Self-Amusement Park

I'm Bryan Stearns.
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You can email me at my full name at gmail dot com. You can also find me on Twitter, GitHub, and LinkedIn, or subscribe via RSS.

    Topics

    • Airplane
    • Christmas
    • Coding
    • General
    • Travel & Local
    • Starting a new project

      Dec 30, 2021

      A long time ago, I was an amateur aviator: in the late 80’s, I learned to fly and got my instrument rating, bought an airplane, and flew it around the country a few times. I even volunteered at AirVenture, the big Experimental Aircraft Association convention and fly-in in Oshkosh, Wisconsin: my friend Andy and I provided computer support to the homebuilt judging group for almost a decade. I got to see a lot of great homebuilt airplanes, but didn’t want to build one myself; I just wanted to fly the plane I had.

      … (read more)
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1985 & 1986

      Dec 23, 2021

      1983 Christmas Card

      1983 Christmas Card

      Continuing the tradition I started thirteen years ago, here are my Dad’s thirteenth and fourteenth “obscure” Christmas cards, from 1985 (left) & 1986 (right).

      You get two this year, because I somehow forgot to post one last year. Again. I blame the pandemic.

      (The 1985 image is slightly corrupted at the bottom, but nothing important is missing; the crates at the bottom are labeled “Food for Europe”. Also, that’s an actual wide rubber band around the 1986 card.)

      Previously: 1983/1984 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973

      … (read more)
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1983 & 1984

      Dec 20, 2019

      1983 Christmas Card

      1983 Christmas Card

      Continuing the tradition I started eleven years ago, here are my Dad’s eleventh and twelfth “obscure” Christmas cards, from 1983 (left) & 1984 (right).

      You get two this year, because I somehow forgot to post one last year.

      (The images are slightly corrupted at the bottom, but nothing important is missing.)

      Previously: 1982 1981 1980 1979 1978 1977 1976 1975 1974 1973

      … (read more)
    • What I did over the weekend

      Aug 29, 2019

      TL;DR: I had a heart attack; looks like I’m gonna be fine.

      Updated 8/29: TL;DR: I’m home, feeling fine; more details added, too.

      … (read more)
    • Older Posts

    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1982

      Dec 21, 2017
    • How I Spent My Twitter Vacation

      Nov 5, 2017
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1981

      Dec 15, 2016
    • Profiling a Slow Elixir Test

      Dec 14, 2016
    • A Nerves tidbit

      Oct 2, 2016
    • Decades

      Jun 29, 2016
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1980

      Dec 22, 2015
    • Taking it from the top, yet again

      Mar 8, 2015
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1979

      Dec 1, 2014
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1978

      Dec 24, 2013
    • Taking it from the top

      Dec 9, 2013
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1977

      Dec 1, 2012
    • Losing the meaning of your vote

      Nov 2, 2012
    • RubyMine, Firefox, and Exception Backtraces

      Dec 13, 2011
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1976

      Dec 5, 2011
    • A Christmas Tradition, from 1975

      Dec 1, 2010
    • Quicker WEBrick startup

      Sep 1, 2010
    • Running away to the circus... for a few minutes

      Apr 11, 2010
    • Open Source Bridge: Exciting the attentions of the Ingenious

      Mar 24, 2010
    • A Christmas tradition, from 1974

      Dec 23, 2009
    • Rails 2.3.3 + mocha = confusion

      Jul 30, 2009
    • Automatic wireless goodness

      Mar 7, 2009
    • My 25 things

      Feb 18, 2009
    • My "Day On"

      Jan 19, 2009
    • A Christmas tradition, from 1973

      Dec 16, 2008
    • Fixing a little VPN annoyance

      Nov 17, 2008
    • The Android fonts on my desktop are beautiful

      Nov 15, 2008
    • As the polls close...

      Nov 4, 2008
    • Android AIDL regeneration

      Sep 30, 2008
    • Clearing apt-cacher's cache

      Sep 15, 2008
    • Rails script/performance/request needed a little help

      Aug 29, 2008
    • named_scope, joins, & includes

      Jul 10, 2008
    • I drink your milkshake

      Apr 11, 2008
    • And before that, I did this

      Apr 10, 2008
    • Basking in benefits of connectedness

      Mar 27, 2008
    • Today's my day

      Feb 26, 2008
    • Hiding in plain sight

      Feb 26, 2008
    • Finished with PIFF '08

      Feb 24, 2008
    • Festival Fanatic is finally useful

      Feb 6, 2008
    • Ignite Portland 2 was great!

      Feb 5, 2008
    • Happy Birthday, FestivalFanatic (and Macintosh)

      Jan 24, 2008
    • Remote debugging with Wing

      Nov 16, 2007
    • Twittering

      Nov 9, 2007
    • Paradise: now, with chocolate!

      Nov 1, 2007
    • My Chumby transit widget

      Oct 14, 2007
    • Photos!

      Oct 1, 2007
    • Best Laid Plans

      Sep 12, 2007
    • Repeating on me?

      Jun 22, 2007
    • Horrible hack to work around a RubyGems bug

      May 23, 2007
    • So why Rails?

      May 21, 2007
    • Long time no post

      May 20, 2007
    • RailsConf? But what about Chandler?

      May 20, 2007
    • The great white north

      Jan 17, 2007
    • How quickly daft jumping zebras vex

      Jul 13, 2006
    • This one time, at DCamp...

      May 14, 2006
    • Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn!

      May 14, 2006
    • Out to the ballgame

      May 11, 2006
    • A thousand words later

      Apr 17, 2006
    • Too much coffee, man

      Apr 13, 2006
    • What's in the box

      Apr 8, 2006
    • This just in... again.

      Apr 1, 2006