I’m a pretty forward-looking guy, but that doesn’t mean I’m above being retrospective about the past and both taking pride in what I’ve done right and learning from what I’ve fucked up. Throughout my history of blogging (here and elsewhere), I’ve tried to always look back at the end of the year and recap what happened and how I feel about it.
Family/Friends
Didi and I. Man, what a great year. We did it up right — first and foremost, we got married in June, with a small group of friends and family in attendance. We had a lovely honeymoon in the Bahamas, where Didi received and accepted a new job offer, and then we returned to me getting laid off. You’d think the stresses of the layoffs would have made things tough, and it did financially, but all in all, we’re still good. She’s still my ride-or-die bestie, the spark is still very much there, and I make it a point to let her know just how loved she is every day.
The kids. Oh man, where to start? It’s been an easy year with Sam, who has been a gem. He’s started to diverge strongly from Eddy and find his own interests and his own path, which has been amazing to see. He’s proven remarkably adept at managing his own money, and has managed to save up almost $200. He’s been asking me to build him a gravel bike, which I may just do next summer when we move into the house.
It’s been a tough year for Eddy, with his summer spent in an IOP1 that had him in therapy for four hours a day. Got a diagnosis of autism. And seventh grade has been kicking his ass and he can’t seem to get enough help. It’s beating down his self-esteem quite a bit, and I’m worried about him.
The pets are the pets. We adopted Joey last December, so she’s not news to any of you that read this or follow me on other social media. She’s been a wonderful addition to the household. Gertie is doing well even if she initially hated Joey. Now they’re playing a bit. Gertie’s showing signs of age — slowing down and getting a little grey in the muzzle. The big surprise, is Emi, who I will get to in the next paragraph.
Lucky, who was previously my mom’s cat, had surgery this year to remove the lemon-sized cyst he had on his chest. Not sure if it was mom’s dementia filling in details, but she was convinced that the vet told her that it was cancer, that it had metastasized and that he also needed a leg amputated. A review of his medical records indicate none of those things. But the cyst was removed, and other than a gnarly scar under his fur, you’d never know he was ill. He’s almost 18 as of this writing, and still a grumpy old fucker. Schultzie continues to decline slowly — he’s lost a lot of weight and until recently didn’t have much of an appetite. He sleeps a lot now. And then there’s Cole, who is pretty but not real bright. For Cole, life is just one big mysterious adventure. The big addition to the family this year was Emi 2, who was a surprise for everyone. I met her at the local gaming store on December 21st, had a chat with Didi, who I was hoping would talk me out of it, but then we wound up bringing the 22-toed monster home on Christmas Eve. The seniors — Gertie, Lucky, and Schultize — are generally okay with her. Cole is a little annoyed, and Joey has been fairly jealous.
As mentioned, mom‘s got dementia, but again, if you follow me on social, you already know that. Anyway, she spent almost a year in a nursing home, but once they got her meds figured out, it was more that she needed to be in assisted living. We got her a conservator to handle her money and got her the hell out of the shitty (and ridiculously expensive) nursing home and got her into an assisted living facility in Eagan. As with my mom, she’s not happy unless she’s miserable, so now she’s complaining about everything. Whatever.
And then there’s my brother, Paul. His cancer has continued to progress into Stage 3 in spite of treatment, so he’s opted to discontinue treatment and move into palliative care. He’s living with a friend and watching the medical bills that will never be paid continue to pile up. It’s heartbreaking to watch and I feel like I’m mourning in slow motion. I make sure to tell him that I love him every time we have a conversation.
The friends group remains largely the same as last year — a solid group of people whom I love dearly.
Career/Work
So the big news is that I got cut loose from Wings Credit Union this summer. Literally my first day back from the honeymoon in the Bahamas. Saw it coming, though — our LinkedIn and Facebook accounts were blowing up with news of the layoffs midway through the honeymoon. It didn’t ruin anything, and while the time unemployment has been (was?) shitty, it’s for the best. I wasn’t entirely happy with my role there.
I’m still at Erik’s. The plan we made before the wedding was for me to finish acquiring bikes this year and stock up on a bunch of shit. And then quit. That didn’t happen, either. And honestly, I’m okay with that. I needed to fix a few parts on the Northern and the BMC and get some stuff for my aforementioned trip to Tucson. It looks like I’m going to stay on at least one more season. Twist my arm, ow. 😉
One of the things that really helped out this year was having some freelance work fall into my lap. A former employer, where I started as a contractor, pulled me back in for more contract work, and it’s been lovely. A friend’s tech startup has been pulling me in for 5-ish hours a week of work and that’s also been great and has really helped to sharpen my python skills.
Health
It’s been pretty good. My cholesterol and triglycerides are both back into normal ranges without using any medications. I’m down below 195 pounds for the first time in more than a decade. The riding and cleaned-up diet have both helped a ton. I’m feeling pretty fucking fantastic, all things considered.
So at 52 years old, I’m pretty happy with where I’m at. Yeah, my back is still kinda jacked-up, and I have weird aches and pains now and then. And I’ve got some issues with anxiety. But all in all, I’m pleased, and I’m on a track to have a great 2025 where my physical health is concerned. I did manage to track down my old chiropractor and have started seeing him again semi-regularly for my lower back issues.
On the mental health side of things, I need to find a new therapist and start dealing with my anxiety issues.
Education
I had planned on starting a new bachelor’s degree this fall, but with being cut loose from Wings, the lack of education benefits put a crimp in things. This year was a lot of reading, and a bunch of Udemy and LinkedIn courses. There will be a whole separate blog post on the topic.
Travel
We started off in January of 2024 and went to North Carolina for a wedding. It was a bit of a whirlwind, to be sure, but I got to meet Di’s siblings and extended family, enjoy a little warmer-than-Minnesota weather, and make a Waffle House trip.
I’m not sure I want to call it “travel” because we really just took a “quick” road trip to the Indianapolis area to see the total eclipse. Di, the kids, and I packed ourselves into the CR-V and hustled our butts down to the path of totality, and were wowed by the effect. Traffic was rough getting there (12-13 hour drive instead of a 9-10 hour drive). Getting home was way worse. It was a good training experience for how we’d travel again in August when we went camping in Colorado. That said, watching a total eclipse was a stunning, beautiful moment — I don’t know that I have the words to describe it. Di and I have discussed the possibility of upending our travel plans so we can go back to Europe in 2026 for the next one, though I’m thinking Egypt in 2027 would be even better.
Our first big foray of the year was in June, and Di and I went to the Bahamas for our honeymoon. We spent a week in Nassau at an all-inclusive resort, and thoroughly enjoyed our time. We had a private villa with its own private pool, a privacy fence, and butler service. Expensive as fuck, but worth every damn penny. We swam in the ocean, we slept in late, we ate great food, and we had an amazing time.
About five weeks after the honeymoon, the four of us got back in the CR-V and went camping in Rocky Mountain National Park. It was incredible. We used Hipcamp to reserve a small cabin not far from Estes Park, which would have made it easy to get in and out of the national park, but we were hit with the problem of the wildfires, which eventually reduced said cabin to ash. Our first night we stayed in a hotel, and then after that, we had a campground with fixed tents that we stayed in for the rest of the time. The lessons learned from the Indianapolis trip made the drive much more tolerable this time around (we split each segment into a two-day affair). The trip was fun, but had some difficult parts with the kids’ behavior (Eddy’s mostly). We got a multitude of hikes in — Gem Lake, Lulu City, and Adam’s Falls, and even if it wasn’t perfect, it was definitely memorable. (Recap.)
We got home from the camping trip and less than two weeks later, Di and I jetted off to Vegas for a concert (details below in “Media”). I also scratched off a few bucket list items, including ziplining, which was on the list of 101 Things in 1001 Days.
After Vegas, we anticipated having a bit of downtime before the last trip of the year, but another trip got wedged in there — Washington, D.C. — for Didi’s dad’s 70th birthday. This was a bit of a whirlwind, so we didn’t get to see as much of the city as we’d have liked. We’re anticipating a longer trip in the near future, though, which will be awesome.
Return from DC, and a month and some change later, I flew to Tucson for the annual Tour de Tucson. Di was supposed to be joining me for this, but due to my unemployment, and her new job with limited PTO, she opted to hang out here in Minneapolis while I went and suffered. It was pretty dang awesome. See the “Bike” section, below for more details.
Bike
A trio of new bikes entered the fleet this year. We got Di squared away with a couple of new bikes — a Specialized Stumpjumper Comp and a Specialized Diverge Carbon Sport. And I built up the BMC Roadmachine frame that I bought back in 2023. I had intended to start acquiring the parts to build a Specialized Epic 8 EVO, with the goal of having a pretty sick downcountry bike that I can play on the trails with, or race cross-country, but the unemployment put the kibosh on that plan.
My big target for the year was the DAMN, the Day Across Minnesota, a 240-mile gravel soul-breaker. By late May/early June, it was obvious to me that I wasn’t going to be ready. I’d been battling back problems up to that point and was getting sick constantly, so I decided to refocus on the latter half of the season, starting July 1st. As of right now, I think I’m pushing the DAMN back until 2026, and will be focusing on gravel and much longer brevets this year.
So the big fun this year was the Tour de Tucson — in 2023, I did it with my brother Reed, and we only managed to get to the 75-mile mark. This time, my training was more consistent, I was ready to rock when I got there, and we finished faster than I had hoped to, and would’ve been probably 20 minutes faster if I hadn’t bonked on the climb up to Duvall Mine Road. (Details @ Strava, full ride recap here.)
Lego
It was a quiet year for me on this front, honestly. Didi did snag me my white whale set for a wedding gift. The Ghostbusters HQ building — unopened and still in the box. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. My wife is fucking incredible. I’m sure that I’ve mentioned that a few times. I also received the Tuxedo Cat set as a birthday gift, which is lovely. I should probably hold off on building it until after we move next year, but I don’t know that I can.
New Experiences
Although we added Joey to the family in mid-December of 2023, she was really a 2024 project. We spent a lot of time in puppy play groups at the Humane Society, followed up by sniffing/locating classes, and a three-week obedience class where she learned heel, how not to jump on people, and a variety of other stuff.
Ziplining was new to me. It wasn’t as much of a rush as skydiving, nor was it as focused as, say, rock climbing. It was its own unique experience. We did the Slotzilla ziplines on Fremont Street in Vegas, which was a wonderfully unique experience.3
Productivity
- January 2024
- February 2024
- March 2024
- April 2024
- May 2024
- June 2024
- July 2024
- August 2024
- September 2024
- October 2024
- November 2024
- December 2024
Media
Music: We hit three concerts this year. Sam and I saw the Foo Fighters together at Target Field, which was a fantastic show. Didi and I went to the Yacht Club Festival that month, too, and mainly saw Durry, Michigander, Alanis Morissette, the Offspring, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. And in August, we flew to Vegas to see the Killers for the 20th anniversary of the Hot Fuss album.
My Apple Music Replay for 2024 has a bunch of stuff in it, but it isn’t until #38 on the list that there’s a song that I added to my rotation this year (“Trendsetter” by Connor Price and Haviah Mighty). To see what I added in 2024, there’s this playlist.
TV: I don’t watch a lot of TV — it has to be really compelling to be anything other than background noise for me. This year, I watched:
- Masters of the Air. An Apple TV series about the “bloody 100th” in World War II. By the same production team that gave us Band of Brothers (a masterpiece) and The Pacific (not a masterpiece, but decent). This one had its moments, but it was closer to The Pacific in quality. I blame the overwhelming number of characters, and then slapping masks on them (rightfully so, realism demands it) which obscures their faces and muffles their voices. Made it difficult to follow at first.
- Three-Body Problem. I’ve been avoiding reading the books for forever, and I feel like I need to give them a read after watching this. Good stuff.
- Fallout. Pure fucking brain candy and tons of fun.
- Silo, season 2. Just as good and as compelling as the first season. I put this show on-par with the Battlestar Galactica reboot.
- Winning Time. I don’t even like basketball and I still enjoyed the hell out of this.
Movies: I didn’t get to the theatre much this year, but the two I did see were Deadpool & Wolverine, which was fantastic. The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare was fun, and felt like it was heavily influenced by Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards. In 2025, I should keep better track of the movies I watch.
Books: I bombed through 61 books this year, a goodly amount. A lot of them were D&D books as I’ve been prepping to get myself into a situation where I’m capable of being a solid DM and have a good world for my players to explore. That’s a big step for 2025.
Video Games: Holy poop, good year here. My focus for the first half of the year was Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. It was good. I only have minor quibbles. My go-to game on mobile was Marvel SNAP, the same as it was in 2023.
Social Media: The big thing here was deleting my Twitter account — I don’t drink in Nazi bars. I bailed out on Mastodon, Bluesky, and some other app. I’m all about Threads. Most notable experiences: watching some dude try to explain the meaning of “Blackbird” to Paul McCartney, and some other dude trying to police in the profanity in the Deadpool and Wolverine trailer.
101 Things in 1001 Days
Late in 2023, I decided to restart my 101 Things in 1001 Days project that I’d previously tried twice in this blog (and failed miserably). Better time management, more-realistic expectations, and a clever to-do system made this more possible, and I did manage to bash out a ton of stuff pretty quickly.
- First Quarter (March 2024)
- Second Quarter (June 2024)
- Third Quarter (September 2024)
- Fourth Quarter (December 2024)
To get through the whole list, I’m really going to have to kill it in 2025.
What Could I Have Done Better?
Better time management.
Plans for 2025
- Minimal travel — Tucson, maybe a weekend in Chicago.
- Buy a house.
- Continue my education.
- Ride bikes. A lot.