Blog archives

A collection of all the nonsense I've posted to the internet over the past 25 years of my blog life

  • Thanks, I Think. posted - 1 comment

    Thanksgiving. Ahhh Thanksgiving. I don't really have a whole lot of thankfulness right now. I mostly just have lots of busy-ness (business?) in preparation for the thankfulness. So I am just treating this last weekend as another holiday... read more

  • Completely Random posted - 2 comments

    Rico keeps telling me that he refreshes my homepage non-stop just to see what random photos will come up. So I decided to make it a little easier for him (and anyone else) to see random photos. Just click on the blue "random bar" above the random photos on the right of the home page. Or go to /photos/random/ Also, I now display the number of comments for a given photo on the thumbnails... That way you know if there are comments before clicking. read more

  • Me Have A.D.D. posted - 2 comments

    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... read more

  • Hidden Lives posted - 26 comments

    In July of 2005 i wanted to make my site nicer, more organized, and more fun. To do this I added Tagging. Tagging is this really nice feature used by popular sites like Flickr, YouTube, Google, etc. Tags rule. They invoke a lot of coordination in a web site and are just fun... read more

  • 7am. No Sleep and Bloody Knuckles posted - 1 comment

    It has taken me 4 days to build up the energy to blog about last weekend, seriously. Friday, Josh and Jeff were supposed to meet up at my house at 6... 6:30 at the latest. However when Josh told me that he wanted to take a route that he had never been (while attempting to never touch an interstate), I knew it'd be bad. At one point he was talking to me after he'd crossed into Iowa, 15 minutes later he called again and was back in Minnesota... read more

  • Framework'd!!! posted

    I haven't really done much framework stuff outside of my full-time job, so I decided to play around. (mainly so Harper would stop yelling at me). Nearly all of my personal development is in PHP and JS, so I tried out some PHP and JS frameworks on a simple app. After a few hours, my "funny quotes" site is all smartied and prototyped, which was a nice little learning experience. The big thing I learned is that prototype RULES... read more

  • Amazon Wish Lists posted

    Man, I am really beginning to love Amazon wish lists. Not only are they super nice for gifting, they're nice for finding new items and keeping track of things you need to buy. I often find myself looking through Amazon just to mark things that I already own. Why? Because then they recommend things similar, and their recommendations are usually pretty relevant... read more

  • Sushi, Dogs, and Beer posted - 2 comments

    As if I even have to say it... Dog parties are stupid. Kari had this brilliant idea to have a dog party at our house for Ninja's 2nd birthday. I originally didn't like it for a few reasons, one being that it ties us a lot closer to being parents than I'm really comfortable with. But also, wtf? read more

  • Halloween Dogs Alive posted - 5 comments

    Oh Yeah. So, we had a Halloween Party last weekend, which marked the biggest party held in my house to date - 40 people. I didn't realize how much fun that costume parties can be. It sort of makes an automatic ice breaker and then everyone ends up hanging out with everyone. I loved it... read more

  • Year One posted - 10 comments

    Hmm, I don't think I can make my anniversary article as good as Kari's. Maybe I'll try to be more serious than her. wtf? So yeah, this weekend was Kari and I's first anniversary. We were fairly confused about what to do because... read more

  • Loud Noises Used to Make Me Dance posted

    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... read more

  • Broken Hard Drive - Round 2. posted - 2 comments

    Oh man. I'm really really scared again. So I was just working on my home electrical system when I accidentally flipped breaker 8 - the one with all outlets for the top floor. It shut my computer off, etc. No big deal really... read more

  • Streaming Music Throughout My House posted - 14 comments

    So, I apparently let my home network go to crap in the last few years, which is not conducive to my current project - to setup a virtual "whole house stereo system." See, I have this stereo in my loft with some strategically placed speakers. These speakers use my vaulted ceiling to bounce music all over the top 2 floors. Plus it's all controlled via itunes on my primary computer. I love it, love it... which is why you'll always hear music playing in our house... read more

  • Chicago - Family Style posted - 4 comments

    Ahhh, another weekend well spent in my home away from home. I love how comfortable I'm getting with Chicago. It's quite nice. This time we visited the city for 2 milestone events - Vic's college graduation and Kari's 25th birthday. Thursday was Vic's ceremony, which ruled... read more

  • Another Terronez Visit posted - 1 comment

    So last week I had C#.net training. It was pretty nice. I really like C#.net programming... except for all of the visual WYSIWYG influence that people put on it. It really bloats the code... read more

  • ARROW'D!!! posted - 4 comments

    So, minnis is one of the biggest hotkey fanatics ever, which is starting to rub off on me. He's gotten me all excited about them in web apps... You know, Google uses them, flickr uses them poorly, etc. That said, I added some super rad new hotkeys to my site. They use eventlisteners and all that so you don't have to use the accesskey and alt keys... read more

  • Babies Suck - Bad posted - 27 comments

    A-ha, the long awaited Brooks-Baby-Rant article. First of all I want to say that I mean no offense to any of my friends who have children, I just don't want them. Also, I don't hate children - in moderation. I mean, I do have some pretty rad younger cousins. So, that said, ready? read more

  • Broox.com - Expired posted - 6 comments

    So I had just left the house this morning and got an IM from Zach: zachsatwork: hey something is wrong with your website zachsatwork: Network Error (dns_unresolved_hostname) zachsatwork: Your requested host "derek.broox.com" could not be resolved by DNS. Please verify that you entered the URL correctly and try again. At this point I freaked out a bit because I vaguely remembered a "1 month expiration reminder" from Joker. zachsatwork: thats it though, all the other sites are up brooxmobile: Is kari.broox? zachsatwork: down So I freaked out more, pulled off at this gas station and logged into Joker from my phone while pumping gas... read more

  • Rico Leaves Oktoberfest posted

    Ahhh, home. When I'm home, things get done. So yeah, Friday was Rico's last day at Pioneer, which was a little weird, but was also quite nice. I really don't know many people that have the balls to up and quit a job after over 20 years of service. I'm pretty excited about it... read more

  • Chicago or Des Moines? posted - 11 comments

    The question is not about where I want to live, because the answer would obviously be Chicago. However, that can't happen right now, so... I want to make this piece of art that is basically a skyline sitting on a chunk of earth. The actual skyline would be black painted metal sitting on a piece of "earth" to give a sort of glacial effect. The earth would be made of plywood... read more