Blog archives

A collection of all the nonsense I've posted to the internet over the past 24 years of my blog life

  • From a Sidekick 3 to a Blackberry Curve posted - 6 comments

    I've been an avid sidekick supporter since I got my Sidekick 2 back on 04. I upgraded to a Sidekick 3 in 06, and I bought my wife a sidekick slide earlier this year... but now, I'm switching. Why? The Sidekick is just moving way, way too slow... read more

  • Econonic Stimulus and Mothers Day 08 posted

    So, I'm not really sure what I think about this economic stimulus package, but I sure as hell accepted it and decided to use it just like the government told me. When our check came friday, Kari and I decided to do a mini shopping spree. I upgraded my personal electronics with a 160gb ipod and a blackberry curve. Kari, on the other hand, is buying fancy clothes. It was a lot of fun... read more

  • Fake Easter, Partying, and Such posted

    I've gotten really, really, really bad at blogging lately. I hope it's not because I've been less awesome and have less to talk about. Hopefully it's just because I'm being so productive on other things... or something. But I've also been taking way less pictures than normal and I don't really know how I feel about this... read more

  • Chicago Cubs Visit posted - 3 comments

    Oh man. What a good visit to Chicago. So, if you didn't know, I went with Bob, Todd and, Tiny (who's really like a 6'5" dude) for a Cubs game. As soon as we got to town, we went to Threadless to see Harper, hang out, talk tech, etc. Then we all got stuffed pizza at Chicago pizza, had a beer at some sketchy bar and parted ways... read more

  • Ouch. My body is lame. posted

    So, last night was my first night of broomball. I missed the first 2 weeks due to being on vacation, so it was actually the 3rd night for most everyone else on my teams. ...yeah, that was plural - teams. See, last year we just had our rookie half-ice team, District 5. We were decent - especially for a first year team... read more

  • Southern Florida posted - 1 comment

    If you've been paying attention to my photo stream, you've probably noticed that we had a jam packed vacation. 8 days and 250 photos of Key West and Miami Beach. Man, it was a great time. Jeff and Teresa took us down there as part of a giant celebration trip. Kari, Victor, and I got new jobs... read more

  • Using cURL to test RESTful Rails Web Services posted - 8 comments

    Lately, I've been writing lots of services for some of our newer Rails 2.0 projects. And one of the quickest/easiest ways I've found to debug these web service apps from a Mac is by using cURL. I'm not exactly an expert on the subject, so I'm documenting this half for myself and half to help anyone else out.... First of all the cURL parameters I usually use are: -X [action] Pretty straight forward... let's you specify an action (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE) to take on the URL... read more

  • Three Months Free posted - 9 comments

    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... read more

  • HHR Gravedigger posted

    One of the main reasons I'd really love to be wealthy (aside from obvious reasons) is that I could do hilarious/expensive things. I've always envied celebrities like Bam Margera for this reason. But one thing that I've been thinking about for a bit. Have you seen those Chevy HHRs without rear windows? The panel side or whatever... read more

  • From Broox to Flickr - and back posted - 1 comment

    So last week at work I had to learn the Flickr API for this rails site we're doing. It's been a lot of fun and really got me more excited about Flickr. I've always loved Flickr and its community. However, I've never used it for my personal photos because I really like having full control of my images. I like to have them stored them locally, I like to run queries on my photos, and I like how I have no limitation on integrating them into my personal site... read more

  • Small World, Giant Baby posted - 2 comments

    What a random/weird weekend. Kari and I made some last minute plans to celebrate Teresa's birthday in CR Friday night, visit my sister in the QC Saturday, then bust back to DSM to have at least 1 weekend day at home. 2/3 of our plan worked. So Friday, we drove out to CR and had dinner at the Red Lobster, ha. I hadn't been there in years, but it was actually quite good... read more

  • Bock Fest 2008 posted

    It's Tuesday after Bockfest and I think I'm finally awake enough to blog. So.. Bockfest was good again; not sober, and everything a beer celebration should probably be... and more. Maybe even a little too much more... read more

  • Life in 08 posted - 6 comments

    Man. It's been nearly a month since I've actually blogged about life. So let's see... what's happened... First of all, dad visited at the beginning of January... read more

  • Wish Lists! posted - 9 comments

    Oh man, I love lists. I really do. The "notes" section on my sidekick is always full of lists that I can add to while I'm out and about. One of those lists is always a "to buy" list... AKA, a "wish list" It's really handy when I'm out with some money to spend and I think to myself, "which DVDs do I still need?" or "what was that random tool that I needed last week?" So, I quick whip out my... read more

  • Alpine CDA-9886 Review and how Crutchfield Rules posted - 48 comments

    I just installed my Alpine CDA-9886 last night and since it's so new, there's a serious lack of online reviews, so I thought I'd contribute. First of all, let me outline what I was looking for. A deck that would let me play my iPod in some way, either via AUX in, or actual iPod connectivity/control. If the deck should have iPod control, it couldn't suck horribly like most of them do. It has to somewhat match my interior... read more

  • It's 2008 posted - 6 comments

    Kari and I's New Years Eve was quite interesting this year. We had these plans to make it a fancy/dancy night, which sort of fell through and left us stranded on a curb in some -4 degree wind chill weather. Aside from that though, it was a good night. We kicked it off with a fancy 5 course prix fixe dinner at Sage. It was amazing... read more

  • Christmas 2007 posted

    I suppose I better write this before 2008... Christmas this year was great. Kari and I were able to afford all the gifts we wanted to buy (for once), and we got totally spoiled by everyone else. We also saw tons of family, but not very many friends this holiday season. I'm a bit sad about the lack of friends this year, but hopefully that's what tonight (New Years) is for... read more

  • Santa and Church posted - 2 comments

    I promise I'm gonna blog about my Christmas, but first, check this awesomeness out. I get occasional e-mails from my aunt and uncle's church, which was also Kari and I's church for a while. A week ago, the new(ish) pastor sent out a nice Christmas e-mail that contained the following: "... Third, our Christmas Eve Service is Monday Night! Don't forget to come early and get your picture with Santa Claus, who will be making a special stop in West Des Moines before his appointed rounds... read more

  • Trans Siberian Orchestra at Wells Fargo Arena posted - 1 comment

    I haven't blogged in a minute, but last night as I was sitting at Trans Siberian Orchestra, I decided to whip up a quick blog on my phone. So first, here's an update... Nothing too big has happened. I've been hanging out, working, going out, and scraping ice/snow off everything. If you haven't already seen, here are some pics from last weekend's randomness... read more

  • derekbrooks.com is mine! posted - 9 comments

    I've been trying to get www.derekbrooks.com since I was in college. It's belonged to a canadian by the name of... wait for it - Derek Brooks since like 2001. I remember e-mailing a few times trying to get him to give it to me... but obviously that didn't work out... read more