Since I rarely post to this blog. I thought I would compile all the things I did for a given week or  month (or several months) into its own post I’m calling “What’s UP Bryan?”. We’ll see how this turns out.

NEW HOUSE

As you might have seen from a previous article back in April, we were in the process of looking for a new house. It seems we are now a victim of the bad economy. The house appraised too low, like $12,ooo too low. So the seller and I didn’t agree to make up the difference so we walked away from the deal.   Sarah and I were really upset and shaken up by the whole ordeal. We thought we found a house we really liked but that house wasn’t meant for us, so we brushed off and tried again. We did alot of searching before we settled on the second house offer. This time I’m happy to say that the house we are getting  appraised higher than the asking price and we are moving in on June 26th! This house is even better than the first. Its alot bigger and in a better area of town. We are super excited to get this house and can’t wait to move in.

PODCAST

Right now I’m in the preliminary stages of planning a podcast with some friends. I’m still researching the equipment and technology I’ll be using to record the podcast and piecing together   ideas for content. There are a lot of things that I’m interested in and its hard to nail down one subject or a couple of subjects. I guess that’s the problem with being interested in a little bit of everything from technology to social networks to pop culture. I’m open to ideas so suggest away!

I ordered a Blue Snowball USB Microphone which I heard is a good starter mic for podcasts. I can’t wait to get it and test it out.  My friend and co-worker Rob will be the co-host of the podcast. We still have to find our hook or what’s gonna separate use from the 15 million other podcasts out there. We both agree that we want our show to be orginal and different and there lies our dillema. Expect to hear more about this in the coming month.

DRUPAL

My other side project is to learn a Content Management System or CMS for short called Drupal. Drupal is a very robust content system that is built on PHP. I hope to use this system to help start a side business of creating websites for local businesses in the area. My first “job” or project is redesigning a local museum’s website. The museum is a Non-Profit organization so I am doing the job for free to get some experience and also to get my name out there. They are very understanding of the fact that I am new to web design and for that I am grateful. I hope to design the site in such a way that it is easy for them to use but still pleasing to the eyes  (I guess that’s the creed of all designers). I’ll keep tabs here on my progress.

new haircut

Originally uploaded by bryansayscom

It’s summer time. The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, kids are out of school, and Bryan is ready for a change. Thought I would kick off the summer with a new haircut.

Bought me some clippers at target and went to town. Sarah helped me cut the back but I might try doing it all myself next time. What do you guys think? Am I crazy for doing it or does it good better? Leave a comment and let me know.

We have been looking for a house to purchase in Beaumont since we moved down here back in November 08. We are almost done, just playing the waiting game now on financing and paperwork. The house is really nice. Its got a clean look and feel to it. It has all the features that Sarah and I were looking for, minus a 2 car garage for me :(

We must have looked at 20+ houses before we settled on this one. We found the house early on but wanted to see if anything was better or cheaper. There wasn’t anything better in our price range, with the features we wanted.  Since we have animals, we like hardwood floors, so that was a requirement. It also needed a nice size backyard for our dog Siena and so Sarah can plant some flowers. We also wanted to have a house that wasn’t a “fixer-upper.” I am ok with minor repairs here and there but I’m far from being a handyman. This house is a 3 bedroom so we have our guest bedroom and an office for me. I think it will be a nice fit for us.

Our closing date is scheduled for May 22nd.  Hopefully everything will go well.  I will keep everyone posted.

Check out the slideshow below if you want to see more pics.

I’m so fickle! Decided to change my WordPress theme once again. The last theme was pretty whimsical but very inflexible for making changes. I think the look and feel of this theme much better:

• It has a very slick featured content area
• It auto crops images I want to use for thumbnails
• It has built in areas for advertising
• Integrates into feedburner’s subscribe to RSS by email
• Twitter integration to show my most recent tweet
• Adsense ready
• Tabbed Sidebar

The theme is called Magaling and created Padd IT Solutions. I highly recommend it.

So what does everyone think about the theme? Good? Bad? Just Average. What’s missing and what needs improvement? Just let me know by leaving a comment on this post or use the contact page and send me an email.

No its not the DVD in the picture. On twitter @iheartmovies posted a contest for a copy of “The Lucky Ones” yet to be released DVD.  All you had to do was post picture of yourself hugging/kissing/whatevering your favorite move and add it to their flickr group. I scoped out the competition and thought I can one up this, so I dusted off my DVD collection, found one of my favorites and I was ready to go.

I need to say that I didn’t win the contest but I was runner-up and still won a DVD of Hulk Vs.Thor. Contest results page.

If you saw in a previous post, I have moved away from big city lights of the Dallas Texas Area to the small town of Lumberton Texas. I have been here for a little over 2 months now and I needed something to connect me with this new area and the people in it. I looked around online for organizations like I frequented in Dallas, similar to the DFW WordPress Group and nothing really popped out at me. Well I happened to see someone post on twitter about a Tweetups in different areas of the country and thought that would be something interesting to bring to the SE Texas area.

What is a Tweetup?

Another blogger sums it up best on his blog:

The Tweetup is when the digital turns into face-to-face, 140 characters into a meaningful conversation, a recognizable position on a blog into an ability to listen.

Who came to the Tweetup?

We had a total of 6 people in attendance. We even had a reporter from the local newspaper; Humberto Martinez, who was there working on a story about how people in the area use twitter.

What did we talk about?

Yes we did talk Tech, but that is not all we talked about. The discussions varied in scope and size. We talked about our favorite TV Shows, local restaurants in the area, and what we do with our free time. I asked those in attendance if there was anything else like this and they all pretty much said no. I felt fortunate to be starting something new and fresh in the area.

What’s Next?

I hope to have another Tweetup in a month’s time. I don’t know if I will have it at the same location or not. I will bring it up to the twitter verse and see what they think. I would like to try different locations around South East Texas so we can get a variety of people involved and also so I learn more about the area I live in now.

Below are pictures of the news article Humberto Martinez wrote for the Beaumont Enterprise.

Online Version of the News Article

To join the South East Texas Tweetup just follow @Setxtweetup on Twitter. I’ll post updates via twitter as they come in.

Thanks to Justin Yarbourgh for the pics. He runs a blog of his own at http://www.jrtblog.com/

Happy Holidays Everyone! I hope everyone is enjoying the season. I am going to my in-laws this year. Since we moved so much further south, we can only make it to see one set of parents. Next year its my folks. Still getting used to the new area we live in now. You don’t know how much you will miss a place until its taken away from you. It will be nice to see friends and family.

Here is a video that is sure to get a laugh. One my college buddies put it together. The fives elves are (clockwise from the top-left) Ljupco, Brian, Bryan, Igor, and John. We all lived in the same dorm in college:

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Ok this wasn’t a total original idea but it is a cool one. Saw this post on Veronica Belmont’s blog and had to give it a shot. The rules of the Sixth Photo Meme are these:

“It works like this: if you use Flickr, go to the sixth page of your photostream and pick the sixth picture there, then post it to your blog.”

My Sixth Photo is one of my wife, Sarah outside of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth,TX. I know its not obscure and jarring like Veronica’s Shrunken Heads but its a good one.

Now for the second part of the meme. I get to tag 6 lucky friends to carry on the meme on their blogs! This was actually harder than it looks. It took me a while to find 6 friends who have a blog and use flickr. Tough crowd. So…. John Bandy, Tamara Farley, Kathleen Ratliff, Marc Weintraub, Mike Hedge, and Ben Dyer its all up to you to pass the torch!

Click for Full Image

We have finally started to settle in to our new place after our little fight with the neighbors (see the cartoon above). All of our neighbors are elderly people who are perfectly happy living next to other old people but I don’t think they care too much for us younger folk. I pissed off my next door neighbor because I parked my Uhaul truck in the grass. I calmly explained to the man that there was no other place to park the truck. His response was “Why did you bring such a big truck!” I wanted to pop him right in his dentures. He then threatened me with legal recourse if I didn’t move it soon. I love how instead of calmly talking over the issue he went straight to the legal route.

After he hobbled back to his house I continued to unpack the truck in the grass.