2023 Goals Update

What time is it? It's update time because it's the end of 2023.  I did not keep track of my goals at all this year, and really, doing the recap is a reminder of what I even set as goals, so I don't expect this is going to have much in the way of accomplishments. But here we go, to wrap up the year.

Goal Number One - Read 24 books: I was horrible this year and was only able to read three books.  :

1. Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning by John Larmer, John Mergendoller, and Suzie Boss. 
2. Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer,
3. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte,

Goal Number Two - Focus on Fitness by closing all three of my fitness rings 75% of the time: This specific goal was horrible this year, but in terms of fitness I did a bit better because I started working with a training program and did not miss a workout all year. But for this goal, it turned out:

• January 18/31 or 58%.  
• February 12/28 or 42%.
• March 15/31 or 46%
• April 15/30 or 50%
• May 16/31 or 51%
• June 17/30 or 56%
• July 24/31 or 77%
• August 21/31 or 67%
• September 16/31 or 51%
• October 12/31 or 38%
• November 14/30 or 46%
• December 20/31 or 64%

So for the year, I ended up with 200/365 which is 54.79%

Goal Number Three - Use a social calendar:  I got a calendar and then never used it.  I still haven't been able to get back into being social.  COVID was a pain in the ass, but also some other nonsense that has shaken out this year.  But maybe next year will be better.

Goal Number Four - Spend at least one hour a week on creative things: So, ultimately, doing an hour of creative work would be 52 hours for the year.  The idea was to be more regularly creative, and for much of the year, this was not a thing.   However, in the fall I started working with theatre students again, which accounted for at least 10 hours a week for eight weeks, so I easily hit my 52 hours of creative endeavors, but that wasn't what I was thinking when I made the goal, but a win is a win.

Goal Number Five - Take more home videos: I didn't even think about this goal for the entire year, but I did get a dedicated video camera to help with this.  

Goal Number Six - Take one photo a day:  This was an easy one to hit.  I ended up with around 445 pictures this year.  However, it wasn't one every day, it was more sporadic, I also only posted 74 on my daily account that I use to track it.  But I'll count that as a win.

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  So far not a ton but one each month.

1. In January I got to see a whole bunch of Van Gogh art that I love and have never seen before. 
2. In February I got to see a new musical I'd never seen before, Beetlejuice.  It was pretty fun, not much like the movie, but a great time.  I enjoyed it.
3. In March we went to Florida, and while we were there we got to visit the Kennedy Space Center, which was so fun!
4. In June we went to Colorado and we got to visit Rocky Mountain National Park.  We went here before but we only were there one day and it was rainy so we didn't get to see much, but this time we were able to do a ton of hiking, visit Estes Park, and do a bunch of stuff we'd never done before.
5. In August we went to New York and got to see another new musical, Back to the Future.  It was a lot of fun, though it's one of those shows that if you don't like the movie then it's not for you.
6. In August I got a new job in public schools, which is great to be out of the charter world.
7. In November I got to see another new musical I'd never seen before, Mrs. Doubfire.  It wasn't bad, but also, why do it when you could just watch the movie.
8. I'm sure there were some others, but that's at least 7.

So that's a wrap on 2023.  I ended hitting three out of seven of the goals.  I'm sure I would have done better had I been keeping track of it regularly, so perhaps a goal for next year will be to do that.

And The Oscar Goes To...

 An amazing thing happened today. We have completed our annual Oscar viewing a full day before the ceremony. This has not been the case the last few years, I think two years ago we watched like three or four films the day of the awards, and last year it was at least one or two.  This year we got to it quicker than usual, and were able to pretty much have a somewhat leisurely movie a night sort of pace.  There were some nights that we had to watch two due to missing one because I had to podcast or because we had some event we had to get to.  There were also a few night where we watched multiple, like Thursday I think we watched five, but three of them were shorts so it's not as impressive as it seems.

I was somewhat disappointed with this years set of movies, and I felt like there were a lot fewer than in previous years that I found to be entertaining or even all that good.  I feel like in previous years there were a lot more in the list that we enjoyed than we had this year. It was also more than last year, but not quite as many as 2021.  However, it was also the third year in a row that we were able to get all of them.  It got a little tricky with a few of them, and I did happen to get lucky with someone posting one of the shorts on Vimeo.  That being said, while I do enjoy watching these films every year, I'm also glad we made it through and can do something else.  I'm also glad that I don't have that ticking deadline to get them done before the awards ceremony tomorrow. It was more leisurely than in previous years, but even so it's a lot. 

I don't tend to try and guess what will win, but I do like to vote for what I'd like to win or what I think was best out of the category. So where's what I thought for each of the categories.

Best Screenplay

I think Everything Everywhere All At Once was the best one of this group.  I thought it was the most inventive/original. It was up agains Triangle of Sadness, Tár, The Fabelmans, and The Banshees of Inisherin. 

Best Adapted Screenplay

Honestly, I hadn't read any of the original texts with the exception of All Quiet on the Western Front, and that was a horrible adaptation.  Since I didn't have any of the originals to go off of, I'm giving it to Women Talking because as a screenplay it was really well done. I could see it working really well as a play as well as the novel it was based on.  The others were Glass Onion (which I also enjoyed), Living, and Top Gun: Maverick.

International Film

Many years this is my favorite category, but this year I didn't love most of them.  I thought Close was an important commentary. EO I didn't enjoy, and I really disliked All Quiet on the Western Front.  So, it came down to Argentine, 1985 and The Quiet Girl. I think I have to give it to The Quiet Girl. I thought it was really well done, 

Makeup and Hair

There was some good stuff here, but I think The Whale. Elvis was interesting, Black Panther had some good stuff. I don't know that All Quiet had much, other than the mud and war kind of stuff.

Short Documentary

I thin there were two I really liked, but I have to give it to Stranger at the Gate, it had a good story to tell and it isn't what it appears to be at first.  I really enjoyed The Martha Mitchell Effect as well,  The Elephant Whisperers and How Do You Measure A Year were not bad.  The only one that I found kind of boring was Haulout.  This may have been the category that I liked the most out of.

Documentary

Most of these I didn't enjoy, but I thought Navalny was really good. I also liked A House Made of Splinters, but it was really sad. Fire of Love was ok, and I was rather indifferent about All That Breathes.  I didn't enjoy All The Beauty and the Bloodshed. It seemed to meander with the story.

Directing

I thin I'm giving this to Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert for Everything Everywhere all at once. They had some crazy things going on in that movie, and just getting them to be able to get through the fingers scenes in any kind of serious way is an achievement. I love Steven Spielberg, and I loved The Fabelmans, but I think it took more for the others.  

Costumes

This actually is a harder one to figure out because I think all of them had some great costumes.  You had period pieces, you had weird shit, you had fashion icon type stuff, there was the whole Marvel thing too.  For me I was between Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris, as they were all lovely.  However I think that it took more creativity and skill for the costumes in Everything Everywhere All At Once.

Animated Short

This was a hard one too because there were two I didn't love (The Flying Sailor, and My Year of Dicks), but the other three were really good. An Ostrich Told Me The World Is Fake And I think I Believe It was really fun, and stop motion which I enjoy.  The Ice Merchants was well done. However, I think that the best was The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. I think the subject was well done, and it was all around the best.

Animated Feature

Can we stop with all the Pinocchio variations?  Ok, the animation was well done, and I could see this one winning, but it wasn't my favorite. Amazingly, I thought Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was the best. They had some cool animation tricks they did that made the style look different. It had a great story, and the villain was well done.  All around my favorite.  I liked Turning Red, Marcel The Shell, and The Sea Beast, but I don't think they did as well as Puss in Boots.

Visual Effects

Ok, so surely Avatar is going to win this, but I refuse to vote for it because the movies are stupid and it's all just animated.  This should be up for best animated movie.  I'm going to say All Quiet on the Western Front for this because it required a lot of traditional effects, and I appreciate that.

Production Design

I'm giving this to Babylon because it was a lot.  They really had to have their ducks in a row and their design pinned down to get cohesion. Just that first scene, which is a bit much, is enough. 

Film Editing

Everything Everywhere All At Once. They had a tight story, that didn't drag and I think they put together a really good film.  The others were generally fine, but they had moments that dragged or didn't seem like was necessary for the plot that they could have cut to make the story move better.

Score

The Fabelmans because I love John Williams and I think this may be his last score.  If he weren't in the mix, I'd give it to Babylon because it's the guys form La La Land, and I like their stuff. That being said, there were a few times where I heard things that were very reminiscent of La La Land.

Song

Ok, so here's a secret about me, I love Bollywood, it's so over the top and wonderful. I think RRR is the best movie of the 54 we watched because it was just so much.  So, I have to give it to them for best song because it was done during a dance off. How can you get better than that? It was so hilarious and wonderful.  What a joy that movie was.  So comical.

Cinematography 

For me this has to go to Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths because what a trip that was.  They had some excellent sequences, and I liked the feel and look of it all. I didn't really enjoy the movie over all, but from a cinematography point of view it.

Short Live Action

This was another tough choice. I didn't like Le Pupille at all, and Ivalu wasn't great.  However I though Night Ride was really good. I also though that An Irish Goodbye was one of the funniest and well done movies that we saw of the 54 and enjoyed every minute of it.  However, I think The Red Suitcase was really a strong story that I think puts it over the top of the three choice I had.

Best Supporting Actor

I really liked Brian Tyree Henry from Causeway, he dd a really good job and early on he was my favorite for this category. However, in the end Ke Huy Quan from Everything Everywhere All At Once I think takes it. He had to switch characters a few times in his performance. However, his main character I just loved, and he was so sincere and wonderful as that character, so I think I have to give it to him.  I loved his message, and of course his use of googley eyes.

Best Supporting Actress

I also have to go with Everything Everywhere All At Once, and give it to Jamie Lee Curtis.  I mean, the finger scenes are enough for me.  However, she too had to switch characters due to the way the plot goes, and I think she did such a great job in her performance.  This was a strong category because I also really loved Angela Bassett and Hong Chau from Black Panther and The Whale.  Stephanie Hsu wasn't bad either, but I didn't feel like she had a wide range. 

Best Actor

Hands down I'm going with Brendan Fraser. He gave a killer performance that was heartbreaking and emotional.  He really is what propelled this movie and it was pretty much all on him.  What a great job.  I love bill Nighy, but I don't feel like there was much for him in Living, and Colin Farrell was just his usual character, so I just couldn't see much there.  I also didn't see much with Paul Mescal in Aftersun.  I will say Austin Butler did a great job with Elvis.

Best Actress

Yet again, Everything Everywhere All At Once gets it with Michelle Yeoh.  Similar reason as the other actors that got my vote. Michelle Williams did pretty good in The Fabelmans, and Andrea Riseborough also was pretty strong in To Leslie. 

Best Picture

There were ten films in this category, but I really don't know why some of them made the cut while others (say Babylon, which was ambitious and well done) didn't.  Avatar and Top Gun weren't very groundbreaking or notable.  It was just a pair of sequels and I don't know that they were the best pictures, though Top Gun was entertaining.  Triangle of Sadness was a weird movie, but I didn't hate it.  I did not enjoy Tár or All Quiet on the Western Front at all.  Women Talking was really well done. Elvis and The Banshees of Inisherin were ok, but not anything that really blew me away.  By the time we got to The Fabelmans I felt like it was the best I'd seen, but it was a movie about making movies, and since I love movies, it hit the mark for me. However, then I saw Everything Everywhere All At Once and that was just great.  It was not just a remake, sequel, or rehashing just the same dumb ideas over  again with a slightly different spin.  It was fun and strange, but also lovely and had a good message.  

So end another Oscar season.  It was a marathon for sure, and I'm excited to see what wins tomorrow night.  I'm also excited to see some more movies that aren't on a list that I get to just pick! Oh, the luxury after a month of movies!

Goals Update: March

Winter is close to the end, and another month is also over, though my goals are not anywhere close to the end.  That being said, I'm behind in many of them.  Time to check in and see how bad we're doing at this point in the year (with the goal of improving as we go).

Goal Number One - Read 24 books: The reading thing is hard still, I read some, but didn't finish any books this month.  In January, I finished:

1. Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning by John Larmer, John Mergendoller, and Suzie Boss. 

I'm still in the process of reading:

1. Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer,
2. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, 

I'm not far from the end of Withering Heights, so I'm really working to be sure it's finished before the end of the month.

Goal Number Two - Focus on Fitness by closing all three of my fitness rings 75% of the time: For January this was a fail, I had 18/31 days where I closed all three, which only comes to 58%.  February was worse than January, as I only made it 12/28 or 42%. For the year that puts me at 30 of 59, which is just a hair over 50%.  So, for sure I need to be over 50% in March to keep seeing improvement toward my goal here. 

Goal Number Three - Use a social calendar:  A few things on the social calendar this month.  We did a fun cooking night where we did Thai food.  The shrimp we did was very good and I'm sure we'll do it again.  We also got to go to the theater for the first time in a while and saw Beetlejuice.  Had a birthday party as well.  Still not back to the normal before Covid, and not putting a ton on the calendar still. Hope to get some more regular sort of things like game nights or just drinks and hanging out. 

Goal Number Four - Spend at least one hour a week on creative things: I had about three hours in January, which was under the four that I needed for this goal.  In February I did have a lot here, I did about an hour of drawing with Sal but that was about it. Only room to improve on that next month.

Goal Number Five - Take more home videos: I didn't really take much in January or February.  I did one short video in January, and two short ones in February.  I've been thinking still about getting a camera specifically for movies. We have a family trip coming up soon, so maybe I should?

Goal Number Six - Take one photos a day:  Technically I said take one photo a day, which I've taken over 100 so far this year.  However, I've been tracking it in terms of my posts on Instagram. Under that idea I've done:

1. January 23 of 31 days
2. February 9 of 28 days

So, perhaps I should post more of what I'm taking? I'm taking photos but I don't feel they're noteworthy enough to post.  Not sure my thoughts here.  Guess I'll need to think about it.

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  So far not a ton but one each month.

1. In January I got to see a whole bunch of Van Gogh art that I love and have never seen before. 
2. In February I got to see a new musical I'd never seen before, Beetlejuice.  It was pretty fun, not much like the movie, but a great time.  I enjoyed it.

So that's it for February.  On to March!

Goals Update: February

We've got one month into the books for 2023, and I'm never sad to see January in my rearview mirror.  I feel like as the month goes I grow more and more tired of winter, and this winter we haven't had much snow which is the one thing that helps me to keep pushing through.  Seeing brown dead grass and all the trash that was hidden under the snow is just gross and I don't like looking at it. Also, seeing grass instead of snow makes me think the end is near, and when we look at the calendar and have this much winter left it's really annoying.  That being said, we also have some goals to check in on.

Goal Number One - Read 24 books: The up side of this goal is that I did start it, the down side is that I wasn't able to hit my mark for the month.  I finished one book in January, though I started it before January. Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning by John Larmer, John Mergendoller, and Suzie Boss. Obviously this was a book for work related planning. I saw some jobs posted that talked about project based learning, and so I wanted to get more into it.  Some of it is stuff I was inching toward, but this gave me some ideas of what I could do to be more effective. I did start two other books, Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past by Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer, which is a bunch of mini essays. I've actually been following Kevin Kruse for years on Twitter, so I had seen this was coming out, but it was a surprise gift from my uncle.  The second book I started was Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, which of course is my classic book for January.  I'm having trouble reading, which is why I didn't get far.  When I can bring myself to read I enjoy it and get a good deal through these books, but I just can't bring myself to read, it feels too taxing.

Goal Number Two - Focus on Fitness by closing all three of my fitness rings 75% of the time: For January this was a fail, I had 18/31 days where I closed all three, which only comes to 58%.  I do close my stand and move rings every single day, but the exercise rings I always struggle with.  I will say, I did start a fitness app and personal trainer, and I've consistently been doing that twice a week for the entire month.  I still have the problem that it's hard for me to do anything after work.  I can swing my twice a week workouts, but beyond that it's just busy and I'm tired.  I prefer working out in the morning to get it out of the way, but we're also getting into Oscar season and so there's so much to watch before the ceremony and it's hard to go to bed early.  I'll get there eventually, my hope is that by the end of the year I'm getting higher than 75% so I can balance out the beginning of the year as I'm getting back in the habit. 

Goal Number Three - Use a social calendar:  I decided this year that I'd try to just use a google calendar for this.  So that's set up and I've been putting things on it, though I think I have to get better about planning things. I want to start doing game nights more often, maybe once a month or so. We had a number of things on the calendar this month including a few trips to the DIA to see the Van Gogh things, and a cooking night was planned, so stuff is happening!

Goal Number Four - Spend at least one hour a week on creative things: I didn't do a great job here. I did have to scan a bunch of art for my brother-in-law and that required me to do some editing in Photoshop, so I'll count that couple of hours.  I didn't do any drawing or other creative type things, so I should improve on that next month.

Goal Number Five - Take more home videos: I didn't really take much in January, and I think I need to get out of the idea that it has to be something specific going on, and instead just do whatever.  I think the other thing I need to do is to get my videos organized and viewable. I've got lots of stuff sitting on a drive but nothing accessible. I also feel like I need an actual camcorder because it's weird doing it on your phone and the way you have to hold it to get a good quality video.

Goal Number Six - Take one photos a day:  I did quite a few, 23 of 31 days, but I fall into the same problem of I don't know what to take photos of so I ended up with a lot of cat photos.  I feel like I have no creativity any more, which I guess is why I wanted to set this goal, to try and get me to think more creatively.  I mean, I didn't do too bad, with 75% of my goal being met.  Still time to improve.

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  I started to say that I had nothing new for January, but in fact I got to see a whole bunch of Van Gogh art that I love and have never seen before. It was a lot of fun and what a great way to start off this goal.  Usually I have to wait a few months before I get anything since winter kind of keeps us from doing too much.  

So that's it for January, I had a number of misses, but non of them complete misses, just not reaching the goal. So, we'll see how it goes for February.

Back to the Theatre!

Tonight was our first night out at the theatre for 2023, but also the first show I believe since we weren't to New York in July or August. Tonight we got to see the touring production of Les Misérables. In general we had a pretty good cast, though I think our Marius and Javert were probably the strongest. Our Valjean was good, but he was way too young for the part, and when they aged him up it wasn't clear that it was the same person.  He had a decent voice, he just seemed like a little tiny fetus on stage.  It didn't help that at one point the way the lights were hitting him it looked like he had little tiny baby hands.  

I think this was probably the fourth time that I've seen the show, however, only the second time since they did a revamp of the entire show.  The original version had this massive set piece that moved around the stage and it was all set atop a giant turn table that was used to show movement.  It was a really neat staging and I remember seeing it the first time back in the pre-2000s and thinking how neat it was.  Much like many other shows the new staging has relied a lot more on projections and video screens.  Not terribly so (unlike the disaster that was the re-staging of Jekyll & Hyde).  That being said, I do miss the old turntable and the way they did things.  Though, for Javert's death before they had him stand with a fence behind him that they shot up into the fly to make it look like he fell, the did the same sort of thing, but this time it seemed like they had him on a fly and pulled him a little into the air too, or perhaps it was a trick of the lighting?

We haven't done any local performances since the start of COVID, so it was nice to get out to the theatre again. I was also pretty happy to see that the performance was quite full. We were in nearly the last row of the orchestra, and as far as I could see every seat was full.  I recall going to see a show in the same theater during the '08 recession and being all the way in the third or fourth row and having no one behind us really.  I'm glad that it seems things are going well.  This won't be our last show of the year either, as we have shows in February and March.  February will have Beetlejuice, which I know nothing about other than the movie, and March will be The Book of Mormon, which we have seen before and was hilarious.

The End Is Near

 Well, it's the last Friday of break, and the rest of it is just typical weekend stuff where you have to get ready to get back to work. Grocery shopping, doing laundry, cleaning so the house is ready for the week.  I also have to start thinking about what I'm doing this week, as I planned it out three weeks ago and I don't necessarily remember what I was going to have them do.  The end of a vacation is never the best part because one you have to go back to work, and even if you don't hate your job, it's still work and it's much better to not work.  But also you have all the things that you had wanted to do that just didn't get done.  The beginning is great because you have all the things you could do, the potential.  The end is sad because you have to work and didn't get done as much as you wanted to.

That being said, I did get a lot done.  Did some reorganizing, played some games, spent time with family, went to see the Van Gogh exhibit, saw the Disney costume exhibit, played games.  Wait, exhibit. Exhibit.  Has it always looked like that? What the fuck.  Exhibit.  That just looks wrong, why am I just now noticing this?  Weird.  Also had my first workout that I talked about yesterday.  It was challenging, but it was good.  I'll have two more for next week. Anyhow, now I have to cut my own hair because my person did a no call/no show and none of the typical walk in places could take me. Annoying.

Fit As A Flapjack

 This year I'm trying to refocus on fitness.  Since my COVID adventures in 2021 I really haven't been consistently active.  I've had a few spurts here and there but nothing really long lasting and it's all been very low intensity.  Of course, there's my overall fitness goal that I added to my yearly goal list, but I'm going to be doing some other things to see if I can help support that goal.  One thing is that I've decided to give a try is a program where I'm working with an actual trainer.  Today I had the first meeting with my trainer, and I'm going to give it a try for the next six weeks to see how it goes. 

This isn't an in-person situation, but I do have a real live person who I talk to and she sets up my workouts listens to my feedback and gives me feedback too.  It seems promising, she listened to the things that I have trouble with or that I don't like as well as what kind of equipment I have (even though she said she could do them without any equipment).  She's going to put together a workout for tomorrow and then we planned a schedule over the next few weeks of how often and how long I realistically be able to work out. I've never worked with a person before, so I figured it would be something new to try and hopefully something to help rebuild my habits as I am not doing much anymore. I'll have to report back after trying things out to see how they go, but as it is so far it seems like it could be pretty good.

Space Race

 Today's lesson is that there just isn't enough space. Now according to the Marie Kondo crowd it would seem that what it really means is we need to get rid of some shit. However, while there may be some things that could be thinned out, in general there just isn't that much hanging around that we don't use or that we can just get rid of. The reality is that we just don't have enough space.  This is very annoying to me quite often because things are overflowing and there's nothing to be done, it's just kind of how it is. 

So, today was a bit of reorganizing.  We got some bins right before e took our trip and I rearranged some stuff to try and better use the space that we ha available. Turns out it did work to an extent.  Things were much more organized and it did free up some space. That being said, there is still not enough space, and I'm still not able to easily organize and have the space we need. I guess we just need a bigger house.

Some Chai in Chi Town

 Well, it's January 3rd and I've already finished my first trip of the year. For my daughter's birthday we decided to take a quick overnight trip to Chicago to see one of her favorite things and to see something we didn't get to see the last time that we went there in 2018.  Sal was a huge fan of Dinosaurs, and her biggest wish back in 2018 was to see Sue the T-rex at the Field Museum, so we planned a while trip, but right before we left we found out that they had moved her out of the lobby and planned to put her in a new area and she wasn't on display anymore.  We still got to see a bunch of really nice fossils, but it looked like we wouldn't see Sue.  As it turned out we did get to see her a little big through a window, but didn't get a good look at her, thus a second trip was in order.

Fast forward nearly five years later, and we finally got back to Chicago. Due to COVID we didn't do any traveling until 2022, so t here was no chance really to get back.  However, last year we started traveling again, and so getting to Chicago was one of our goals, though not our first goal, as we tried to focus on more outdoor adventures such as the beach, or the national parks in California.  However, given how close it is, we knew that it would be possible to make it to Chicago any time, and so this week we went.

It wasn't a long trip, we just stayed over night and only had two main goals, one to get back to the Field Museum to see Sue in her new home with her new ribs attached, and two to see the Shedd Aquarium because the last time we were here Sal wanted to see it but they were sold out for the day and we weren't able to go.  Other than that we didn't really think there was much time to do anything else given we were only going to be in town for about 24 hours.

The Field Museum was a lot of fun, and the first stop on our trip, we basically left first thing in the morning and headed straight there.  The nice thing about the Field was that we didn't have to worry about timed entry, we just purchased tickets and had the entire day to get there four our visit.  The Shedd on the other hand insisted on timed entry, so we figured it would be best to save that for day two since we'd already be in town and wouldn't have to worry too much about traffic and the possibility of getting stuck in traffic and not making it in time.  Of course the biggest draw for the museum was to see the new home they made for Sue that opened a few years back, so naturally that was the first place we tried to go, but the map they had online was a bit confusing so we ended up looking at a series of meteors that the museum had, and Sal was more than excited to touch.  

However, eventually we got our bearings and were able to find the dinosaur area. One thing I love about their fossil exhibit is that on many of the dinosaurs they let you know exactly which parts are real fossils, and which parts are reconstructions due to them not being able to get those bones, or because they want them somewhere more accessible.  For example, in the Sue display many of her. bones are real, however the skull was a little deformed, and also they wanted to have it more accessible than eight feet in the air, so the one you see is not her actual skull, but they do have her actual skull displayed in a case right before you get to see her. This gives you a nice view where you can really look closely at it (and apparently let's scientists more easily get in there to look, touch, drill, and whatnot on the skull.  The display was really cool, they had a little explanation that played and drew attention to certain areas such as the ribs that showed evidence that they had been broken, or the holes in the skull that indicates that Sue had an infection that likely made it so painful to eat that she probably starved to death. Honestly, I think one of her favorite parts of museums actually is going to the gift shop and buying herself a souvenir.

We ended up having a little extra time so we took a walk up Michigan Avenue and visited the Water Tower mall to see the Lego Store and the Harry Potter Experience store.  The next morning we got up early because we had tickets the first thing in the morning for the Shedd Aquarium.  The hotel market was closed so we had to walk a couple of blocks in the drizzle and fog to get some Starbucks for everyone. The weather wasn't the greatest for our trip, and the first day was pretty cloudy/foggy.  However the second day was far worse as it was foggy and had this drizzly rain. We ended up with a "city view" room, but it was really just a lot of buildings obscured by clouds.  It also wasn't the best weather for having to wait outside for the aquarium to open.  They recommended that we arrived about 15 minutes prior to our ticketed time, but that meant we got pretty wet.

I don't know if it was the weather, or if it was the fact that we picked the first time of the day, or perhaps that the Chicago area maybe when back to school, but this was probably the best time we have ever visited the aquarium.  The place was empty except for the maybe 30 people who were in line with us.  We went to the shark reef section which I'm sure is usually packed, and at one point I literally had the entire thing to myself.  For the most part, every place we went to we didn't have any trouble getting up close to the windows to see the fish, turtles, or whatever it was we were trying to get a look at.  As the day went on it got a bit more busy and had to wait more to get up close, but still, it wasn't so crowed that we couldn't move or had to wait long.  We got a nice view of the Beluga whales, and Sal decided that when she grows up she wants to be a scientist who studies Belugas. I also enjoyed that it wasn't too crowded when they did the up close encounter where they highlight an animal to focus on (either the Beluga, the otters, or the dolphins).  For our visit we got to see dolphin encounter, where they told us about the dolphins and explained their fins, training them and how high they could jump.

The biggest complaint I have for the whole thing is that we ended up having to pay $109 for parking over the two days.  What a scam that is. But, other than that it was quite a fun trip and we got to see and do all the things that were on our list.  Sal had a great time, though at first she was not enthusiastic because we made it a surprise and only told her the day before (she said we should have told her sooner and was worried she wouldn't have time to pack and get ready).  Ultimately, she said she had a good time and was glad that we went.  So, first trip of the year in the books!

Where Did Ya Come From, Where Did You Go?

Why are we here?  Why are any of us here? These are big philosophical questions, but that's not what I'm talking about.  In this post I will not be exploring the meaning of life and why we are here in this universe, this galaxy, this planet, this country, this state, this county, this township, this neighborhood, this house, this room, this couch, on this laptop on the internet.  You know, a bit of an abstract of this post kind of like they do for scientific papers, only this is not a scientific paper, it's a blog.  A blog that no one reads.  Why do it.  AHHHhhhhhhh, now we understand what I meant by why are we here.  Why are we here, dear not reader?  Why am I here and why are you theoretically here?  Why was I not here for many days? Why have I decided to come back? WHAT IS THE POINT?!  WhAt Is ThE pOiNt?!?!?! as the kids say (no kid says that anymore).

So, why did I start this thing to begin with? I don't know, it was 2008, that's just what people did back then. Why did we join any social media platform? I mean, this is a social media platform it's just long form Twitter.  Twitter is just the impatient version of a blog, a microblog as they say.  Honestly, I'm kind of surprised it still even exists as it seems that none of the people I used to follow have posted anything in years.  It was fun socially to do though, I had some nice interactions with people and got to know them better than I had before.  I also used to publicize this thing and that's not something I do anymore because I didn't necessarily want a lot of readers (not that I had a ton before).  It really was just a place for me to whine and complain and no one wants to hear that so I didn't promote it.  I also used it as a way to kill some time when I worked in the worst job I ever had, it filled up the day, and those were the years that I had daily posts. Once I got a job that didn't allow me to regularly sit at a computer I started to post less than I used to. It was also a job that really gives me decision fatigue, so haven't to figure out what I'm going to post about on any given day seemed like too much.  I just didn't have the energy for that. 

So, that's where I came from, but where am I going from here? Why am I posting again after over a year of not posting anything?  Well, one I'm a historian and recording my own history is something that I like to do as I can then look back and see what the heck was going on. As it currently is, I can look back on 14 years of my life and see where I was at any given point, what I was doing, how I felt, etc.  It's kind of like an open journal other people can read if they feel like it.  I also like that it's more engaging than my current time killer, which is scrolling through reels on Instagram.  I also feel like it makes me more organized and focused when I'm posting. I mean, I may not actually be, and perhaps it's just when I post I'm in a more organized and focused mood, but whatever, it's not like it's a negative thing.

So, I'm going to try and do more posting this year. Not as a yearly goal or anything, but just something I want to try doing a bit more to be engaging.  

2023: Return of the Goals!

Last year was the year of no goals, and what a lack of focus. I didn't enjoy the year without goals. I kind of thought to myself I'd keep reading and doing some things in terms of new experiences, and there was a little bit of each but it wasn't planned, focused, or really all that successful in some cases. I think given the number of years I"ve been doing the new experience goal it's kind of become part of who I am. The reading goal was completely lost, and there really wasn't much else that I could point to as goal achievements in the year. So given all of those missing pieces, I'm ready to bring back goals in 2023. My first goal list was very unfocused back in 2010, with such gems as "go to Disney" and "have more fun."  Looking over the past 12 years of goal making, it really seems like I have all the same sort of goals. Some, because they are generally good goals, relating to reading and doing new things. Some are to just ensure that I have a focus on things that I want to focus on. Others are repeated because I've never been successful at them, usually dealing with health.  

Keeping all that in mind I'll still be repeating some, but also trying to add some new goals into the mix, or at least refocused goals some previous years.  So, that being said, let's set some goals for 2023!

Goal Number One - Read 24 books: This goal is not new, but I'm adding a bit of a spin on it. I want to read a book a month, but I'ma also adding a big of a specified challenge to it, in that one of the books each month is going to be a classic literature book that I haven't read before.  I've already put together a list of classic books that I potentially could read, most of them being from the 1800s. So, each month in addition to reading one book that I want to read I'll also read one book that I haven't read that's considered a classic. 

Goal Number Two - Focus on Fitness by closing all three of my fitness rings 75% of the time: Fitness is always my second goal, and I've had many different ways to try and focus on that such a specific number of exercises or actives, or specific events like running a 5K. Since my interaction with COVID, I haven't really been consistent on any kind of fitness, so rather than go with my last set of multiple goals, I'll just focus on something attainable to get more consistent and get back in the habit of being active. 

Goal Number Three - Use a social calendar:  I set this goal originally in 2020, and tried it a bit in 2021 but because of COVID I never actually was able to do it effectively since we remained so locked down.  We are still somewhat locked down in some ways especially about things like dining out or doing things without masks.  However, in terms of our social calendar we've moved into a more normalized shenanigans.  So, the goal is to get a calendar set up and to start using it to be more intentional about interactions and doing things both in person and virtually. 

Goal Number Four - Spend at least one hour a week on creative things: This is a bit vague, but a few years ago I tried to do a drawing a day, but the proved to be a bit too difficult and so I ended up stopping part way through the year. I just kind of ran out of things to draw or ideas of what to draw.  So, this is a little more flexible. 

Goal Number Five - Take more home videos: I never talk video anymore. There's very few clips over the past year or two, even though we go and do things. I'm better about taking photos when we go places, but taking video is more rare, and I'm missing out by not taking video of these things because looking back I used to take far more. Perhaps some of that has to do with the fact that I used to have video cameras and tapes and now since everything is through phones it doesn't come to mind or doesn't seem the same. I don't know what exactly it is, but I want to change that and have more videos.

Goal Number Six - Take one photos a day:  I started a daily Instagram a few years back, and in the past I tried to do three photos a day, but that was a big much.  I think scaling it back to one photo a day will be more likely to be successful doing it.  The goal here is that I've gotten out of the habit of taking photos and go weeks or even months without taking any photos at all, so this will be a good goal to focus on that a bit more.

Goal Number Seven - Have seven new experiences:  I always do this one, and I always enjoy it. 

Ok, so really a lot of similar goals to previous years, but adjusted to try and get me back on track as a human or something. Good luck for 2023!

The Year (Almost) Without A Blog Post

 A few weeks ago I realized that I had not posted a single blog post this year.  I used to post daily, this was easy to do because I was working at a computer all day and didn't have much to do at work so I would just post away with no problems.  However, a few years back my job switched to teaching, which does not give me much down time during the day to post, and by the time I got of work I was too exhausted to really post.  As a teacher you also face a lot of decision fatigue where you can't really make another choice because you've had to make so many already.  Just in the first seconds of class you have to make a decision on how to greet each student, and of course you also may need to correct dress code, behavior, and all sorts of other things so before the bell rings you may have already made (literally) 100 decisions.  What does one post about when you don't feel like you can be alive another moment, and then having to choose what to post?!  So, obviously, you can see in the postings where this all changed.

However, this year was worse than usual.  In recent years I had at the very least posted goals and updates through the year on the goals even when I wasn't posting much else. This year, there was none of that, and I feel like I really was lacking a lot of focus.  I barely read, only finishing three books, Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller, Why We're Polarized By Ezra Klein, and The Ickabog by J.K. Rowling. I made not fitness goals.  I did do way more than seven new experiences, I mean our trip to California alone took care of more than 7 new experiences.  But ultimately, I wasn't as focused, aware of goals, or focused on moving forward this year, and I'd like to remedy that this coming year. So, as I sit here closing out the last minutes of 2022, I know that I'm going to adjust that next year.

I also had a bit of a throwback NYE this year, because for many years every year we spent at a themed party that our friends threw.  So, we'd get dressed up in fancy clothes and from around 2003 for nearly a decade we spend it with the same friends at quite a party.  Then about 10 years ago they stopped hosting the party and it just wasn't as fun on NYE.  Well, this year, they were all in town and we got together and got to spend almost until midnight together. It wasn't the big party, but it was my favorite way of ringing in the new year (well almost since the child wasn't able to make it to midnight).  

So, Happy New Year! I feel optimistic about 2023!