It’s been exactly one year since I’ve updated this page, and looking back on my 2014, I’m happy to say that I lived it as best I could. January was a minefield of emotions between getting dumped after New Years, losing my closest grandmother, then losing another grandmother, and getting my first traffic ticket (which isn’t really a big deal — but coming from someone who never got a detention in grade/high school, it kind of is a big deal). All combined it was a pretty rough month — one that left me continuously reminding myself that my life had nowhere else to go but up, from there.

And it did! In February I met Lauren. Lauren, my girlfriend, who I am so giddily in love with almost a year later. It’s funny how quickly the time flies by when you’ve got someone so wonderful to share it with. For me, it’s all been a whirlwind of nerdery, laughs, and just being weird around each other. Sometimes I’ll forget about places we’ve been and things we’ve done together. But, seemingly she remembers each and every detail down to what clothes we were wearing. And I’ve always prided myself in having a pretty excellent memory. A handful of times, I’ve asked Dave, my roommate, what we did Friday night the week before. Or, say, what we did on St. Patricks Day the year before. He’ll usually not remember and shrug it off. I’ll think about it and quickly piece it back together with my darn good associative memory. But not so with dates with Lauren. I guess the thing I remember the most is just being pretty happy.

Amongst all the other particulars of 2014, life was quite alright. Work was stressful most of the time and I’ve survived a few layoff scares. I did receive a promotion to Senior Test Engineer, which I am pretty proud of. I’m young and performing well, so I’m not too scared about job security at the moment. Hopefully things will improve with my career in 2015, and maybe even the commute will be nicer! My 2001 Nissan Altima is holding up all right, despite me rear-ending someone like an idiot one hum drum workday morning a few months ago. I sometimes daydream about buying a nice, tall AWD SUV through the harsh Chicago snow drifts, and realistically it will probably happen later this year or next. (Probably a Mazda CX-5. But not a Honda CR-V. That new design is butt-ugly). I’ve also been spending a lot of time making my apartment feel like home. And I’m pretty content with all the crap I’ve got in it right now. Moving will be a bitch (whenever that day comes) so hopefully Dave and I will just be renewing our lease this year.

So yeah, 2014 was nice. 2015, here I come. I’ve got a lot of stuff I want to tackle in 2015, probably enough for another post. I’ll try to post more often now, and they probably will not all be this long and I will still feature my photography heavily (I NEED TO SHOOT MORE). But with regards to this site… In the past, I’ve run this blog with the perspective that I don’t want people who read it to get too much insight into my life. In fact, for the most part, I was content in just posting photos of things I saw and found interesting, times I’ve spent with friends, and places I’ve gone — with no comment from me at all. I think I’ll be changing that from here on out. The thing is, the internet is a scary place and putting yourself out there, removing all sense of anonymity and mysteriousness, is pretty daunting. But I think this tone, with more internal insight from me, is a little bit nicer. It’s freeing, if anything. And I don’t mind if anyone reads it. Even you, mom (assuming you’ll ever check your Facebook, and can figure out how to get to my profile, and will somehow miraculously click on the link I will post).

Oh yeah, inline sarcastic picture commentary.