brad garland

Sometimes transparency just stinks and although I’m definitely making my blog suck by writing this…I need to do it.

Gastric bypass is not a fix-all solution. They tell you that the first day you do it. You still need to work to maintain a healthy lifestyle or the surgery can be overcome. I’m starting to overcome it. At my lowest, I was at 189 but probably was a little too lean for my liking, I’d prefer to be in the 195 range. Today, I weighed in at 214. (ugh) Since the surgery, every pound I gain is like gaining 50 pounds in my head. I beat myself up, I play games and feel like a failure.

Now the good news…twenty pounds isn’t that far away! I know my issue is more of a food thing than an exercise thing so I feel like I can control that more easily and revert back. And lastly, I got my FitBit in the mail today. I’m going to go back to tracking my calories, activity, and now sleep with FitBit in hopes to meet my 1st goal of 199 pounds!

Jenny and I made a list of dealbreakers yesterday while driving the 12 hours back from Angelfire, here they are:

• Exercise at minimum 3x per week (soccer can be included in that)


• Track my food, exercise, sleep everyday!


• No Starbucks except for 1x per week (I have been on an everyday kick for a while)


• No eating after 8pm (I’m a notorious late night snacker)


• Only allowed to eat out 2x per week (Jenny was big on this one)

I’ve always struggled with the ability to capture a moment, a college class, a presentation, a meeting. There is often no pattern, reasoning, or order behind note-taking abilities. Mind mapping, bullet points, verbatim, argh! Anyway, point being, I have always had a hard time trying to find just the right way to take notes. By paper, iPhone, or Laptop.

Paper was always tops for flexibility but not very searchable or sharable. So I conformed to the computer and the closest thing I could find was Evernote. Unstructured text documents and it required the keyboard be used despite my need for more of a ‘mind mapping’ process. But recently, I think I may have found the holy grail (at least for me). It’s called the Pulse SmartPen made by Livescribe. It’s part pen/microphone/camera/storage device that allows it all to come together for me. Watch my demo/review of what I’m talking about but all I can say for now is so far, so good.



Oh, and for those interested in the church sermon and sketchnotes I did today, see below.

Had a few people ask how to do a good online demonstration when showing your product off. I’m not talking presentation skills but more the technical details to have it feel and look clean. I told them I’d put together a quick little screencast showing my setup, in a Mac world, on how to do it. So here’s what I do, nothing super complicated but small steps add up to alot!

A Twitter for your Intranet

Got a lot of great responses on Twitter and I thought a short screencast could help us all.  Let me know if there are any others to add to this list, thanks everyone!

Posted from brad garland’s stream

   (1640 KB)
Listen on posterous

My view

Posted via email from brad garland’s stream

A day at the pool from Brad Garland on Vimeo.

For those of you that understand this, great and enjoy. For those of you who don’t, no worries, its not that important anyway. Just felt that this is a place that talks about things that has happened in my life and what this config enables me to do took up a lot of time a decade ago. Virtual high five to first comment that guesses what game this is from. :)


// generated by bradgarland, me.cfg
// If commented out (//) then assume an alias is overwriting it below.
// This comes from a range of of different config files but mainly intended for CTF play.

bind TAB "inven"
bind ENTER "invuse"
bind ESCAPE "togglemenu"
bind SPACE "+moveup"
bind ' "invdrop"
bind * "say_team STATUS: Standing %L, with %H, %A, and %T"
bind + "sizeup"
bind , "+moveleft"
bind - "messagemode1"
bind . "+moveright"
bind / "weapnext"
bind 0 "use bfg10k"
bind 1 "use Blaster"
bind 2 "use shotgun"
bind 3 "use super shotgun"
bind 4 "use machinegun"
bind 5 "use chaingun"
bind 6 "use grenade launcher"
bind 7 "use rocket launcher"
bind 8 "use hyperblaster"
bind 9 "use railgun"
bind = "messagemode2"
bind [ "invprev"
bind \ "+mlook"
bind ] "invnext"
bind ` "toggleconsole"
bind a "+moveleft"
bind b "use rebreather"
bind c "+movedown"
bind d "+moveright"
// bind e "use grapple"
bind f "use Railgun"
bind g "use grenades"
bind h "wave 0"
bind i "id"
// bind j "wave 1"
// bind k "wave 2"
// bind l "wave 3"
bind n "say_team NO!"
bind p "use power shield"
bind q "drop tech; say_team Tech available %L"
bind r "use Rocket Launcher"
bind s "+back"
bind t "say Thank you."
bind u "wave 4"
bind w "+forward"
bind x "score"
bind y "say_team YES!"
bind z "weapnext; echo Next Weapon"
bind ~ "toggleconsole"
bind BACKSPACE "invdrop"
bind UPARROW "+forward"
bind DOWNARROW "+back"
bind LEFTARROW "+left"
bind RIGHTARROW "+right"
bind OPTION "weaplast"
bind CTRL "+attack"
// bind SHIFT "+xammo"
bind F1 "say_team Roger."
bind F2 "say_team I'm going offense ;wave 1"
bind F3 "say_team I'm on defense"
bind F4 "menu_keys"
bind F5 "menu_startserver"
bind F6 "echo Quick Saving...; wait; save quick"
bind F9 "say_team thanks!"
bind F10 "menu_quit"
bind F12 "screenshot"
bind INS ""
bind DEL "say_team I'm on defense"
bind PGDN "say_team Tech available %L"
bind PGUP "say_team %n follow me - I'll lead ;wave 3"
bind HOME "say_team I'll go after the flag"
bind END "say_team NEED HELP AT BASE!"
bind KP_5 "say_team Chasing enemy with flag at %L"
bind KP_ENTER "teamcolor"
bind KP_MINUS "say_team Enemy has overrun $us flag room, can't capture"
bind KP_PLUS "say_team Rushing $them base to get $us flag back"
bind MOUSE1 "+attack"
// bind MOUSE2 "weapnext"
bind MOUSE3 ""
bind PAUSE "pause"
set gl_driver "opengl32"
set g_select_empty "0"
set in_joystick "0"
set in_mouse "1"
set cl_vwep "1"
set gender_auto "1"
set gender "male"
set fov "110"
set msg "1"
set rate "25000"
set freelook "1"
set cl_stereo_separation "0.4"
set adr8 ""
set adr7 ""
set adr6 ""
set adr5 ""
set adr4 ""
set adr3 "acmectf.com:27920"
set adr2 "tastyspleen.net:27914"
set adr1 "tastyspleen.net:27912"
set adr0 "tastyspleen.net:27924"
set cd_volume "1"
set s_primary "0"
set s_mixahead "0.2"
set s_loadas8bit "0"
set s_khz "22"
set s_volume "0.900000"
set _windowed_mouse "0"
set gl_arb_multitexture "0"
set gl_overbright_gamma "0"
set gl_truform "-1"
set gl_arb_multisample "0"
set gl_anisotropic "0"
set gl_force16bit "0"
set gl_3dlabs_broken "1"
set gl_swapinterval "1"
set gl_ext_compiled_vertex_array "1"
set gl_ext_pointparameters "1"
set gl_ext_multitexture "0"
set gl_ext_palettedtexture "0"
set gl_ext_swapinterval "1"
set gl_vertex_arrays "0"
set gl_texturesolidmode "default"
set gl_texturealphamode "default"
set gl_texturemode "GL_LINEAR_MIPMAP_NEAREST"
set gl_finish "0"
set gl_shadows "0"
set gl_mode "13"
set gl_modulate "1"
set gl_particle_att_c "0.01"
set gl_particle_att_b "0.0"
set gl_particle_att_a "0.01"
set gl_particle_size "40"
set gl_particle_max_size "40"
set gl_particle_min_size "2"
set sw_mode "4"
set sw_stipplealpha "0"
set sw_allow_modex "1"
set vid_maxrefresh "-1"
set vid_minrefresh "0"
set vid_gamma "1"
set vid_ypos "533"
set vid_xpos "801"
set vid_ref "gl"
set sv_reconnect_limit "3"
set allow_download_maps "1"
set allow_download_sounds "1"
set allow_download_models "1"
set allow_download_players "0"
set allow_download "1"
set hostname "brads_dm"
set skin "male/grunt"
set name "brad"
set lookstrafe "0"
set lookspring "1"
set m_pitch "-0.022000"
set hand "0"
set cl_run "1"
set crosshair "1"
set sensitivity "29.500000"
set vid_fullscreen "1"
set viewsize "100"


// Net Graph Toggle
bind F11 net1
alias "net1" "netgraph 1;echo Graph ON...;wait;bind F11 net2"
alias "net2" "netgraph 0;echo Graph OFF..;wait;bind F11 net1"

// Best Weapons
alias exw "use grenade launcher;use rocket launcher;echo Explosive Weapons;bind MOUSE2 nexw"
alias nexw "use shotgun;use super shotgun;use machinegun;use chaingun;use hyperblaster;echo Non Explosive Weapons;bind MOUSE2 exw"
bind MOUSE2 nexw

// Grappling Hook
alias hookselect "use grapple;echo Grapple Toggle; alias hooktoggle prevselect"
alias prevselect "weaplast; alias hooktoggle hookselect"
alias hooktoggle "hookselect"
bind e hooktoggle

// Ammo Drops
alias droprl "drop rockets"
alias dropmg "drop bullets"
alias droprg "drop slugs"
bind j droprl
bind k dropmg
bind l droprg

// BEST NON-EXPLOSIVE WEAPON
alias bwnonexplosive "bwnx"
alias bwnx "msg_in_bwnx;use Shotgun;use Super Shotgun;use Machinegun;use Chaingun;use Hyperblaster;use Railgun;msg_end_bwnx"
bind mwheeldown bwnonexplosive

// BEST EXPLOSIVE WEAPON
alias bwexplosive "bwx"
alias bwx "msg_in_bw;use Grenades;use Grenade Launcher;use Rocket Launcher;use BFG10K;msg_end_bw"
bind mwheelup bwexplosive

//SNIPER
alias +sniper "fov 20;crosshair 2;sensitivity 3;use railgun; echo Sniper View On"
alias -sniper "fov 110;crosshair 1;sensitivity 29.500000;use rocket launcher; echo Sniper View Off"
bind SHIFT +sniper

That was my reaction when the other day I received a call from our PEO provider Administaff. Charlie, our sales contact, called me and inquired about something that I said online…on Twitter actually (see image).



Now despite me leading a pretty open life online I was still taken aback from the call since I definitely don’t connect Charlie with Twitter but obviously someone at Administaff is listening. He went on to tell me what he was sent the message and just wanted to follow-up to see if I could exbound a bit more. I told him about some of my concerns on attempts to stifle our culture and he completely understood and said he’d take the discussion into his bosses. Regardless if it was him or someone else that found it, they fact that they are 1) trying to listen & 2) follow-up with me to ensure what’s going on is pretty awesome in my book.

Lastly, if this isn’t an example of being sure you stand behind the content you put online, I don’t know what is.

For decades now the wall between the ‘celebrity’ and the common man has been tall and wide. Often only seeing them on television or at the movies or maybe, just maybe, if you could make a special event/concert you got to see them from as close as 100 yards away! Wow, they’re right there (squint)!!!

Now, times are changing. Access is changing. Let me geek out for a second as to why. Example, I watch ‘Meet the Press’ every weekend and really enjoy David Gregory. He’s smart, fair, and encourages good debates on his show. But now he’s on twitter. So I decided to send him a tweet about a guest that should be on his show and within an hour, he responded back. Publicly for all but addressed specifically to me, now how cool is that?!? But it’s already not…cool that is. Why? Because I’m having these all the time now with journalists, politicians, authors, thought leaders, and some of the biggest and brightest minds of our time because of the walls of restricted access are falling down.



Where I’m going with this, however, is this sort of interaction that is novel/cool/kinda geeky today will become standard even tiresome in the future. My daughters will not only have access to but even have conversations with any person on planet they want. Oh, and note, this conversation could take place on the computer but probably won’t. “That’s so 2000s, Dad!”

Doubt me? Welcome the single most powerful woman on the planet to Twitter as of today. Hi @oprah, welcome to the conversation.