beingBrandon http://beingBrandon.com All about being me. (brandon) Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:16:56 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 Preparation. http://beingBrandon.com/posts/preparation/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/preparation/#comments Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:16:56 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=285 Today, I’m working late shift. 3-11pm. So I am currently in the middle of getting ready for tomorrow and the weekend. I’ll be heading down to the NFL Draft at Radio City Music Hall. I’m pretty excited, should be a fun experience. I’m being put up in a hotel room then have free reign to the city until the draft starts. So if you’re going to be in NYC at all this weekend, let me know! I’m in the process of creating a list of things to bring with me on the trip, since I’ll be there for a lil while, i gotta make sure I’m prepared. So far I’ve shaved, got a hair cut, picked out the clothes i’ll wear while at the draft, and put together my toiletries. Now I’m waiting for the laundry to finish so i can pack it all up. So yea,… you’re probably bored of reading this by now.. soo:

Follow the draft live here: http://scores.espn.go.com/nfl/draft/live

Tweet about it, facebook it up,.. tell all of your friends to go to that link ^ and watch the draft, please! Even if you don’t want to watch it,… just open the page, leave it open in the background,…

I’ll take some pictures and send them in here… if you’re bored check out the discover section and watch some videos!

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/preparation/feed/ 0 Silence is unexpected http://beingBrandon.com/posts/silence-is-unexpected/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/silence-is-unexpected/#comments Mon, 11 Apr 2011 23:36:39 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=277 I’ve always heard people say “just clear your mind” and I had thought i was able to do it before. But I was wrong. Today my mind went blank. But it wasn’t because i was trying to clear it or concentrate on something. I was just stuck on a thought. In the first stages of the thought,… so it hadn’t quite been established.
Lets try an explanation: a thought has a life cycle (for me atleast), phase 1: it’s triggered,.. phase 2: it’s established, phase 3: it concludes.
So I was stuck at phase 1,… It was a weird feeling… the thought never really got anywhere. And during this time, it felt like everything around me was all moving in slow motion, even all my movements. I was walking outside at this point, and even though everything was moving in slow motion,…. before i knew it I had walked from the gym to my car. It’s a very odd, yet calming feeling.
I started to wonder why this happened when it did. And i think it’s because I had one thought extremely prominent in my mind most of the afternoon. And that thought slowly took up the rest of my mind, until I had no room left for anything else… and BAM. It happened. Complete unexpected silence in my head. I didn’t really notice it at first (cause i wasn’t thinking) but then I did think about what just happened, how far i just walked with out thinking about a single thing around me,… I mean, I took everything in, I saw the side walk, the trees and everything, but I didn’t think about them. It’s a hard concept to understand. I digested the information that my eyes were seeing, but didn’t think about any of it.
And thats my tid bit for today. I’m gonna see if i can’t get back to that peacefulness.

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/silence-is-unexpected/feed/ 1 Redesigning Life http://beingBrandon.com/posts/redesigning-life/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/redesigning-life/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:36:16 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=267 I’ve been stuck in a ‘routine’ of laziness for the past year or so and it’s about time I snap out of it. I told myself that it’s time to rethink my life, but decided that didn’t sound right. That’s not what I want to do.  To me, rethinking life means figuring out where I want to go with my life, not what I’m looking to change. I’m pretty happy with where I have gotten in life and I don’t intend to change that. What I do want to change though is how I live my current life. I want to redesign my life. And I thought to myself: that sounds pretty cool,… Redesigning Life. It’s an interesting idea when you think about it. Since I’m a web developer, I started thinking of it in terms of redesigning a website. I’m keeping all the same content (job, apartment, friends, family) but I’m changing the style. I need to remove clutter, become more organized, and just make things simpler. Something I can take more pride in. I tried to think back when I had been the happiest and what my days were like then.

So I started thinking of the steps I need to take in order to be successful in this redesign. And here they are:

1. Define each separate part of my life I want to change.
- Each part should be very specific. If you’re not specific with each goal then you’re leaving more room for failure.
2. Organize and order each part defined in step 1 from easiest to hardest to execute.
- Some of these may be drastic changes. Best to get a couple easy changes done first.
3. Slowly execute each goal.
- Take your time between goals. Trying to do too many at once might just discourage you.

That’s it. Simple, right? I’m hoping so. I’m currently in this process. I’m jumping around a little bit as I think of other parts of my life I want to redesign. As long as I take it slow and start getting into the routine of each change, I’ll begin another part of the redesign.

Now I’ll give you an idea of what I’m trying to accomplish with this redesign…
1: Get rid of clutter!
- I’ve had bins that I’ve been dragging around while moving, so a couple weeks ago I went through 4 bins full of anything and everything. I was able to consolidate all of that down to 1 1/2 bins. The rest was just junk, things I thought to be sentimental, and other things that I had no idea why I had kept.
- I then decided to go through my clothes. I knew I had some clothes that I had replaced with newer clothes, but I still kept the oldies around. Some clothes were gifts I got that were just too small. So all of these went into a bag and straight to goodwill.
- Lastly, I needed to get rid of the every day clutter… the random items that get put on my desk and end up finding a home there, or things under my bed/in my closet that I had forgotten were even there. All of this stuff either found it’s correct place, or joined the junk I had found in my bins.

Result: So that was pretty easy. A good start to the redesign. Only took a day, and so far I’ve been able to stop collecting unnecessary items and keep my room and apartment pretty darn clean and organized.

2. Wake up earlier.
- When? I’m going to start waking up at least by 7:30am every day (yes, including weekends). I haven’t done this yet. Though I always wake up around that time on my own, but then go back to sleep after. 7:30am probably doesn’t sound too bad for most people out there, but when you don’t start work until 9:30 – 10ish (and live 5min away), then it’s pretty easy to be lazy and sleep past 9am.
- There is a huge sense of accomplishment I get when I do wake up early and do something with that time. Whether it be get a head start at work, work on my own stuff, get some errands done, or work out in the morning. I sometimes complain there isn’t enough time in the day,… but its because i sleep through most of it! So time to change that.

3. Get back to the gym.
- Now this one has been started thanks to my friend and co-worker Keith Lam. We started working out on Tuesday are just now starting a routine. Both of us are already extremely sore, but have been able to keep motivation and push eachother.
- Our plan is for Mon, Wed, Fri to be lifting days, while Tues + Thur are cardio. Then weekends you get to do whatever you please, if we want to just rest, thats fine, or we can do more cardio on our own.

4. Eat Healthier.
- This one is a bit tougher since it is kind of harder to define the specifics. I currently am in the progress of doing so, but right now I’m just trying to use common sense and will power to make sure I’m eating healthy.

And that is all i have right now. I’m really hoping this redesign sticks. I’ll try to keep this updated with my progress. Fingers crossed!

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/redesigning-life/feed/ 2 Re-thinking life. http://beingBrandon.com/posts/re-thinking-life/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/re-thinking-life/#comments Mon, 28 Mar 2011 02:57:15 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=245 So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately,… that doesn’t really tell you much, I do a lot of thinking all the time, so let me explain.
A lot of my time recently has been me contemplating where I’m at in life right now and I want to be. Am I really happy with everything I currently have? I’m not 100% sure that’s true. I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty of all this, but lets just say this,… my life outside of work has a lot of room to improve.
I own too much “stuff.” As my friends said when they came to visit this past weekend, I have a lot of gadgets. And its true,… I do have a lot of unnecessary gadgets. I used to have very little while in college and I’d say I was much happier then. When I step back and see the amount of “stuff” I have, its a little overwhelming. So over the past couple weeks and today I got rid of a bunch of “stuff.” I donated clothes, I threw out ridiculous things i was just hoarding for no good reason and my closet is starting to look a little more organized. Weird as it may be, I feel lighter myself. Though I still have more “stuff” I’d like to get rid of.
Now with all of this “stuff” gone, I’m left with just these “gadgets” as my friends put it.  Here’s an idea of what they’re talking about: iphone, ipad, mac mini, wii, xbox360, samsung led 46″, macbook pro(from work).  Now that’s just a quick version of the list.  I have gotten all this stuff over time,.. but a decent amount of these gadgets and electronic thingy-ma-bobbies have come over the past two years since i’ve been out of college and have had a job.  But this is just all a bunch of “stuff” still.  And I don’t need any more “stuff.”  What I need are experiences… take the money I would have spent on this stuff and travel.  Experience other cultures, other parts of the world, especially while I’m still young.  I read somewhere about this being the generation of “stuff” and I completely agree.  It’s so trendy now to have the newest tech gear, and I’m, unfortunately, one of those people who gets caught up in the hype and just enjoys new technology.  We need to realize that there is a lot more out there than just this “stuff” and go experience the wonders of the world instead of looking at them through google earth on the new ipad.
So with all of that said.  I’m putting a halt on my spending. But really, i don’t know of anything else that i need/want to buy, i have a lot of crap + more that i honestly didn’t need in the first place.  So now it’s just time to live.  Enjoy the free/simple things in life. Like 70 degree weather (please come!), playing sports with friends, having a bbq, driving to new areas and stopping just because something looks interesting.  Take some pictures, make some memories, and live.

That is phase 1.  phase 2 for next post.

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/re-thinking-life/feed/ 0 Tonight, tonight, tonight! http://beingBrandon.com/posts/tonight-tonight-tonight/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/tonight-tonight-tonight/#comments Tue, 22 Mar 2011 23:59:00 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=238 Soooo i’ve been thinking about doing some redesigning of this site. But a lot of my co-workers are big fans of the being brandon pose up to the top left there… so I may just do some type of face lift on this here blog. I do use word press… so it might be interesting to dive further into the code than i already have. also,.. I use Akismet, its great. I used to get flooded with stinkin’ spam comments allllll the time, but not any more. finally my inbox on this guy has quieted down.
But tonight, i will not be doing the redesign, maybe sometime I can sit down and work on it. Tonight though, i plan on picking the guitar back up for the first time in a while and just jamming away.
And tomorrow. I plan on jumping back onto the working out train that i fell off while cat sitting. I think i’ll start running again, and get some more use out of the nike+ app. I have some goals on that thingy-ma-jiggy that are ending soon, so hopefully i can achieve those and keep on rocking.

Now lets reflect….
This past weekend: I had a bunch of friends down. 9 people to be exact, + me = 10. So we played some basketball, played some flag football, some more basketball, then everyone was awfully tired… so we just sat around my apt they drank and played some games. I stayed prettay sober so i could regulate. which was good, because our downstairs neighbors decided we were too loud, but had the cops relay that information to me. Then things settled down and it was bed time. Good weekend.

I told you all last time that i had created a movie on iMovie on my new ipad,.. and well i was a bit hesitant to show everyone,… cause it’s a bit embarrassing. BUT OH WELL. Its about my time cat sitting…. her name is Lanolin, here ya go:


The song is You’ve Got the Love by Florence + the Machine

ta-da! now ridicule me in the comments.

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/tonight-tonight-tonight/feed/ 2 I got an iPad 2 toooo! http://beingBrandon.com/posts/i-got-an-ipad-2-toooo/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/i-got-an-ipad-2-toooo/#comments Wed, 16 Mar 2011 01:59:17 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/posts/i-got-an-ipad-2-toooo/ Yes it’s true. I did buy myself an iPad 2. Butttt I did not wait in line. I got it Saturday morning the day after it came out. I called around to a few places first to see if they had any, and there was a best buy in Meriden, CTthat still had a few. They only had the 32gb wifi ones in black, but that was the one i was shopping for,… success. and now I have got the word press app on here and I am writing this update from the iPad.
And now my review:
No complaints so far. The smart cover is reallllly cool on this. I did read about a light leakage issue, but I do not have the problem with my screen luckily.
This is my first iPad, so ive been trying out some apps. Top favs are: GarageBand, imovie, djay, and the daily. I’ve had a lot of fun trying out the djay app and playing around a recording some things with garage band. I’ve also created my first iMovie movie on here. Which was super easy.
Videos on here as extremely smooth, and the FaceTime app is nice. Pretty good video on the camera on back.
Anyways, that’s my iPad 2 take. Check ya later poopsicles.

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/i-got-an-ipad-2-toooo/feed/ 0 Wowzers http://beingBrandon.com/posts/wowzers/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/wowzers/#comments Sat, 26 Feb 2011 02:05:47 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=229 It has been a while since i last posted.  To give you an update on what has happened since then…
1. I got tubbier. stopped going to the gym and started eating unhealthy,.. bad move.  But i’m back on the gym thing and using nikeplus.com for running and such,.. so far its prettay cool.  And Tracy Morgan keeps giving me compliments when i complete stuff!
2. I blew a lot of money.  Bad thing? Kinda, kinda not. cause i blew it on a new, to me, Jeep.  A Grand Cherokee 2010.  Went with a Laredo, i like it, I’ve had it for 2 weeks now and i couldn’t be happier with the purchase.

That’s about all that has happened since the last update here.  I decided not do to any new years resolutions this year,.. because i just let myself down.  And i don’t like that.  PLUS!!! Who needs a new year to make resolutions? Not me, i do resolutions whenever i want, i have that power.

Anyways, lets wrap this post up with some music or pictures or something entertaining… how about a old person choir singing some ridic songs?!?! ENJOY!

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/wowzers/feed/ 0 Ipadizzle http://beingBrandon.com/posts/ipadizzle/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/ipadizzle/#comments Tue, 26 Oct 2010 03:41:08 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=227 Typing away on the iPad. It’s harder than I think it should be but it also isn’t too bad,…. I miss resting my hands on the keyboard which you definitely can’t do with the iPad. Ya know? Well anyways, this isn’t my iPad. It’s the work iPad. And it’s just been going around from employee to employee for a while and now it’s my turn. Pretty neat right.
Currently I’m laying in bed, saddened by my misfortune in the fantasy football leagues I’ve participated in this year. Too many leagues make it hard to concentrate on one single team. Next year I’ll do 2 max.
And now fantasy basketball has started so it’ll be even harder to manage everyone and still do work, play Mario, dangle around on the guitar, and so on. Something is going to have to suffer and it sure won’t be Mario.

Next on my list,… Remember that working out stint i did. Then i stopped talking about it. Welllll I may have taken a hiatus for a couple weeks. I blame it on the busy weeks and traveling on the weekends. So just to let you all know last thursday I weighed 172 and had bmi of 23. I actually had a test for it at work and got a 100$ for being healthy. Yay me. That being said I havent completely fallen off. So tomorrow i will be starting back up. And I want you guys out there, all 1 or 2 of you that might read this on accident, to know that you are the reason i do this. I cant let you die hard Brandon fans down.
So good night and I’ll hopefully post some good news again soon.

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/ipadizzle/feed/ 0 missed yesterday http://beingBrandon.com/posts/missed-yesterday/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/missed-yesterday/#comments Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:40:56 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=223 So i got very busy, very quick, and sorry no one (that’s who reads my blog) for not updating you. But here I am, hockey season has started, I’ve launched some new pieces to the NHL section of espn’s site. but lets get back to updating….

I’ll just tell you where i am now
Weight: 172lbs.

NOT BAD RIGHT?!!?  Well i wanted to get down to 170ish by tomorrow, While I’m not there,.. I’m still eating better, and I think I may have just lost a lot of water weight so far.  Yesterday I ended up running 3 miles for my work out, and that was it.  I had a salad again for lunch, and kept healthy through the day.

Today though, i’m not going to the gym,… way too busy still and I’m taking tomorrow off to go to a wedding in syracuse on saturday.  I shall be bringing my work out clothes and hopefully doing some workout things and activities while there. Also I’m gonna go do this lil dangle on sunday: http://www.connorsfarm.com/.  Corn Mazeeee. could be fun.

Anyways, have a splendid day and I’ll check back in maybe sometime this weekend, if not then next week.  Until then, just follow me on the Twitter. AND PLAY SOME RENASCENT!!!

]]> http://beingBrandon.com/posts/missed-yesterday/feed/ 0 day 2 http://beingBrandon.com/posts/day-2/ http://beingBrandon.com/posts/day-2/#comments Tue, 05 Oct 2010 19:00:54 +0000 Brandon http://beingBrandon.com/?p=221 Success! Started out today with a lil weighing Brandon action.  Result: 174.6llbs.  That’s a 1.4lb decrease in 24 hours.  Could it just be water weight? maybe,.. but i weighed myself after i woke up on both days, so i’d say it’s pretty close to having lost some weight.  Weight does fluctuate a lot throughout the day,.. but i figure as long as i weigh myself at the same time every day i should have a good idea if i’m losing weight.  And I’d say yes.  I was able to eat better yesterday and less.

Today, so far I have been successful again.  I have already made it to the gym where i had myself a small cardio day.  Started off with just 5 minutes on an eliptical, until a treadmill opened up,.. then jumped on that for 1.5 miles in 10:26.  Then jumped to the bike where i did 5 miles in 10:32.  And left plenty of my water weight on the floor of the gym.  After that i made my way to cafe to grab lunch and for a second day in a row I made it allllll the way through the salad line.  snagged up another black tea, and baked lays bbq chips, and today added a fresh fruit cup to the party.  So i’d say on still on my way to this 6lbs loss by friday.  I’m also going to play basketball later tonight for a couple hours with people from work, which always leaves me tired.

And a fun fact in the life of Brandon: I walked right by Kevin Connolly (plays Eric on Entourage) on my way back from the cafe today.  Didn’t realize who it was til too late, so I didn’t end up saying hi or anything.  But i did learn he’s not a very tall guy.  I realize he was made fun of for being little in the show, but i thought he’d be atleast like 5’7 or 5’8″, but no way,…  he was probably 5’4″, maybe a generous 5’5″.   But yea, neato gang.

Anyways. I’ll write another update tomorrow with some updated stats of my progress.

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