I write, occasionally

After 6+ years of wanting to move out of the suburban house that I bought when I was 24 years old, Kari and I finally found a new home to move into.

We must've looked at/walked through 100 potential houses or lots (no exaggeration) over the years, but our picky asses could never find one we liked.

Our top 3 priorities were pretty simple: a ranch home, within 5 miles of downtown, and garage space for 3+ cars and a workshop.

Our other top priorities were: an open floor plan for entertaining, walk out basement, back yard privacy, an office near main living areas, 3 bedrooms, full master bath, full guest bath, a powder room, and to be near bike trails.

Our "nice-to-haves" were: something unique and awesome with garage/shed space in the back …

Almost every time I talk about participating in the Mid Coast Road Rally event that I do in Iowa, I get asked what exactly it is. I'm sure there are different variations, but the one that Road Rally Charities puts together every year in Iowa goes like this...

The event is full of cars ranging from Ford Escorts to Ferraris and on to giant SUVs.

Each car has a driver and at least one passenger that acts as a navigator. We all meet at the designated kickoff point... which is the only destination you know about for the entire day. You just assume that you'll be driving ~300 miles and have 3-5 different check points... but you have no idea where those check points are or how or when you'll be getting to them.

So, just as you're pulling out …

Kari pretty much ordered us a set of Riot Fest tickets as soon as she saw this year's line-up. There wasn't many current acts, but it was chock full of bands we would've gone to 10+ years ago if we had money... or knew that we liked going to shows. I'd barely seen any of these people play before, but was definitely into a ton of them at least one point in my life.

After watching Lollapalooza get a bigger and bigger, molly fueled, EDM crowd over the last 10 years, the crowd at Riot Fest was a much welcomed change. Almost everyone there knew how to go to a show and navigate crowds without being a huge dick. Everyone was still partying, dancing, and having a good time, but the vibe, older crowd and smaller fest was just super awesome.

Add …

This trip to the boundary waters wound up being the hardest, but also the warmest... actually, it was just straight up, unseasonably hot. We spent a good portion of every day shirtless, in our swimwear, or cooling off in the (very) cool lakes.

Our trip started at the southeast corner of the BWCA Wilderness at Kawishiwi Lake and we traveled 30-40 miles northeast to take out at Round Lake along the Gunflint Trail.

It was the most lakes I'd ever crossed (21) and the most portaging (carrying all of your packs and canoes across land from one lake to the next) I've ever done in a single trip. I was pretty surprised at how out of shape I felt this time around. I mean... I guess that really shouldn't have been much of a surprise... but anyway...

This was one of the weaker lineups I've seen at Lollapalooza, but out of tradition, we of course still went. On top of a few great shows, we got to hang out with good family and friends, eat some good food, enjoy a few cocktails, and shop on Milwaukee Ave. Here's who we saw...

Friday

Kari's dad joined us so that he could see Paul McCartney, which was awesome.

• Father John Misty - I have no idea who this is, but we caught part of this set while waiting for Hot Chip. They were talented, but the lead singer talked a lot and was pretty weird.
• Hot Chip - super fun, live. I love their drummer and I want their lead singer's chrome shorts.
• DJ Snake - haha. Ridiculous. Perry's stage has gotten outta control. The college EDM scene is just taking over…

Over the 4th of July, my wife's extended family from Boston hosted a family reunion at their cabin in Maine... Kari'd never been to the state, and I hadn't been since I was a kid, so ... duh ... we went!

I'd forgotten just how beautiful and untouched a lot of Maine is. Flying into Portland and seeing the hills, trees, freshwater lakes, and ocean along the way made me seriously question why we live in Iowa. It is such an amazing place.

So, once Kari and I landed, her parents picked us up and we headed past the small town of Damariscotta and onto Biscay Pond ... Lake to meet the rest of the family. Here, we had 2 cottages and her family's cabin... all split amongst 20+ people.

Everyone in her family was awesome and the east coasters were …

For years, Kari has been hoping that one of our friends would have a destination wedding. I mean, she loves weddings and she loves tropical/resort vacations... so an excuse to combine the two was obviously something she was interested in.

This year, it finally happened. Our friend Mindy invited us to her wedding at a place in Mexico called Mayakoba... we couldn't refuse.

We booked our tickets not really knowing much about about the place, but quickly learned that Mayakoba was this beautiful, tropical, lagoon area that housed 3 upscale resorts, a super nice golf course, and a bit of private housing. The entrance to Mayakoba takes you from a highway and through these tree covered, super narrow, winding, one-way(ish) roads - sometimes …

So, my friend Carol has this theory that you truly begin your middle aged life once you become thirty three and a third. She's based this on the idea that if we live to be ~100 years old (yea right), the first third of your life is from 0 to 33.3 years old, the second (middle) third is until you're 66.6 years old, and so on...

She totally buys into this thing too. Like she'll even make you a 33.3, middle aged narwhal birthday cake if you're lucky like my buddy, Nick.

So anyway, with that said, Carol tells me that today marks my 33.3 year old birthday... and by her standards, I'm now officially middle aged.

And to be honest, even without this incredibly important milestone, I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Over the past few …

So when Kari was diagnosed with MS last fall, no joke, one of the first things she asked me (nearly in tears) from her hospital bed was, "what are we going to do about lollapalooza?" Not even lying, she wanted to know that if she wasn't able to walk anymore, I'd be able to get her to the front like the guy we saw at Kendrick Lamar last year. It sounds totally cheesy, but live music is just something we do and it's been a huge part of our relationship.

Well, fast forward 10 crazy months and aside from needing an arm through some rough terrain, Lollapalooza was absolutely no thang for Kari. No handicapped pass was needed, we had a blast, saw some amazing shows, walked ~60,000 steps, and hung out with some good friends.

As far as music …

Anyone who's visited my personal website probably knows that it's pretty much just about telling my life story (filled with a ton of TMI, of course). Every thought I've had for the past 13 years is on here. Nearly every photo I've ever taken is here. Shit, if you want to know how much I slept, walked, or even what I weighed yesterday, it's all here.

But over the past couple years, I've been thinking a lot about experiences and contextual stories.

So, a lot of times after an event, I like to send around a link to the photos i took. But more and more, I'm finding that these photo albums don't capture everything. They're missing important thoughts, places visited, and many other things that tell the full story - at least from my perspective.

Friends!

Many of you know that I started a team to walk, grill, and hang out in support of that amazing chick, Kari Brooks on May 17.

So we're almost a month out and I just want to make sure you know that we really do want as many of you to join us as possible. All of you!

Walk

A lot of you have expressed interest in walking with us but haven't registered yet. To walk with us, you just need to click the orange "Join Our Team" button on Kari's team page or just click this link. The site is confusing and awful.

Donate

I didn't originally want to push the fundraising thing, because honestly, we're just looking for an excuse to get everyone together, hang out, and show our gratitude for your support. But as it stands now, Team kbroox has …

At the risk of forfeiting any future travel with my amazing in-laws, I really need to get this story down in a blog.

Last year, Kari, her family, and I started planning a vacation to the caribbean. We'd narrowed it down to a few non-U.S. islands. So needless to say, we all had to make sure our passports were in check. Kari's dad, being the world traveler that he is put a lot of stress on making sure we got this done ASAP... possibly bundled with a few snarky remarks.

Fast-forward to March.

Our flights were booked out of O'hare on the 10th, so we all drove to Chicago on the 9th to kick it with family and friends for a night. It was great.

On the 10th we woke up and took the shuttle to O'Hare, super stoked to finally escape our cruel …

2013 was a roller coaster of a year for me. A roller coaster with some serious business highs, lows, and hardly anything in between.

A few of the key happenings were...

• went to a presidential inauguration and some inaugural balls! ... (heh, inaugural balls)
• figured out wtf I ... well, we (me, Harper, Dylan, and Clint) were going to do for a job
• started building a company (and a product!)
• paid off my education
• bought a new car
• dealt with some surprise homeownership woes
• got away from everything via the BWCA
• helped my wife battle her new M.S. diagnosis
• got stressed out
• became comfortable

There was also a lot of awesome travel, weddings, concerts, festivals, friends, a huge tattoo, these stats, and other things I could talk about... But really, all …

One day last year, amidst the shitstorm of a job and life I was living in the city of Chicago, I IM'd my buddy, Josh and told him that I needed another trip to the Boundary Waters. I wanted to check out from technology, humans, the city, insanity, everything.

A trip to the Boundary Waters, a complete wilderness area absent of all civilization, modern conveniences, and man made structure seemed like exactly what I needed. This is a place where canoes and feet are the only modes of transportation, paper topographic maps are the only way to navigate, and you only take what you can carry. There are no cell phone towers, electricity, roads, running water, man made structure, and minimal human contact. In short, you treat a trip to the boundary …

Didn't have the best lineup ever, but it was definitely better than 2012… Add in not having a crazy job to pull me back to the office, a free place to stay, the beautiful weather, and the amount of butts hanging out of daisy duke mom jorts, this turned out to be one of the best lollapalooza experiences so far.

Here's how it went...

Friday

• Crystal Castles - This was my 3rd time seeing them. Their producer, Ethan is amazing and Alice is batshit crazy on stage… smoking, drinking jameson out of the bottle, and just putting on a great show. They sounded awesome.
• Theophilus London - was a nice surprise. He sounded great and sort of quick mixed his set which made things fun and let us hear a ton of songs. He actually moved a bit too fast and …

I've been trying to take a lot of random bike adventures around central Iowa this summer… and the more I bike, the more I'm coming to realize that biking in Iowa is both amazing and confusing as shit.

Where should I be?
One of my biggest concerns about biking here is that there isn't a clear definition of where bikers are supposed to be. If you ride your bike in any urban setting, you know (or learn fast) that bicycles belong on the street. Bicyclists "Share the road" or "GTFO the sidewalk" (depending on whether you're learning from a sign or a pissed off pedestrian).

In Iowa though, things are a bit different because barely anyone commutes by bicycle. Riding bikes is primarily a leisure activity that's done on our amazing trail …

It's no secret that I fell in love with public transit while I spent those 15 months in Chicago. So last night, when Iowa Senator Janet Petersen scheduled a meeting with me in downtown Des Moines, I decided to leave my truck in the garage and finally try out our public transit system.

Here's how it went.

Step 1, get directions

I looked up transit directions to my meeting via google maps (like ya do) and was instantly shut down. "Public transit coverage may not be available in this area."

Step 1, get directions (take 2)

I visited ridedart.com hoping for a place to put in some addresses or plan a route map, but I couldn't find one. This is either because it doesn't exist or due to my inability or impatience while using their …

The year that I…

• brought in at Chicago house parties with Kari, Drea, and friends.
• mostly spent living in Chicago, apart from visiting my wife and working my ass off.
• learned to scratch records (sort of).
• watched my uncle get inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• met the President of the United States.
• watched Kari learn that the biopsied lymphnodes in her neck were not cancerous.
• spent Saint Patrick's Day with friends on the green Chicago River.
• learned to make umeboshi onigiri.
• attended a good friend's lesbian wedding at a dude ranch.
• visited Minnesota, Washington DC, Arizona, Indiana, Marion, Des Moines, and Lake Okoboji.
• watched a Chicago Cubs game from a rooftop.
• went to the Chicago Blues Fest, 80/35, and Lollapalooza.
• saw the Lichte…

I moved to Chicago for 466 days, where I lived in 3 different neighborhoods and visited 375 different places — 239 of which were restaurants or bars. I walked around 10,087 steps (or 7.67 miles) per day, slept roughly 7.19 hours per night, and gained 1 pound before returning to Iowa.

I was actually in the city on 400 of those days and ventured out of Chicago on 117 of them. 68 of those (spread across 17 different trips) were spent in my actual home, with my wife in Iowa. I was also fortunate enough to get out to Washington DC, San Francisco, Arizona, and Napa Valley.

I spent 302 days at Obama's campaign headquarters, where as an engineer I committed over 140,000 lines of code written in 6 languages to 19 applications across 1,675 commits. …

A few weeks ago … err actually I guess it was more like 2 months ago (the concept of time has completely broken since I've taken on this crazy job of mine), I decided to try a little experiment in gluten free eating.

First let me start off with the gross backstory… For years, I've been prescribed with various medications to make this random rash on my ankles go away. Doctors have told me it's eczema, a fungus, and several other random types of dermatitis. Some of the treatments have helped, but nothing has really made it go away. So I've pretty much just lived with it - as annoying as it may be.

After some conversations over the fourth of July weekend, I began wondering if these spots were my body reacting to a gluten allergy. Apparently …