At the end of my senior year of college, I drove out to this country road to make a phone call. There was a spot on the edge of this cornfield that I always went to for important calls (without being interrupted by one of my crazy dorm mates).

I was making a call to Marv Hardisty because I'd interviewed for a position on his team a couple weeks prior and wanted to check in. It was for my first potential, big corporate job after college and Marv would've been my boss's boss if I landed the gig.

Once Marv got on the phone, the first thing he wanted to talk about was the portfolio of work on my personal website. He told me that he was impressed, but was especially interested in brooksfsw.com. As soon as he asked about it, my heart dropped, …

This is one of the best, most condescending emails that's ever been written about me. Back in my corporate days (circa 2007), a director sent this to all of information management.

Subject: Sorry to have to write this...
Importance: High

Folks,

I'm confident that it's no one in our group - given your maturity and professionalism, but you can help me by spreading the word that the reoccurring stupid and immature prank of taking, or tearing, a "bite" from Friday donuts (and other food) and putting the remainder back into the box is a thing of the past, starting now.

If you see anyone doing this in the future, please politely ask them to take the whole thing and not replace the remnant.  Please also politely inform …

Welp, I've now been free from the corporate world for a little over 3 months now.

Ha. Man it rules. It was scary and a little stressful of a move, but I am so, so glad that I dove in.

No more Microsoft Office, no software audits, no B.S. meetings, no re-orgs, no safety e-mails, no ethics surveys, and most of all no seemingly pointless PHBs in upper management.

It's funny, ever since I left Pioneer, I feel like a real live adult employee rather than an intern. Everything I do actually affects the company. Everything serves a purpose and we don't waste energy on the things that don't. I mean, in 3 months I've worked on more projects than I did in over 4 years at Pioneer. wtf.

It's interesting how much I've improved as a …

It seems like just a few months ago - my last block at Cornell College - when I'd drive out of town via 8th Avenue and park in a cornfield entrance at the top of the hill. This is where I always went to get away from the loud dorm I lived in to make important phone calls.

This time I was making my call to Marv Hardisty - checking on the job I interviewed for a few weeks prior. It was an interesting call - first he asked me about brooksfsw.com, one of my huge Soap Shoe web sites that I let get away. He asked me if I ran it and if I was aware that it was now a pornography site. I quickly explained what happened and that it was not my porn site. My stomach dropped and I was convinced that I wouldn't get the job - all because I let a …

Until I am done working at Pioneer.

That's right. On Monday this week I put in my 2 week notice at my cushy corporate job. Why?

Back up to a month ago when my promotion (supported by 3 levels of management) was brought forward and then shot down by the director of Information Management. This caused much frustration with the corporate mind state - which I'm not going to get into...

• Tuesday, Sept 25th: I was informed that my promotion got denied - so I immediately applied for several external jobs and one internal job.
• Thursday, Oct 18th: I interviewed for a job within Pioneer that would be the same level I was supposed to be promoted to.
• Friday, Oct 19th: I interviewed for a job at a small (8 employee) web dev company called Red …

As of last Friday, I've been at Pioneer for 4 years... and I'm still an entry level programmer! Haha, weak. However, I somehow carried over 9 days of PTO this year... which Brings me up to 18+9... 27 vacation days for the year + 1 floating holiday, yesssssss. Plus, only 1 more year until I am completely vested in Pioneer Pension.

Aside from that, I should note that I'm slowly making progress on the bar. Rico came over Saturday morning and we got the actual countertop all mounted. Time and Funds are killing me. I should be able to work on it again in August, haha, sad.

Later Saturday, Jeff and Iulia stopped over to grill. Then Elizabeth, Jon, Joe, and Andrea came over. And even later, Cedric, Nathan, Chuck, and Ando stopped …

Oh man, so I got a new computer at work.

Dell Optiplex GX620
-P4 HT 3ghz
-2gb RAM
-150gb HD
-DVD ROM/CD-RW
-And a ball mouse, wtf? I need an optical mouse in this piece.

Combined with my new dual LCD monitors, I'm loving life at work.

I haven't even had it setup for a full day yet and I already want to get a new setup for home. There, I'm running the same computer I got back in 2002. It was pretty fast at the time, but it's over 4 years old. I've doubled the RAM and added 120 more gigs to the HD, but it's just not keeping up with my video/photo stuff anymore.

So, I need a new PC to compliment my new 22" wide screen LCD from Jeff. And then I'll compliment that with another one of the same monitors. And then compliment …

wtf, are you speaking greece?

So this weekend was quick, fun, and productive.

Thursday we had a little wine tasting party, which was half lame, half fun. But regardless, it was interesting and I learned a few things. Hopefully some of my friends did too.

Friday my group at work checked out the Pioneer suite at Wells Fargo Arena to watch the Stars game. It was definitely fun. Somehow Pioneer made a rule where we're not allowed to drink in the suite, but when we got there, we were offered beer by a waitress. Then when we declined beer and ordered pop, we found that our fridge was full of beer... which was leftover from the last Pioneer party to have checked out the suite. Hmmm. Regardless, it was fun. Hopefully Truespin …

Weekends at home rule, for real. I can't wait for another weekend like this.

So Friday, I ended up going out with Nathan and Chuck. We started at Stix but quickly upgraded to DJ Skribble @ Crush... then we downgraded again to Drink, and then again to Vieux Carre. Weak. It was a fun night though. (more pics)

Saturday I basically got a ton of things done at home, Nick and I did some web dev, then we went to Moo's house for some sweet loins and scotch older than me. It was a nice night. Always good food and drink ad Doug's.

Then Nathan bought me a bottle of glenlivet 12 for helping me fix his car sunday, w00t. Working on his car always cracks me up because it's just as old and crappy as mine. Plus while we were going to buy …

Slim Shady. I'm back. I'm back.

Since my shed is done, I put my webcam back up. Looky! I'm in my new cube! Umm, the auto refreshing popup is gone though. Maybe I will rewrite it sometime, maybe not too.

* broox punches nick and cedric in their stupid faces.

So this was the first weekend that I've been home in weeks. It is literally the second time that I've been in Des Moines for a weekend since June, haha. I mean, I've gone to Cornerstone (Illinois), Heritage Days (Mt Vernon), L.A., Denver, Quad Cities twice, Minnesota, and Chicago Twice. The only other weekend I was here was during 515 Alive. wtf.

My plan was to relax, chill, etc. So, Friday night I watched my cousin's soccer game and then went out to dinner for his birthday. Saturday afternoon I went out to Big Creek lake to go boating/fishing with Chuck n Nathan. That was a good time. Then we picked Kari up and all went out. Lots of pool shooting/dancing was taken care of, haha.

Today I spent most of the afternoon …

So when I was in LA, my neighbors filled my cubicle with boxes, which is sweet because I have to move soon and they'll help out.

But the "queens" (as blair called them) covered my cube in Post-It notes while I was in Denver. I so don't have time for this... so behind on work.
:(

I came back from Cornerstone to find this bloodbath on my desk at work.

It is a sad day.

This weekend my cousin anthony and I filmed a "CRIBS" episode of my apartment, haha. I hope it'll be good. I'd like to get it edited tonight, but I doubt that'll happen. I think Mtv puts a lot of planning into music/video choices in CRIBS, I need to find some good songs that'll match the video.

Also this weekend, Pioneer had the company picnic at Adventureland. I always forget how lame adventureland is. We rode 2 of the 3 rollercoasters, the park chairlift, and the ferris wheel - A kid asked me for my autograph when we were leaving the ferris wheel. Then him and his friends were following me around for a while. Sometimes the whole "bam look-a-like" thing is funny, other times it's dorky.

Yeah, work has been fun lately. I get to use …

Starting today Kari and I have been together 1 year!!! haha, actually today I have been at Pioneer for 1 year... wtf that went fast. I really have no idea how long Kari and I have been together... she has no idea either so we're straight.

Anyway yeah a year out of college... I have some nice furniture. I've been to Kansas City, Minneapolis, Denver, Chicago-twice, Saint Louis-twice, and Detroit. I got an Iowa License. My hair has grown about 8 inches. I have a goatee. I've gained about 10 pounds (stupid stupid desk job). I got really good at tech decks. I learned to ollie a skateboard and drop in on skates. I've gotten a salary increase. I started a company with Nick. I've gotten a lot of new electronics. My car is faster.

Today was Chad Kraus' last day at Pioneer... weird. So here's a little story of him and his time here...

He started the same day I did almost a year ago. The punk actually got the job I applied for, hehe whatever, I write web apps (roxor). Anyway, chad was fun because he always fell asleep in meetings. He also made lots of funny faces and was a big alcoholic.... haha, j/k.

For a few months we put random food (pickles, pepper bar, donuts, etc) in one of his drawers. It took him a few month's to find it and when he did, it was gross and he was mad. Kraus' family also has a big involvement with Dairy Queen; a lot of times kraus would go home to eat hamburgers for lunch. So Nehru started calling them Krausburgers... which caught …

Today, I built my own mini segway. It rules so much. Check out the pictures of the yellow guy riding it around my office.

segway 1 - segway 2 - segway 3 - segway 4

Yo check out the glacier we have sliding off the roof of the Shull building, it's been sliding for about a week now.

Outside - Inside

Jan 5, 2004 1:47 PM Seriously, this is getting out of hand. I had to move so many things around on my desk to get my tech deck stuff to fit in here...

Check out my ramps and rails. I am so lame.

I need to fill them with spray foam and attach them to my desk. Everything is hollow, so it's sooo loud.

So, my cube is slowly turning into a tech deck skatepark. I've now got a quarter pipe, 2 grind rails, 7 regular tech decks, 2 mini tech decks, and a tech deck handboard.

Luckily most of my neighbors are into tech decks as well... other wise they would hate me. Nick has 3 normal decks and a mini deck, cedric has 4 decks, chad has 2, minnis has 1 and jason has 1.

Here's a picture of my desk right now.