This page is slightly animated to capture the feeling of a late 90s page. Gifs aren't for everyone! Please navigate away to enjoy another page from 32-Bit Cafe's New Year's event if needed.

Places visited

Houston, TX, to see the Rodeo and visit family out there
Dayton, OH, to see the total solar eclipse and see family out there
Mt. Pleasant, WV, to go to the Mothman museum alone
Youngstown, NY, for family lake week
Rochester, NY, on a day trip with my dad during lake week
Toronto, Canada, on a day trip alone during lake week
Asheville, NC, for a joint 40th birthday trip with my cousin and our moms
Chicago, IL, by train (DC to Chicago) alone, where I met one of my long time penpals
Cedar Creek State Park, WV, to go camping:
Ohiopyle State Park, PA, to go camping
Columbus, OH, for a funeral
Phoenix, AZ, for winter solstice and visit family out there (see the webpage)

Highlights & Achievements

Seeing the total solar eclipse on a rooftop in Dayton with someone I've known since high school. I traveled there with family but ended up watching with my friend and her friends, after finding out she had also traveled to Dayton and was 14 mintues away. I will never forget standing there with all these strangers screaming and crowing at the eclipse together.
I finally achieved what one might refer to as a "dream job" in the sense that I finally got a professional title related to a writer job. I am a "documentation specialist," finally, doing the kind of work that I want to be doing: literally anything writing. It sounds desperate (it was for a while), but I find it very difficult to stay engaged at work unless it's aligned with one of my passions. Technical communication is thankfully incredibly interesting to me so it was natural to find a job in that area.
I was tested for and diagnosed with autism mid-year which has taken a huge weight off my shoulders about a lot of things. It's nice to finally understand why I am the way I am and also find community with others who understand. Some of my friends have been diagnosed with various neurodivergencies recently as well and it's nice to be part of a club, I guess.
Walking around cemeteries in Chicago, IL, on the last day of my solo birthday trip there. I had a pleasant few days and had to kill time before finding a train stop to go to the airport. It was a beautiful day and I wanted to be outside so I found food and brought a picnic to Graceland Cemetery and hung out there all day taking photos with my "disposable" mimic Camp Snap camera. It felt just like the 90s.
A few of my friends had babies this year and one of my highlights was going to the pumpkin patch and meeting TWO BABIES AT ONCE. There's a photo of me holding them both with a backwards baseball cap that says DEAD INSIDE on it and it's perfect. I am an uncle of babies once again, my actual dream job. It's so fleeting.
I got a certification in Knowledge Management that was reimbursed completely by work. I know this is standard for most professional development but it was the first time I've taken advantage of it for something that cost more than $50. Though it turned out to not align well with my current role, it served to validate my confidence as a knowledge professional! I was easily keeping up with conversation, I could contribute to discussion from my experience, and took back lots of notes that will fill in existing gaps. I got the "documentaton specialist" title this year but I've been writing professionally for 8+ years.
In Arizona over winter solstice weekend, walking through the Desert Botanical Gardens around 2pm (or maybe a little after), and having my breath taken away by the glow of the sun through the plants.

Goals Winter 2025

I'm leaving 2024 in debt because I traveled SO MUCH (way more than usual) and because a lot of stuff fell apart in my house that I had to repair. In addition to inflation getting worse all around, it was hard to deal. Finances will be influencing a lot of my 2025 goals.

I am not much of a "year-long resolution" type of person, but here are the goals that will bring me into the new year as this season evolves.

I paid off my toilet issue & the first A/C issue, but I'm still paying off the kitchen sink issue. I have a second A/C issue but don't need to worry about it until May when I turn the A/C on again (it's not an issue when using the heater). This gives me time to settle out some of that debt - in the mean time I'm on a low spend plan and I'm budgeting HARD.
I did a good effort to get off the phone at the end of the year 2023, but then I didn't continue into 2024 or try to adopt any new habits or anything, so I wasted another year online. This time, I'm uninstalling social media for all of winter (forever). I can decide in spring what to do about it but I am hoping by then I will have built other ways to support my desire to create/share things.
Towards the end of this year I started pursing some thoughts I've had surrounding keeping a personal knowledge management system which I will continue to explore in 2025. I've been thinking about this for a long time but never had the motivation until recently.
For spring: Camp more, especially locally. You'll save money by not taking trains and planes and you'll be able to do it more often because it's much cheaper.

Second version of animated red Christmas candle with green holly leaves.