The Best of 2015

2015 was another fantastic year of life! Although my last blog was on June 9th, I had blogged for a year and a half, eventually going on a little bit of a hiatus. Good news my people, The Blog is back in 2016! It will read a little different than last years, but I hope you enjoy it just as much.

In 2015, Rachel and Josh attended amazing concerts, went on a handful of vacations, witnessed friends get married (Adam & Brandy / Gio & Kelly), coached a bunch of lacrosse, watched a lot of TV, helped a lot of people move homes, enjoyed fantastic times with friends and families, and continued to plan their 2016 wedding. Now here are a handful of "best" lists, events, and things that happened in my 2015 life!

Best Music Album: Cosmetics - Diamond Rugs

Best 10 Songs: All songs released in 2015, put in order of bestness

Best YouTube Video: Also was a top 10 song, based on my life and bringing Rachel and I great joys. Also leading to other great Lil Dicky videos and songs. Check him out!

Best TV Shows: Bloodline / Master of None / Better Call Saul / Mr. Robot - I suggest everyone watches these 4 new TV shows that are currently only one season long. Added two bonus shows, The Killing / The walking Dead, that I also watched this year and really enjoyed.

Best Jcubed Video: The only one that was filmed in 2015 and included all 3 members of Jcubed.

Best Jcubed Video Honorable mention: Road to Rado (watch the series), filmed in 2014.

Best Lacrosse Video: A tie between a HS rivalry game from 2015 and a gopro video filmed in 2014!

Best original movie: Found this 2014 gem this year and it helped me rediscover my love for old video games which led to me playing them way too much and even watching people play them.

Best Movie: 007: Spectre? Didn't see too many movies that came out this year, can probably count them on one hand.

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Best Moment: John McCauley at City Winery on August 11th, 2015. John McCauley at city Winery! Amazing! Vanessa Carlton makes appearance. After the show, we had a chance to meet the man himself. I am wearing my red LSD Tick shirt and John smiles at me as I approach him. He points to my shirt and goes, you know what that is? I said yup, LSD. After that we just ask him to sign our poster and for a picture with him. I think I told him like 10 times how it was such a great show. When we met him for a second time awkwardly later, I ask him how the new album was coming with Deer Tick and he said they have just been dicking around a lot. I need to have stuff to ask people when I meet them. I had so many ideas before and after, just nervous I guess. But he was super chill and a humble guy. Really nice and he is only 29. 

Best Sports Moment: Blackhawks win their third Stanley Cup in 6 years on Monday June 15. After watching the boys bring us the cup at Rachel and Josh's apartment, the gang below heads to Wrigley after the big win, but get turned around by the police and end up bar hopping our way back to the Wiener Circle.

Best books I read in 2015:

Leading with the Heart (book) by Coach K and Quiet Strength by Tony Dungy.

Best Concerts: By far the greatest year of concerts as a whole, even though Deer Tick didn't play in 2015.

Diamond Rugs x2, New Madrid x2, Justin Collins, Dawes, Delta Buds, Delta Spirit, T. Hardy Morris, Lucky Boys Confusion, Samantha Crain, John McCauley, Lady Lamb, Tallest Man on Earth x2, Vanessa Carlton

Best Vacation: Bahamas and Smoky Mountains

Fri Oct 9 - Head out for the Smoky Mountains / 11 mile hike over 5 1/2 hours in rain / Charlie's Bunyon & The jump off, fog rolled in / Newton's bald and clingman's dome / Stop at Buffalo Trace Distillery on way home

Other Notable Events in 2015 while the Blog was away

Sat June 13 - Brew to be wild that night. Hawks win!

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Wed June 17 - Go out on boat with Scott,  navy pier fireworks

Thu June 18 - Hawks Rally, Rachel and I meet up with Beth and Emily

Wed July 1 - Go to Jazzing at the Shed with Rachel and her parents. See fish, big otters, a beluga whale's penis, which was the size of a penguin. Beautiful evening view of the skyline with some jazz music playing.

Sat July 18 - Hit up the farmers market across from Old Town. We walk through Rachel's old apartment and see it being renovated. We struggle to travel about with the L being closed at parts. We make it to Yoga class with Torie and Nikki just in time. My first yoga class hooray.

Fri Aug 7 - I find out I got the NV Head Varsity Job.

Sat Aug 8 - Agreed with Torie the night before to run 16 miles with her. So I wake up at 7:30a and meet up with her and end up running 15 miles. A new personal record, thought I was gonna die. We head to a family party for Rachel's extended family. I hit a bunny with my car on the way home, first road kill.

Fri Sept 11 - White sox game with Emma and Anna, Beth, Aunt Jan and Uncle Gary, Rachel and friends meet us there a few innings in. I miss a t shirt thrown right at me. Fireworks after the game!

Sun Sept 13 - Our engagement photos in Lincoln park!

Nov 2 - Buy tickets to iceland

Nov 15 - Auntie Wanda's 90th Birthday Party, go out in city with NC cousins, up until 330. Hit up Franks bar for first time.

Dec 13 - Watch 5 Harry potter movies in a day.

Dec 20 - Christkindl Market

Goals for 2016

  1. Let things that do not matter go, we can't worry about every little issue that we come across.

  2. Have a workout plan, stick to it, and get in shape for the wedding/honeymoon!

  3. Put together a food plan in order to eat healthy, save money, and stay lean!

  4. Learn how to play some general chords on guitar and perhaps be able to sing a song with it.

  5. Maintain friendships and spend more time with those friends

  6. Listen to more music and attend more concerts

  7. Learn some basics of piano/keyboard

  8. Edit more videos and film more videos (jcubed / lacrosse / music)

  9. Try something new or stop doing something old each month - starting with no alcohol for January!

  10. Return of the Blog on a weekly basis

I am very excited for what should be the best year of my life! Marriage, trips to Hawaii and Iceland, varsity coaching career, and more to come!

 

Josh

Squid is Feeling TwentyTwo

Tuesday September 23, 2014 - We watch 4 episodes of Breaking Bad to finish the series. No spoilers here, just an amazing show. Wow. The second show I have ever watched from start to finish. The first being 30 Rock. Breaking Bad was an absolute incredible series that I highly recommend to all those who can read this blog. A bit graphic at times, but fantastically done.

Wednesday September 24, nothing happens in my life. Oh during the week I also purchased Tim EP from Deer Tick and John McCauley's side band Diamond Rugs CD. I rarely purchase music, like ever, so you know it's good. Deer Tick can't be beat friends. If you haven't listened yet. It is time to start. Best band. Ever.

Thursday the 25th of September, leave work early to work the garage sale, goodbye runt. Many a memory were made riding the runt around the block. Runt races will forever be remembered. One man rides the runt as fast as he can around the court while the other rides a bmx bike as many times as he can. Check the video!

Friday September 26th, Beth gets dropped off at work around 9p and I drive her home to Chicago for the weekend. We hangout at the apartment Friday night with Rachel, nothing crazy.

September 27th, 2014. Happy 22nd Birthday Beth. While Rachel runs the Ditka dash, Beth and I get some Einstein bagels from down the road. Chocolate chip bagel for me. Then we hopped on the bus and headed to the Blackhawks store downtown. Everything was 75% off since they are moving locations! After waiting in a line about 30 minutes long to get inside, we spent another 30 minutes waiting in line to checkout. Great deals and a ton of stuff for $50. We then walked over to Millennium park to check out the giant heads and the area. Cool to see the park was a train station before. Rachel meets us at the park and then we walk to Chili's for lunch!

Beth gets that JT 901 tequila for a drank, finally. and I have some tasty soup and a turkey sandwich. Quite delectable.

Rachel's brother picked us up and drove us back to our place, but then it took over 20 minutes to find parking by us. Yikes. I played some Mario Kart and Super Smash with Rachel's brother while the girls got ready and everyone else started filing over.

Beth's friends arrive, and with Christine came John. What a surprise. Shout out to ya boy for showing up and bringing some house warming gifts. AKA old things I was selling, that he bought from my garage sale in Napes. Hilarious. 8 ball, monkey, sign, Pez holder with no Pez. He got some prime parking as well, right in front of our place, score!

We then walked over to Dukes, which supposedly has the best burgers around. A $100 burger called The Duke that has gold leaves on it. Brian meets us out there and we sit in a private VIP section. Rachel and I split a buffalo burger with waffles fries. Both John and Christine didn't look past the first 5 options of normal burgers, and somehow missed the other two pages of awesome burgers, so they got normal burgers. Fail. Squid loved her burger as you can see! Now enjoy these photos of our exclusive VIP party.

Afterwards we stopped at Molly's Cupcakes and the girls picked up some cakes, tasty. We came back to my apartment and watched Mizzou football beat SC, Happy Birthday to Beth!

We then played some loaded questions, finished up by watching SNL and playing Mario Kart afterwards. Some epic kart battles ensued. No one can be certain of who the overall winner was, but we all know it was me. Everyone took off around 1 am.

Sunday September 28th we drove back to Naperville, then to Marseilles for the Spartan Race. Rachel, her bro, his friend, and I battled through mud, barbed wire, and climbing over walls to complete the spartan race in just over 2 hours. Oh, we also threw a spear, slid down hills of mud, climbed up hills of mud, swam in pools of mud, and tried to climb things covered in mud. Mud anyone? We got cool medals and tees for finishing and Rachel carried me across the line.  A very fun, and dirty, race. Hopefully will get some photos from the race for next week, as they had photographers there.

Definitely worth the money and an exciting race where we pushed each other to exceed expectations. I won't forget the rather large fella that I failed to get over one of the first obstacles though. I had helped everyone in the group over a relatively high wall, and I was the last one left. I asked this guy if he wanted help and gave him one good boost, but he failed to get over. I then asked him if he wanted another shot and he said no, so I turned away and jumped over the wall. If I could do it over, I would have been a better influence and forced him to get over that wall. There was one person on the stat sheet with a time of nearly 8 hours in the race... I think it was that guy.

After showering up slightly with a hose at the race, we got our free beer (shocktop) and power bars. We then drove home. Once we cleaned up a bit back in Chicago, Rachel and I walked over and got some Potbelly for dinner and started watching House of Cards. We ended up watching the first 4 episodes! Our new favorite show, it's no Breaking Bad, but pretty solid.

Monday September 29th.

Work, then another 3 episodes of House of Cards at night! It is getting better. I never thought I would enjoy politics so much.

 

HappyBirfdayBeth.

 

Love Josh