to GoDaddy.com

I finally moved off my CS department’s webserver and moved my website to GoDaddy.  So far, so good.  My only complaint would be the initial time it takes for them to setup your webserver (which really isn’t a big complaint).  Beyond that, their service has been good and I’ve pretty much been able to figure out everything myself (even their DNS).  I bought a Windows server in case I ever want to program anything in Asp.net since I’m familiar with the technology at work.

Landyn’s 2nd Birthday

My nephew Landyn turned the big 2 on June 1st.  There was a birthday party at his house this year (with yours truly as camera man again) and of course there were plenty of pictures taken (and from my brother and some from before).

Ear problems: pre- and post- graduation

I’ve been having some ear issues lately.  Before/during final exam I went to student health when my right ear was getting clogged up and aching to the point that I had difficulty sleeping.  After getting drugged up I thought I got better, but in reality the same symptoms came back in about a month.  After more medication I”m better again, hopefully permanently this time.  Not having health insurance sucks…  Unfortunately I have none until I’ve worked for 90 days.

Swimming + Sun = Scorched

Last weekend Rebekah and I went to Tom’s house (her mother’s boyfriend’s house) to go swimming in his very nice outside, underground pool.  The end result?  Bryan received a significant amount of sunburn.  The sunburn didn’t really hurt as much as it itched.   And never in my life have I ever itched so much.  Even worse is the fact that you can’t scratch it as it’ll only make the itching worse.  That was probably the worst part of the whole sunburn endeavor.

Dog Bite

Friday, when I came home from work, I exited out of my car, and walked up the steps of my sidewalk, heading to the front door of my house, when my neighbor’s (across the street) dogs ran across the road from their yard into my yard yelping and chasing after me.  This was not a first time experience with these dogs as they very often do this when I come home and have done so for at least the past couple of years. What was unique, however, was the fact that one of the dogs actually bit me.  Not once, but twice.  The first time she nipped at my right calf, and the second time she actually sunk her teeth into my left calf.  My dad saw this happen and he came out of the house and chased the dogs out of our yard.  I ended up going to J. R. Jones emergency room to get the bites checked out (thankfully nothing serious) and had animal control notified of the event.  Not surprisingly, this wasn’t the first time the dog has bit someone (it bit the pizza man about 6 months ago or so).  And remember the fact that I don’t have health insurance yet?  Yeah, you can guess who I expect to pay for the bills for the incident.  You can see what damage the dog did here.  Thankfully I was wearing my work pants (which were ripped by her teeth), or else the damage would have been much worse.

Conclusion

I’ve had a pretty rough month with the ear pains, sunburn, and dog bites.  Nevertheless, I’m still keeping my head up and looking forward to what is coming at me now as a “Oh no, I’m really an all-grown-up adult now!”  I hope to put these few incidents behind and start getting on with the important stuff.

Just remember: “You just have to decide if you’re a Tigger or an Eeyore” (Randy Pausch).  I plan on being a Tigger.