2015 in Review

Posted: December 31, 2015 | Author: ThomasPowell | Filed under: reflection | Leave a comment »

Monthly Summary

January

• Started work on a solo project at work that pretty much gave me lots of experience building something from end to end.
• Working from home 2/3rds of the time to work out any kinks for a possible move to Florida.
• Thank yous going out to people who helped fund Emily’s medical mission to Kenya.

February

• Emily is gone for 10 days on a trip to Africa.
• I have to dress the kids by myself exactly one day of her absence.
• …because the kids were off school due to snow the entire following week.

March

• The small solo project goes into “User Experience auditing” mode and I get help actually meeting the demands.
• The kids were off school due to snow (for entire week?) again.

April

• Painting, final prep for selling the house.
• Spent a week with mostly no cell signal in St George Island

May

• Broke news to parents officially that we were moving.
• Sold the house then listed it. (At least that was the order the offer versus official listing happened in.)

June

• Packed up the house, closed on the house, vacated the house, and flew off for the Philippines in a span of 5 days (with our 12th wedding anniversary in between.)
• Last times accompanying at various churches in Louisville.
• Went to the Daluyon resort on the island of Palawan in The Philippines.

July

• Celebrated my grandmother’s 100th birthday with the rest of the family in The Philippines.
• Realized the madness that is flying to/from and traveling in a foreign country with very picky eaters as kids.
• Flew back to the US, tried to adjust to jetlag in 2 days, drove our belongings not packed in a trailer to Florida in two cars (one with a broken A/C).
• Scrambled to find a rental house that accepted a big dog in the school district we wanted, signed a lease, moved in (in a week from arriving in Florida)
• Officially began my 100% remote work life.

August

• Sister-in-law brought our dogs down.
• Kids started at their new school.
• I wilted on runs in the Florida sun and heat.
• Transferred our licenses and cars to Florida officially.
• Went to beaches

September

• Emily waited around on callbacks from job applications.
• Joined in with the Cathedral music program.
• Went to beaches

October

• Actually saw a decent amount of the area on foot–running.
• Not so much with the beaches.
• Emily started a new job!
• Olivia made All County Chorus

November

• Failed at Monkey (intentionally bailed at 11.5 miles, may have missed my bail out point a couple times.)
• Drove back to Louisville, had good times, but way more hectic than expected.

December

• Apparently the A/C can mostly not run in December in Florida.
• Went back to Louisville for Christmas.

Media

Music

• Quite a bit of Hamilton the Musical.
• Surprisingly less music listened to at home office than on site. Strange.

Books

• 72 Books. Getting into Hamilton the Musical led me Chernow’s biography of Hamilton. Excellent book, very dense read.
• Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke and the Space Odyssey series were also exceptional (though I was a bit disappointed in 3001).
• In following the post-apocalyptic/YA-ish series reads of past years, I got into the Extinction Point series by Paul Antony Jones
• …less impressive was the Defiance trilogy (CJ Redwine), probably due to the believability of an alien race doing astounding things versus ordinary humans accomplishing futuristic feats in a world thrown back to the Dark Ages.

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