I really, really want to bring this suuuuper dated website up-to-date, but I've been so focused on things outside of technology that I haven't devoted any time to broox dot com.

Let's fix that... at least for one blog post.. and talk about last year.

2018 felt incredibly productive.

It started with some fun travel and ended with me literally canceling all travel for the last 4 months and just hangin at home. I got a new job. I built a lot. It was awesome. It was all awesome.

Work

I moved from a Commerce team at PayPal to the Commerce Team at Venmo, which has been much more my speed. They brought me out to Colorado and New York a couple times, which were nice trips, but the best part is: I'm building rad, heavily used stuff with amazing folks again. It feels good to build. Man.

Other travels

• I went to Florida to hang with Jeff and Kevi.
• Cancun to hang with Kari, Lindsey to sort of crash a wedding
• Georgia to visit my sister and her family
• Canada to catch a shit ton of fish with Kari's dad and his buddies
• Cornell for my fifteen year, old balls college reunion
• The Quad Cities for Thanksgiving

and we, of course, got to Chicago a few times...

• to see the Blackhawks lose to Detroit
• bike down lake shore drive
• see the Cubs beat the Cardinals with mom and Rod
• and watch a bunch of shows at Riot Fest with Jon and Liz.

Beer. There was a lot of beer

We went to a few German festivals - Bock Fest in Minnesota with Kari and some of my best buds, as well as Salvator Fest and Oktoberfest with Kari and our DM buds.

• I brewed my first all-grain batch of beer with my buddies, Zach and Minnis
• taught my friends Matt and Tyler how to brew
• taught some officemates how to brew along with fellow brewmaster Mason
• brewed the annual post-Thanksgiving brew with Kari's fam

The house

We did a lot. I built a lot. We spent a lot.

• I built an oak record shelf and turntable station in our living room
• Built a raw walnut, live-edge floating shelf with smart lighting for our kitchen
• Finally finished building my oak + stainless steel staircase. Checking this one off was huge for my general well-being
• Built a bunch of shelving and organization for our garden shed
• Removed an old crappy birch tree and the giant oak tree from our front yard
• Planted a lot more trees and shrubs in their place
• Tore out some old cabinets in my garage and made em into storage crates
• Replaced our old, buckled driveway
• Replaced the mess of a back patio floor and wrapped the patio posts to clean em up a bit
• Replaced our crappy old mailbox with something more modern
• Re-restored some antique lockers and built them into an alcove in our mudroom
• Tiled a shelf in my office and the floor in our mudroom (technically finished in 2019, I guess). I don't think tiling is my thing.

Parties

With all of the house work came a bit of hosting. We hosted an enchilada party, MS Walk party, pizza parties, a giant birthday party, brunch parties, brew parties, fondue parties, our first Christmas at home, and had a ridiculous New Years Eve party.

We've built this house to party.

Shows

Lots of shows. Mostly at festivals like 80/35 and Riot Fest, but...

I saw Marilyn Manson, The Pixies, The Wombats, Atmosphere (twice), Phantogram, Kesha, Illenium (at Red Rocks!), The Aquabats, K.flay, Sum 41, Digable Planets, Flogging Molly, Cypress Hill, Weezer, Wolfmother, Jerry Lee Lewis, Beck, Andrew WK, Suicidal Tendencies, Blondie, Bad Religion, Run the Jewels, and Pusha T.

I also saw a lot of local shows, WWE RAW, a burlesque show, and my first full-on drag king show.

Manson, Aquabats, and Pusha T were my favs...
Pro wrestling is super weird. Especially live, televised pro wrestling.

Weddings

We got to see our buddies Adi and Emi get married. Our friend Samantha get married, and were also lucky enough to be the +2 at Ace and Leslie's Cancun wedding

Health

I did a lot of yoga and continued to hang with my therapist once a month. Both continue to be awesome and I believe played a huge part in the year's productivity.

I also played in some Volleyball, Softball, and Broomball leagues.

Softball was hilarious. I don't think I'd swung a bat since I was like in Jr High, so I barely knew what was going on and was pretty terrible... but I hit a home run toward the end of the season. That felt rad.

I'm proud of 2018. We accomplished a lot... but I'm even more excited about 2019.

2019 goals

• Remodel the basement ... preferably before summer. It's already well underway!
• Keep doing yoga. Try to do more.
• Ride more bikes! (we slacked off last year)
• Get back on the snowboard
• Cruise around on my skateboard
• Get my golf clubs back out
• Hit more home runs
• Tattoo my hands and face... just kiddin. maybe
• Most of all, get past all of this house remodeling bullshit, slow down a bit and just enjoy life

ok!