2015 -- A Year in Brief

This year was one I was looking forward to, since it’s the year they go to in Back to the Future Part II. Also I had some good goals I was planning on accomplishing this year. Lets see how they turned out:

• Bought a new car
• Climbed a rock wall for the first time since I was young.
• Started going back to FHE again.
• A religion class started up for people my age, so I started going to that.
• Decided to have non-game nights since I know not everyone likes board games.
• No one came to those, but I had a lot of fun with those that came to my game nights.
• Went to a board game convention and had fun.
• Had fun with a beautiful woman on a date.
• Dropped and broke my phone, so had to get a new one.
• Storm knocked down a main branch from one of my trees.
• Got into the swing of things with our project at work and with new coworkers.
• My favorite compliment of the year was when a woman told me that I’m always wanting to help people. I didn’t really agree at the time, but it is something that has stuck with me, and I have since noticed that she was right.
• Decided to try the whole online dating thing for the first time.
• No one messaged me back, so after two or three months, I quit.
• Volunteered to answer questions about Mormonism from other Christians. It went... about as well as you'd expect.
• Got new board games: Dead of Winter and Legacy: Gears of Time.
• In theaters this year, I saw: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Unbroken, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1, Avengers: The Age of Ultron, Terminator Genysis, Ant Man, and The Peanuts Movie.
• Besides the Book of Mormon, I read Rough Stone Rolling and The Hobbit.
• Had a bad experience where I offended a woman, and left me frustrated with myself and how frequently I say/do the wrong things.
• On the positive side, I had several social experiences where I was able to have fun, and I really appreciate those people for looking out for me.
• Started going to a different religion class for people my age.
• Dad fell off a roof helping a neighbor.
• He broke a lot of bones, but I think he's recovering pretty good.
• The next day, I helped a friend with a roof, too.
• Also participated in his baby's blessing, and got to catch up with some old friends.
• Water was leaking into my house, so hired someone to pump glue into a crack in my foundation.
• Dad retired from his career.
• Went backpacking into the Uintas with some coworkers.
• Caught some fish for the first time since I was young.
• No family vacation this year, but we did go up into the mountains for a picnic, and that was nice.
• Knitted a new scarf for my Senior Who costume, using normal-sized yarn this time. I like it much better.
• Ward for single Latter-day Saints my age started up in Riverdale. Grateful for good friends there in the RSA Ward.
• My YSA Bishop said that I'm welcome at their activities, and had encouraging words for me that I really appreciate.
• Paid off my house.
• Bought/played Life is Strange, a video game involving time travel. Too bad there's a ton of cursing in it though.
• Defeated the Pokémon league in Pokémon Diamond, which I started playing eight years ago. Much more my style of video game!
• Started converting old General Conferences (from before the Ensign) into HTML.
• Saw the total lunar eclipse.
• Dressed up into a character and had fun doing this murder mystery thing, first time I had done that.
• Bowled my best game ever, at 202!
• On vacation with my family, I went to Monument Valley, Natural Bridges National Monument, and Valley of the Gods for the first time

At the time, I was having a hard time coming to terms with getting older and still being single, and I was feeling like I don’t have the same courage I once had. But now making this list, I noticed that I went outside my comfort zone many more times than usual. Courage isn’t about success, it’s about overcoming fears. So hopefully we can keep going forward next year.

Meanwhile, I maintained my spiritual, physical, and financial goals, and I plan on keeping that up. Already have some interesting things planned for next year.

If I interacted with you at all this year, thank you very much for making this year a good one!

Now, let’s go forward with optimism into 2016!

Tetrads ("Blood Moons")

When the Moon passes into the shadow of the Earth, the moon goes dark.  It actually turns a red color since some of the light is bent through earth's atmosphere, so it's like a sunset on the Moon.

However, there is some mild hysteria about the lunar eclipse coming up, and I want to clarify a few things.

Being Single

I turned 32 recently, and so it is natural that my mind turns toward the things I hope to accomplish in the future.  I feel like I've completed all my main goals in life-- graduate college, get a career, buy a house.  I'm getting close to some others, namely pay off my debt.  But the one I haven't seemed to figure out yet is the relationship ones:  to have a girlfriend, get married, raise a family, buy a bigger home to hold everyone.

I've learned a lot though, but I'm just not quite there yet, and it's still frustrating. 

SaltCON 2015 -- Full Game List

Just a list of the games I actually played last weekend:

SaltCON 2015

Last weekend, I spent 3 days at the board game convention at the Davis Conference Center, and it was way fun.  My co-worker Ron told me about it last year, and that was my first time going.

I'm the type of person that loves being around people, that's how I recharge and feel great.  At the same time, though, it takes me a while to warm up to new people and new situations.  So I consider myself a shy extrovert.

Anyway, so last year I had a lot of fun, but I felt like I spent too much time wandering around hoping that people would invite me to play.  I had to spend that time just kind of learning how things worked.

This year was different.  Because I knew what to expect, I was less nervous.  I think also part of it was that there was a lot more people there this year, and so I found my timing was better at joining groups as they were starting new games.