2019
End of a year, end of a decade. Whew!
It's easy to let it all blow past, so I'm going to use this post as an opportunity to think back and remember what happened in 2019.
January
Starting off 2019, I was hard at work with Fly Ball finishing our album. What seemed like a simple process of getting down songs that we'd already written was a lot harder and more time-consuming than I'd imagined. Most of the songs had been recorded in Summer 2017 but things did drag on!
February
There was a big dumping of snow in the second week of February and Hannah, Doug, myself, and my 1992 Jetta (Mark), had a harrowing drive home from a weekend at the Wigwam Inn at the end of Indian Arm. Somehow, I massaged our traction situation (slow and steady, baby) and my worn tires, and got us back to the Ivanhoe.
March
Hannah and I celebrated our second anniversary by going thrifting in North Van and then eating dry-aged burgers at Two Rivers Meats. Two years for two very stable geniuses. Go us!
On the 15th, the whole Shapera/Vincent family (minus Mika) lifted off for a whirlwind vacation in Japan. Utilized the 100-ish Japanese words I knew to their maximum as I functioned as tour guide and translator.
Dressing up and going bathing in Kinosake, wandering around some of my old haunts in Tokyo, being awed by Chichu Art Museum on Naoshima, being the only whiteys (besides some MLB scouts, probably) at the Summer Koshien. A lot of highlights and I'm so glad I incepted the idea for this trip into my parents' brains ;)
April
This month-by-month thing is going to take awhile... I've now decided to make this a two-parter. I'm also going to give a shoutout to Google Photos for helping me remember a lot of these things.
This month I mysteriously got interested in digitization of VHS tapes, and put the 2000 Little Mountain Little League championship game on YouTube. We started to get some beautiful days, and my pitch and putt habit grew into a full-blown addiction.
May
May was a big month! I quit Clio, where I'd been working happily for 3.5 years, and joined Comm100 to work as a proudly unaccredited AI Chatbot Architect. I went crazy in my parents basement with my dad and brother as Kawhi bounce-bounce-bounce'd the 76ers out of the playoffs.
I also had a really awesome 31st birthday/31 hour film festival. I've been meaning to post the incredible videos that were created in those 31 hours... and will do so very soon. One thing at a time, you know?
June
Well, the Fly Ball album finally came out! What a labour of love, and something that I'm really proud of. We borrowed Co-op's cassette machine, and got out the scissors and glue, and whipped up a limited run of tapes. Then had a fun album debut show as part of Music Waste 2019 at Red Cat Records.
I also finally broke through and won a tennis tournament! Had some hilarious drama along the way, including the guy I beat in the semis confronting my mom in the parking lot after she called him out for poor sportsmanship (wouldn't shake my hand). But finally, I became the 2019 Richmond Open Mens 3.5 champion.
Whew! A pretty eventful year and that was only the first half. Nnnnnnot bad.