I write, occasionally

A lot of you know that I've been building a shed in my back yard. It's my first building so I was a bit nervous... luckily I have mad building skillz, haha. So I downloaded the "Californian" plans from just-sheds.com and built a sweet shed.

There's not much to say about it except that I definitely learned a lot. Here's a few things to note...
· rent a sod cutter next time
· remember to put mesh in my cement next time
· make sure the frame will meet up well with the sheets of plywood
· don't build 45 degree roofs (I am scared of them)
· working with metal fascia sucks

Also, thanks a TON to everyone that helped out or let me borrow tools... My dad, Jeff Reynolds, Anthony, r00, Rico, Kevi, Mike Kock.

Here are some progressive …

Ok, so I have been working on "tagging" everything on my site sort of like flickr and gmail tags things. It's nicer for searching/browsing my site. For instance if I want to find a bunch of stuff about Kevi, I check out the Kevi tag or for skating I can check out the skating tag. I also made my tags page look sort of like flickr's popular tags page. The more of a certain item there is, the bigger the text. Rule. Obviously there are a lot of pictures with me in them on this site, ha.

In addition to tagging I used mod rewrite to make all my URLS nicer. Instead of links like /?pictures&album=77&pic=1172 they are now like like /photos/tech-n9ne-and-richs-26th/1172/. It's much prettier... for me anyway. The only problem is that …

Ok, so as everyone has probably heard 100 times, my birthday is being stolen by my sister's wedding, which is sweet. However, Kari is doing a pretty freakin awesome job of making up for it. Last night she took me to Tony Hawk's Boom Boom Huck Jam. First of all Wells Fargo Arena just opened Tuesday, so this was the first event to come there... plus Kari got us 3rd row seats, basically right in the half pipe. Moto-X guys were jumping over our heads, etc. It ruled so much.

The only downside to our seats was that we couldnt quite see the 30 foot drop in and 20 foot quarter pipe that were on the outsides of the halfpipe. Plus we were so close that the safety net was messing with my camera focus... Whatever though, they had 4 screens …

Man, this weekend was supposed to be so laid back, I was supposed to finish my shed, it was going to rule. But instead I really didn't to a whole lot. For some reason I got this urge to work derek.broox.com, which kept me up late every night. It's sort of lame because most of it isn't even visible for visitors, mostly just for ease of upkeep. I'm doing a lot of reorganizing, making the admin nicer, and writing some little scripts to tag EVERYTHING. My site's going to be so tagged - I mean SO tagged.

So, Friday we met Zach, Amy, Nehru, and Karissa at Ankeny Summerfest. Which probably would have been a lot of fun, but I didn't know anyone there, so there wasn't really people to look for or talk to.

Saturday, I had to go pick out …

Thursday my parents stopped by on their way to take bre'anna to texas. We hung out a bit, took the pocket bike for a spin, etc. Then friday we drove to cedar rapids, stayed with karis parents, and then finished the trip to Steph's graduation party Saturday.

The Froelichs always put on a good party, this time they had a Mexican theme with a margarita machine, a mariachi band, a pinata, lots of great Mexican food (including mexican sushi rolls, heh). It was nice to see some people from college also. At one point I noticed an M parked in front of their house, so I had to show off my bike. We also rode around a bit, Elizabeth fell, Lindsey was sexy, and we couldn't talk Dr. Bob into getting on (but Steph did). I really like visiting …

This weekend was different. Mainly because I had nothing to do, and even more mainly because Kari was out of town. What do you do when you have no plans and no girlfriend? You hang out with your single buddies. But then most of my single friends were out of town - Weak.

So Thursday, I got quite a bit done on my shed, plus I got my new gas tank and foot pegs for my pocket bike, rule.

Friday, Zach came over and we started up the pocket bike for the first time. It rules so much. We took it to Nehru's to ride around a bit. Ru wore his motorcycle helmet, haha. It ruled. Then Kevi met up with us for food at Rock Bottom, then downtown to check out Surf Shack, and then we met Nick back in Ankeny to hang out at Stix and my house. Here we …

I made a little web site about our wedding so I don't have to answer the same questions 1,000,000 times. Check it out: www.broox.com/wedding

This weekend was pretty unproductive, but definitely had some good times. Friday I drove out to Rich's for his birthday, and to see Tech N9ne of course. It was nice to see everyone, mitch, rankin, ben (somehow there are never pics of ben), and tons of other peeps that I don't really know that well.

So first was Tech N9ne at Quad City Live. We got in free because apparently we knew someone that did some work for the owners. So yeah, the show was crazy in more ways than 1. As always Tech N9ne was awesome. He is seriously one of the most insane rappers ever. So much talent, so little props. I love his shows. It's also nice to see Kutt Calhoun and Krizz Kalico again. But probably the most insane part of the show is this... I used to …

Yeah so I haven't really written in a couple weeks - things have been crazy. Everyone's birthday is now so a lot of partying has been done. And outside of partying I've been working on the shed. I'm sort of getting tired of building it. Stupid shed. It's gonna rule to have a clean garage though.

Anyway. Yesterday I was at Home Depot getting some door hardware and Harper IMs my sidekick while I'm leaving...

Harper: dude. i wish you were a nerd again.
Me: haha
Harper: you are no fun when you are grown up
Me: dude, i just ordered a pocket bike and i'm aiming while driving.
Me: so stfu.
Harper: hahahaha.
Harper: word. don't die

See the friends I have to deal with? So later yesterday, I realized I needed some more …

This weekend was seriously insane. Kari and I got to go to our 2 favorite places in 1 weekend, Cornell and Chicago - Rule.

So, friday night we showed up at Cornell and hung out with lots of friends before they graduate. Wingert even showed up, so needless to say we had to break Mt Vernon. Besides that it was nice to see everyone. Elizabeth's brothers came, Dr Bob and the family were there, and tons of others. For some reason I decided I should buy drinks for everyone. Seriously. One funny thing is the Froehlich family was drunk and playing quarters. You could hear people chanting, "DOC-TOR-BOB! DOC-TOR-BOB!" haha. Other than that, jeff and I were generally destructive. I fell pretty hard tripping in this street. It was …

If you didn't already know, Kari graduated from Cornell with a degree in elementary education and has been Nannying ever since. Not exactly in her field, but whatever - it's helped pay the bills.

Yesterday she got offered a fulltime teaching job at a school in Colfax (~25 minutes away). Today she called and accepted. So once it goes through the school board and all that, things will rule.

She will have her own special ed classroom with mostly behavior disorder kids (K-5). Which is exactly what she wanted. And finally I can get all the bleeper bloppin books out of storage. Plus she won't be working lame hours anymore.

Man, I love good shows. And I know the show is good when I have to take my shirt off for the drive home due to it being covered in sweat (or faygo).

So yeah, last night Kevi and I went to see Mindless Self Indulgence at Val Air. It's my second time seeing them live - and they are so good live. One thing that sucked was that there was a gate keeping the crowd from pushing all the way up to the stage... but whatever, we still pushed up to the 2nd row.

Anyway, first was Super 8-bit Brothers. Every song of theirs was about video games. They were a little weird, a little funny, but not that awesome. Then was SMB. Some girl told me to yell "sellouts" when they came on, because apparently they changed their band name to something …

Oh man, this weekend was pretty awesome for getting things done. My car has been running like hell lately, it's been really annoying. But Saturday I met this dude named TJ, who is 21 and has already owned 7 eclipses, helped me fix my car. He knows his stuff. His car is insane, he's getting under 12 second runs in his 92 eclipse. Anyway, we fixed my car... for the time being.

I also built walls for my shed. I knew I'd get my finger with the hammer at least once during the process, and I did. I've done it a few times in my life, but never like this. I hit it so hard blood shot out the tip of it, haha. It ruled. Anyway, tonight I'm going to put the walls up. You should see my garage, 1 half is filled with lumber, the other half is …

omg. I'm so busy, it's retarded. Like, it is seriously bringing me down like mad... and now that all my friends are moving here/visiting, it makes it even harder. For the next 3 weeks I'm not hanging out with anyone, haha. So don't ask! (except when I go to Mt Vernon and Chicago)

So besides that, this weekend ruled. Thursday I went to a show at Vaudeville. Luke (aeon Grey) rapped, Soulcrate was awesome, and RSK was not good... well at least their DJ wasn't.

Josh was in town this weekend, so Friday we all met a Champps for a couple drinks, then Nathan, Chuck, Josh, and I ran around Ankeny, saw some band that was good at Roadhouse. We got stopped by cops cause josh tried to wiggle a sign out while we were running past it, …

Ok so... Insanity lately. More to come. On top of being totally swamped at work, I've been crazy busy at night.

Last week lots happened, Monday - The Show is the Rainbow at Vaudeville, then hanging out at the Lift. Tuesday - Lost Film Festival at the Art Center. Wednesday - golf. Thursday - Dug a hole. Friday - Kari and I's parents came for the weekend (with their dogs). The place was out of control with Sadie, Chomp, and Ninja running around.

We went for pizza and then built the form for my shed. Saturday we woke up, finished the form, and then poured concrete. Thanks to MC Kock, r00, Kevi, and Dads. My shed is gonna be super sweet. I hope the concrete doesn't break. After concrete, we hung out for quite a while, Ninja got …

Friday, Rich, and a kid from my H.S., Shawn Rankin, drove up for the Eightball and MJG concert. I wasn't going to go, because I've only heard a few of their songs... but by the time they got to my house I decided to go. Before the show, we all ate at Okoboji, where we saved some little kid from having a steak knife driven through his head.

The show was at Val Air and was pretty awesome. Eightball is a big big dude and MJG has some pretty big dreads. It was a short set (only like 6 songs) but it was a lot of fun - had some drinks, heard good music, saw lots of booty dancing, etc. Shawn got busted peeing in the bush by a cop outside when we were leaving, haha. "Hey! What are you doing?! Do you not see me standing over here?" "aww I …

OK, I've spent most of tonight attempting to move broox.com onto my new server (which Kari's dad is generously providing). I'm hogging Harper's server so I really need to get this done. A lot of things are broken right now (especially email). But soon everything will be back. I hope.

What a weekend; we got so much done. Kari is finally out of her apartment, which rules. No more throwing $600 a month into nothing... well, not into an apartment anyway. Now we get to throw it into paying off debt - Weeeeee.

Also, last night Kevi and I went to the Lift for our first iPod Monday. It rules. You bring in your ipod, they have a theme, you make a 15-20 minute playlist based on said theme, and they play your stuff. It's really low key but pretty fun. If I had a laptop to chill with it would be much more productive though. And if I was able to drink more than 1 martini and still drive... stupid lightweight. Kevi and I got our pictures taken cause we're new... and because I had an ipod shirt on. I also met Joe Lawler …

Yesterday after work, Nick and I met Kevi to drive to Knickerbockers in Lincoln, NE. The trip was to see everyone's favorite "nerdcore/hip hop" artist, MC Chris. The show was supposed to start at 9, but that never happens, so we hung out at the bar, which is a pretty cool place.

MC Chris' opener was a dude who went by "The Show is the Rainbow." He did his sound test/setup after we got there, which included setting up a PC, projector, and a sheet - haha. Anyway, this dude was crazy. I'm so mad I didn't buy his CD. He had put together this video that he played during the entire show and went along with his songs the whole time. It was great. I can't really describe his style, he made fun of Indie, hippies, laws, and republicans a …

Last Friday started out so so lame, but then after driving to Ames and Mt Vernon, things got much more fun. First of all we brought Elizabeth a birthday cake with a little chub in it. Then we all celebrated her birthday. It was fun, I drank ecto cooler out of a boot and met Elizabeth's "brother" John, who was awesome. Later we ran around town, saw friends, goofed off, hung out with a spanish professor, etc. Later, I found Matt in his bed, and then I climbed into another random guy's bed... haha

The next day, we met Jeff at Lincoln Cafe, and then went to Theta formal in Waterloo. I wore a bright shirt, a wide tie, and some bling, RULE. Jon and I hung out more, Elizabeth wore a poncho-in-a-football, people wrestled, and of course goof…