In my last life update on here, I ended it with a lot of hope and excitement. In a lot of ways that ended up being accurate, for a short time. The last 4 months of the year, however have been hell. Im not sure how to really write through all of this without getting overly personal, but I will try. This post is about my entire year though, so I will go over the highlights of my whole 2025. Spring The biggest focus of the first quarter was Galaxy Bound, my Star Wars podcast. We finished up our reviews of Skeleton Crew in January, and then straight into a ton more content to cover like Star Wars Celebration, Revenge of the Sith 20th anniversary, and Andor season 2 reviews. It felt like there was so much to cover and was a ton of fun getting together to do that. If you arent a huge Star Wars f...

As a kid, I grew up in a very conservative Christian atmosphere where the only music we were allowed to listen to was, of course, Christian contemporary or childrens songs. As I got a little older, there were a few CDs I clung to like Stephen Curtis Chapmans Dive album, or Geoff Moore and the Distances A Friend Like U album. Id listen to those on repeat and even as Im typing this, I hadnt thought of the latter one in probably 20 or so years and I had to go down a Google rabbit hole to actually remind myself of the name of the artist, which actually made me a bit sad. Geoff Moore was a huge part of my early musical upbringing, and I hadnt really considered it until now. However, as a kid you listen to music because its catchy and it satisfies something in your brain that nothing else does, ...

In 2022, I begun dabbling in podcasting with Among the Noise. As time went on and it was clear I wanted to go in more depth in Star Wars discussion than made sense for a podcast like that, I begun planning a separate podcast all about Star Wars. In 2024, while living with my parents temporarily, I spent months planning it out and asked both of my brothers if theyd join in as co-hosts or regular guests. They agreed to be hosts, and Galaxy Bound was born. If youre reading this and thinking is there really that much to talk about with Star Wars? Theyre just movies! - well yes. You probably arent aware of the vast lore behind the movies, not to mention the books, comics, and video games. Its the biggest media universe in history, with decades of lore that has been written, making it such a uni...

I hate being the guy that points out that time continues to exist, because it makes me feel old, which I suppose is irony. This year really has flown by though, and I just wanted to write up a post outlining things Ive done so far that Im proud of and what Im looking forward to in the latter half of the year. Honestly, its still strange that were in 2025 at all. I remember that being a year people would joke about even just a few years ago, using it as a futuristic sounding year. One of my favorite game franchises, Call of Duty, had a game released in 2012 that had its story set in the year 2025, and while they tried to predict what it would be like and got a lot wrong, they go a few things right. But everyone always thought technology, art, and design would progress a lot faster globally ...

This probably comes to a shock to anyone that knows me well, but I have a lot of hobbies. I have more hobbies or projects that most people even know of. Im not just talking things like watching TV or playing video games - though those do count, Im talking about activities that a bit more hands on and either have an end goal or continuous goals to achieve that give me that dopamine hit and then I can move on to the next goal. Typically this is seen in career settings, which is fair, but Ive never been one to have a one-track-mind when it comes to my goals. Some people think that youd be wasting time and energy by not monetizing your hobbies with an end goal either being a career or a side hustle. However, in a lot of fields and industries, you have to be damn good at what youre doing and so...

Yep, I turned 30 years old today. It feels a bit strange. Not because of any magical or scientific mechanism for being alive for exactly three decades, but because I know that if my 20-year-old or 15-year-old self would see where I am and what Ive done until now, hed probably have a lot of mixed feelings pride, disappointment, sympathy. For some reason I keep thinking back to my 15 year old self back in 2009. I was a freshman in high school. I was in a band with my best friends, and we had plans to put out an album and become a famous rock band. I based my future on what some of my favorite artists had done get signed to a big label by the time you are 20, and spend the next 10 years touring around the country and world, putting out albums every 2 years, and if things are still going well ...

Apparently I write Christmas letters now. Do people even do that anymore? These post-mortems are like the emo-edgy version of a Christmas letter. Anyway, we made it. For a lot of people, this was the hardest and slowest year, for others it was super quick. For me it was somewhere in-between, but dont for a second think Im one of those naive saps that thinks the year is to blame for everything going on and things will get magically better when the clock strikes midnight...but it sure does feel that way. Im going to give an update on me, as much as I want the entire internet to know, and then an encouraging send-off at the end to ring it in. Working as normal My 2020 started off promising. I got hired on full-time after almost 3 years being an intern, which meant I have a big boy job with bi...

When I launched this blog, I had every intention of writing a post once a month for the whole year. I love writing, but sometimes I feel like its best for me to listen and think first. Actually, those are probably best for me at all times, but here we are. Twenty-twenty has been one hell of a ride. Tensions are higher than ever on every topic under the sun. I didnt want this medium to be a place for my thoughts on the latest political, environmental, social, medical, or religious topic that is blowing up the timelines and headlines already. So I took a break from writing. Even until tonight, I didnt even really plan on writing for awhile. You never plan to do these things until it hits you. The prompt Recently I was criticized by someone that used to be very close to me that, to summarize,...

Its no secret that Star Wars is my favorite seriesfranchiseanything. I first saw Star Wars from an old VHS tape that my parents had recorded from a TV showing on cable, complete with commercials from the early 90s. To this day I cant watch the original trilogy without thinking there should be a commercial break in certain scenes. I was hooked after watching those for the first time, and luckily I didnt have to wait long at all before we had new movies to enjoy. As a 6 year old, The Phantom Menace in 1999 was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my entire life, as was the entire prequel trilogy. Since then, Star Wars has been a huge part of my life. On this Star Wars Day, May 4th, I figured it would be appropriate to write something about it. A good starting point is to list my favorite sc...

I swore to myself I wouldnt post about the issue that the world is facing, but since theres a ton of negativity going on about it, I figured Id do a 180 with these posts and give some advice. In the event that this is read far in the future for whatever reason, Im referring to the COVID-19 pandemic that has swept the world and consequently, my country of the United States. Its been a crazy experience thus far for everyone, but especially those in health care that actually deal with it first hand, but also those that are either out of work or suspended until further notice due to isolation orders. No matter a persons situation, they are affected by it in one way or another. Most states are ordering a stay of location, meaning it is strongly advised to stay home unless it is absolutely neces...

Why is it that February is the shortest month of the year, but always feels the longest? Its the worst. Even when Im in a relationship for Valentines Day, the entire month can be summed up in one word bleh. Its the point in winter where we are tired of snowicecold and we get teased of warmer days, especially here in the midwest. Growing up it was always the month that the semester went into full swing and we just looked forward to Spring Break. Most of all though, everyone is just tired of wearing their big puffy coat everywhere. I ended up procrastinating this post until the last day of the month. This year is a leap year, so posting this on the 29th will be kind of special, right? Procrastination always pays off. Obviously Valentines Day is Februarys big shining moment for a lot of peopl...

Welcome to 2020. I havent kept a blog in years, outside of some news posts about my music here and there. I decided to spare the world from my emotional ranting for a time. It probably wasnt the best thing to put on the internet, but at least it helped, even just slightly. Fast forward to now, and I missed writing like this. Even if I know nearly nobody will read it, its a good way to kind of keep a journal that I can look back on in the future and either cringe or see how Ive grown over time. Theres value in that, so my blog is back. My focus of this entry is to look back on last year a bit, 2019. Not a lot happened, but the things that did were impactful. It would be easy to draw this out with lots of detail, but Im going to do a lot of summarizing, to spare anyone reading this, includin...