2018 - A Year in Review - Doing Things for Me.

And potentially for my future self, family, and friends. And it all started in January, I suppose.

I was still reeling a bit from the holidays and the loss of Mom slightly before them. Not in a huge funk or anything but the beginning of the year is a bit shrouded in somber emotions, as I currently recall it. I was spending more time with a friend girl, possibly trying to see if it could become more than that, but by the end of the month(after asking said girl on a Valentine's date) I was reintroduced to the "friend zone" bouncer and tossed to the curb once again... gently enough, I must add. It wasn't as painful as it was generally disorienting/confusing. It also wasn't unexpected so that provided a bit of cushion. She's a cool gal that just doesn't know how to communicate her feelings very well. And I am sure I'm probably even more confusing to her. Ha.

Rolling through the first few months of the year I stayed quite busy with work, an incredible boon to the positive emotional(and of course, financial) direction life began to take. I did a little travel to a new place or two which was cool. I got to work on some really fun projects, as well.

The busyness with work stayed pretty steady rolling into the summer which enabled me to take a road trip across the country. After Mom passed late last year I realized that, as odd as it might seem, we never visited, or even heard much about, where she grew up in Canada. I planned then to make a trip there so it was one of the primary stops on my road trip. Even though I was only able to spend a day in the area, it was a very poignant personal moment for me. I continued the trip to a gig(shooting Hoarders) near Boston and on to my nephew's wedding down in Las Vegas(with lots of cool landmarks seen along the way) before finally coming home, but taking that brief time to visit the place of my mother's upbringing was definitely the highlight of my summer.

Swinging on into the fall things got busy with work again. I got to do some fun DP and steadicam work, working on a couple music videos and short films that are still in post-production but seem to have good promise to be something cool.

The holiday season was quiet and pleasant and nothing out of the ordinary. I stayed busy up until a few days before Christmas which worked out as a nice way to wrap things up for the year. I'm currently working on a new demo reel edit to update my old reel from about 4 years ago. Definitely way overdue. I've been lucky to stay as busy as I have as it is!

So... onto the coming year with high enthusiasm for better things to come! Life is good. Challenging, imperfect, surprising, engaging, and all kinds of normal. Happy new year to anybody patient enough to join me this far in the story of my life!