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

There's a Robot in the Office

On Wednesday August 17, 2016 I worked all day, then enjoyed yummy Blue Apron burgers made by Rachel for dinner. If you don't know, Blue Apron is a meal service that sends you fresh ingredients and a recipe to cook those ingredients with. It is nice because everything you need is already portioned out and included in the package. The bad thing is that they claim: "it will take 20 minutes to prep and 20 minutes to cook" but whenever we cook one it always takes 90 minutes to 2 hours for us to finish and eat. Great food and tastes though, so many flavors! We watched Mr. Robot episode 4 of season 2. Getting good.

Song of the Week: It's Different For Girls by a band that I thought was a new Indie band, but after researching has been around since 1996. of Montreal.

Thursday August 18, we had another Blue Apron dinner. This one was catfish and it was quite enjoyable as well. Thanks to Rach for cooking it up once again. I believe this was only the second time having catfish, the first time being back with Andrew Mewborn and John at Swamp Guinea in Georgia back in summer of 2008. Oh yeah, here is a photo of that.

Rachel and I watched episodes 5 and 6 of Mr. Robot season 2 that evening before calling it a night. The next day on August 19th, a Friday, I had McDonald's for lunch and ended up working pretty late. When I got to my parents house I watched season 1 of The Office with Beth while having a few PBRs and doing laundry. Slept at my parents obviously.

Saturday August 20, I had McDonald's for lunch, again, wow I am unhealthy. I had to work in the morning that day and when I finished I headed back over to my parents and grilled Italian sausages and potato slices for my parents and Beth for dinner. Beth and I ended up watching half of season 2 of the office on this day. After I finished eating I headed over to New Lenox where I hit up The Bulldog restaurant bar with Jordan (Michele's bf) and Cory (Ashley's fiance). They had been there for a couple of hours as all of our ladies were at Mary's bridal shower. After a couple of drinks, the girls arrived and we had a fun night. Rachel and I drove back to her parents around midnight and spent the night there.

On the morning of Sunday August 21st, Rachel and I headed down to Kankakee to visit Rachel's Grandpa. We had lunch and enjoyed a little over 3 hour visit with him. Afterwards we headed to the cemetery to meet up with my family for my Grandpa's 10 year death anniversary (blog about Grandpa here). Rachel and I then stopped at target on our way home. We spent about 2 hours shopping around and I put the Cartwheel app to good use, coming up with $8 of savings. Woo! We had a productive night around the apartment doing some organizing and cleaning. We still can't figure out why we are only productive once the sun goes down though... We were up until at least midnight again, we stay up too late.

Monday August 22nd, the start of another week. After work I cooked up some Trader Joe's kung pow chicken for dinner. My computer is really pissing me off, and it sucks (read about how it is super frustrating here). I am in the process of backing it up again on a new external hard drive and we will see if it works this time. Mr. Robot episode 7 was mind blowing! Whoa! That was just insane! If you aren't watching Mr. Robot you need to start now! Season 1 is on Netflix and season 2 is currently being aired on live TV. That night Rachel and I cleaned and organized around the apartment a little bit.

Another day another cavity, on Tuesday August 23rd, I visited the dentist to get that filling that was previous filled, filled again. These teeth are rough. I listened to the second episode of Up and Vanished. The podcast I talked about last week about a missing girl from Georgia. Decent episode. That night I got home late from work, called it a night.

TV Shows of the Week: The Office and Mr. Robot - both on Netflix. Get on it. This is actually my first time watching the office all the way through, hilarious as always. And oh look at that screen shot from Mr. Robot season 2, it's Darryl from The Office.

Inspiration of the Week: YouTuber Casey Neistat, who vlogs about his daily life and also makes short movies. He is one of the few YouTubers where I will actually watch 10+ minute videos all the way through. The amount of work he puts into each video and the details are something that seem to be unmatched by anyone right now. From using cool gadgets, to drone footage, to time lapses, to pulling off crazy stunts. He does it all! I have only recently started watching his stuff, but have really been enjoying it. His story of sticking to what he loves and working hard for it is very cool. His hard work has given me new ideas and plans for this website, my YouTube channel, and my blogs. Hopefully I can put some of them to use soon. I honestly don't know how he manages to have ideas for a daily video, film everything, edit the video, and post them daily.  Here is one of his most recent videos with a visit to Chicago as he drives his son across the country for the start of college. Be sure to check out his channel and watch his vids.

Video of the Week: This cool mashup of a bunch of movies (230 to be exact) singing The Offspring's Pretty Fly (For a White Guy).

A few more blogs will be coming in the next week or so. Keep your eyes peeled.

I hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Josh