I'm 30 years old, love music, and am about to become the sickest DJ my bedroom has ever seen.

But first, let me give you a a bit of a backstory...

In the late 90s (high school, for me) I found house music. I had mostly been listening to terrible metal and rap at the time… but once I heard those crazy electro sounds, I started to become super interested. I even started going to some under-18 dance clubs in the Quad Cities.

As soon as I heard a DJ mixing these crazy electro tracks on ridiculous house systems I fell in love. I still remember that first club pretty vividly… Not only was I blown away by what I was hearing, I was also blown away by what I was seeing. There was an entire room of people just raging out, crazy raver kids, …

So... Back to Kevi's wedding weekend. Friday after we got to Orlando, we checked into Hawthorne Suites, which rule btw. Kitchen, living room, 2 queen beds, an amazing free breakfast, open bar from 5:30-7:30 daily, free wifi, and a nice pool - all for only $90 a night.

So after checking in, Kevi gave us some pretty rad gifts. Kari and Amy got wine and Zach and I got branding irons for stamping steaks, etc. I might use it to stamp some of my woodworking things as well. He also gave us some nice grilling spices and such - I'm excited to try it all out.

Later, we went to rehearsal and dinner at Ohana's where we got more gifts. I got a bottle of Glenfiddich 12 year scotch and Zach got some Effen vodka. <3 Kevi. Dinner was …

Ok so, kevi totally changed everything in his life up again with a new place to live, new job, and new gf... Imagine that. In fact he still owes me a case of dewski for winning this bet...

how long were you at yellow book?
2 months
how long were you at the hospital?
3 months
how long were you at stamats?
1 year 4 months
ok, i'll bet you another case of mt dew, you quit your current job within 2 years
ok
haha
should i quit my job here at geolearning before april 7, 2007, i will give you one case of mt. dew
Derek R Brooks
Kevin E Switzer

So that said. We had a mini going away party at my house last wednesday. Fun time.

Then I somehow managed to let kevi talk me into helping him move to orlando. He sold it by saying …

ok. this is the most messed up, no-sense making trip ever. seriously, i am so baffled by it that i had to blog it, haha.

kevi's gf is flying up here from florida and kevi is picking her up from the airport. this is where normality stops.

from the airport, kevi and his gf are driving straight to florida. and by "straight to florida" i mean that they're stopping in texas to pick up kevi's mom, haha. then, once they get to florida, they're hanging out for 4-5 days. after that, kevi's mom is flying back to texas and kevi and his gf will drive back to des moines.

obviously this doesn't make a whole lot of sense so i tried to figure it out mathematically.

~700 mi - dsm to mt vernon
~1,140 mi - mt vernon to orlando
~1,400 mi …

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, …

So this was a pretty unplanned weekend... Originally we were supposed to go to Mt Vernon to hang out with our friends. But since we\'re poor and have a ton of stuff to catch up on, we decided to stay here. Luckily it turned out to be a fun weekend anyway...

Friday Ninja got surgery. He had his balls cut out and dew claws removed - for some reason it didn\'t slow him down a bit though. Just to be safe we got him a cone head so he wouldn\'t chew stitches out. Plus I thought it would be funny.

Kevi came over friday so that he could find an apartment (w00t!). Since he was in town we decided to have a few people over to grill out. We made steaks, chicken, salmon, etc. Chuck brought pheasant, haha. It was a fun time. We mostly h…

Over the weekend, Kevi and I decided to make a short film. So we sat down and started planning this really dope skit. But the more we planned the more we realized that we didn't have the resources to make it happen. So instead we came up with another idea in about 5 minutes. It was supposed to be a lot different than it turned out. But once Kevin suggested that I use the song "Konstantine" everything just got a lot more gay. So I played off that and it turned out to be a bit more funny. You know... because we're all a little gay.

Check it out on the videos page.

Hmmm, the weekend.

Friday, Kari and I saw dodgeball. funny movie. Kevi also finished editing the third nutpunt video, which is sort of a continuation of the characters and ideas of our "I against I" video. Today he got it all converted to flash and uploaded to the site: www.nutpunt.com. Too bad the flash is a little choppier than the actual video (especially the first time you watch it). But, whatev, it's still funny.

Yesterday my parents came to visit for father's day. We hung out for a while, which was nice. Then we met up with Kari's family to eat at Spaghetti Works and then to the Iowa Cubs game. Spaghetti Works wasn't as good as I thought it'd be. Anyway, Kari and I bought our dads matching icubs shirts to wear to the game, …

KeviAtWork: i have to confess something to you that will piss you off for the rest of the day
KeviAtWork: i got a cat last night
Derek R Brooks: i dont even know what to say to that
KeviAtWork: :-(
Derek R Brooks: i am disappointed
Derek R Brooks: and sad
Derek R Brooks: :-(
KeviAtWork: dude
KeviAtWork: this cat rules
Derek R Brooks: that is the worst oxymoron i've ever heard
Derek R Brooks: you are a pussy
KeviAtWork: haha
KeviAtWork: man, i need the internet at my house so i can post I Against I
Derek R Brooks: you need a 22 at your house so you can shoot your cat
KeviAtWork: no

About a month ago ABC's Good Morning America advertised a "Cool Cubicle Challenge" that encouraged people to send in short videos of their cubicles. Basically you were supposed to show them why your cubicle is fun/cool. Obviously, Kevin and I jumped on the idea. We have pretty cool cubes, it was a chance to get on national TV, and we like to make videos.

First I went to Cedar Rapids and helped Kevi film his video, which turned out dope after the editing. Then my cousin Anthony and I filmed my video, which also turned out decent.

We sent them in, hoping that we would both get on GMA, even if we didn't win... we just wanted a second or 2 on national TV. So, about a week after submitting them, we found this on GMA's website, haha. …

I did a few updates to the site... First of all, I wrote a Spanish Flashcard program for a class at Cornell. It's written in PHP so if you want to check it out you can by clicking here. If you want more info about this program, check out a more detailed description of it in the portfolio section. I also completely redid the portfolio section. I added a couple sites that weren't there before and added a high resolution picture for each website I've made. Click the hi-res link below each description to check them out.

Probably the most important thing I've added is a picture of Kevin. Go to the pictures section and look at the bottom picture of Kevin. You'll notice that he is holding a case of Mountain Dew... I'll explain. A year and …

Today while kevin and I were working... we walked into the campus library to work on a computer. As soon as we walk in the door, kevin just tears this huge fart out... and the librarian turned around and started staring at us. So i just turned at him and yelled "DUDE!"... but he didn't care, we both just laughed and couldnt stop. We walked the entire way accross the 3rd floor, while I was embarrassed as all heck... and the librarian was just staring at us as we were laughing real loud.

...I guess the moral of the story is... people that fart, suck.