2016 - Best Year Ever

2016 was by far the best year of my life. From our Wedding, to the Honeymoon, to traveling to Iceland, to coaching HS Varsity lacrosse, to more concerts, it was a most splendid year. I consistently blogged for the entire year (43 times to be exact), sometimes falling a little behind, but always managing to catch up (minus the Wedding, Hawaii, and Iceland blogs... coming soon I promise this time). I even started doing some vlogging in early October which was an interesting experience. I am not sure what 2017 will hold for us, but I think the blog and vlog will change slightly, just as it did in 2016.  Now enjoy reading a handful of "best" lists, events, and things that happened in 2016. Check out the top/best lists from 2014 and 2015 if you want to see the years past.

Best Moment: Our Wedding. Some day soon I am going to write a reflection on how this amazing and magical day all happened. As I look back now though, I can say one thing, it went by sooooo fast and I wish I could relive that day and take it all in again, for it was the best day of my life.

Huge shoutout to Melissa for filming and putting together this little video montage from the wedding. Amazing!

Best Vacation: It was a huge year for travel for us. They honeymoon took us to Maui and Kauai Islands in Hawaii. And we went to an Island of opposite climate in September, when we traveled to Iceland with John and Melissa.

Best Songs: I went through and pulled more than 10 songs this year (24 to be exact), as we had many of my favorite artists releasing new albums this year, while I also discovered some new musicians who are now a top some of my favorites. In order of artist name.

Best Album: It was definitley a year with a lot of big releases, but for 2016 I am going to have to give Best Album to a new and upcoming folk musician out of Chicago, Ryley Walker, and his album Golden Sings That Have Been Sung.

Best Movie (Theaters): Despite only seeing two movies in theaters this year, Trolls & The Secret Life of Pets, I am going to give this one to Trolls. Movie theaters get more expensive every year!

Best Documentary: I am going to call this one a tie between Barkley Marathons & Fantastic Lies. While Barkley Marathons was one of the most unique running events I have ever seen, lacrosse will always have my heart when it comes to videos, even when it is about a tragic 2006 "rape" case at Duke University, the top program in the country at the time. Check both of these out on Netflix.

Best TV Show: A few "new" tv shows for you this year that I was able to watch in entirety. A new show that premiered on Netflix, all about being a child in the 1980s and aliens, Stranger Things. Crime mystery Twin Peaks from 1990, although I hear they are doing a remake soon. Peaky Blinders, which took place in the 1920s in England about a variety of gangs and the gangley things they do.

Best Book: Listened to all my books this year on audio tape, but one of the best ones I read was, 11.22.63 by Stephen King.

Best Jcubed Video: The first year since probably 2000, that YaBoys did make a video with all 3 of them in it. I filmed a couple of videos with John and a couple with Johnny, but in none of these were we all together. Wow! It has been 10 Years since we have been on YouTube though, so plenty of content to watch. Still need to finish editing a couple more too.

Best Lacrosse Video: I filmed a little short lacrosse documentary for my former coach and friend at North Central College for their inaugural fall ball.

Best Youtube Channel: Casey Neistat, from New York. Fell in love with his vlog before he ended it this year, but he still makes pretty awesome videos regularly. Quite the inspiration for me and videos.

Best Sports Moment: Despite attending my first ever Bears Game and my first ever Bulls game, there is a clear best sports moment from the year. The Cubs Won their first World Series in 108 years! It was insanely memorable and I found myself enjoying watching baseball. Still gives me the chills. I was also interviewed after a lax game during the spring season, so famous.

Best Concert: Despite not releasing an album since 2013, Deer Tick did an acoustic tour in 2016 that was awesome. We saw them at Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago, and then again at the Majestic Theatre in Madison. Ryley Walker, a native Chicago folk singer, opened up for the band and we immediately fell in love with his music as well.  I did record the shows, so hopefully I can get that audio up soon. In the mean time, listen to Mange from the show. During 2016 I also saw: The Weeks, The Tallest Man on Earth, Lady Lamb, New Madrid, The Orwells, Ryley Walker again, Wax, & The Palmer Squares.

And that's it folks. 2016, the best year of my life, the best year ever. I am excited to see what 2017 brings.

See ya there!

Josh

And She Smiles

August 4th, 2016, Thursday, Took my car in to the shop thinking the squeaky breaks meant they were about to break (har har). Luckily they were all right. Rachel makes a very good salmon dinner with rice. This is the first day I took my wedding ring off since the wedding to clean it.

August 5th, Friday, Rachel and I went to Tarascas after work for a jumbo margarita happy hour. Woo happy hours! We enjoyed nachos and chatted about current events happening in and around our lives. The strawberry margarita was very large and very tasty. Around 7 pm the 2016 Olympics in Rio began and we watched the opening ceremony, which was, weird, but I guess the home country always does something in their style. Lots of dancing around and weird aluminum foil flags, not to mention a 100 yd catwalk. Interesting, but not interesting enough to keep me from going to the New Madrid show. 

Around 8pm I headed out to the Empty Bottle to see New Madrid play. My plan was to take a couple of busses and get there just in time for the show to begin at 9pm. I wouldn't find it out until I got there, but the opening band didn't even come on until 11. I took a bus halfway there, but then couldn't find the next bus stop for the life of me, so I jumped in a cab and got to the show just before 9pm. I went inside and was literally, one of maybe 10 people in the place. I then realized that the other 9 people who were at the bar, were the musicians who would be performing. The venue was really tiny. The stage was probably no more than 20 feet from the bar, but it is a perfect setting for a smaller show. Don't have to walk too far for your drinks. Anyway, I felt a little awkward so I left for a few minutes to walk around outside. When I saw some more people lining up to get into the show, I headed back and asked some people in line if they needed tickets. I had an extra ticket since I was flying solo and got some girl who was in front of me in. I would have got the guy she was standing by in, but he said he was on the list. Oooooo. Once I got her in, she offered to buy me a beer which I took her up on.

I followed her up to the bar and she asked me what I wanted, I said I'll make it easy, just an Old Style, which were running for $2 this fine night. What should have been a short 2 minute exchange turned into a painfully awkward 10 minutes of me standing there. She honestly looked like me when I first started going to bars at the ripe age of 22, kind of just standing near the bar, but not being assertive. Then when she didn't get service she would walk over to a different section of the bar, only to have the bartender just go to the section she was at. Multiple times I almost was gonna tell her not to worry about, but I held on. I earned this $2 Old Style! While waiting awkwardly behind this girl, I tried to be nice and ask a couple of questions, but pretty much got one word answers and nothing more. Yikes!

Finally she was able to get me a beer and I said thank you and cheers'd her, as she walked 2 feet away to her friends, who were equally as uninviting and awkward. Reminded me of the classic scene from Dumb and Dumber.... "Hey guys, Big gulps huh? Welp cya later"

I went over and stood between two of the doors and drank my beer slowly while waiting for the bands to come on. 9:15, 9:30, 9:45 all passed, no sign of anyone playing yet. Wow I really got to this show too early ha. I almost considered leaving a few times, but finally around 9:55p more people started filing in to see the show. Apparently they all got the memo that the show didn't start until 10. I finished my beer and considered asking that chick for another since she owes me about 5 more to cover the ticket! But no one would want to suffer another 10 minutes of waiting for a beer, so I went up to the bar and got 2 more Old Styles. The beer I didn't pay for tasted better, it always does.

Finally at 10pm the first band came on. Luke Henry & Rabbitfoot. A chicago band who had a good crowd. I stood front row off to the left and listened to them while enjoying my drinks. They were pretty good! I polished off my 2 beers and picked up 2 more beers before the next band went on. This next band had a little more energy and put on a pretty solid show. The Tomblands are another up and coming rockband from Chicago. Here is a link to some of their music! Check em out. The crowd and ladies loved their one guitarist named Danny. He was getting the people amped up on this Friday night at Empty Bottle.

After the Tomblands left the stage, I grabbed 2 more Old Styles before New Madrid took the stage. I was front middle, along with 2 other guys. Most of the crowd, which probably topped off somewhere between 75-100 had gone back to the bar. I assume most of the fans were there to see the first two local bands. In fact, I might have been the only New Madrid fan there, but I was loving it. A little bit larger girl who smelled like she hadn't showered in a couple of days made some conversation with me while we were waiting for New Madrid to come on. She seemed pretty nice, had no idea who New Madrid was, was just there to see new music, but really could have hit the showers. Stanky. Finally New Madrid came out and they killed it. They played a lot of their new songs off of their Magnetkingmagnetqueen album. At one point I had to use the bathroom pretty bad, small bladder problems, so I did so. I was able to get back to the front row when I came back, I love small venues. Just after this the boys played my favorite jam of theirs, And She Smiles. If you didn't start playing it at the beginning of this blog, go back and do so. Straight jam. I was definitely feeling the music and despite my audio recorder not working, I was able to video nearly the entire And She Smiles song (video link to come in the future).

After they played for a little over an hour, the show ended and I went to the bathroom one more time before heading out. On my way out I ran into the lead singer, Phil. I let him know how I had seen them open up for Diamond Rugs back last year and have loved their stuff ever since.  He was a pretty cool guy and sold me the latest 2 albums of theirs. Dawn Teeth Rattling, which was a record day store release and then their new album, Magnetkingmagnetqueen. I of course was the only person at the merch table, but I let Phil know I thought they could have started a little earlier, he agreed. Haha. An amazing show and I told them to come back soon, so hopefully they do. If you have never listened to New Madrid I suggest you do. I like to classify them as a psycadellic rock band out of Athens, GA. I cabbed it home and hit the hay once I made it home. Fun night.

New Madrid vinyl records I bought above. Lead singer I met setting up the stage below.

The next day, Saturday August 6th, Rachel and I got some McDonald's for lunch, then we drove down to Kankakee to see Grandma. That night we had dinner with Rachel's parents at the Bulldog Tap House in New Lenox. I think I got some sort of burger, it was good. That night we got back to the city around 11:15p, thinking maybe we would go out with some friends. Unfortunately no one was around and we are old, so we just curled up in bed and called it a night.

On Sunday August 7th, Rachel and I did a Corepower Sculpt class which kicked my butt. I almost passed out a couple of times, so just kinda laid down for parts of the class. I am so impressive! For lunch we ate a couple of sandwiches. In the afternoon we met up with Ashley and headed to the grassy beach area to soak up the rays and enjoy the beautiful weather. Water looking nice!

Sunday evening Rachel and I cooked up some zucchini boats, which remind me of pizza boats, but with zucchini as the bread. We cut up this HUGE zucchini and were able to make 2 trays full. Topped the boats with some ground chicken, sauce, cheese, onions, peppers, and more! Shout out to Beth for the idea. Shout out to mom for supplying the giant zucchini. Shout out to Rachel for cooking it! Yum.

Stay hungry my friends

 

Josh