I write, occasionally

Man, this weekend was super nice. Finally I got to put a couple of my best Christmas gifts to good use - the compound miter saw from Jeff, and a couple hundred in Menards gift cards from my parents. Rico came over Thursday night we cut up the wall, wired in a switch, and did some planning. Then Friday we turned my garage into a shop and built the first section. Saturday the 2nd section, and Sunday we had everything boxed in. Now I just need to get some more cash so I can trim it all out, build cupboard doors, spray everything, and fill it with books. I'm super excited to get it done.

As you can see we wired it with lights and sound. The lights are dimmable to get a nice ambient lighting in the loft... and there are speaker …

So I haven't really been writing much or posting pictures much in the past month. Nothing has really happened cause Kari and I have been too poor to do anything. Mostly I've been doing a ton of web dev, and figuring things out. Some of that has been super painful, some has been really nice. I'm excited to start a couple more projects and hopefully start generating more cashflow. I've got 4 pretty good invention ideas - I need to figure out how to afford patents on those. I hope soon I'm going to figure something awesome out. I feel close. Soooooon.

Last weekend we went to Cedar Rapids to hang out with Kari's family and to Mt Vernon to celebrate Lindsey's Birthday. It was fun - sushi, running around Mt Vernon, etc. Too bad …

I went to college with a guy named Derek Johnson. I didn't really know him too well - except that he collided with Kari's truck when driving through a parking lot once. But yesterday Kari got to his blog through Tara's blog and pointed out this article, which is pretty hilarious. And it totally follows 90% of the things that Kari and I say about babies. So I'm going to repost....

But really, I have to know: at what point did everyone vote that it's time to get hitched and make babies? Did nobody ever take health in high school? I saw that film. Looks like a wet Saint Bernard trying to get through the cat door.

Yeah. You just think about that.

And did you miss the classic, blockbuster hit, Look Who's Talking (or any of its eight …

This weekend brought a lot of hockey back into my life. Friday, we met Nick and Nicole at Wells Fargo Arena to watch the Stars game. It was really nice to watch. I've only been to 1 hockey game since I moved here... I love it so much.

Saturday we got a lot of stuff done. Kari cleaned, I developed web sites like mad, figured some money stuff out, cleaned more homebrew bottles, and figured out that the turbo is definitely shot in my car.

Afterwards we got invited to this rollerskate party. Some Drake Law students rented out Skate West. Nathan knows one of them, got an invite, then he told me about it, so I invited people and we basically crashed the party. But, it ruled. Nathan told me to bring my hockey stick which made me …

Today I washed my hair for the first time in 2006.

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, blowguns were pretty popular with me and my friends... you know, the 3' long ones that you blow into and shoot a dart with a 4 inch needle out the end. We all became incredibly accurate with them and could hit pop cans from 30 feet away.

One day, my buddies Nate, Ray, 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 blowgun, so he took it out and put it in his golf bag - no big deal, there are …

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, …