Christmas

What a great time of year.

This holiday is about friends, family, and the spirit of giving. It is not a religious holiday for me at all. Tim Minchin's feelings towards Christmas is quite similar to mine. Check out his Christmas Song.

I grew up with all the Christian holidays and have grown to enjoy the time spent with others I care about.

I always looked forward to going to the tree farm finding and cutting our tree down then getting peanut butter fudge, hot chocolate, and hot dogs. It always seemed to rain or snow on that day. Putting up the tree and decorating it was just as fun, while listening to holiday tunes with the smell of orange peels and cinnamon in the air.

The best is Christmas Eve night when the Bryan family gathers to partake in eating, sharing tales from the year, and exchanging gifts. How I love seeing my aunts, uncles, mom-moms, pop-pops, cousins, and friends.

So, in conclusion Christmas can be meaningful and worthwhile with all religious stuff.

(side note: article on santa claus)

Role Models: My Parents

I have had many role models in my life that helped shape me into the person I am today. These individuals gave me the confidence and knowledge that I needed to have success in my life (no matter how small the success).

My Parents

The most prevalent lesson my parents instilled in me was independence. My parents only did the essentials for my brothers and I. My brothers and I had freedom to explore and do what we wanted if we were not hurting anybody or breaking anything. My parents also forced use to do things for ourselves. It is the little things that helped mold me into the person I am today.

My mother taught me the finer things.

• How to clean myself up (for school dances, interviews, etc.)
• The art of wearing cologne
  
• Fine dining
  
• Cooking
• Appreciation of food both domestic and exotic
• How not to spell
  

My father taught me the practicals and helped lead me to my future career.

• Showed me the fun of building things (wood work, computers, anything)
• How to do whatever it takes to provide for your family
  
• The fun of computers (my career)
• Being the strong quiet type
• How to give back to your family and community
  
• How not to type using a keyboard

My mother and father were very supportive and encouraging in all aspects of my life. I am always learning something new from my parents and I am very thankful for them.

Related posts to come: coaches, teachers, professionals and others.

Ada

Welcome the newest addition to our family Ada aka the whirling dervish. She is a husky/sheppard mix with ghost grey on her back, white chest and face, and tan feet. She is about 13 pounds and 12 weeks old.

Ada is doing great but I am a little worried about Haley. Haley is quite a dominant aggressive female, so we have a lot of work to do.

Luckily my brother, Jason, is staying with us for the summer and he will be a great help.

Her hobbies include licking faces and biting beards.
















Live long and prosper.

Rant: Perfume and Cologne

The following is a bit of a rant.

You know what really grinds my gears...people that use excessive amounts of perfume and cologne.

Perfume and cologne should not be used to cover smells or hide the fact that you are unhygienic. Showers, deodorant, and antiperspirant are used to clean and dispose of smells.

The purpose of these fragrances is seduction.

A fragrance should be found or discovered when dancing in each others arms, walking hand-in-hand, or laying under the sky while star gazing.

Perfumes and colognes should NOT be broadcasted 20 feet in every direction and leave a cloud of stench in your trail.

There are two main culprits to this horrible action as I see it:

1. Older Women (mostly over the age of 55)
2. Males between the age of 14 and 26

Older women tend to do this because they are so use to the perfume that their nose has grown accustom to the smell. So like a drug addict they need more and more to get that same radiating fumes.

The males between the age of 14 to 26 have been bombarded with advertising by Tag and Axe. These ads tell them to spray their entire bodies with some odor and the opposite sex will be drawn to them like zombies to fresh brains.

My mother gave me this advice originally before a high school and now I am passing it to everyone else in hope that in this fast paced, sex crazed culture we can bring back some of the old time romanticism.

Berek's New Twitter

I started a twitter account today.

It will be a mix of my software development thoughts and ny personal life happenings.

So it will include my thoughts on family, religion, politics, software, personal development, home improvement, and etc. Basically everything that I am interested in.

TWITTER HOMEPAGE

I hope that you will share this learning experience with me.

Our Relationship History

On this date 8 years ago, April 2, 2001, Krista and I began our relationship. Below is a brief history of important events in those 8 years.

January 2001
The first time Krista and I meet was in Foundations of Technology. Krista was a junior and I was a sophomore. The first group project had the two of us in the same group when we officially meet each other and slowly became acquaintances.

March 2001
Krista asks me to go to prom with her and a grudging say yes. She had to get her friend to ask me because she is a pansy.

April 2, 2001
I ask Krista if she wants to be my girlfriend over the phone because I am a pansy. She says yes and it all begins.

April 20, 2001
We go to prom together and have a great time.

Summer 2002
Krista graduates from Bohemia Manor High School and commits to Washington College. Washington College is approximately 30 to 35 minutes from my parents house.

Summer 2003
I graduate from Bohemia Manor High School and get accepted to Salisbury University for the spring semester. For the fall semester I attend Cecil Community College.

Spring 2004
I attend Salisbury University and Krista transfers to Salisbury University from Washington College.

November 11, 2006
I ask Krista to marry me at Ruth's Cris Steakhouse in Berlin, MD. She says yes.

December 2006
Krista graduates from Salisbury University.

May 2007
I graduate from Salisbury University.

August 2007
We both get our first real jobs. Krista as a Physical Therpy Aide at Pensulia Regional Medical Center and myself as a Software Developer at the NASA base in Wallops Island, VA.

September 11, 2008
We move into our first house located in Eden, Md.

October 4, 2008
We get married.

January 11, 2009
We start a family blog to allow our family and friends read and see what we are up to.

January 25, 2009
We add a new family member, Haley Jane Bryan.
Edit: Haley is our new puppy that we adopted.

This has been a brief history of the our relationship and how it has grown over the years. We look forward to creating many more memories in our journey.

New Thermostat

We have recently been having problems with our air handler breaker tripping. I did some research and I believe the issue is with temperature change wires can become loose and the connections can trip the breaker. However, I could not find any of the said loose wires, so we decided to install a new digital thermostat.

Since the install of the new thermostat our breaker has not tripped (even with temperatures dropping to the 20s at night and the 50s during the day). Our heat pump is also at the tail end of its expected life around 12 years.

We still need to setup the primary benefit of a digital thermostat, programming the temperature by what hour and day of the week it is. By having the thermostat set at a lower temperature while we are not home will save a lot of money.

So this is our second home improvement project we never got a chance to write about the new door handles and the paint on the bathroom doors. We will try to do this sometime soon.

First and Probably Last Big Snow of the Year

We finally had a good snow storm. We got about 4 or 5 inches and a day off work. Here are some of the activities of the day. We also went for a week through the icy neighborhood streets.

Haley Pictures

We have some new pictures of Haley. We also found out that she is around 12 months old and not 3 years. Enjoy the photos.

Her behavior is getting much better. We are looking to install a fence this spring to let her get some more exercise.

Poconos Camping

Krista's family and myself love the outdoors and camping.  We usually camp during the summer in comfortable conditions.  With shows like Surviorman and Man vs. Wild, we have all become very interesting in doing more survival type camping and hiking.  So to start our new hobby we went to KOA.

There was about six inches of snow and about 40 degrees Fahrenheit.  We had pretty much the whole campsite to ourselves and got to pick whatever site we wanted.

We did some sledding, setup camp, did some cooking, made torches, and sleep in the cold.  This trip was NOT very minimalist.  We are working up to it.  The next trip will be much more interesting in that aspect.  Photos are below.

We had a great time and look forward to more expeditions. 

Music Progression

As individuals or groups get older they tend to listen to more mellow music. This is a well known correlation and seems to hold fast in most cases.

My experience has been a little different up to this point in my life.

Middle school: Classic Rock
Early high school: Classic Rock, Rap, R&B
Late high school: Classic Rock, Country, Alternative Rock
College: Alternative and Metal
Twenties: Metal

As I have aged (like a fine wine) my music preferences have become heavier. I remember in high school I could not listen to Mudvayne for more then 30 seconds and now they are one of my favorite bands.

I still enjoy classic rock and alternative rock, however, I currently lean towards heavy and metal rock. I don't enjoy listening to rap music when I am at work programming or doing stuff around the house. I can only really enjoy it if I am at a wedding or some other large event.

Country music is a weird situation with me. I don't mind listening to country, but the stars need to be aligned for me to really enjoy it. Two things must be happening for me to enjoy country music warm weather and the right situation. The right situation is either an outdoor party (including horseshoes, a bonfire, a volleyball net, a pool, and/ or the most important a grill ) or in a car with the windows down.

The list below is what I am really enjoying right now (not in any particular order).

My Hot list of bands:

1. Killswitch Engage
2. Bullet For My Valentine
3. Mudvayne
4. Pantera
5. Five Finger Death Punch
6. Atreyu
7. Disturbed
   

I will always have a place in my heart for the following bands. These bands I have always listened too and will continue to listen to as long as I live.

All-Timers (not in any particular order):

1. Tool
2. Perfect Circle
3. Rush
4. Pink Floyd
5. Metallica

I am very curious to see how my taste in music evolves through the years.

Long Term Goals

Everybody says you need goes in your life, so recently I have been trying to figure out what my goals are and/or should be.

Goals

1. Provide my children with an education. I want my kids to start adulthood with little to no debt. My parents did not go to college after high school. They worked very hard and were able to afford to put three sons in college. We (the sons) will all have student loan debt and I can not be more thankful to my parents for giving me the opportunity to obtain a college degree. Without them I probably would not have a degree right now. However, now I want to one-up my parents.
2. Start and build a software company. I want to run a company and run things how I think they should be run. This is currently in-progress, updates to come.
3. Do everything in my power to allow my wife and children to do what they love to do and give them opportunities to figure out exactly what that is.
   
4. Be more active in the community. This would be volunteering with an already established company, creating my own, or finding others ways to help where it is needed.
5. See more of the world, solar system, and universe with the ones I care about and share those experiences with everyone.

These goals are all over the place and in the future I will try to narrow my goals into different categories. Hope you enjoy these and realize that it is not about you, it is about the people you care about and giving them your all and everything they deserve.

Haley

We would like to welcome our newest family member Haley.

We have been trying to adopt a dog for about three weeks now. We put in applications at four shelters and talked to an addition three shelters (without submitting in applications).

We got Haley from Paws For Life in Chesapeake City, Maryland. Ginny is the lady that runs the shelter and she was very helpful and nice throughout the whole process.

Haley is a female Golden Retriever mix and medium in size (smaller than a Labrador Retriever). She has a very soft and full golden coat. It seems that she recently had a litter and was spayed.

Haley is very loving and playful. She has become attached to both of use already. I go outside to fill the bird feeder and she started whining and she did the same thing when Krista had to get something out of the car. She does not seem to like toys very much but she loves rolling around on the floor and running around.

We love her already and look forward to spending endless hours together.

Gear Heads

For Christmas Krista got me the latest installment of the Gears of War franchise. We had played and beat the first one together and this one was no different.

Krista was again scared of the monsters, always asked dumb questions over and over again, and complained about one aspect of the game or the other. However, we had a great time having fun together playing a violent video game.

The basic plot of the Gears of War games is aliens are trying to take over and you have to kill them all. So Marcus and his squad of Baird, Cole, and Dom set out to rid the world of these monsters.

We had to use teamwork and communication to vanquish our enemies. This of course lead to arguing, but was resolved once the next wave of attacks began to break upon us. We spent a lot of quality time together as newly weds and have a blast sniping Locust from afar. Krista even knew to wait till the end of the credits before turning off the game knowing that there is always a little extra.

After being together since I was 15 and her 16, I think I am finally turning her into a geek. She is now part of a sewing circle (that is more old lady then geek but I will take it), she owns a shirt from Jinx (pictures at later date), plays video games with her husband, knows to download and install OpenOffice 3 when Microsoft Office was not on the computer, and of course married a geek.

Sorry quick side track. I have to emphasis the point that Microsoft Office was NOT installed on our home machine. Instead of complaining to me to fix the dumb computer, she downloaded and installed a free and open source alternative. I was so proud of her, it brought a tear to my eye.

Back to the point. In Cesar and Casey's latest blog entry they mention that they received a Wii fit for Christmas and love it. Based on our experiences with video games and testimonies from others (Cesar and Casey and pretty much all of my friends) it seems that video games can be a great way to spend time with your family and friends.

So I encourage people to try those new "party" games and enjoy the company of the ones you care about. I look forward to sharing more video game time with Krista and my extended "family" in the future.

Sorry in advanced for all pwnage.

The Idea

Here starts the documentation of our family.

Current Family Members:
Willard Grafton Bryan IV aka Berek 23 years old
Krista Mary Bryan 24 years old

Current Quarters:
4938 Lords Creek Drive
Eden, Maryland 21822

The Idea:
We sort of stole this idea from Krista's cousin Casey and her husband Cesar. They have their own family blog called Cesar and Casey. So I would like to thank them for their idea.

Into the future:
We plan on posting at least once a week about our life including plans for the future, house projects, events, parties, fitness, trips, and everything we enjoy doing.

Our Goal:
Our goal is to allow our family and friends to keep in touch and to have a way to look back on our past experience. Someday maybe our kids can look at this blog and say:

Wow, my parents were kinda cool once!

So, off we go to enjoy life...