It’s easy to look back on a year and write it off as good or bad based on a quick feeling, and I’m certainly no one to argue against gut judgements – but sometimes when you stop and take stock things are a little different than you remembered. I came face to face with that realization the first time I did my year in photos review back in 2007 (will get this years together soon) and since then I’ve tried to make an effort to break things down a little more before throwing everything in the same bucket. 2013 was weird for sure, a lot of people have a lot of negative things to say about things that happened and I’ll let them do that as much as they want, but I wanted to take note of a few things I did this year that I’ve never done before:

  • Wrote and published a original fiction book
  • Contributed text to a non-fiction book authored and published by someone else.
  • Recorded and released an EP with my art collective/project
  • Rode Space Mountain with my son Ripley when he was finally tall enough
  • Went to Costa Rica* (furthest south I’ve ever been in the Americas)
  • Went to Hawaii* (which, if you count a layover in Anchorage once as I do, completes a visit to all 50 US states)
  • (*related) Vacationed in beachy paradise like locations with my family
  • Started a personal mailing list (which, from a zero starting point, now has over 300 subscribers)
  • Started a podcast (and told some great stories with friends)
  • Went to the Bujinkan Honbu dojo and trained directly with Hatsumi Soke
  • Took Pilaties class (for 2 months)
  • Along with Tara, was the Hacker(s) In Residence at Sparkfun in Boulder, CO – the first invited for their newly launched HiR program

I’m sure there are more, but those immediately jump out in my head as milestones -many of them full on bucket list items. And if, with no real effort I can think of 12 things that I did – one a month for the entire year – that I’m proud of and will look fondly on and remember for the rest of my life, well, that’s hard to complain about. Even better is that at least half of them I had no plans or intention to do this time last year. I don’t yet know what 2014 will bring, but I can’t wait to find out.