bismark's blog: Archive

Jul 5th

Jun 27th

Jun 24th

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May 14th

Thoughts on Battlestar Galactica (Spoiler Alert)

If you haven’t finished BSG yet (Amy Jo!), stop reading immediately. Ok. Mariam and I made it through all four seasons of Battlestar Galactica. Overall, I really enjoyed it. The series was fun to watch and for the most part ended in a satisfying way. Favorite character Surprisingly, I think it was Gaius Baltar. Yes, I know that seems like a strange choice, but a lot of times I...

May 13th

Blogging Again

Hi again. I’m going to start writing again. I am tired of just being a consumer, it’s time to start producing again (more on that later). Things are going well. Mariam and I had a nice relaxing vacation for two weeks in Mexico (though we did pick up something that’s doing nasty stuff to our digestive tracks… yes, we are getting it checked out). Work is good; I...

May 13th

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Mendocino

So Mariam and I have been married now for six months and last week we were finally able to take some vacation time. I wanted somewhere laid back and relaxing, so we decided to drive up the coast to Mendocino. It was just what we needed. We took our time getting there. I picked up the rental car early Saturday morning and we started driving up the 1. Unsurprisingly, it was a foggy...

Oct 28th

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Moving

Just one last post about moving: I am so sick of it. Honestly, I really wish this tiny studio apartment would be enough for me for the rest of my life so I never have to see another cardboard box again. Let’s recap the last eight (eight!) years of my life: Provo MTC Kiryu Ageo Takaoka Nasu Kamagaya Kawagoe Baraboo Deseret Towers Helaman Halls Baraboo Carriage Cove* University...

Sep 27th

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Catching Up (Photos!)

Ok, since the last month has been absolutely insane with finding a new apartment, moving all our stuff from Wisconsin, big releases at work, etc, I decided to just make up for my lack of posting with some pictures and short descriptions. Here is Mariam and my grandparents with all of the furniture we bought at Ikea. Yeah, we basically furnished the whole place in one trip. I am still amazed...

Sep 27th

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Dropping Out of School

I mentioned in passing in my last post that I had dropped out of school. I am sure some of you might have no idea why, so I thought I had better write a post on what’s up. I started as a full time employee at Zynga on August 16th. It was a pretty crazy week coming to the decision and figuring out logistics. On the Wednesday before my last week of the internship, my team lead brought up...

Sep 27th

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Posters

Ok, this might seem like a strange topic after such a long recess from posting and given all of the really interesting things I could be talking about (dropping out of school, new job, new apartment, etc). But during the course of our unpacking, organizing, and trying to fit our lives into a small San Francisco studio apartment, some stuff just had to go. Being the unsentimental minimalist...

Sep 21st

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How you know you are way too tired

This is my team last night after a few weeks of pushing hard to launch our product: Yawn.

Aug 17th

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Re: Reverence

Tianna wrote the a post about reverence in the context of Doctrine & Covenants 107:2-4 and using words like God, Heavenly Father, etc. in our speech. I’m convinced that as a culture at large, we don’t give proper respect to deity. Is it possible that as a church culture we still don’t give proper respect? We understand that we shouldn’t use His name in vain…...

Jul 27th

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Slavonian Burger

I took off a few weeks from Sunday cooking due to July 4th and the Disneyland trip, but I was able to start up again last week. I got really excited when I first saw this recipe for Slavonian burgers and I’m glad I made them: they were great. Mariam had me make them again later in the week with some of the leftover ingredients because she liked them so much. Here is the set of...

Jul 27th

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Thoughts on Disneyland

Ok, now that we have the travelogue out of the way, I wanted to post a few things I’ve thought about since the trip down to Disneyland. The week before we went, while I was trying to describe Disneyland to Mariam, I told her it was “the Apple of theme parks”. After our weekend there, I’ve decided that it actually lacks in a number of areas, keeping it from being truly...

Jul 26th

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Disneyland

Whoa, long time no blog. Time to catch up a bit. Two weeks ago I took off a Friday from work for a whirlwind trip down to Disneyland. It was Mariam’s first time, so it was fun introducing her to it all. We went with my grandparents and my Aunt Wendi, who is pretty much as hardcore as you can get concerning Disneyland, which was nice. Since she knows all the ways to work the park, we...

Jul 26th

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Jul 8th

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Pancakes

When I was a kid, whenever it was dad’s turn to cook dinner, he always made breakfast food (eggs, sausage, pancakes, etc). Given this strong tradition of breakfast food for dinner in the Johnson family, when I saw this pancake post on Salt and Fat, I knew it would make a perfect Sunday evening meal. The sad truth is, I don’t think I’ve ever made pancakes from scratch all on my...

Jul 2nd

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Social Networks

Earlier this week the tech blogs started buzzing about the rumored existence of a Facebook competitor made by Google called “Google Me”. Everyone started speculating about whether it could beat Facebook or not, how would it be different than Buzz, Orkut, etc etc. Without any way to see into the future, it’s really impossible to say what kind of “success” such a...

Jul 2nd

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More good news on the giving front

Some of you may remember my post about helping fund Mr. Baltazari Ngowi’s business through Kiva.org. Well, I am happy to report that the loan has now been completely paid off. I hope that Baltazari was able to put the money for a worthwhile and profitable use.

Jun 27th

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Follow up on "Do You See What I See?"

The teacher from the project I donated to earlier this year has posted some pictures and a follow-up note: …Hands on material is such a wonderful way to extend a lesson. Thank you again for helping to make Science an exciting topic for my students. Your gifts will be well used in my classroom for years to come… link I dunno what if any impact having some fun science...

Jun 27th

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Tomato-Butter Sauce

To kick off my attempts at becoming a better cook, I decided to stick with something simple: a four ingredient tomato-butter sauce. Amazingly, I actually pulled it off at it tasted great. Here are a few pics: Yes, silly me, I used can tomatoes. We even had a bag of fresh, bright red tomatoes in our fridge; I was just too much of a wimp to try peeling them myself. One step at a time I...

Jun 23rd

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Jun 9th

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A few wedding pics

Here is a link to some pictures taken by my friend Michelle on our wedding day: Getting Hitched. As usual, Mariam is her photogenic self while I just do my best not looking like a complete dork.

Jun 9th

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Hobbies

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what I would do if I was independently rich and I never had to work. I decided that my free time ought to be spent doing those things instead of wasting my time watching t.v. or something. My list is topped by: Traveling and exploring the world with Mariam Eating and learning how to cook awesome food Doing service projects like Habitat for...

Jun 7th

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California

So, finally I am starting to get caught up with the present. Mariam and I are here in San Francisco. It took us a week to find a place to stay, so we crashed at Grandma and Grandpa’s out in Concord. But now we have a really nice little apartment to ourselves near Balboa Park station with only about a 30 minute commute on the bus for me to work. Work has been going well: I am working on...

Jun 7th

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Car crash

I guess suspenseful endings don’t work all that well when I am writing a bunch of posts quickly in succession, but I am trying to break this up for easier readability. Anyway, on the way to Target that evening, we pulled over to the side of the road (there was street parking) so I could make a phone call to my dad. After sitting there about a minute in park talking on the phone, I saw...

Jun 7th

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Post-Wedding School Craziness

Our time in Park City was great. We stayed at the Waldorf Astoria Dakota Lodge which was quite fancy and very empty since it was in between seasons. We felt very posh ordering, well, Waldorf salad for $25 a plate through room service. It was a much needed two days of relaxing so we could survive the craziness that lay ahead. So, yes, I still had finals to do. I know, I know, not the best way...

Jun 7th

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The Wedding

Well. Hi again everyone. It’s been awhile. I think I have a bit of catching up to do. Where to start… I guess that whole wedding thing would be good. I wish I had had the time to blog about this a little closer to when it happened, but life got set at ludicrous speed ever since that fateful week… I should mention being married is awesome and Mariam is great for having...

Jun 7th

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Watch

First video of our “working” iPhone game. Sorry for the blurriness, it was shot with my mom’s Flip camera.

May 13th

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May 1st

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This Mormon Life →

Links to all This American Life episodes with Mormon themes. Saving this for future listening.

Apr 27th

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Married for time and eternity to Mariam Rebeca Silverio at 12:00 pm in the Salt Lake City LDS Temple. Best thing I’ve ever done. Tweet/blog blackout time begins now; catch you all on the flip side.

Apr 24th

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Apr 24th

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Apr 11th

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"Do You See What I See?" - Your chance to help →

Like I mentioned before, at Christmas I donated to a Donor’s Choose project called Do You See What I See?. The request is from a first grade teacher in a high poverty school in Wisconsin seeking funds to purchase science equipment like microscopes and fossil models. I’m sure a few of my readers love science and discovery as much as I do, so I’m sure you also fondly remember...

Apr 8th

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www.mariamandryan.net →

Ok, I am officially announcing Mariam’s and my wedding site. It is pretty meh looking, but I have never been much of a website designer. Mariam actually hasn’t passed off on it since she is currently in a van somewhere in the middle of New Mexico, so quick, make sure you look before all the good stuff gets censored! Please forgive the Spanish version… Google Translate...

Apr 8th

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An Unexpected Path →

Some reader’s were not finding the link, here it is: An Unexpected Path Extremely interesting article written by an openly gay Mormon in a mixed-orientation marriage. Definitely worth reading and pondering. (via Austin) Touchy subject, so I will leave it at that.

Apr 7th

1 tag

Enter To Learn...And Then Shut Up →

Here is the article: Enter To Learn…And Then Shut Up Oh BYU… I see nothing has changed since I left. I took part in that 2006 protest; I still have the piece of duct tape that I put over my mouth. I was going to write a longer post about Mormon culture’s fear of controversy and debate, but I don’t have the time now. Someday maybe.

Apr 7th

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Apr 7th

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Summer Internship

Like I announced on Twitter, I will be doing a summer internship at Zynga in San Francisco. A lot of people probably think that Zynga is just a silly game company that fills their Facebook news feed with requests to fertilize people’s crops, so I think I should explain my decision. Two weeks ago, I was freaking out about a job this summer. I seriously thought I was going to be stuck...

Apr 1st

1 tag

“They are synonyms; either one can work. It is my feeling that inside the LDS...”

– Laser Jock, in response to my question about proselytize vs. proselyte. So, I stand somewhat corrected. However, even though “proselyte” is a real word, it can still be added to the list of uncommon words/phrases that for some reason are quite common amongst Mormons.

Mar 28th

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Mar 28th

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Mar 28th

Anonymous asked: How does it feel to be a small-time celebrity?

Mar 25th

Anonymous asked: Is your pseudonym a misspelling of Bismarck?

Mar 25th

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Anonymous asked: it's 10.22 am, I haven't gone to sleep. I just talked to someone really non-committal. What do you eat with Brie cheese? other than... you know, crackers?

Mar 24th

Anonymous asked: What is your favorite book, movie, tv show, video game, food, place to go on vacation, blog post that you've written previously, blog to read of someone you know, blog to read of someone you don't know, tech blog, and any other favorite things that you would like to share?

Gio

Mar 24th

1 tag

Dear LDS readers: The word is not proselyting. It’s proselytizing. That is all. Update: See my newer post on the topic.

Mar 22nd

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Anonymous asked: What happened with your wedding? you don't post anything about it anymore

Mar 18th