Ode to 2015

One of the biggest challenges I had in the second half of 2015 was finding enough time to do the things I love. Among them were cycling, gaming, model-making, reading, and blogging. I mostly blame my job for this, but not in a negative way. Though I was there 6, sometimes 7 days a week, up to 12 hours a day, the overtime pay accrued during that period was significant. The downside includes missing out on some functions with friends and family. This was especially felt around the holidays, but I am still thankful for the time I did get.

Now that 2015 is over, I am working less and taking more time for myself (so far, anyway). I’ve had some time to reflect on the past year and started thinking about significant events, both in my personal life and outside of it. I decided to write them down and kick off my 2016 blogging with something light and simple.

Movies

I don’t often go to theaters to watch movies. Not as many as I’d like, anyway. Though I blame Kimberly for this, I do credit her for being a good sport about an event I’ve done now for the past couple of years. AMC Theaters brings the Best Picture Showcase in February, in which you select either a one-day or two-day event to watch all the Academy Award nominees for Best Picture. Most movies are pretty good, but once in a while a movie will disappoint. Here are the ones we saw for 2015 and a quick thought on each:

Birdman – Won the Oscar because it pandered to critics, voters, and snooty people too cool to like normal things. They’re the only ones who liked it as far as I can tell.

The Grand Budapest Hotel – A great movie very typical of Wes Anderson. Lots of fun!

Whiplash – JK Simmons makes this movie. I didn’t actually care for it until the final scene, which was so great that it made me like the entire film.

American Sniper – I loved this one! From everything I read, this was a pretty good portrayal of the events surrounding American hero Chris Kyle and his time in combat.

The real Chris Kyle.

The Imitation Game – It’s an interesting and sad story that Benedict Cumberbatch couldn’t have told better.

Selma – I don’t usually like movies based during the uprising of the civil rights movements. Not only does the racism boil my blood, but I often find them skewed to the point of misleading. Selma still had the boiling racism, but it was fantastically told and a better portrayal of MLK than any other I’ve ever seen. Great movie.

The Theory of Everything – In a crowded field of well-deserving Best Actor nominees, Eddie Redmayne TOTALLY deserved it! His portrayal of Stephen Hawking completely surpassed expectations.

Boyhood – Very interesting concept. This movie was shot from 2002–2013 using the same actors to tell a normal story about a normal boy, creating a movie that was anything but normal. Very relatable and never gets too down on itself. It's among the best.

I saw a few other movies this year as well. Of those, my favorites are:

Creed – Wow! I knew I’d like it, but I didn’t realize how much I’d LOVE it! If Rocky movies are to continue, Michael B. Jordan proved he can take the reins from Sly Stallone.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens – This movie didn’t WOW me as much as I wanted it to, but I still really loved pretty much everything about it. Since I didn’t put too much thought into it, everything about it made sense. All in all, it just felt really good to feel like I was watching Star Wars again.

Inside Out – This one wasn’t a favorite of Pixar fans, but I love it! I thought it was funny as well as very, very sad (it nearly got a tear from me!). The preceding short film, Lava, is also one of my favorites, if not my favorite.

Jurassic World – Again, don’t put too much thought into specifics and this is a really fun movie to watch. There are dinosaurs! Who cares about whether one can or cannot run in high heels? DINOSAURS!

DINOSAURS!!!

Avengers: Age of Ultron – Was this one really 2015? Feels so long ago. I liked it enough, but nothing can have that same magic the first one brought.

The Martian – Very smart, enjoyable movie. If it weren’t in the future using yet-to-be-invented technology, I wouldn’t even call it sci-fi.

Ant-Man – Paul Rudd does a really good job with this one. Solid Marvel film with a good cast.

Books

Some of you readers may have heard of the PopSugar reading challenge going around the Internet. I joined Kimberly and a few others in January to read as many books representing the categories as I could. It was a fun challenge… for a while. Mostly, I was glad to have an excuse to read more, and in that regard it was a success. In all, I read 22 books for the challenge. Most were not new. Some were very old, and it was surprising to some that I hadn’t read them yet. Here are some notables:

Wind, Sand and Stars – Same author as my favorite book, The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery. This is basically Antoine’s memoir, telling tales of his time as a freight pilot. Beautiful, beautiful book, but to get the full impact, don’t read it with any distractions around.

The Time Traveler’s Wife – I read this to try to clear the category for A Book That Makes You Cry. Major failure. I just didn’t care enough, I guess.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – How have I not read this before 2015? EXCELLENT sci-fi book! Very witty and funny. I look forward to reading the others in the series!

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet – THIS was the book that got a tear from me. I didn’t know it would happen. I read it for a couple other categories, but this was the one. The first book to ever make my cry (even if only technically). Set in the period of the Japanese internment camps, this story is told from a different perspective.

Matilda – I think growing up I had a problem with books that seemed like they were for girls. I never wanted to read this one, though written from one of my favorite authors, Roald Dahl. I loved it, though. I loved the little girl named Matilda.

A Confederacy of Dunces – If I had to choose a favorite for 2015, this would be it. The main character, Ignatius, is everything you hate about a person. Loud, pompous, delusional, and worst of all, intelligent. And you love reading about him! It’s a laugh-out-loud book for sure!

Ignatius, not having time for your crap.

A Streetcar Named Desire – I’ve never seen the play, and now I think I have to because for the life of me I can’t understand why anyone likes this story. What’s to love about a non-extraordinary story about awful characters doing awful things to each other? Maybe the play will give me a clue.

The Secret Garden – I didn’t read this growing up because I thought it was a book for girls. I was oh-so-wrong about that! This is one of my favorites, and one I’d definitely have my own children read.

Around the World in 80 Days – Again, I think I had the wrong idea about this one. I associated it with the trailers for the Jackie Chan movie based on this book, and I didn’t want to see or read it despite the fact that Jules Verne is another favorite author of mine. Well, it’s another of my favorites. It’s intelligent, funny, and exciting, and I’ll probably read it again.

Gaming

If you’re not a gamer, you might as well skip this section. 2015 had some AMAZING games! While I didn’t find nearly as much time as I’d have liked for this activity, I was able to play some pretty good ones here and there. Then… Quarter 4 hit, and there was a video game EXPLOSION!!! I couldn’t keep up! In fact, I’m still backlogged on games from Q4! Here are my favorites from the year:

Fallout 4 – I started playing this the day it came out in early November, took two days off just for this game, and I’m still playing. It took me nine months to finish Fallout 3, so I knew I’d love this one, and I absolutely do!

Star Wars: Battlefront – This unfortunately gives way to Fallout 4, but I do really love it. Battlefield games are among my favorite, and this is much like any other one, but Star Wars! I just wish I had more time to play it.

Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate – Another one that unfortunately gives way to Fallout 4. I still have yet to finish it, but I really, really like this one. Ezio Auditore de Firenze was my favorite Assassin in the series until Syndicate brought me Evie Frye.

Don't you talk bad about Evie. Don't you dare!

Grim Fandango Remastered – This is pretty much the same Grim Fandango that came out decades ago, but on the PS4. Funny, funny Adventure game.

On deck waiting to be played, I still have:

Rise of the Tomb Raider

Call of Duty III

Maybe one day soon I’ll take a playcation and catch up.

Music

Here’s the thing with music. As I get older, I’m opening my mind to the possibility that I might like music that I would’ve been closed off to previously. If there’s more enjoyment to be had in the world, why close myself off to it? I definitely found myself not only liking new music, but owning up to it as well (if reluctantly at times). Those of you who know me know my favorite genre is Classic Rock. Those of you who know me even better know I’ve always disliked pop music. It’s not so much that they’re children singing about things they know nothing about. It’s the sound. The awful, repetitive electronic noise, the overuse of sampling, and that they think rapping is singing. Oh yeah, and the fact that they’re children singing lyrics made up by children trying to be adults. Anyway, before I stray too far from interesting, I’ll give you a few 2015 songs that I not only liked, but surprised myself by liking. A lot.

Ed Sheeran – Thinking Out Loud

Walk the Moon – Shut Up & Dance

Meghan Trainor w/John Legend – Like I’m Gonna Lose You

Taylor Swift – Wildest Dreams

Only God can judge me.

The Weeknd – In The Night

Elle King – Ex’s & Oh’s

Thomas Rhett – Die A Happy Man

Andy Grammer – Good To Be Alive

One Direction – Perfect

You don't look like God, so STOP JUDGING ME!!!

Sports

What a bummer this was for me this year in sports. My teams were TERRIBLE! But there were a couple bright spots.

Arizona Cardinals – These are not the same guys I grew up with! They ended 2015 by smoking Green Bay for their 13th win of the season! Now it’s on to the playoffs!

US Women’s Soccer – I love soccer done right, and these ladies were just what this country needed! If you were fortunate enough to follow them, they gave you plenty to cheer about and be excited for! Becoming WORLD CHAMPIONS by beating Japan wasn’t too shabby, either!

Nothing makes these women feel more beautiful than wearing a little gold.

Arizona Diamondbacks – Picking up Greinke showed us they want to win. Now let’s see what else they can do to actually win.

Arizona Coyotes – Well, another low-to-mediocre season…

Phoenix Suns – What the hell happened? We were rising up the ranks, supposed to be a playoff contender this year! Not… this! Ugh, how embarrassing.

Swansea City – We had such a hot start, staying near the top of the English Premier League table. Then, well, I’m not really sure. Firing coach Garry Monk was the easy thing to do, and it’s very doubtful that’ll be enough in itself if we want to keep from getting relegated.

Work

As I've mentioned, the second half of 2015 was rough for me at work, and there isn't much I want to say about that. Instead, I do want to mention that it also marked my 10th year working for The Walt Disney Company. Even now it's a surreal thought for me to have, that I was actually somewhere, anywhere, for 10 years. As much as I want to complain about my day-to-day sometimes, overall I'm extremely grateful to have the stability I need to live the life I'm privileged to have.

OK, let's move on.

Personal

My personal life is actually going pretty well. I picked up some new interests in 2015, and it looks like they’re going to stay around.

Cycling – So I used to ride bikes a lot. What kid didn’t? But it’s not something I ever stopped wanting to do, so later on in adulthood I picked it up again. A knee injury years ago kept me from continuing it, but this year I realized it was time to become active again, and cycling seemed the perfect activity. After weeks of researching bikes, I decided on a beautiful Trek, and I LOVE it! I use it for my own rides as well as the Half-Marathon weekends I’ve been involved in (Star Wars Half-Marathon coming up!). These marathons get me about as excited as anything else. It's always a ton of fun as well as a very fulfilling experience.

And the medals are pretty cool, too!

Softball – So a couple years back, Kimberly joined a softball team simply because she wanted to try it. Although she enjoyed playing (really, she just enjoyed batting), she didn’t really know the team very well. So I made a team out of friends and old parts I had laying around, and we formed Pitch, Please! And you know what? We had FUN! For me, the fun didn’t come as early as it did for the others. Not knowing how to captain a team for a sport I wasn’t too familiar with, let’s just say the learning curve was quite significant. But as the weeks went by I got better and better at it, to the point where even I was able to enjoy it! Enough that when the summer season came, we decided to ante-up and do it again! There is already talk about next season!

The inaugural Spring team. What a great group!

Model Making – So for Christmas 2014 my siblings-in-law gave me a small Metal Earth model of a windmill. No intention was there to create a new love in my life. They just knew I like windmills and thought I should have it. I waited until I had a desk at work (I was transitioning at the time), then got busy assembling it. Once it was done, I wanted more. Then more, and then more. Now it’s one of my absolute favorite things to do, and I really don’t know why. They take a ton of patience and can be very frustrating, but I have a hard time thinking of a better activity to calm me. It’s not going to be for everyone, but I wouldn’t have thought I’d want to do this until actually doing it, so give it a try!

The one that started it all.

Family – This year there were two additions to the large corral of nieces and nephews we already have. My sister, Rebekah, had a GORGEOUS little doll named Abigail, and my sister-in-law, Julie, added future roboticfishologist, Holden, to the population. Now, I’d observed differences between Kimberly’s family and mine before, but these brand new children bring about a good example.

When Rebekah was about to have her baby, I was constantly getting asked about her due date, if I was excited, all that messy stuff that I really didn't have an answer for. But you have to understand that this would be the FOURTEENTH child in my immediate family alone! I mean, how many times can you watch the same episode of Another Sister Is Having Yet Another Child before you start flipping channels to see what else is on? But then, when Little Abigail came, I was in love all over again.

On the other side, Holden was to be the second child in Kimberly’s immediate family. Before Holden there was only Maddie, Julie's other child. Every post from Kimberly’s mom was of Maddie. Every post from Kimberly’s family was Maddie, and I was not used to seeing posts that focused on just one child. So when Julie announced her pregnancy, it was big news! I get it, though. I understand why everyone was excited. It's just that years had passed since we only had two children in our family. And three. And four...

Pictured: Less than half of the children in my family.

Kimberly – I already gush quite a bit about my wife, so I won’t take much more time to do that here. But just know that without her, my 2015 would have truly lacked every grain of sugar and spice I was able to enjoy. It was good to leave the 2014 holidays behind, as we both ended up dealing with the Plague for our first Christmas together, but then we were able to enjoy our first birthdays and all holidays as a married couple. Our first anniversary was great as we spent it on Catalina Island. We took a couple trips to Arizona, went to visit Kimberly’s brother, Raymond, at his home north of San Francisco, and experienced many other great times. She is the reason I was able to enjoy looking back at a wonderful 2015 and am excited to see what 2016 brings!