Apr 28, 2008 7:45 PMFake Easter, Partying, and Such

I've gotten really, really, really bad at blogging lately. I hope it's not because I've been less awesome and have less to talk about. Hopefully it's just because I'm being so productive on other things... or something.

But I've also been taking way less pictures than normal and I don't really know how I feel about this. I've always been a big advocate for documenting life, but man I am sucking at it lately. ...I need to figure that out.

So yeah, we've been sticking around town a bit more this year, which has been sorta nice. I actually seem to be getting a little more done.

This weekend, my dad was in town, which was a good time. We got to hang out quite a bit, landscape, and party pretty hard.

Friday, Doug hosted a going away party for Cedric and I. (oh... p.s. Cedric is quitting Pioneer too. weee! congrats!). So we hung out, ate enchiladas, had some beer, smoked cigars, etc. Doug is a really good and generous entertainer - a rare breed, that man is.

Saturday we grilled out with the cousins, then on the way home made a game time decision to meet up with a ton of friends downtown. It was fun, but man... we really need to move closer to downtown. I hate living up here in the boondocks when a good party with good friends is a brewin.

The weekend before that was fake easter at Kari's family's house. We went out with Vic Friday night, met some Cornell peeps Saturday night, and laid subflooring in Jeff's basement in the mean time. Sunday, everyone (including my mom) met us out there for some good burnt food and hanging out. It was a good time.

And now I'm just sitting here trying to figure out wtf to do with my check from George Bush. I'd really like to buy a Wii with it - but somehow I don't think purchasing Japanese electronics will really help stimulate our economy. I do need a bigger iPod and a phone. Or maybe a Mac Mini. Or maybe just a tank of gas for my truck.

Stupid truck.

Maybe I should donate my check to a democratic campaign.

Tags: none 0 comments

Apr 6, 2008 12:57 PMChicago Cubs Visit

Oh man.
What a good visit to Chicago.
So, if you didn't know, I went with Bob, Todd and, Tiny (who's really like a 6'5" dude) for a Cubs game.

As soon as we got to town, we went to Threadless to see Harper, hang out, talk tech, etc. Then we all got stuffed pizza at Chicago pizza, had a beer at some sketchy bar and parted ways.

Harper and I then dropped my stuff off and went to Charlie's for some social interaction. I really wished I lived in Chicago. Their social scene is amazing. It's almost like college.

Anyway, Harper stole Rachel (one of his coworkers), from Charlie's, and we ran over to Debonair to meet Tag and James.

Debonair was good. Good music, not packed, saw more of Harper's clique, etc. Then after a while, we went to le passage, which is this bar for a slightly older/richer club scene. It was kinda funny and expensive, but the music was good and the girls were hot. I always forget how hot people are in chicago. Even if they're not like typical model, beauty hot. Everyone is really hot. I wish Des Moines had that scene. Hipsters. Hopsters, heh.

So anyway, we pretty much ended the night there and shared a cab back to our places with Rachel. This was a handy thing because I left my phone in the cab. It sucked. Luckily she was there to save it.

So Saturday, I woke up after 4 hours of sleep, went to Rachel's to get my phone, then met the guys outside Wrigley, where we waited in line for our bleacher seats, bought some fukudome headbands, and quickly nabbed our seats in right field.

The game was amazing. Weather was perfect, beer was flowing, nasty food was eaten, there was a lot of action, and - we won.

This was my first time in the bleachers at Wrigley and those are definitely the way to go. Screw assigned seats. It was a blast. Oh, and I ran into Natalie Sirovy, who is this chick from my H.S. ha. wtf.

After the game we went to some Wrigleyville bar called The Ginger Man. Then I shortly headed out, walked to Charlie's for a minute and took a cab back to Harper's for a quick nap.

When I woke up we went to some Cornell event where a bunch of older alumni were dressed in suits. Harper and I were in loud shirts and hoodies. It was pretty funny.... but we got to see some friends - Steph, Becca, Jenne, etc.

After the Cornell event, we got some persian food at Andies, had a beer at Hop Leaf, then went over to tag's to check out his new 335 with fancy 19" M series rims. That thing, holy fast. It's absolutely ridiculous. I want one bad.

We then went to Charlie's brothers for a "bonfire" ... which is much different than Iowa bonfires. In chicago, it's 3 logs in a metal fire bowl. So we hung out, listened to crazy stories from Charlie, then bounced back to deb, empire, and la pomme. Arman (the guy who runs la pomme) was then going to take us to some after party, but it got busted by cops... so we ended our night at rockstar dog - where I had my first poppyseed bun and super green relish.

So we crashed a little after 4:30 and my damn coworkers woke me up at 830 and we hit the road.

It was a blast. Definitely great to see good baseball with new friends and hang out with old friends.

So right now we're just inside Iowa. Hopefully I can squeeze a nap in before my double header in broomball tonight.

Pics soon.

Tags: none 2 comments

Mar 25, 2008 9:24 AMOuch. My body is lame.

So, last night was my first night of broomball. I missed the first 2 weeks due to being on vacation, so it was actually the 3rd night for most everyone else on my teams.

...yeah, that was plural - teams.

See, last year we just had our rookie half-ice team, District 5. We were decent - especially for a first year team. We ended up .500 at the end of the season. Not bad.

So at the end of the year, Team Mitsubishi (a full-ice team) had about half their team move out of town and - long story, short - half of District 5 joined their team, which was renamed to The Shams.

We didn't want to kill off District 5 so we decided to play in both leagues this year, half-ice with District 5 and full-ice with Team Shams. This would mean at least a double header every week, eep!

So I show up this week, my first game(s) of the year. We had a double header in half-ice as well as a full-ice game. Three games - back to back to back. Oh, and I went into them with a strained back muscle.

Man, I was not ready.

I really thought I was going to be more ready than I was. Kari and I joined a gym a while back and I'd been running a few miles a few times a week on the elliptical. But apparently ellipticals don't really do shit except burn some calories.

Man, I died last night. It was weird. We won 2 of our 3 games (and almost won the 3rd), but I wasn't even close to where I left off last year.

When I got home I had flu-like symptoms, wtf. I was freezing cold, had shivers, and couldn't really move, haha. It was weird and totally lame. I hate being that lame.

So, next week we have a triple header again - back to back to back. Hopefully I don't die again. That was not like me.

Tags: broomball, pain 0 comments

Mar 17, 2008 7:54 PMSouthern Florida

If you've been paying attention to my photo stream, you've probably noticed that we had a jam packed vacation. 8 days and 250 photos of Key West and Miami Beach.

Man, it was a great time. Jeff and Teresa took us down there as part of a giant celebration trip. Kari, Victor, and I got new jobs. Jeff and Kari graduated with bachelors and masters degrees. Vic got a house. Jeff and Teresa celebrated a 30th anniversary. It was a big year that deserved some celebration - and that, we did.

So, it's going to be nearly impossible, but I'll try to keep this as short as I possibly can.

Saturday

• Flew to Miami from Cedar Rapids with a stop in Chicago. GPSs totally work in airplanes, btw.

Sunday

• Drove to Key West. It was quite a cool drive. The old bridge, which is part walking trail, part cut-off from the world is pretty interesting. I wish the North-eastern keys were a little nicer though.
• Had lunch at the Raw Bar in the Holiday Isle resort (Windley Key).
• Checked into our Key West Hotel and took a Shuttle downtown.
• Hung out at Sloppy Joe's and walked around Duval St.
• Finished the night with some great sushi at a place called Origami.

Monday

• Went to the beach. It was overcast but we all got a bit burnt.
• Rode scooters around town and checked out the southermost point.
• Spent most of the evening on the dock to watch the sunset and get dinner at Bistro 245.
• Cruised Duval st. and all around town on our scooters after dark.

Tuesday

• Went deep sea fishin on the Linda D charter. I caught 3 Mahi Mahi and 3 Bonitas (shark bait). The older guy I was with caught a 7 foot sail fish. Jeff was sea sick the entire time. It was a ton of fun despite the rainy weather and Jeff being sick.
• After fishing we hung out at the pool for a bit, had a drink.
• And finally had some amazing dinner at Hot Tin Roof.

Wednesday

• Hung out at the hotel pool.
• Toured the Key West Lighthouse.
• Toured Hemmingway's house.
• Had dinner at Jimmy Buffet's.
• Went back to the dock to hang out and watch more sunset.
• Hung out downtown at Hog's Breath and Sloppy Joe's

Thursday

• Checked out of the hotel and got the fish I caught cooked up at Dante's.
• Drove to Miami Beach, checked in, had dinner at the hotel and walked around a bit.

Friday

• Went to the beach. A sweet, sweet topless beach.
• Walked/shopped down Collins avenue and looked at fancy cars. Lots and lots of fancy cars.
• Walked around Lincoln Rd.
• Had 7 amazing courses at Sushi Samba - this brazillian, japanese, peruvian fusion restaurant.
• Smoked some Apple Tobacco Hookah's at this cigar shop on Lincoln.
• Argued politics at the Shelbourne club.

Saturday

• Had cuban sandwiches at Puerto Sagua.
• Hung out on the beach.
• Met up with Kevi and Julie.
• Had fancy dinner at Emeril's.
• Walked around Lincoln, Washington, and Collins looking for clubs... ended up at Delano, which was a really cool spot.

Sunday

• Checked out, had lunch at Nexxt Cafe and drove to a hotel by the airport before flying home in the wee hours of the morning.

The whole trip was a blast. I can't thank Jeff and Teresa enough for taking us. Definitely a celebration...

If you haven't already seen. Here are all 242 pics of what I just broke down.

And now I'm gonna go grab some St. Patty's beer with my friends back in DSM.

Tags: florida, travel 1 comment

Feb 25, 2008 12:53 PMUsing cURL to test RESTful Rails Web Services

Lately, I've been writing lots of services for some of our newer Rails 2.0 projects. And one of the quickest/easiest ways I've found to debug these web service apps from a Mac is by using cURL. I'm not exactly an expert on the subject, so I'm documenting this half for myself and half to help anyone else out....

First of all the cURL parameters I usually use are:

-X [action]
Pretty straight forward... let's you specify an action (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to take on the URL.

> curl -X GET http://localhost:3000/sites
> curl -X GET http://localhost:3000/sites.xml
> curl -X DELETE http://localhost:3000/sites/1

-H [header]
This lets you specify your HTTP headers. I usually use Content-type and Accept here.

> curl -H "Accept: text/xml" -X GET http://localhost:3000/sites

-d [parameter]
Again, duh. Let's you specify your parameters to send to the URL - specifically for posting. Note that when using the -d flag, you don't need to specify POST as your action because it's the default. If you're using PUT though, you'll need to add -X PUT.

> curl -d "site[site]=broox.com" -d "site[owner]=derek" http://localhost:3000/sites
> curl -H "Accept: text/xml" -d "site[site]=broox.com" -d "site[owner]=derek" http://localhost:3000/sites

And here's how I use it most often - to POST an XML request to the web service and get an XML response back.

> curl -H "Accept: text/xml" -H "Content-type: application/xml" -d "<?xml version ='1.0' encoding 'UTF-8'?> <site><site>broox.com</site><owner>derek</owner></site>" http://localhost:3000/sites

Tags: tech 6 comments