2015 in Review: Looking back (Part 1)

This was an interesting year, 2015.

It definitely had its ups and downs but that is to be expected. I had some fond memories, that’s for sure. I feel like I had a good year professionally and a decent one personally.

So not too bad.

Alas, it’s time to take an overall look back at 2015. I’ve already reviewed 2015 in photos, and in blogging. So let’s take a peek at the big picture.

One thing is for sure, this year moved along. It seemed, at times, that it went slow. But as I look back at some of the things I had the chance to do – it really moved quickly. But it was at a speed where I could enjoy everything going on. That’s something I’m glad about. I can’t say there were too many really bad things in life, outside of working myself sick in the early part of the year. But even then, I had sick time and I got healthy and it wasn’t anything major – so that was a bonus.

I saw a lot of baseball this year. I had the chance to travel to Seattle for some serious geocaching, and in May, I went to my second GeoWoodstock. I saw plenty of amazing independent wrestling and I, of course, saw as much of Cameron as I could. Family has been an incredible part of my life the past few years, and I hope we, as a family, continue to get closer and closer.

In the end, I was happy. It was a good year. Can things get better? Always. But they could get much worse, that’s for sure. I do remember where I was a few years ago.

But, we’ll touch on all that soon enough.

Before I get into too many other things, we need to look back at the “goals” I set for myself on the blog in a post last January.

Were there a lot of successes? Failures? Pushes? We’ll soon find out.

Photography (success)

This is, without a doubt, a success.

I wanted to take more photos this year, but more specifically with my DSLR. I had kind of abandoned it last year for the iPhone, which is a good thing to have. But I wanted to challenge myself more and I think I did that.

Yes, I used my iPhone. But so many times – for different things – I used the DSLR. About the only place I didn’t bring the DSLR was to baseball games, and I kind of regret that. Though, to be fair, I usually only took photos of the stadium and with the panoramic capabilities of the iPhone, that worked out well. I might change that stance this summer, but we’ll see.

That being said, my DSLR was with me a lot more. On trips, for regular use, for family things – I was out and about with it. I even did a few photo days, which was nice. I also rented several lenses throughout the year, which made it a lot easier to take the DSLR out.

This was also the 10th year I did a photo book at Christmas and in the end it came out to about 230 pages. That’s huge for me. But the photos were spread throughout and many were taken with the DSLR, so I am quite happy this goal was met. I definitely found my love of photography again.

Better my blog (success)

This is a definite success – have you seen my blog?

In 2015, I had some issues with my web host. It was pretty bad for a little over a week. My site was down quite a bit and it was getting frustrating. The worst part was I had already paid for the year, so I didn’t want to change and lose my money.

Eventually, the customer service I had grown to expect came back and got me to a new and updated server. The issue was, it messed up my blog. Why? I have no idea. But my theme no longer worked. They gave me some back-ass answer about it and I decided to embrace this as a time to change.

Not that I was fully happy about the service or response (I’m still not, but things have seemed better), but it forced me to look at things a little more.

So I searched and searched before I found a theme I liked. I paid for this one and have installed it and tweaked a few things. In 2016, I plan on tweaking it even more and seeing where it goes.

Overall, the blog was a success.

I had 221 posts this year, though I aimed for 250. I had a couple of down months, which is something I am hoping to avoid this year. I have some thoughts and ideas on what to do, and hopefully I can stick with them. I know I want to write more posts and do a few things … so we’ll see if I can get past that 250 mark.

Here were some of my “sub” goals for 2015:

• Tweak my design a little (success)
• Blog a tad more often and keep up with comments and such (success, for the most part – I kept up with comments and blogged a decent amount)
• Have, at a minimum, 250 posts for the year (fail)
• Take part in a few challenges, as well as continue the Photo Blogging Challenge (push – I did OK here and I hope to take part in a few more in 2016)

The blogging community is a great place to be and I look forward to visiting old friends, finding new and great blogs, and hopefully being more interactive. I thought 2015 was a solid year for blogging and who knows where the future will go.

Geocaching (success)

I guess this depends on how you look at this one. I’m going to call it a success, though. There were a few things I didn’t do what I wanted in regard to the game, but I think overall it was a success.

In 2015, I found 363 geocaches (yes, two away from averaging one per day), which is a massive step up from the 221 I found in 2014. That’s a good thing. Hopefully, I’ll get back into it a bit more in 2016, but it all depends on how other things go. I’m sure this will be part of my goals for the year, but I’m not yet sure how I will word or shape it.

I did have a few “sub” goals in regard to geocaching and here they are:

• Reach 4,000 finds (success)
• Place at least 15 or so geocaches (fail – including events, I did 12)
• Host five or more events (success – 6)
• Average at least one find per day for the year (close enough)
• Add another state or country to my totals (success – three new states in Colorado, Washington, and Oregon)

I definitely can’t complain and I think that this goal, as a whole, was a success. I’m happy with how geocaching went. I still enjoy the game, which is a good thing. In 2016, we’ll see where it takes me!

Day Zero Project (fail)

Basically, my goal for the year was to complete, at a minimum, 25 items. For that reason, this goal would be a failure. Reality is, I have only finished 20 of the items in total. I’m going to push a little bit more in 2016 to see what I can get done, but keep the goal realistic.

In reality, though, this wasn’t a fail as I’m chipping away. I likely won’t finish the whole list — and I knew that from the beginning. But I would like to just keep chipping away at it and seeing how far I can get.

Travel (success)

I definitely think I had some good trips in 2015, so I’ll call this a success. I still haven’t returned to Montreal (since 2009), but hopefully that happens in 2016.

Interestingly enough, my travel was basically centered on geocaching or baseball in 2015. The biggest trip was to Seattle to see Geocaching HQ and attend the last Block Party. However, that included a side trip to the Portland, Oregon area for caching and to visit the famous Voodoo Doughnuts.

I also spent a multi-day trip in Maryland for GeoWoodstock.

Other overnight/multi-day trips included ones for baseball where I went to the Philadelphia area, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Baltimore.

In March, I took a trip to Connecticut for my first board game convention, which was a blast. I will be heading there again this year and maybe even add another convention in. But that could all be part of the looking ahead.

I am excited to see where 2016 might take me!

Home brewing (fail)

Talk about a fail.

I am not sure I brewed a beer all year. I recently bough a few kits though, so hopefully I will get back to it and see what I can come up with.

I really need to brew more.

Now, I will say that I had true thoughts about brewing this year, but I just never committed the time. I need to settle in and get brewing to see what I can come with.

It’s crazy, though. I love brewing beer. Now I just have to make the time for it.

***

I can’t complain about 2015.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad year. I enjoyed many aspects, but there were some aspects that weren’t so great. I’ll touch upon some of this in tomorrow’s post when I talk a bit more the year.

That being said, I can’t complain about the year. I’ve had some rough ones not too long ago, so this was a great one. It was one where I started to regain myself, which is nice.

Stop back tomorrow for part 2 of this post. That will wrap up my reviews for 2015. Then, next week, I’ll tackle my 2016 goals and go from there.

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