Posts in 2013

I still can't believe that 2013 is almost over. It really seems like the year just flew by. I guess part of it was all the wedding preparation and the wedding itself. There are still some days where I can't believe I'm married, though I'm definitely happy I am...just seems so surreal.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas. Mine was definitely a good one. It was nice to be able to spend the day with my family. For a first Christmas (well, Married Christmas) with Lauren, I couldn’t have asked for a better Christmas.

Every year, it seems the holidays come up on me faster and faster. It really feels like it was just Halloween yesterday. Maybe it's because I was so occupied with planning my wedding this year, but it really seems like the whole year has just flown by. I guess it doesn't help that I've just been so busy this December. With everything going on, this is the first year that Lauren and I ended up getting a fake tree. I've always been far more preferential to real trees because I love their look, and their smell. The fun is also going out and finding the tree and cutting it down. The weather never really cooperated for us going to cut one down, and we realized that we just didn't have the room. On the plus side, there's less of a worry that our cat Cookie will eat the Christmas tree and get sick.

So this was my first attempt at making my own recipe. My first time taking basic ingredients and putting them together, hoping that it turns into something edible. Well, it was most definitely successful and the tuna was absolutely delicious. So, with my glee, I figured I'd share the recipe.

I did it. After all the hard work and exercise, I ran a half marathon yesterday! From barely being able to run a mile three and a half years ago, to 13.1 miles…it's a journey I am incredibly proud of.

So, almost 2 weeks ago, I got married to the most wonderful woman I know. It was amazing, but this is another story.

In November of 2011, after really getting into photography, I decided to finally take the plunge and get myself a DSLR camera. I chose the Canon EOS 60D because I liked what it offered, and my girlfriend (now my fiancee) also had it and recommended it to me. I should add that it also is nice since we'll be able to share lenses. Fast forward to now, I've gotten better with photography, but don't always have the time to go out with my Canon and find those awesome shots.

One of the biggest things I try to do is keep my desk uncluttered. I find that it helps me stay organized. As an example, here's my desk at work.

About 1-2 years ago, I decided to stop development work on OpenVoter. It's still there, you can still download and use it, but it just hasn't been updated. Kind of sad too, because some updates were actually pretty far along for the next version. That said, if I ever end up going back to work on it, it might very well take a fair amount of time to figure out where exactly I left off. But going back to the time that I decided to move on from OpenVoter, I remember debating what I wanted to do somewhat heavily. I really liked what I was able to accomplish with it, but at the same time, it wasn't really used by anyone that I knew of and didn't really see it moving anywhere else. In the end, I begrudgingly decided to shelve it and find something else to work on.

There never seems to be enough hours in the day to get everything I want to done. Part of that is me failing to motivate myself to focus, the other is just me being busy. Take today for example. I meant to spend a good portion of the afternoon working on teaching myself libGDX for the game idea I have. What did I do? Get myself distracted so much I only got through a very little bit of the one tutorial I was going through. That being said, I can proudly say that it wasn't Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, or the Internet that distracted me. It was really just my lack of being able to focus that led to me getting up to go sit out on the couch with Lauren, or just roam around aimlessly. Today was not going to be my day to focus.

Over the last couple months, I've been seriously considering doing a rebranding. I felt that DarkNemesis and Darker Nemesis just didn't really feel like 'me' anymore. So I went about trying to find a new moniker. "Wags" has always been sort of a nickname for me given my last name being Wagner and "kpwags" was available so after some thought, I ended up liking it and now here we are.