• PERSONAL

2025 Year In Review

January

The new year started as it usually does with a game of Twilight Imperium (alongside other board games) with friends, but aside from that January was pretty chill! My friend Phillip very kindly had me help him spoil a card for Flesh and Blood, which ended up accidentally overloading The Fab Cube’s servers for part of a day, so that was a fun time. I also picked up a used 3D printer for cheap, which has begun a new hobby for me. So far I mostly use it to print out organizers for board games, but it’s nice to have access to a 3D printer, even if I do not gel with how fiddly they can be sometimes.

February

In February, I managed to finally check off a new achievement in my competitive Flesh and Blood journey - I won a Road to Nationals tournament! You only need to place in the top 4 to qualify for Nationals, but I was able to beat my friend Jordan in the finals to win the whole thing. It was incredibly surreal - I had won a Skirmish before and made it to the finals of a ProQuest, but never won a competitive level event!

March

I managed to shockingly fit two more games of Twilight Imperium into the year - my friends Matt and Monte drove up from Illinois for the weekend to join Adam and I in a friendly fight for the galaxy and celebrate Matt’s birthday. We ended up celebrating another birthday that weekend as well - my friend Nathan was supposed to join us, but he and his wife Robyn ended up having their baby girl that weekend! So Adam and I got to go meet Penny (or as I call her, Noodle) the day she was born.

I also started interviewing for new jobs in March. My job at the time announced they were moving everyone but a small group of people to being hourly only - if you weren’t on a project, you didn’t get paid. I did not enjoy the idea of variable income based on if I was on a project (and making a move like that is not a good sign for the company’s health), so I began the job search process. It wasn’t fun! But we’ll get more into that as the year goes on.

April

April was my big travel month of the year - I went to London! Adam beat me in a finals match last year to qualify for FaB’s London Pro Tour, and before we played I had told him if he ended up beating me I’d go with him to London. (I really just wanted an excuse to go to London.) We spent about a week in London, with the weekend we were there being dedicated to attending the Pro Tour. Adam and a few other local FaB players and friends competed in the Pro Tour, and I ended up competing in the Calling (the open invite tournament held alongside the Pro Tour). The rest of the time we were there we explored London! I had a great time getting to see a new city (especially one I had heard so much about), and getting to see and hang out with all the folks I know online in FaB is always such a delight.

Also in fun news, my roommate Zach graduated with his Associate’s Degree in April! I don’t even know if he reads these posts, but I’m proud of him for going back to school while working full time.

And finally, I ended April how I usually do - celebrating my birthday with a game of Eldritch Horror. This year we stopped the arrival of Atlach-Nacha to herald my 30th year. I’m not sure which was more horrifying, the lovecraftian themes or me reaching my 30s.

May

May was… a pretty rough month, if I’m being honest. I was not on a project at work for a large portion of this month, so I was essentially unemployed and just trying to find a new job. This is the first time I’ve ever been unemployed, and the job market around this time was rough. I spent a lot of mornings applying for jobs and tracking them in a spreadsheet to let myself see I was making progress at something, and the afternoons and evenings playing Elden Ring and working on The Fab Cube and other side projects. I’m lucky I have such an amazing support system of friends and family who I was able to vent to and spend time with to keep myself from going stir-crazy, but mentally this month was a low point of the year.

One of the highlights of this month, however, was judging a local Flesh and Blood ProQuest. I had been working with a mentee to help him become a level 2 judge, and he drove up from Indiana to floor judge for me as the final step of my review. He did amazing, and it was great finally meeting him in person!

Another highlight of the month was Daniel and Anna (my brother and sister-in-law) stopping in to visit for the evening. They were in town for another event, but it was nice to see them in person.

June

June was the exact opposite of May emotionally. I started it off with Flesh and Blood Nationals! … In Vegas, again…. I really do not enjoy Vegas as a city, but I had a blast finally getting to play at Nationals instead of judging at it. Matt, Monte, Adam, and I all got a hotel room together, and it was wonderful getting to hang out with them and our friends from Flesh and Blood. I did pretty awful in Nationals, but I just barely missed making Day 2 of the Calling, so I was overall happy with how my tournaments went.

Within a week of arriving home, I had the honor of standing in the wedding party of my friends Anna and Ellorie. Their wedding was beautiful!

July

I kicked off July with a date. I had been going on occasional dates throughout the year, but this one bears mentioning because it was with the woman who would later become my girlfriend! (Hi Celeste!) Within 2 weeks of our first date, I also interviewed with the company that would hire me that same week. Sometimes life events just happen really fast!

My new job is as a mobile developer at Ludus, an independent ticketing agency focused on schools and local theater companies. For all of my career I had worked in consulting, and I knew that I wanted to move to a product company if I could, and I was looking for a mobile dev role if possible. I still enjoy web dev, but I had been growing to love iOS development more and more while consulting. Ludus checked all of those boxes, and as a bonus, actually wanted to hire me (the best box to check). Working at Ludus has been incredible so far - getting to work at a tech company that merges my love of the arts with my love of programming has been a dream, and everyone there has been so nice to work with.

Right after being offered the job by Ludus, my friend Joel and I got to go see a longtime favorite band of ours, Five Iron Frenzy! They finally came back through Grand Rapids, and I try to see them whenever they’re in town and Joel had never been able to see them, so I’m glad we were able to go.

August

August was less eventful compared to the previous few months. I mostly was adjusting to my new job and figuring how to navigate going on dates with someone who has an even more active social life than I do. A highlight was Zach and I going to see Foxing at the Pyramid Scheme. They ended up going on hiatus a few months later, so this will likely be the last time I’ll get to see them in concert, and they were incredible.

September

In September Celeste and I actually started officially dating! I also got to spoil a card for Flesh and Blood again, and I ended up doing a self-enforced game jam and made a browser game over 3 days to spoil my card. (You can play the game here.)

The month was otherwise relatively low-key except for 1 weekend. The new FaB set prerelease was on Friday, Celeste had her birthday party (toga themed) on Saturday, and on Sunday I played Earthborne Rangers all day and then went to a La Dispute concert. Incredible weekend, but man did that wipe me out. La Dispute was incredible, as always. Their newest album was my favorite of the year, so getting to see those songs live was a treat.

October

The start of October heralded the 2nd wedding of the year! Nathan, Robyn, Adam, and I carpooled down to Illinois to see our friends Steven and Gwen get married. The rest of October was otherwise pretty uneventful. FaB ProQuest season was in October, so I yet again judged a local tournament and traveled to play in a few others. No wins this time though!

November

At the start of November, I got to go to my friend Jake’s son Will’s 1st birthday party. It’s… honestly a little wild that I’m at the point in my life where my friends are having kids, but I love getting to see them grow up. Plus, how often do you get to see a lil guy taste cake for the very first time in his life.

Daniel and Anna came up to visit and meet Celeste, and so we took them to Korean Hot Pot since they had never had hot pot before. (Celeste introduced me, and it’s been a recent dining obsession ever since.) I forced them all to play Heat: Pedal to the Metal with me, and in turn Daniel forced me to play Go with him so he could destroy me. We also did some antiquing at a cool warehouse antique market here in Grand Rapids, and I made a new friend (see below).

I procrastinated on booking tickets to Philadelphia for Flesh and Blood Worlds, so I ended up staying home that weekend. I was a bit bummed at missing the chance to say hi to my friends that I only get to see at big tournaments, but I had a great time watching the livestream in my basement with friends and teaching them how to play Aeon’s End. (Fun fact: Aeon’s End is so good that almost everyone I taught Aeon’s End had their own copy of the base game within a week.)

I ended the month by having Thanksgiving with Nathan and Robyn’s families. I consider their parents my “Michigan parents”, and I appreciate them opening their doors to me and other friends who needed a place to go for Thanksgiving. I’m extremely lucky to have a great circle of friends here in Michigan. <3

December

Here’s something I never thought I’d say - I went to a basketball game this year. One of Celeste’s friends had a birthday at the beginning of December, and Celeste was able to get cheap tickets for us to go to see the Grand Rapids Gold play. Given that I don’t really enjoy playing / watching sports, it was surprisingly fun!

Adam also helped me finally put together a music desk in my room. I’ve been struggling to find the space to properly work on music again, and we’ve been (finally) working on finishing up the L.A.M.P. album, so I finally pulled the trigger on picking up a new desk and some mixing monitors and Adam helped me setup and wire everything together. Here’s hoping that in next year’s blog post I actually have new music to post!

Otherwise, the rest of December was staying busy with holiday plans. Celeste and I (and friends) went to a White Elephant party and the Grand Rapids Christkindlmarkt, and then Daniel, Anna, and I visited my parents, sister, and grandma in North Carolina for Christmas proper. We mostly hung out at their house, although we did head to Greensboro to see a very cool neighborhood-wide Christmas light display. I also got to finally meet my sister’s puppy Larkin, who is the sweetest Golden Retriever.

Wrap Up

This year felt like it had larger emotional ups and downs than last year, but I guess being kinda-quiet-laid-off by your job but then landing a new job that fits exactly what you were looking for and finding a romantic partner within the same year will do that, huh? I know I say this pretty much every year now, but I remain incredibly grateful for the community I’ve found, both in Michigan and throughout the world. You all made getting through the rough parts of this year much easier and contributed so much to the highs of this year as well. Here’s to a hopefully good 2026!

Note: Em-dashes are not the product of any AI usage. I refuse to use AI - my words and mistakes are mine and mine alone.