I write, occasionally

So a couple weeks ago I saw on my sister's AIM profile that she had a link to one of her friends' journals. I checked it out, it was a kid from our hometown that was friends with my sister.

He got in a super bad car accident on Dec 30th and has been mostly unconscious in the hospital until about 3 days ago. I read the entire Journal which his family has been upkeeping and felt like a part of it. After all, any friend of a friend is a friend of mine. (crap, that sounds so much more cheesey than I want it to... but anyway, I felt I should help if I could).

I won't do the amount of pain that he and his family have gone through any justice, but.... Grahm's got a heavily fractured hip, has had some surgeries, has been on …

Being broke is suddenly "alright" when Kari's parents come to visit, ha. We always eat well, make beer, watch movies, etc. Seriously, Friday, we went to Taki like I've never been to Taki before. We got so much food... edamame, squid salad, soup, tons of specialty rolls, lots of nigiri, and I have never seen anyone else do this, but we got dessert at Taki. Not 1, but 2 desserts. Plus Sapporo, Saketinis, and a couple free shots from the sushi bar - it's hard to turn those down. Later we watched movies and tried one of the weirdest beers ever.

Saturday we shopped a lot. We got beer supplies, another carboy at the Homebrew shop (to double the size of the homebrewery). Kari got lots of clothes and Jeff got lots of Apple stuff at …

Oy, It turned out that Chicago was more expensive than I thought. Kari and I are so insanely broke, it's retarded, haha. I get so mad when I don't have money - like, I don't even know what to do with myself; I just sit at home and pout, haha. We haven't spent this much time hanging out at home in a long long time. Things are becoming somewhat clean and organized though...

Ok so, if you didn't already know, my car broke down last Thursday on the way to work. Perfect timing for someone who just spent all their money and has to wait until the end of the month for another paycheck. So to tell the story once more... I was sitting at a stoplight on Oralabor when all of a sudden I heard this clunky sound followed by a ton of belt …

Kari and I drove out to Chicago again for New Years Eve. The plan was usual: hanging out with harper, good food, going out, along with going to the party/Gaylords concert at Kill Hannah's Practice Space.

Friday we pulled into town and met Harper at Sushi wabi for a great great meal, then we went to Kill Hannah's practice space and hung out for a bit while the band practiced, heh. It was pretty nice, they were totally rocking out. Then we got to listen to the new Kill Hannah album. It sounded really good. I think it will be much more popular than some of the past stuff. I can't wait for it to come out. Kari's cousin and her bf also met up with us at their apartment, then we went out to Ybar for a bit. After Ybar, Crobar, then …

Friday Kari and I drove to Marion to get Christmas started with her family. We hung out, met up with lindsey, had some beer and wine, etc.

Saturday (Christmas Eve) we shopped for a present for Kari's mom. It's tradition for the whole family to go out Christmas Eve and buy her gifts. Maybe I should start doing this for Kari since she can never wait... After shopping we had oyster stew dinner then we opened presents. It was a good time, I got some movies, clothes, a compound miter saw, etc. We got Kari's dad an iPod Video. It was a fun gift. He also got the Office Space gift set which included a special edition DVD, a mug, a red stapler, etc. Ron Livingston's family happens to be neighbors with Kari's family, so Vic and I took …

So here are some entries from my 4th grade journal, all written in cursive - which I'm not even sure I know how to do anymore. The cover of the notebook is pink and yellow with the word "Journal" written with an eraser. That is then crossed out and the words "RAD" and "COOL" are written with sweet lightning bolt underlines - all by erasing the pink/yellow ink. Some of the stories are awesome, some are lame... but instead of typing just the good ones, I had to document them all.

HELLO! Oct. 1, 1990
My name is Derek Brooks. I am in 4th grade, and I am in Mrs. Bulls class. My phone number is 523-2213.

I am going to compare 2 T.V. Shows oct. 5, 1990
I will compare Tiny TOons and Looney Toons. Looney Toons and tiny Toons are the same …

Whoops, I forgot again. This weekend was pretty decent. Friday we went to Rico's holiday party, then Nathan, Zach, and I went out to Aura. It was a good time. We cracked open the homebrews at Rico's. They were really good again. Someone said they were the best batch so far; they were dark belgian ales - really stout.

Saturday we were supposed to go to Mount Vernon, but Kari was sick. Plus, I woke up at noon to make some eggs and toast, then I went back to bed until 5pm, haha. Seriously, I slept through the entire day - I woke up and it was dark again. So we went out to dinner with cedric at pho777. It was funny, their credit card machine wasnt working and I only had a debit card so they just told me to pay next time, haha. I …

One day Krissy and I decided to drive past my old house on Old Ranch Road in Port Byron. I was feeling pretty sick so I had her drive. In fact, I started to really feel like crap so I took my seat belt off so that the pressure wouldn't be on my belly.

Right when we passed my old house we came up on this car driving 40mph in the 55. Like any normal person, we got real annoyed. So she waited for the passing section, then passed. When we got right next to the car I looked over to realize that the people we were passing were my neighbors (really old farmers). And then I noticed that the car was turning into us to get into their driveway. They were totally oblivious that we were even there. So needless to say, the huge Continental …

One time back in 2001 I decided to go snowboarding with Jason Reiter. Prior to that, besides backyard snowboarding, I had only been snowboarding on a resort once.

Some extended family of mine own a small ski resort in Illinois (Snow Star). Every year the resort would be closed on Christmas Day, however, they'd invite a bunch of family and close friends out for a Christmas potluck and day of skiing/snowboarding/sledding. So needless to say, I got pretty decent at skiing as a kid. Then I tried snowboarding one year; the resort was pretty empty so I had plenty of room to learn. Regardless, I fell a lot, my butt hurt, my head hurt, etc - That was the only time I had gone prior to the invitation to go with Jason.

So we headed up to …

Sorry Cedric, but I think Chicago was much better than your party, haha. No, the visit was nice as always. I'm becoming quite comfortable with my visits to Harper and the city. It's almost routine - I love it.

So yeah, Friday I drove to Chicago, got there around 10, we hung out a bit then went to dinner @ Ziggy's. After that we went to Crobar, met up with Tag @ Hard Rock hotel, closed out Redno5, then bed at 4:30. It was a pretty laid back night actually.

Later that morning I woke up for a Heely Demo at Oakbrook mall. It was definitely a good one. The guys were cool, the Nordstrom staff was cool, and we sold 5 pairs of Heelys or so. Afterwards Harper and I played computer while watching Mischeif 3000. I totally want to do a …

Over the last week I got a few things done on the site. Here they are...

· Made the Previous/Next buttons nicer when browsing photos.
· Added tag photo browsing - so you can now click Previous/Next when trying to look at all the photos of Cedric. (And you can even comment from the tags page)
· Fixed the story comments to be more like all the other comments on the site
· Added cookies to all the comment forms so you don't have to type your info in everytime.

This weekend will be nice, finally get to go to Chicago again for some Heely demos. I love Chicago, so much. It is my favorite. Too bad I have to miss 2 local concerts, a BBoy competition, and Cedric's party. I still think Chicago will be better.

When I was in High School, 3 foot blowguns were pretty popular with my friends and I - the ones that you blow into and shoot a 4 inch needle out the tip. We all became incredibly good with them, we could hit pop cans from 30 feet away, etc.

One day Nate Sels, Ray Terhune, and I were on the way to play a round of golf at Byron Hills when Ray decided that he needed a new blow gun. So we swung out to Discount Tool in Silvis to pick one up. Discount Tool was a weird place; it's about 1/2 car stereo equipment, 1/4 weapons, and 1/4 tools. So he got a 3 footer, some darts and we went golfing. Upon arrival, Ray was dying to play with his new gun so he took it out and put it in his golf bag - no big deal, there are plenty of trees, benches, …

So nick was telling this story at lunch about how he saw a hamster in the Pioneer parking lot - which is pretty hilarious. But while he was telling the story I started thinking about the word hamster, haha. I mean seriously, hamster, hahaha. It rules so much. Like someone that loves beef might be called a beefster. Which is now what we've dubbed Rico.

Man, I love the word hamster.

In other news, the weekend was sort of lame. I got some stuff done on the home theater room, went to Down Under, Tonic, and Taki, snowboarded a bit, got snowed in from going to see DJ Swamp, bottled beer, and brewed a new batch of beer. ...So actually the weekend wasn't really that lame, but getting snowed in from Swamp sucked.

The snow started last night. I'm so sad and so pumped at the same time. My car sucks like none other when the roads are slick. Probably due to my decision to get performance tires back in College - when my car was garaged for the winter. Now I don't have that luxury and I'm paying for it.

The good part though, is snowboarding. I've completely spoiled Kari. She is totally outfitted in new snowboarding gear this year. She's got a new K2 Skyla 147 deck, Morrow Wildflower bindings, and new boots. My deck and bindings are 5 years old and I have crap boots. Actually if I just got some new boots I'd be happy.

Tonight, I'm gonna snowskate a bit in the yard, maybe snowboard too... I suppose I better shovel the driveway and make a …

Last weekend was nice, Kari's family came over to hang out/make beer/etc. Friday we went to Vicki's to celebrate Matthew's 50th Birthday. The boys and I played Geo Cache and found our first one. It was pretty fun - I want a GPS now. Then we had a big feast, hung out, etc. Later we drove up to Ames to pick up our wedding photos - which turned out awesome.

Saturday Nehru came over and we went to get beer supplies. While we were out Jeff ended up buying a mac mini to play with, ha. They are pretty nice little machines. I should get one to hook to a projector... I also got a blog and everything setup for Jeff. Which will be kind of fun to keep track of since he travels so much. Like, right now he's in Brazil again, wtf. Anyway, …

This may be one of the best emails I've ever gotten. Top 10 at least....

derek,

right now I am busy building a 6 foot tall anatomically correct paper
mache unicorn. we're stuffing it with 1000 twinkies, putting on
boxing gloves, and smashing it to pieces. the goal is to break of a
part and eat whats inside.

So i'm a little busy right now, but I will see if I can fit something in soon

This week was a pretty good one. Monday I went to the Brother Ali/Swollen Members/Gaiden show at Vaudeville Mews. It was awesome. Swollen Members are really hype and Brother Ali is really good.

Wednesday, Kari and I went to a Cornell alumni thing at Mondo's in Des Moines. It was pretty nice to see some people and hear some things going on at Cornell. But it's also pretty funny that after all the money we spent on that school we had to pay for our own food and drinks. Then I met Zach @ Val Air for the Reliant K/MXPX show. It was pretty funny. We walked in to the biggest crowd I've seen at Val Air so far - 95% of which were H.S. kids. The number of zits in that crowd was INSANE. Plus there were soooooo many girls. It was like …

While I was on my honeymoon I got this email from Kevi that said, "Here's the plan... Friday, Nov. 4, we go to Cedar Rapids and hang out with the cast of Viva la Bam. Saturday, Nov. 5, we film Tonya's musical and then come home." I was confused, but when I got home he told me that he bought VIP tickets for Don Vito's Back to School Tour, where apparently Don Vito and guests from Viva la Bam tour around with rock bands. I'm not really a fan of Viva la Bam, in fact I think it's a pretty awful show - totally scripted. But I do love all the old cky videos. They're like Viva la Bam, but without mtv and infinitely deep pockets. So they're way better. That said, I'm definitely a fan of most of the cast of Viva la Bam, so I was in. Though …

Ever since I started to hit puberty I've been referred to as 'looking like some sort of celebrity.' The first one I got was Devon Sawa, the kid from the Casper movie. I've never seen it, but apparently I used to look like him. It was super sweet for all the girls to call me Casper and bring me copies of the Teen Beat magazine when he was on the cover. Then in college I was told that I looked like Mark Hoppus from Blink 182. And for the past few years I've been told that I look like Bam Margera - like insanely. Kids have stopped in their tracks and wanted my autograph - this one got a bit weird. It resulted in me getting "not bam" shirt made and also made me cut my hair.

It's also weird that everyone I've been told that I look …

I'm home now. Things are still pretty nuts, lots of things to put away after the wedding/honeymoon. Plus about 1000 pictures to sort through and upload. Don't worry, they'll be up soon.

In other news, I got a 60gig video iPod, now Kari and I have 4 ipods, wtf. Hopefully they release a new one tomorrow so we can have 5.

And in other other news, my cubicle at work got filled with packing peanuts. Check out the pictures.

Being married is pretty funny. I am one immature married person.