There are a few new things on this site. First of all, I removed the portfolio since it was getting so big. Most of you know about my new site, work.broox.com. All of my portfolio information is now on that site. In addition, I added a couple new pictures to the pictures section, and 1 new picture to the cars section.

There is a new picture of Zach and I, along with a halloween picture of Kevin and I. I modified the enclosure for my subs again. It is now vinyl, instead of painted wood.

Lately I've started to really get into skating... both skateboarding AND inline skating. it's sort of a weird combination since they generally hate each other, but they're really quite similar, and so much fun.

Anyway, I've learned 3 tricks on my skateboard. The first trick is a manual, which is just "riding a wheelie" on your skateboard. I'vealso recently learned how to do a pop shove-it, which is a trick where you jump and spin the board around under your feet and land back on it. It's quite tough to learn, but fun. But my coolest trick, I just learned yesterday. It's called a primo varial flip out. VERY hard trick, and if you've ever seen Rodney Mullen skate, you've probably seen one done. You set the board on it's side, and …

As many of you know, I'm just starting my 4th and final year of college. Which has given me quite a good amount of time to draw some conclusions about the people here.

First of all, I had a block off for an internship... so I started school a month later than everyone else. While my fellow classmates were going to class, writing papers, and taking hard exams, I was doing work that I loved, got some great experience, made a lot of money, got class credit, and expanded my resume.

Since I've been back at school (nearly 2 weeks), I'm really starting to come to terms with the fact that 95% of college students are made up of sheer B.S. I mean, seriously, look at the social science majors. What do they do? Philosophers... They're just people …

My buddy, Zach Larson, finally got cooler and bought his own domain name. He's also learning some flash stuff, so that's awesome too. Check out his site at zlarson.com. Remember, Zach has only been designing websites for a few months, so you're about to witness a very fast learner. Zach also does all his work in notepad already, BOMB!

(p.s. - You may have noticed that this site was messed up for a while and just displayed the date on the top, rather than links n stuff. Well, that's because I accidentaly overwrote the header on my site with the header of a site that I was working on for Lujack's... Stupid me... but it's fixed now. Also, check out work.broox.com)

If you didn't already know, I'm at home for the month in order to do an internship. Since I'm not at school, and since my parents only have a modem and 1 phone line, you won't see me on the internet too much. However, I did just buy a new computer yesterday, BOMB! and I'll be doing a lot of filming for the DVD I'm making for broox.com. So I'll be really busy. If you are planning on sending me media over the internet anytime soon... I'll be on a high speed line to get it from you this weekend (9/6 - 9/8). So try to catch me online sometime around then, and we'll get it taken care of, otherwise you'll have to send it through the real mail, or wait until the very end of the month to send it to me. Anyway, here is the lowdown on my …

I decided to go with productions.broox.com for my professional website. Check it out and tell me what you see wrong with it, and let me know if it looks ok so far. (i know that it doesnt work with netscape yet).

This is getting quite annoying, heh. I keep making my "professional sites" too personal. I originally bought www.broox.com to use as my professional website for freelance projects such as web design... it turned out to be a personal site, and then later became an extreme sports site. Soon after that, I created derek.broox.com which was to be my personal/professional website... but it's starting to lean more on the personal side and less on the professional side (Actually it's becoming more about my car, hah). I'm not saying that I want to lose my personal site, because I don't... but I really need a professional site so I can show it to companies and get a little more serious about freelance work.

This is where I want your feedback. …

So, today is my 21st birthday, which is cool, but it also sucks because I'm pretty sick. I've been sick for about a week... so I'm going to the doc today to get checked out. Later, kari is taking me out to eat in Iowa City, then I'll probably have to come home and go to bed since I feel so great....

on a cooler note, my car is finished, check it out here.

My buddy, Josh Lueck, and I got a great picture this spring. It's of him standing on an old bridge that isn't in service anymore. Anyway, we think the picture may be good enough to make it on a Jones Soda bottle. So, please please please vote on it, and give it a high score! To vote on the picture, go here. And if you're really my friend... you'd try to vote on it every day! :). I honestly think it could make it on a bottle. And it'd be really cool if you helped!

Well, after hours of work by my dad and I, the kit is finally on... well most of it. We got the headlights, tail lights, and both bumpers on, but we couldn't get the side skirts. See the sideskirts will look best if we actually mold them into the car instead of just bolt them on, so I'm going to wait until I decide it's time to get the entire car repainted. I also put some new 6x9s in, finally. I needed them so bad. My buddy, Brandon, talked me into getting the Polk 369s, they sound so good.

If you want to see a couple pictures of my car, check out the front, and the back. I know it looks pretty dumb right now, but I get the bumpers painted this friday.

Today I'm leaving work at 12:30 to go home and put all my new stuff on my car! It's going to be a ton of fun, but it's not going to be anything easy... I have to take my front and rear bumpers off, my sideskirts off, my headlights off, and tail lights off. Then I have to cut, mold, and fit a bunch of stuff in order to get my new kit on. I also have to put on the new headlights and tail lights. The tail lights will need rewired to work correctly, ack. Also... the kit isn't getting painted until next weekend, so I'll probably be driving around with half of my car being teal blue, hah. If you live near me, stop over tonight. I'll be in the garage all night.

So far, so good anyway... I went to check my mail and I had 2 package slips. So I went to the campus mail center and got my 2 packages. The first was from a contest that I surprisingly won at monsterskate.com, which included a new set of grindking trucks (which normally cost $50), Rims bearing gaurds, Rocketbolts hardware, a shirt, and some stickers! Me next package was from a company called Heelys. In that package was a pair of grey/blue Grails, which is their newest shoe on the market. In fact it isn't even in most stores yet.

The grails are a mix between a Soap grind shoe, and a standard Heelys shoe. They're incredibly cool looking and I can't wait to try them out tonight. A great new product by Heelys to save the grindshoe …

I got pulled over again for the blue lights on my hood last night... that brings the tally up to 12. I also got pulled over a couple months ago for not having a front license plate and having my windows tinted too dark. I talked my way out of the license plate one, but he still ticketed me for the windows, and then tried to say I wasn't wearing my seatbelt, which as stupid, cause I always wear it.

Sooo, I guess 2 tickets out of 12 stops isn't bad. And one wasn't even a moving violation.

Small CIA is finally complete. The movie itself is about 10 minutes long and it's pretty flippin good considering we filmed the movie in 1 day, and I edited it in 3 sessions. There is also about 10 minutes of outtakes and funny stuff at the end. This includes a few "cky style" clips of my cousins riding their bikes into chain link fences, hah. I probably won't be able to put it online due to the length of the movie, but if you live around me, maybe you'll get a chance to see it. Or if you want to send me a blank tape, or money for a blank tape and shipping, I'll send you a copy.

I've started ordering parts for my car lately. First of all I ordered a new body kit, which will totally change the look of it. Both of my bumpers and the sides of the car will be different. The kit I ordered is called the blitz kit. You can see it on a red eclipse here and here. My car will look just like that except I won't have the giant spoiler (because they're pointless) and my car will still be black.

I also ordered some new taillights, which you can see here. I still have to get new headlights for my body kit to fit right, and then I have to get a paint job... but after all that, it will show no visible sign of what kind of car it is on the outside. It should be all done by the end of the summer. I'll have pictures as I go.

Up…

So, while I was watching my cousins, we decided to make a little movie. On my way to their house I stopped by American Appliances and picked up a Sony digital 8 camera. Later that night we wrote a storyline and script. Sunday we filmed the entire movie (and only got kicked out of a mall and a hospital). Actually we sorta got kicked out of the mall twice. We got kicked out of the inside for recording, and then we got kicked off the entire property for recording outside. After we were done filming I recorded my cousins doing some cky type stuff... like riding their bikes into chainlink fences etc, hehe. Then on monday I went back to American and returned the camera, hah.

I'll start editing the video next week. It's nothing incredibly …

Alright, so I just took my last final of the year and my summer has officially started! For the next couple days I'll be packing, then I'm going to Des Moines to watch my cousins for a few days (and we might make a little action movie, hehe)... Then on June 4th I start working full time as the Cornell College Web Team Manager, and on the 5th I'll get started part time at Subway. In September I'll be doing a networking and database internship for Lujack's Auto Plaza, which is the largest privately owned dealership in the nation. And then I'll start classes again around October.

At the begining of July I'll be at Cornerstone, which is a 4 day long punk/hardcore concert with hundreds of bands. My soap buddies and I will be camping …

So I just got a job for the summer... finally. It turns out I'll be living in Mount Vernon for the summer and working on the Cornell Website. I've also probably got a job rebuilding a website for another company in the Quad Cities, and possibly a job at Subway (for a few extra bucks)? Who knows, but things are looking up for me.

My buddy, Aaron, liked my Nova video so much that he wanted one of his own. Aaron drives a Mustang GT (so fast)... and we thought we could do a couple cool things in a video. The only problem was, I live about 2 hours from Aaron, and have no video of his car. But, something worked out...

My other buddy, Zach, is also getting into video editing and had to make a "how to" video for a class he was in. So he filmed Aaron and made a really good 3 minute video on how to drive a stick shift car. In Zach's version he explains how everything works and stuff like that. I used some of the clips from Zach's video to make a video similar to my Nova video, but since Zach got some great shots... Aaron's video is a little cooler than mine. The …

There is a good chance that I blew the engine of my Talon last Friday... which sucks, but i'll find out the verdict soon. Yesterday, I put together a little video in remembrance of my first car. Yes, I miss that thing, heh. It was a 1963 Chevy II Nova. I bought it when I was 15 years old, worked on it for a year, and had it done by my 16th birthday. Then I drove it for about 10 months and got creamed by a lady in a honda. The car was totaled. But I made this little 30 second video just to remember it. Check it out here.