Blog archives

A collection of all the nonsense I've posted to the internet over the past 23 years of my blog life

  • The strongest woman I know posted - 8 comments

    10 years ago, Kari and I were visiting Chicago during one of her fall breaks. I was there to work with my startup cofounders and she was there to hang out, shop, and enjoy our favorite city. We got in late, ordered pizza from one of our favorite spots, and then crashed at an Air BnB. The next morning, Kari woke up unable to control the entire left side of her body. Being young, naive, and frankly stupid, we (I) thought that maybe she slept weird... read more

  • Overlanding the 7-Hour Plane Crash Trail posted - 4 comments

    The upper midwest is effectively devoid of off-roading and overlanding opportunities. Most people in the scene are settling for camping in parks, getting invites to a handful of events on private land, or making long hauls to get our fix outside of the midwest. We'd been planning a fall overlanding escape to the Ozark National Forest with our cousins, who have a very similar setup as ours (Ford Broncos and off-road teardrops). We scouted out some campsites that we could drop our campers at while we wheeled through the forest. Ideally, we'd pull the teardrops through the trails, but some of the water crossings can get pretty high, and no one wants a wet mattress... read more

  • 2-Door Bronco Rear Seat Delete + Raptor Lined Cargo Platform posted

    The rear bench seat of my Jeep spent most of it's life in a Christmas tree storage bag... and I had a similar plan once I traded my Jeep in for a Bronco. But I was pretty bummed to learn that it was a lot more work to add/remove the rear Bronco seats (bolts, sensors, and tools? wtf!)... so, I just went scorched earth and ripped everything out, along with the seatbelts... read more

  • From a Jeep to a Bronco posted

    As soon as Ford announced that they were re-releasing the Bronco, I knew that I wanted one. However, I’d just bought a Jeep that I really enjoyed, so I decided to wait a bit. This would allow the aftermarket to catch up and Ford to shake out any issues within the first couple years of launching. 2024 felt like the model year to go after. The vehicle should be relatively stable, the aftermarket would’ve had a few years to catch up and with any luck, they may launch their anticipated hybrid model along with some other mid-cycle refreshes... read more

  • How I do home automation posted

    After 20 years of tinkering with home automation, I thought it'd be fun to blog about how I've come to approach things. First, the background My entry into home automation was tinkering with old school, X10 powerline/RF lamp and outlet modules that were paired with remotes, motion sensors, and a "smart" module that you could program via a PC to begin adding automation. Since then, I've played with tons of brands and ecosystems, but I've primarily used Zigbee, Zwave, wifi/mesh, and PoE devices. I've gone pretty deep with Hue, Lutron, Arlo, Ring, Nest, NuHeat, Sonos, Amazon, Google, Apple, Liftmaster, Bond, and other random generic smart devices. To tie the ecosystems together, I've mostly used SmartThings and HomeAssistant, but have researched and played with many others... read more

  • Twenty Twenty Two posted

    I almost didn't write a year-end blog because I kinda captured the year already, but ... 5 weeks late, I just wanna say that 2022 was one of the best years that I've had in a while. Most things have already been shared on my yearly stats page and blogs: I quit my job I got a hole-in-one I took 6 months off Oh, and we got a dog. But, I ultimately focused on myself and leisure and felt more alive than I have in a long time. I realize that I'm incredibly fortunate to have had those opportunities, but I'm now back to work, where I'm learning a ton and that's exciting... read more

  • The End of Free Boi Summer posted - 2 comments

    Retired folks often say that they somehow become busier after they stop working. This year I got a taste of what that meant. In April, I quit my job to take a break, reset, and enjoy a summer off with my educator wife. Those planned few months turned into 6+ months of "pretirement" and it was incredible. I wasn't necessarily busier in pretirement, but I was definitely more active and more productive with my own wants... read more

  • My First Hole-in-One posted

    I grew up playing golf, but fell out of the game for school, work and other priorities. I'd been wanting to get back into it, but kept procrastinating. So, when my friend Ben asked me to join him for 9 holes to celebrate his 40th birthday at Glen Oaks, I thought… here's my chance. At first, I was a bit apprehensive to have my first round in 8 years be at a fancy country club. I didn't even have clothes to pass dress code, but I figured this would be a great way to dive in head first and get back out there... read more

  • Joining and Leaving PayPal posted - 7 comments

    I recently decided to leave PayPal so that I could take a few months off and recharge. Here's how I got to where I'm at... 2013-2015: Building Modest Building a startup is quite an experience. In our situation, it was even more strange because we had a team of 4 with a nice chunk of funding before we even knew what to build. So, we spent ~6 months flipping back and forth between ideating and contracting while we figured things out... read more

  • Associate Principal KBROOX posted

    A couple weeks ago, Kari applied to be an Associate Principal / Dean for the largest school district in our state. She applied on the down-low, ignored most people's advice and went to her in-person interview rocking adidas wedges and kbroox fashion. She ignored dropping obvious industry buzz words and talking points, and responded as herself, with her values. This would be her first time stepping out of special education to represent the larger student population... and she apparently nailed the interview... read more

  • 2021 - The Big Disappointment posted - 1 comment

    2021 was the year that was supposed to be normal again. I really thought that we would get together and beat this pandemic, but nope. 2021 was somehow worse than 2020, at least for me. The disappointment was real. The depression was real... read more

  • The alligator in the woods posted - 3 comments

    A few weeks ago, Josh, Jeff, and I went camping at Lake Okoboji. We booked a campsite in a completely unreserved loop in the back of a state park and had the entire area to ourselves... which is always a good idea when our group gets together. The trip was great. Bullshitting... read more

  • Benny the Butthole's Short Life posted - 4 comments

    Last night, around midnight, our dog, Benny became pretty restless. He started moving about the bedroom as if he couldn't get comfortable. This was followed by incessant panting and pacing about the house. He'd had a bit of restlessness the night before, so we didn't think anything of it at first. But it kept up for quite a bit, so I tried to think about what was different that day... read more

  • Forty posted

    I’m 40 now. Almost dead. So, as I approach my final years (RIP), I’ve been reflecting a lot on the past decade and what I want going forward. On my 30th birthday, I moved to Chicago to kick off a new, stressful, and fruitful trajectory in my life and career. In that decade, I took some risks, took advantage of some big opportunities, worked hard, had some big wins, lucked out, and burned out... read more

  • Benny's Juicer posted - 1 comment

    So, Kari subscribes to this weird service that sends her random home/beauty/gym stuff every month. A couple weeks ago her package came with a juicer... but we already have a juicer. So she was gonna give it away. The next day, I found the juicer in Benny’s bed, so I asked Kari if she decided to just give it to the dog instead... read more

  • 2020 - That quarantine life posted - 3 comments

    My goals for 2020 were to: learn how to relax tinker on some smaller car/tech/house projects lose that new fat ride that bike Covid really helped me nail three of those, hah. But with nowhere to go, I didn’t get on the bike nearly as often as I wanted. So first of all, Kari and I were incredibly fortunate to have steady work, income, and a spacious home and yard during this pandemic. I absolutely feel for everyone that had their pay scaled back or eliminated, or were cooped up in apartments or city spaces without being able to fully enjoy their local amenities. The only way that I knew how to stay sane in isolation was to be outside and stay as busy as possible on projects, so I started the pandemic with a lot of yard work and small house projects... read more

  • RIP Garth Brooks posted - 4 comments

    Today, we had to say goodbye to the sweetest, most awkward, and lovable dog that I’ve ever met. Garth was a stray that was picked up in SE Iowa in 2010 and put on doggy death row at a kill shelter. A foster home in Cedar Rapids rescued him and we adopted him soon after. We got the privilege of hanging out with this sweet boy for nearly 11 years. Later in life, Garth started developing lots of tumors, which eventually found their way to his pancreas and caused him to over produce insulin and cut his blood sugar to half of what it’s supposed to be... read more

  • The Jefferson Lake Fiasco posted

    We went on the sketchiest hike today. It was at Jefferson lake, which sits in the mountains between the cabin we're staying at and our friends, Clint and Jacqui’s house. It's a very pretty lake, with no one else around, and what seemed to be a nice, easy trail. A little over 1/3 of the way around the lake, we had a decision to make.. Go all the way around or go back the way we came... read more

  • Two Thousand Nineteen posted

    A few weeks into 2020 and I’m still not sure how I feel about 2019. The entire year felt like remodeling and travel... which turned out to be a lot less chill and a lot less healthy than I had hoped for. House I started small by tiling a window ledge in my office. Then, I remodeled the entire basement (with a little help on the plumbing, flooring, tile, and drywall)... read more

  • I Got a Jeep! posted

    I've always driven 2-door coupes and hatchbacks. My current car is BMW M4, which has been my only vehicle for the last few years. I live in Iowa and didn't wanna drive my M4 in the snow - so I decided to uber around town on bad weather days... Last year, we had a terrible winter where I wound up ubering for months. ... read more