Previous Years

2010 - 2011 - 2012 - 2013 - 2014 - 2015 - 2016 - 2017

2010 

Events

• Celebrated my wife’s 40th birthday in style. (Vegas Baby!)
• Spent a lot of time with the LilaBaby
• Boycotted NBC from the day Conan signed off until the day Jeff Zucker was fired
• Turned a cubicle into an aquarium as a warning to not take vacations, even honeymoons Video
• Wept at Toy Story 3
• Moved into a house in the burbs
• Attended the Rally to Restore Sanity (and/or Fear) in DC
• Nearly wept at The Lincoln Memorial, but didn’t want my wife to laugh at me (like she did at Toy Story 3)
• Visited Seattle for the umpteenth time, but this time I went in the Space Needle and Experience Music Project/Sci-Fi Museum
• Enjoyed Thanksgiving and Christmas more than I’d have ever thought possible
• Paid enough in taxes to make me eligible for republican party membership

Purchased

• iPad
• t2i
• couch
• upright washing machine
• king size memoryfoam mattress (This or the iPad wins the year, I’m never going to choose a real winner)

Produced

• far too many photos
• far too many links via Google Reader

Consumed

• too few books, and too many ‘articles’
• a giant field of reese’s pumpkins

2010s site recommendations

• (http://www.kickstarter.com)
• (http://www.givemesomethingtoread.com)
• (http://reader.google.com)
• (http://www.8tracks.com/digdoug/digdoug-2010)

2011

A year of chapters ending.

Not the one about me being fiscally irresponsible, or horribly overweight. Those chapters are still going. Those will likely end abruptly, and with tears. Hopefully no time soon.

FIN

• My wife graduates college (with honors). It took her a while… but she has a couple of great reasons.
• The Space Shuttle program ends.
• Took a nice vacation to Chicago, saw U2 in concert, a band that had more to do with my life at 20 than nearly 40. Seeing them was one of the things Michelle said she’d like to do sometime back when we were dating. So that’s another line item off the list.
• The death of Everett Duncan, my step-father for 33 years. My oldest friend. It’s been 7 months, and I still catch myself forgetting he’s gone. Speaking at his funeral was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Here’s what I said. Everything else on this list is filler, so it doesn’t sound like I’m just making a ‘woe is me’ list. The pros call this “burying the lede.”

JOYFUL THINGS

• St Louis wins The World Series… including the wildest game in history.
• My dog still makes me smile. When he’s not farting.
• For our anniversary my wife got me the coolest laptop/book bag evar. It wasn’t what I had in mind for the leather anniversary, but it was a really awesome gift.
• Star Wars: The Old Republic is actually fun. And I don’t regret spending money on the game.
• I got a new Kindle (the cheapest current one, $80) for my birthday. I’ve read more books in the last 3 months than I did in the first 9. Paper AND electronic. Somehow it motivated me to turn real pages as well.
• The Muppets movie was well done. It felt like a long episode of the show. It was more entertaining than Cars 2.
• I finally watched The Wire. I’m a little behind the curve on that. It ended far better than most HBO series' do.

Kickstarter ‘projects’ that really worked.

• PadPivot
• The Cosmonaut: A Wide-Grip Stylus for Touch Screens
• Blimpus, An Inflatable Character Canvas
• Trebuchette - the snap-together, desktop trebuchet So far I’ve been ‘unsatisfied’ only once in like 30 projects I’ve done on Kickstarter. A few have been slow, but only one really didn’t work for me.

I’m glad 2011 is over. I didn’t like it. It had it’s high points, but they’re dwarfed by the lows. This chapter needs to end, needs to get out of the way. I, for one, am glad to turn the page.

2012

So, 2012 did it’s job. It was far FAR improved from 2011.

January

• The new year kicked off with Michelle appearing in The Courier Journal, an article about video games and adults. My photos were confined to the website. behind a paywall, where they belong.

February

• Valentine’s Day Michelle has to work a little late and then commute. I make spaghetti, we open up a bottle of Chateau St Michelle, and we watch Lady and the Tramp to celebrate.
• Later that month the Sherman Minton Bridge is repaired and commutes go from INSANE to merely maddening. Then they put I-65 under construction for a few weeks, just to keep us from getting too big in the britches.

March

• My brother celebrated his 40th birthday!
• We got an elliptical exercise machine.
• Michelle’s annual trek to visit her friends leaves me with a weekend home alone. I spend it in my Lucky Rocketship Underpants… but still have to go in to work. (I put clothes on over them)
• My Grandma’s house is almost hit by a Tornado.. her barn on property is completely demolished.
• Backed ze Frank’s new show on Kickstarter

April

• Levon Helm and Dick Clark both die. Causing my playlists to get a much needed kick in the pants.
• Got a new iPad.

May

• MCA dies. Playlists again receive some pant kicking.
• My best friend from HS turns 40!
• Took a stroll down a path at Gethsemani, an Abbey an hour away from Louisville. Easily one of the best things I’ve done ‘solo’ since I met Michelle
• Listened to all 3 Beatles Anthology sets front to back. In honor of a sorely missed old hippie.

June

• Saw Roger Waters in concert. The 17 year old Doug inside of me was very happy. The 40 year old thought it was a lot more like Cirque du Soliel than a Rock Concert. (I still loved it)
• Michelle got furniture for our patio seating area. The most liked photo I took this year on facebook was of a couple of chairs on a patio. You people are weird.

July

• Andy Griffith died. And I spent a solid day alternating between watching dogs howling at the theme song on Youtube, and thinking about Everett.
• Chik-Fil-A proved that white middle-class christians LOVE to feel like victims, no matter how far they have to stretch the definitions of words to get there.

August

• Watched a nuclear powered robot car land on mars on a slab of glass from a hotel room 250 miles from home. No big whoop.
• My sister celebrated her 40th!
• Neil Armstrong died. In a thousand years, I bet he’s the only American name any human remembers.

September

• Began FortyForForty.com, my descent into self-important blathering on the internet. Okay, I’ve been doing that for YEARS, but this time it was focused.

October

• Went to see a refreshed version of Lawrence of Arabia on the big screen. It was beautiful, and not just because no women talked for 3 and a half hours. [editor’s note, years later… this is a joke referenced in fortyforforty.com]
• Went to see Louis CK in St Louis. Had a lovely time with The Schmoop.
• Finished FortyForForty.com - That was a painful project, but I’m glad I did it.
• I turned 40.
• Hurricane Sandy strikes the North East.. then Disney buys LucasFilm. Coincidence?!

November

• Some election thing happened. A whole bunch of people forgot we’re all in this together.
• Thanksgiving rocked. As always.

December

• Ravi Shankar and Dave Brubeck both die. Causing me to listen and appreciate a bunch of music I don’t normally expose myself to.
• Christmas. Was. Awesome.
• Wrote this list.

I got my fingers crossed for 2013.

2013

I’m not a fan of odd numbered years. Enough bad happened in 2011 that I couldn’t wait for 2012. 2013 tried really hard to be as tragically sucktastic as possible. My theory is that election years create so much negative energy that our own lives seem pleasant. So.. yay for mid-terms in 2014!

January

• The first of the year featured my eldest niece getting married. It was a lovely event, and she’s featured again at the end of the year.
• Lee Webb died. Lee was in her early 40s, and had gotten married about a year after Michelle and I did. We’d run into her at a couple of local concerts and she seemed happy. Her death was unexpected, and frightening.

“When a pitcher’s throwing a spitball, don’t worry and don’t complain, just hit the dry side like I do.” - Stan Musial

February

• Local girl Jennifer Lawrence wins an Oscar and shows just how cool she is by flipping off a photographer who makes a joke about her tripping.
• A giant fireball meteor streaks across the Russian sky. We all know this in minutes due to the combination of insurance fraud, dashboard cameras and ‘social media’.

“Over the past year, the Strategic Consultant role has unquestionably played a vital part in leveraging Lean Six Sigma methodology, spurring [redacted] on to greater levels of performance excellence.” - Actual sentence in an email I received this year.

March

• New Pope! Way better than the old pope. Jesuits are underrated.
• We double down on our effort to watch every Disney movie before our trip to Disney World. We got most of them done. A handful of films from around 2000 were missed. We didn’t get to Dinosaur, or Home on the Range. But rewatching several dozen children’s films over a month or two is a fun little project.

“Art is the closest we can come to understanding how a stranger really feels.” - Roger Ebert

April

• A guy named Carlos Arredondo shows us what it means to be a good citizen. He’s the guy in a cowboy hat, manually holding closed an artery of one of the Boston Marathon bombing victims.
• U of L wins the national championship (in Men’s College Basketball), the women’s team comes in 2nd. Michelle doesn’t care at all, but I think it’s nice to have the championship go from UK to U of L, and I hope one of them wins it again.

“I couldn’t wait for success, so I went ahead without it.” - Jonathan Winters

May

• Angelina Jolie announces she had a preventative mastectomy, because she tested positive for a genetic predisposition to breast cancer. This story rears its head in my world in a few weeks.
• Walt Disney World - Loved everything about this trip. I wouldn’t recommend doing it this ‘right’ regularly, since it was just shy of ridiculously expensive. Five days exploring 4 parks, and eating a truly ludicrous amount of food. We’ll likely go back, someday.
• Listened to Beatles Anthology, front to back again. In honor of Everett. I like this annual tradition.

“VACATION!!!!!!!!!! Perhaps the greatest word in the English language.” - Michelle (on Facebook)

June

• Schmoops' birthday is celebrated at Richo’s, and they have Old Rasputin on nitrous. I got her a gorgeous Maleficent statue.
• Our living room is finally decorated with Electric Mayhem posters. Life is good.

“Scotch on the rocks.. and I MEAN ICE!” - Eddie Valiant (it was the 25th anniversary of Who Framed Roger Rabbit)

July

• Got into an argument with a 3 year old over whether or not Orcas are Sharks.
• Finally finished my bottle of Elijah Craig 18 year, that was several years old. You know, if you’re looking for gift ideas, I could use a replacement bottle of expensive celebration bourbon.
• Michelle made me watch Pitch Perfect, repeatedly. It’s still on our DVR.

“It’s a Shark!” - Lila

August

• Went to see Strangers on a Train at the Louisville Palace. The Hitchcock series there every summer is one of nicest annual Louisville traditions.
• Michelle’s mom got diagnosed with breast cancer.
• Michelle postpones a previously scheduled hysterectomy. To take care of her mom post surgery. Also we now need to find out if the hysterectomy needs to be changed from partial to full, due to genetic testing. Her mom’s test comes back negative, eventually. But it’s a LONG few weeks.
• The news of the negative result means Michelle can skip the test, plans don’t have to change, and the weight of the diagnosis for her mom lightens immensely. I kidnap Michelle from work and we go celebrate with beer and comraderie. That day was, quite simply, as good as it gets.
• Her mother has a mastectomy, recovers way faster than a human should. Seriously, like 3–4 days, she was fine. Janet Kennedy is crazy strong, ya’ll.

“Tony Stark realizes that there has been a disturbance in - in what he will call a time ribbon. For the time being, I will allow J.J. Abrams to think of a better term for this. And he then starts to assemble the cream of the Marvel universe, not - not the second-tier super heroes that we saw in the first Avengers movie, I’m sorry but Hawkeye and Black Widow are not first-tier. He would go find, hello, Spider-Man? Spider-Man exists in that universe.” - Patton Oswalt’s epic Star Wars filibuster from Parks and Recreation

September

• Took Michelle to Gethsemani. We couldn’t hike, but we enjoyed a chant and bought a whole bunch of cheeses.
• Jim Henson Biography comes out, and reminds the world that he was one of the most interesting and wonderful people of the 20th century. Read it.

“If our “message” is anything, it’s a positive approach to life. That life is basically good.” - Jim Henson

October

• We celebrate our 5th anniversary with a trip to Columbus IN. A top 10 architectural destination, despite it being a pretty small town. We stayed in a nice, artsy hotel and enjoyed the trip a lot.
• Michelle has a hysterectomy. It was intended to be partial, but became a full one once she was opened up. She was suffering from Endometriosis, Adenomyosis, and fibroid tumors. Basically, she was in a LOT of pain, all the time. I took a few weeks off to take care of her. She was only doped up on pain killers and awake for a few hours. Not nearly enough entertainment.

“You made me forget myself; I thought I was someone else, someone good.” - Lou Reed (Perfect Day)

November

• Michelle recovers, and is mostly all better now. Her sleep still gets a little wacky, but we’re hopeful for a pain and surgery free few years now.
• The 150th anniversary of The Gettysburg Address goes by, without nearly enough fanfare.
• St. Louis loses the World Series to the Boston Red Sox. Boo.
• My friend Eric died. He took the photos we used for our reception invites. He took more photos of me than anyone ever. He was a smart guy who lived his life by his own rules, and died doing something he loved. He’s going to be sorely missed.
• Thanksgiving. It’s still the best holiday. Michelle and I spent it in Flatwoods again, with Jeremy and her parents.

“I bet living well does more good than posting crappy inspirational shit all over the internet does.” - Eric Bartley

December

• My niece, Jessica, the one mentioned in January, has a healthy baby boy. Making me a “Great Uncle” for the first of what will undoubtedly be many, many times.
• Christmas happens. And I get a handful of new Windmill drawings from nieces and nephews, and an awesome one from the brother in law.

“The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” - Nelson Mandela

2013 Recommendations

• Game of Thrones
• Jim Henson: The Biography
• The Exchange (New Albany)
• Narcoossee’s (Grand Floridian Hotel, in Orlando (WDW))

2014

Last year I speculated that even numbered years were better than odd numbered years. I’m wrong a lot. Boy did I really start of 2014 with a doozie though.

January

• You probably don’t remember this, but it was brutally cold last January. Causing a whole slew of Global Warming jokes by people who cannot understand that it’s a big ole sphere, and ‘global’ implies the whole thing, not just the 15 miles of I-65 they drive up and down.
• Quite possibly the only resolution I’ve ever actually stuck with kicked off with a bang. “Read 24 books in 2014”, I read 7 in January alone. Greatly aided by having the first week of the year off.

“Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education is when you read the fine print; experience is what you get when you don’t. " - Pete Seeger

February

• Jimmy Fallon ends his run on Late Night by playing “The Weight” with The Muppets. One of my favorite all time songs, with the friggin' Muppets? Yeah, I get it Jimmy. I’ll watch your new damn show. Even though it should still be Conan’s.
• I went and painted a picture with my wife at one of those “we’ll charge you $30 each for $2 worth of paint, $1 worth of canvas and you can be creative! Wine costs extra.” places. We had a lovely time. Oh yeah, we also went to see the Lego Movie in theatres. Love is Awesome.
• My grandpa Pat died. This year my paternal Grandmother will bury her husband, her step-son and her father. Perspective can be painfully acquired.

“Well, let’s say this Twinkie represents the normal amount of psychokinetic energy in the New York area. Based on this morning’s sample, it would be a Twinkie… thirty-five feet long, weighing approximately six hundred pounds.” - Dr. Egon Spengler (Played by Harold Ramis, who also wrote more than half the things you laughed at in the 80s)

March

• COSMOS! Seth MacFarlane (yeah, that guy) and Neil Degrasse Tyson team up to remake the show that taught me how to see the universe is infinite in all directions. I celebrate most episodes by eating a piece of apple pie and harassing people on social media to watch it along with me.
• The month ended with the 50th anniversary of the week that The Beatles had the #1 through #5 chart topping songs at the same time.
• It took forever, but I finally finished Saint-Exupery: A Biography by Stacy Shiff. I then immediately read The Little Prince for the first time with a new appreciation for The French, early aviation and artistic people who do everything on their own.
• My brother-in-law died, leaving 2 kids behind. Really good kids who surprise me every time I see them (which isn’t often enough)

We hunger for significance. - Cosmos.

April

• My dog’s walking is notably impaired. It turns out he’s injured his ACL, then completely tears it chasing a squirrel. We forego a couple thousand dollar surgery for a few hundred dollars of some weird quackery sounding “Deep Tissue Laser Therapy” and baby gates. It appears to work. (So maybe it wasn’t ‘completely’ torn)
• Schmoopy and I take a road trip to St Meinrad and Jasper, IN to avoid Thunder over Louisville. Turns into a lovely day.
• Got an ‘award’ at work, of a bobble head of my boss. Needless to say, I work less hard now.

“Trust doesn’t mean that you trust that someone won’t screw up - it means you trust them even when they do screw up.” - Ed Catmull in Creativity, Inc.

May

• Nasa turned on a High Def camera mounted to the side of the International Space Station. So now you can see a picture of Earth in real time. From space. It’s a start.
• Road trip up to the Cincinnati Zoo and Hofbrauhaus. Baby giraffes make Michelle make pretty ridiculous noises.
• Mother’s Day and my Dad’s 60th fall on the same weekend.

“Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they’re stones that don’t matter. As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good.” - Maya Angelou

June

• I go to San Jose for a conference, then spend a day in SF and pick up a limited edition print of Horton Hears a Who from a Dr Seuss gallery. When I give it to Michelle on her birthday, she almost forgives me for taking a trip without her.
• We went to see The Book of Mormon. I felt like I needed to go to confession afterwards, and I’m not even Catholic.
• June 17th, 2014 : “Walked into a spiderweb on the way to the car. 10 minutes into commute the spider crawled across the inside of my sunglasses”
• Facebook admits they tinker with what kinds of things show up on your feed. People are furious that a service they don’t pay for spends time and money trying to figure out a way to get more money from the customers that do pay them.
• Hit 100,000 miles on my Honda Accord.

“Remember these two things: play hard and have fun.” - Tony Gwynn

July

• My great grandfather, Pops, dies. He was 96 years old. I can’t do his memory service in a single paragraph. He provided, he laughed, he loved. He lived long enough to see a Great-Great-Great grandson. We should all have a life that well lived.
• Michelle and I see all 3 Shakespeare in the Park productions. Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry V and Hamlet, outdoors, by trained professionals. This Kentucky Shakespeare group really does an amazing job, and I cannot recommend making time to go see them in 2015 enough.
• Purchased a couple of airline tickets that I wouldn’t be able to use until October.. lah-dee-dah.

“Doug Churchman! your Wu-Name is Inscrutable Drama Queen” - Wu-Name Generator

August

• Guardians of the Galaxy was more fun than anyone expected, and the soundtrack reopened 70s rock shaped holes in our hearts.
• McQuixote Books and Coffee opens in Portland. The owners are huge Don Quixote fans, and they make really really good coffee. I really want this place to succeed for a long time.
• The ALS Ice Bucket challenge takes the world by storm, raising a ridiculous amount of money and generally being a good thing for everyone. Even snarky jackholes on the Internet who have an opinion about absolutely everything other people do with their time and money.
• Mom made me go to The Outlet Shoppes for her birthday. I went, because I’m a good kid.

“Good people end up in Hell because they can’t forgive themselves.”” - Robin Williams

September

• Michelle gets a new car. Then drives it several hundred miles away from me. She came back a few days later.
• Waterfront Wednesday, Lake Street Dive. They’re real good. We bought some CDs. And I threw my wedding ring into either the Ohio River or a trash bin. By mistake. A couple hours after making a joke about how it’s just a silly symbol and not having it wouldn’t change my love for The Schmoop. The timing and circumstances, but not irony, don’t make it more funny. I’ve gotten a replacement that weighs way more, as penance for my carelessness and ill humor.
• ReSurfaced is super cool too. Someone’s converted some unused space into a food-truck/event space for a few weeks. I’m kind of hoping they do it again next year.

“The first time I see a jogger smiling, I’ll consider it.” - Joan Rivers

October

• Pulled a plane to raise money for Special Olympics.
• Saw a Beatle live.
• Got a passport stamp to some Carribbean paradise.
• Saw the Milky Way for the first time I can remember.
• No big whoop.

“Don’t let them change ya, or even rearrange ya'” - Bob Marley

November

• I’d just like everyone to remember that 55–45 results means almost half of everyone who could be bothered to vote still disagrees with you. You still have to live next to them. The world is not Us vs. Them, it’s not Red and Blue. I said it when the purple was tinted blue, and I’ll remind everyone when the purple gets tinted red.
• Cardinal Stadium, at the Kentucky State Fairgrounds, is being torn down. The location of my very first job. My favorite memory is being stuck behind a horde of unmoving people during a very crowded game. When I sighed with my tray full of drinks, unable to get to the crowd some woman turned to me and snarled, “Patience is a virtue.” I responded, “Not when you make commission, would you like to buy a Pepsi?”
• We landed on a comet! (We being the European Space Agency, but once you leave the orbit of earth, I think nationality matters a lot less than planet of origin.) Seriously, we stuck a robot on a comet, a mission that started 15 years prior. Humans are capable of a lot more than just outrage and memes.
• Bone Spur! Actually, it turns out to be Plantar Fasciitis. And the dog is suddenly taken from an average of 3 walks to a day to 0.5.

“Bah-a-la-la-la” - Baymax

December

• Michelle got us tickets to see Dave Chappelle for Jesus' birthday. It was funny. That dude knows how to make people laugh.
• Christmas is nice. The last few years aren’t nearly as busy as what I grew up with. I enjoy gift giving, a ridiculous amount. Far more than I seem to care about financial responsibility.
• I looked back at what I wrote about 2013, and the prior few years, and discovered at a tiny little text file I saved on 12–31–2013. I was pleasantly surprised to see that I’d achieved 7 of my 8 goals for 2014. Got my wife to a beach, read more than 2 books a month, made big progress financially, took a few photos I geniunely like. Didn’t lose any weight. I can diet NEXT year.

“You checked our shitters, honey?” - Clark Griswold

2014 Recommendations

• 1491 by Charles Mann
• Kindred by Octavia Butler
• The “Jamaican Gold” drink at Couples San Souci resort in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.
• Engineer Prints from photojojo.com

2015

January

• Got a promotion. I’m not very good at my new role. Hopefully “yet”, but we shall see.
• Discovered Barrel-Aged Old Rasputin, and spent way too much money on beer.

As cool as the other side of the pillow - Stuart Scott

February

• Snow! So cold. For so long. NASA released a photo showing the top half of the US covered in ice and snow. Like Canada had extended down to Tennessee.
• Saw the film, Boyhood. There’s probably never been a movie as explicitly aimed at my tiny demographic. Divorced parents trying and trying to make life work for their weird kid, step siblings, sections of families as foreign to one another as possible and that weird kid just trying to have a “self”. I realize the flick isn’t for everyone (a coworker said it was pretty much only for 35–45 year old white males), but man did it worm its way deep into my brain for a while.
• My great-aunt Ruth passed away at 99 years old. She was kind and compassionate and is sorely missed by a horde of nieces and nephews.

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. - Leonard Nimoy

March

• The world is still covered in Ice, I’ve run out of taun-tauns in which to nap and recuperate.
• Michelle and I go see Rear Window at a normal movie theater. Fathom Events continues to do very interesting things, you should check out their calendar periodically.
• A coworker throws a surprise birthday party for his wife, full blown prom theme. Way better than my actual prom, and I was in bed by midnight.

2090 called. You’re dead, and you wasted your time on Earth. - Kimmy Schmidt

April

• Michelle and I run away from the Louisville area for Thunder and take a trip to Vincennes, Indiana. The casual racism toward natives is cringe-worthy, but the country really could use another round of public works projects to just build monuments and public places.
• Daredevil on Netflix is roughly 100 times better than I expected.
• To clear up some intestinal badness I have to feed my dog a probiotic paste for a week. Whatever you’re visualizing right now, it was worse.
• We take a couple of goofy kids to see a fun little high school production of Seussical.

If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall Or the mountain should crumble to the sea I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no, I won’t shed a tear Just as long as you stand, stand by me

• Ben E King

May

• David Letterman ends his Late Show. There were many thinkpieces and tributes. Also in May, the new host of The Late Show, Stephen Colbert, funded every single teacher in South Carolina’s project on DonorsChoose.org. Sometimes always joking around does pay. Mom.
• Michelle and I went to see Nick Offerman and Megan Mullaly at The Palace. Hung around back stage long enough to get them both to sign a piece from Nick Offerman’s woodshop. Mr. Offerman signed, “To Mirth” and his wife signed, “To Love”. I’d say I wish this celebrity couple got more attention, but I bet they’re pretty happy the way they are.
• I finally went to an Abbey Road on the River (twice actually, on consecutive days). Heard a lot of people playing music in a lot of different flavors, to varying degrees of success.

The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you - BB King

June

• Surely the worst month for small minded bigots in my lifetime. Gay people can legally get married across the entire nation. All across southern states Confederate flags, historic symbols of high treason and chattel slavery, are finally removed from some public buildings and no longer sold by some retailers.
• A trip to San Jose for a nerd conference. The west coast has its charms. That’s for sure. No excursion to San Francisco this time, but we did win a trivia contest.
• The Science Center starts showing all the Harry Potter movies on their IMAX screen. Michelle and I decide we’ll see them all, as they end about a week before our trip to Orlando.

Take her to the moon for me, okay? - Bing Bong

July

• Visit my company’s Chicago office. While there, the dog’s a jerk and to apologize I buy Michelle some super fancy chocolate truffles from a shop in The French Market. That place was cool.
• Some dentist murders a lion on a trophy hunt. The righteous indignation of thousands, or millions of social media warriors reverberates for almost a whole week.
• When asked how we’re supposed to dress while a big group of students visits our workplace, my boss says, “Dress like an engineer.” So I bought a train conductor hat and wore overalls.
• The dream team of Chuck, Amber and Doug finally loses a local historical trivia photo scavenger hunt.
• Michelle and I again got to make it to each of the 3 main productions of Shakespeare in the Park. The Tempest, Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth this year.

Working gets in the way of living. - Omar Shariff

August

• More IMAX Harry Potters
• For the first time since High School, I think, I visited the KY State Fair. The thing that sticks out the most in my memory was the photography. The ubiquity of camera phones means kids have taken a LOT more photographs than they used to. The average skill is way up there.
• Hackers leak databases and emails from Ashley Madison. Analysis shows that dudes are way more willing to talk to a program pretending to be a woman than anyone guessed. I would like to reiterate to you, nothing you do on the internet is ever ‘safe’ or actually private. It goes through too many hands, gets stored in too many databases and gets plumbed for too many ‘data driven’ campaigns where each exchange is a potential target for a hack, a malicious individual or just a careless administrator. The Ashley Madison data is easy snicker at, but it’s happening EVERYWHERE.

I cannot pretend I am without fear. But my predominant feeling is one of gratitude. I have loved and been loved; I have been given much and I have given something in return; I have read and traveled and thought and written.

• Oliver Sacks

September

• I’m sure other things happened in September, but really, this is all about vacation!
• My adorkable wife got addicted to “Disneybounding” before we left, and dressed in a character theme each day we were in a park; Dr. Seuss, Hogwarts Student, Marge Simpson, Cruella de Vil, Evil Queen (from Snow White), Hades (from Hercules), Maleficent, Queen of Hearts, Yzma (from Emperor’s New Groove)
• Royal Pacific at Universal Orlando was a pretty awesome hotel. The Yacht Club at Disney was not.
• Seuss Landing was supremely cool. Michelle being a total Seuss nerd made me spend hours in here, taking pictures of all the little genius theming bits.
• Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley are both superb. Both a little small, but I bet that gets addressed.
• They do a marionette show from different Tales of Beedle Bard (the Three Brother cartoon bit in the last Harry Potter) that was tremendously entertaining.
• Most of Universal’s rides seem the same to me. You’re in a “car”, you go through some stuff with some screens telling a ‘story’, you get thrown around, there’s an environmental effect or two, you get out.
• Disney’s Halloween party should have been more fun than it was. The fact that in in Florida they don’t do the biggest crowd draws indoors seems kind of dumb. You know you’re going to get rained out at least 30% of the time.
• Goofy photos on rides are a new favorite thing to do.
• We still had a good time, but we were gone a bit too long, it was a bit too hot, a bit too crowded.

I never said most of the things I said. - Yogi Berra

October

• There’s an Iron Giant Special Edition, in theatres! I go twice. The blu-ray will come out later in 2016, and I’ll buy that too. “You decide.”
• For our 7th anniversary Michelle and I take a road trip to Madison, IN. We drink at microbrews, we wander around a quaint downtown that stopped trying to be competitive around the time of the railroad barons. I highly recommend it for a day trip.
• We have a houseguest for about a week. A repeat visit from the first houseguest we ever had in this domicile. Uwe brings us half a german candy store as a host gift. Including my first ever advent calendar. You know how many metric days there are between December 1st and Christmas?
• Paul Ryan accepts the Speaker of the House position. Far too many left-leaning people seem to think that since he negotiated for family leave he’s a hypocrite. He isn’t against the idea of family leave, he’s against the government mandating it. In his world employees get to negotiate with employers, and everyone wins. It might not be the real world that most of us live in, but it’s not hypocrisy.

You don’t need a silver fork to eat good food. - Paul Prudhomme

November

• My aunt Peggy died. This death hits me much harder than the veritable litany of them I’ve dealt with the last few years. I adored Peggy. We saw the world very differently, and still liked each other.
• Kentucky elects Matt Bevin. I suddenly don’t care nearly as much about moving back from Indiana.
• Took my first trip in 10+ years to Churchill Downs with Michelle’s company. I don’t understand the themepark-ification, but I’ve always had a weird perspective on that place. And they gots bills to pay.
• A coworker and I take a day trip to Indianapolis for a one day Edward Tufte seminar. If you’re at all a design/data nerd, you know how cool that is. If you aren’t, the “highlight” is the semi backing in to me while we were stuck in traffic just before the Kennedy bridge. Only cosmetic damage, to my car and the pants I wet as a gigantic eighteen wheeled vehicle began to crunch my li’l Honda.
• My car hits 111,111 miles on the odometer during our Thanksgiving Day trip out to Flatwoods, KY.

If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself. - Tecumseh (maybe)

December

• My dad and I pay a visit to my great grandmother. Her hearing is failing her, but she’s still sharp and funny and just a super nice lady. Have I ever mentioned how much I won the familial lottery in some really odd ways?
• Some nerdy sci-fi movie finally comes out.
• The Christmas season takes a while to get rolling, but in the end it’s just a lovely time of year. The efforts to discover new music and movies, the gifts given and received, the time spent reminiscing and planning, the chance afterwards to catch your breath. I know a lot of people don’t enjoy Christmas, for myriad reasons, and I don’t begrudge them that. However, I enjoy it, and hope that the past year was a success, and the next one is even better.

You smell like beef & cheese. You don’t smell like Santa - Buddy the Elf

Recommendations

I don’t recommend things lightly. I know my tastes are peculiar, I know I dabble in a lot of different realms, and very few of y’all enjoy half of what I do. When I make a blanket recommendation, you can rest assured that I believe its quality transcends arbitrary compartmentalization. (who talks like that?)

• Engineer Guy videos on youtube
• Pumpkin Juice at Wizarding World
• Hamilton Cast Album (all the streaming places, and Youtubes)
• A Netflix subscription

2016 

Dammitall.

January

• Michelle and I do a date night to start the year off. Kentucky Shakespeare does Twelfth Night at the Kentucky Center for the Arts, because outdoor plays are really unfun in January.
• I help celebrate Old Rasputin Day at the NABC. By getting schmammered on high alcohol beer that tastes delicious (It was scheduled for January 22nd, was delayed due to snow. I will be on the lookout for it to happen again this year)
• A pic I take from the terrace at work is used in an ad, and it wins an award (!?)

You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way - Marvin Minsky

February

• Boring people have opinions about Beyonce at The Super Bowl
• Harper Lee and Umberto Eco die on the same day. I’m not going to talk a lot about deaths of famous people in this, I just thought that was interesting. That two of the 20th centuries beloved literary figures die on the same damned day.

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks. - Harper Lee

March

• I took a month off of Facebook (it didn’t help enough)
• I can’t remember why, but we spend a night in West Baden hotel, and before hand visit with some elephants who are staying at a ranch in Indiana. Just google it up next spring.
• Read Parable of the Talents and Parable of the Sower, a couple of dystopian science fiction novels in which an evil, small minded man is elected president running on the slogan of “Make America Great Again”. Published in 1993.
• Where I work we’ve been giving away amazon gift cards and custom bobbleheads of my boss as rewards for a few years. I solicited everyone who’d ever gotten one to bring their bobble head in and set up the creepiest photo shoot in company history.

April

• Michelle presents a paper she’s worked on in Indianapolis. She wants a ride up there, so I take the opportunity to visit the Kurt Vonnegut museum and also get to witness a protest against Governor Mike Pence’s particular brand of misogyny.
• Everett’s mother passes away. She was a strong woman who endured burying her husband and 6 of her 8 children (3 died in childbirth)
• Michelle makes me attend a live show based on a podcast again, and I ended up subscribing her to a Haunted Mansion gift box thing through Disney. She has passed me in nerdity.
• In one of my favorite traditions we’ve developed, Michelle and I run away the weekend of Thunder over Louisville. This year we ended up in Bloomington, had a nice lunch and strolled through IU’s campus and saw some museumy stuffs.

Life is just a party, and parties weren’t meant to last. - Prince

May

• Fathom Events is this service that rents movie theatres across the country to do weird events. Like big anniversaries of famous movies, or broadcasts of concerts and plays. Lawrence of Arabia, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, that LCD Soundsystem concert film, all brought to the theatre 2 miles from my house by Fathom. I recommend adding it to your “what can we do this week” checklist.
• The Frazier Museum has a Thomas Merton exhibit, and Michelle and I finally join.
• An injured family member causes us to cancel a big family vacation on Memorial Day weekend. So Michelle and I tourist around town instead. I get her her first Hot Brown.
• A niece and nephew both graduate high school. Reminding me I’m old from both sides of the family.

June

• An overnight trip to Nashville for a friend’s wedding is a tiny little precursor to our eventual real road trip. The wedding is held on the grounds of a winery owned by someone big in country music and is a small, lovely affair.
• My friend, Lila Cundiff, puts up her own Little Free Library. Kids today do some really great things, y’all. Even the menaces have their good sides.
• Muhammad Ali’s funeral shows Louisville to the world, and the memorial speeches were so very beautiful. My favorite

A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life. - Muhammad Ali

July

• Pokémon Go comes out, and the internet explodes with really strong opinions. Whodathunk?
• Kentucky Shakespeare is once again performing their free plays in Louisville’s Central Park. This year we see The Two Gentlemen of Verona, A Winter’s Tale and Romeo & Juliet. Culture is important, y’all.
• Hamilton Chicago casting announcement, “Miguel Cervantes” is playing Hamilton. It seems like a sign directed right at the guy that likes to go by “Quixotic” on the internet.

August

• My great grandmother, Moms, died. She was 97 years old, and was active and fun up until the last couple of months, after a fall and subsequent complications. When visiting her earlier in the year I snuck a photo of her talking to my father (her eldest grandchild) that has become my favorite family pic.
• For my mother’s birthday, I give her a scarf from Litographs.com, printed with the text of letters and stories Everett had written her. Good gift. Even though she didn’t cry.
• I read a book called Paper, then one called The Book, then one called Bookshelf and then one called Library. Afterwards, I change my middle name to “Thematic Consistency.”
• Discovered https:twitter.com/dog_rates, it’s one of the best things on the net these days, kids. They’re good posts, Brent.

If I can make my wife laugh, I know I’m on the right track. - Gene Wilder

September

• Another wedding, another good time. This time doesn’t require travel though, it happens to be held in the same building my reception was held in, but on the top floor in some much cooler space. Doug from 8 years ago is jealous.
• Sitting on the back porch with my dog and a neighborhood hawk tries to catch a squirrel and plows into our fence. It flops around for a bit, eventually righting itself and taking off. Einstein and I look at each other and decide we’re too old for this shit, and go back inside.

October

• The first week of the month a potentially devastating hurricane plows into the Atlantic coast. Luckily for us, and our upcoming vacation, it mostly stays off shore at Tybee Island and Charleston.
• Since the Southeast seaboard was mostly spared, we rent a Lincoln Navigator, and drive from Louisville to Nashville to Birmingham to Savannah to Charleston to Asheville to Home. We stay in a Holiday Inn Express, a Bed & Breakfast built in the 20s, a gigantic mansion built in the 1870s and a boutique hotel that just opened after gutting a historic old house. The last day we drive up the Blue Ridge Parkway for a few hours and marvel at vistas and the engineering it takes to put a motorway through and along a mountain range. 1800 miles in 6 days, 4 hotels and a bunch of meals later, we have definitely made our anniversary the highlight of the year.
• On our way home from another date night that included Kentucky Shakespeare (Titus Andronicus, in a tiny little theatre in Portland, for Halloween), we get t-boned by an uninsured driver. This is my first car accident that happened at more than 10 miles an hour. It’s quite frightening and we both end up with bruises where the seat belts did their jobs. My car ends up totaled and in gratitude for how well it handled our safety in a moment of terror, I just buy a new model of the same exact vehicle. (Well, the new one is a little sportier)
• A friend, and our very first dog sitter, Kevin Richards passes away. He is honored by a private event at his favorite pub, with a keg of his favorite beer. His picture hangs on the wall in the best tribute I can imagine.

November

• Not even a plurality of Americans ruin the holidays.

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh. - Leonard Cohen

December

• Built a logo Wall-E with a 9 year old. It’s pretty darned awesome, and I’m really really glad to have done it. I wasn’t bitten by the lego bug, but I have a whole new appreciation of it.
• Louisville finally finishes it’s two new Ohio River bridges. These things had been talked about since before I could drive. Now we will have tolls. And people will complain, but at least we’ll have a couple more ways for traffic to flow. Cars are the the devil.
• My grandfather, Bob/Papa/Pops died. He’s the relative that bought computers first, he’s the one who let me type in programs from the back of magazines. He’s the one that let me break some stuff, and put it back together. He was my mom’s step-father, but he was my grandfather. He had been increasingly trapped by his body for the last decade or so. After spending the previous 25 years moderately trapped by strokes that robbed him of movement, but not mentality. His funeral was the first bad funeral I’ve ever been to, hateful people rightly angry about things in the past and not caring that it was the wrong time to exorcise those demons. The event made me realize just how lucky my particular dice roll on family has been.

To me, there is no greater calling … If I can inspire young people to dedicate themselves to the good of mankind, I’ve accomplished something. - John Glenn

Recommendations

• Charleston Grill (Charleston, SC)
• The Rice Bowl (New Albany)
• Drinking to forget. (just kidding, Ma.)
• Shoving some of your favorite photos through Prisma
• We Rate Dogs

One of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we’ll need a new definition - Alvin Toffler

2017 

Shit Sandwich

January

• A stupid person’s idea of a smart man is inaugurated. Instead of watching, or participating, I go see Hidden Figures. A fantastic film about when America was worth idolizing, and still HIGHLY problematic. 
• The Women’s March on Washington makes me think we should put women in charge of more shit. 
• Asheron’s Call shuts down after running for 17 years. I had a chance to log back in and make a few videos.

Three things have helped me successfully go through the ordeals of life: an understanding husband, a good analyst, and millions of dollars. - Mary Tyler Moore

February

• Numerous Kleptocrats and Racists get nominated and confirmed for high level positions, despite an astounding lack of qualifications. 
• Trump’s presidency really gets rolling, profound sadness sweeps across everyone with a brain, a heart and actually knows a poor person, a black person, a gay person, a foreign born person or a woman.
• La La Land wins best picture, ooops, nope that was Moonlight. (I’ve still never seen either of them)

Game over, man. Game over! - Private Hudson (Bill Paxton)

March

• Layoffs at work. My team dissolved. Lay one team member off, but he accepts a new job, for more money with the company a few days later.
• I take a trip to Chicago, for work 
• Michelle’s 19th annual trip to hang with the crew she grew up with leaves me home all alone… Imagine my horror 
• We made an offer on a house. Closing happens later.

I stole a kiss at the turn of a mile  My curiosity runnin' wild Cruisin' and playin' the radio With no particular place to go

• Chuck Berry

April

• I take a trip to Chicago, to see Hamilton. And celebrate our 10th “Meetiversary” with the friend responsible for us even meeting, and her husband and kid. 
• My grandmother (Mom’s Momma) moved to a Memory Care facility, after I’d toured others, and mom had toured several more. 
• Sarah Palin, Ted Nugent, Kid Rock met with Trump in the Oval Office. The conversation was undoubtedly scintillating. 
• Discovered Robin Lopez, a Center on the Chicago Bulls has a labradoodle named Muppet. I’m officially a Robin Lopez fan instantly.

I think if I took therapy, the doctor would quit. He’d just pick up the couch and walk out of the room. - Don Rickles

May

• My grandmother passes away while I was on my way to see her on Derby Day (May 6). Her health fell very quickly. My mother is a saint who still questions whether she did enough. If you see Bonnie, hug her. 
• Closed on our house on May 10th.. but don’t get possession for a week. 
• Grandma’s funeral is May 11th. On my way out the door I get the phone call that my favorite HS teacher, Mr. Boyd has passed away. 
• Started donating to a political campaign. 
• My friend gives me a beautiful carved Ganesh statue for my new home. I fall into a wikihole for hourse. 
• I take a trip to Chicago, to see Hamilton. With different friends. We also eat a ridiculously expensive meal at Topolobampo

It’s hard to live your life in color, and tell the truth in black and white. - Gregg Allman

June

• Take Michelle to the U2 Joshua Tree anniversary concert. She cries, a lot. 
• The iPhone celebrates its 10 year anniversary. A decade ago the world was a lot different.

People who stay in glass hotels shouldn’t throw parties. - Adam West (as Batman)

July

• We finally move in, after having some work done to the new house. I’m a homeowner for the first time. I learn old houses are awfully cool, but also very much the devil. 
• My grandmother’s brother dies. He’d visited grandma about a week before she died, and did not look well. He was in his early 90s and died in his own garden. He was a neat dude, retired game warden, veteran, avid hunter. He collected “Indian Rocks”, arrowheads and tools natives used. Another many hour wikihole was enjoyed when I started researching the ones I got.

Love is the only disease that makes you feel better. - Sam Shepard

August

• The painters we wanted to use for the new house finally have time for us. They paint most of the house in 4 days. My office is no longer baby-poop green and sky blue. Now it’s “Goblin” and “Elemental” (dark blue and light grey, but Goblin Elemental is a good name)
• Umm, The Eclipse. Look, other people have talked at length about how amazing it was. It is. When it occurs again, if you’re still alive, get somewhere where Totality occurs. If even for 30 seconds. It truly was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever experienced.

I don’t want to be remembered. I want the nice words when I can hear them. - Jerry Lewis

September

• We host an open house at the new pad. Our friends think we’re alcoholics, as they bring nearly a dozen bottles of wine and another 8 bottles of bourbon, and a bottle of scotch.
• The company I work for was purchased by Bain Capital. I now work for Mitt Romney. I have no idea how safe my job is long term, but do any of us ever really know what the future holds?

Everyone wants an answer. I think it was Gertrude Stein who wrote, “There is no answer, there never was an answer, there’ll never be an answer. That’s the answer.” It’s a hard sell, but that’s the ultimate truth. - Harry Dean Stanton

October

• Tom Petty died, I realize just how much I like Tom Petty’s music
• I won a free copy of The Dark Crystal The Ultimate Visual History
• oh hey, i’m 45 now
• We go to Nashville to see 2 lives shows for Podcasts. Which is really weird. But we stayed at 21C, and they super-duper upgraded our room. It was a fun weekend. 
• We absolutely devour The Good Place season 1, still haven’t watched season 2
• We get 370 trick or treaters at the new house. This wasn’t unanticipated, the very first thing our neighbors warned us of was Halloween crowds. (PS the first 70 got fidget spinners, because I’m a cool uncle, but only to the first ones.)

Ain’t that a shame? My tears fell like rain Ain’t that a shame? You’re the one to blame

• Fats Domino

November

• I take some of my ‘favorite’ coworkers to see my new pad, and then out to lunch. They tell the waitress I’m their dad. She believes it. None of them are still ‘favorites’
• I get a payday from the company buyout. It’s very nice. Not FU money, not pay off the mortgage money, but pretty cool.
• The Jim Henson Exhibition kickstarter project I backed months ago sends me my reward, a Dave Goelz signed Gonzo pic.

Honey, whaddya do for money - Malcolm Young

December

• I asked for holiday movie and tv recommendations, in exchange for charitable donations. Most are flicks I’ve seen, but a few are real gems. I ended up donating to 19 different charities.
• We remodel of the shower half of our bathroom. Finally. I can shower without being bent over constantly.
• We decide it’s time to euthanize Einstein. Our companion for more than 10 years. It happens in our home on January 2nd. Both Michelle and I were petting him as he leaned into us drifting away.

[sadness sobbing gif] - DougChelle

Haiku

I love my house, but
My landlord is an asshole
Home ownership's dumb

Recommendations

• Taika Waititi movies. All of them. 
• Totality. There aren’t words to describe it. In 7 years, MAKE THE TIME. 
• Dogs. They’re better than people.
• Stoicism as a guide.
• Memory-foam slippers.