2024 Retrospective

Heather and I just wrapped up a New Year's Eve party at the Danners' house. My parents and Brad Danner also attended. Sydney was away at a sleepover with her friend, Leo, across the street. We played Waveform and Telestrations. Telestrations was a big hit. Lots of laughs. Everyone had a blast.

Overall, I feel like 2024 hasn't been a great year, though I think that's due to negativity bias. When I think back on my highlights for the year, the list looks pretty good. That said, this year has been very difficult professionally, and Heather and I didn't do any international travel. The amount of travel I do is typically the yardstick by which I judge how fulfilling a year has been, so one of my objectives for 2025 is to travel more.

With that said, here are my highlights of 2024.

• Best books I read: Five Decembers, The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance
• Best movie released this year: Nosferatu
• Best older movies I saw for the first time: Past Lives, Anatomy of a Fall, Godzilla Minus One (interestingly, all from 2023) 
• Best new music: Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere
• Best podcast discovery: Conversations with Tyler
• This year I started dabbling in creating digital art on the iPad. This new hobby was short-lived apparently, though I'd like to get back to it.
• I started painting Warhammer 40k miniatures. Hardly any gameplay. I'd like to play more games in 2025.
• Heather and I saw our second total solar eclipse in Piggott Arkansas. It was just as profound an event as 2017.
• We went to the state fair for the first time in decades.
• I learned how to make great guacamole. (The world's best, in my opinion.)
• I made lots of new friends this year after joining a local Blood on the Clocktower group. Through that group, I met another group of board-gamers who I've spent time with semi-weekly. This has been the best part of my year.
• Related: I got to play Twilight Imperium twice this year.
• Miles and his two daughters stayed with us for an extended weekend. We had a great time hosting them. The Danner girls came over, so we had five kids running around the house. They had a kick out of painting miniatures in my office. Both Miles' kids took home miniatures they painted themselves.
• We went to Fleet Week and Heather and I rode in a self-driving car — a first for anyone in our family, as far as I know.
• Heather and I hosted my side of our family at the cabin this year, including my brother, who made the long drive to join us. Everyone had an awesome time. Top memories include kayaking with Ros and Syd to Meeks Bay beach, smoking cigars on the deck with Scott and my dad, roasting marshmallows with the whole group, plus my inlaws and Heather's cousin Ashley and her husband, and having a close-up encounter with a bear.

This happens every year. It feels like the year has been uneventful until I look back through my photos and remember all the wonderful things that happened. Despite this year's challenges, I wouldn't want to go back and do things any differently. This time last year I hoped for a happy, healthy 2024, and that's exactly what I got.