Hows my little MMXIV?

Two Thousand Fourteen, what a year. What an excellent year. So many exciting things happened! We traveled quite a bit, Minnesota several times, Wisconsin, Puerto Rico, Canada and New York, a few jaunts to Indianapolis. Not only fun travels but I dodged a bullet and didn't have to attend a single day of my scheduled jury duty. We stained our front deck and it looks much nicer and the newly painted base around the house made it look so sharp! The back deck stairs are finally done and after we stain them the pergola project from 2013 can finally be considered a wrap. Lets not forget the most exciting bit of news, Laura got knocked up!

Here are some highlights of my year:

Best: 

Movie (in theater):

Guardians of the Galaxy - It was surprisingly funny with lots of action and wasn't cheesy.

TV Show:

I guess the Hulu show, The Misfits wins. We watched season one but found out that our favorite character wasn't coming back, so there was just no reason to watch more, it wasn't that good.

Concert:

Phantogram at the Virginia Theatre. The lights, music, and atmosphere were all stellar.

Album:

Phantogram - Voices

Song:

I just don't know this year so here are some favorites:
Beats Antique - Jumpin, Broken Bells - After the disco, Duck Sauce - Barbara Streisand, The Dirty Heads - My Sweet Summer, KONGOS - I want to know, Gaga & Tony Bennet - Bang Bang, Railroad Earth - Monkey, Phantogram - Howling at the Moon
Thats a solidly eclectic list.

Game:

I actually gamed this year! I got sucked into Titanfall early on and have been having a blast. It's the first time I've played a FPS since Doom 3 I think.

Book: 

Antonio Mendez & Matt Baglio - Argo. This was a fascinating story.

Gadget:

Xbox One, that's a gadget right? I've spent so much time having fun with it this year.

Getaway: 

Puerto Rico was phenomenal, I would recommend it to anyone.  

Garden Growth:

Our onions did great for the first time ever this year.

Construction:

The pergola stairs were not that fun to do but they turned out great!

Intoxicating Beverage Tour:

I really enjoyed the Vikre Distillery in Duluth.

Food Ferment: 

2014's Kimchi was really really good.

Alcoholic Ferment: 

Doppelwiezen V.3 was very good.
Whats in the carboy: Natural Wine Experiment, Peach Wine, A bunch of Mead, Strawberry Wine, and a Pumpkin Wheat.

Athletic Endeavor: 

Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon

Events of Note: 

Random:

My epic motorcycle tale. It never made it into a blog because it just kept getting worse and stretched out for so much of the summer. I'll sum it up:
Leaky clutch, bike couldn't change gears
Rented trailer, brought it to nearest place that would fix it. 1 hour away.
Shop was closed.
Left bike, mailed key
Key was ripped out of envelope and was lost.
Was my only key
Many weeks passed in attempt to get one made
Found out key wasn't able to be made
New core installed
Rode bike home and front brake caliper wasn't reattached, no accident thank god.
Got new bolts mailed quickly and reattached caliper
Rode bike as much as possible for the rest of the fall.

Obsession:

I think Titanfall wins this year

Newsworthy:

That F***ing Plane (it really is tragic, but the endless coverage was awful)

News I'm oblivious to: 

Apparently something noteworthy happened in Missouri this year.

Travels:

Indianapolis, Dayton, Vieques, San Juan, Twin Cities, Duluth, Washburn, Niagara-on-the-lake, Watkins Glen, Allegheny National Park.

More events of note:

Bockfest 2014 was fantastic

I've accepted that the hair on my head is parting ways with it's former locale.
Total gallons fermented this year: 46.5
I own one square foot of a private island called Hawaii 2.

Resolution:

This year's resolution was to touch the floor with my palms. I almost made it but due to my back injury where I couldn't bend over I had a major setback and didn't achieve this. So I'm going to reinstate that goal but also to improve my flexibility overall. I'm going to also get that handstand down too.

Last year I ended my year in review with "2014 I think I can handle what you've got. Bring it on, I dare you." Well I've got a kid brewing in Laura's belly now. I can handle that. I managed to plan and carry out a surprise vacation, I handled that. There were a bunch of things, this year that I just felt great about. This year was just great there were a lot of really fun things that we did.

I'm excited to find what 2015 brings me. 

Hows my little reader in 2014?

I'm doing my reading list for the year differently, I've come to accept that I'm not good at writing a book summary (and don't want to try at it), so I'm not going to try. Plus I use this mostly to keep track of what books I've read.

Veronica Roth - Insurgent
We listend to the second book in the Divergent series on our NY adventure. This book seemed to fit well into the series. I honestly didn't like it that much. Not to say I disliked it, it just wasn't really great. I did like the bomb that they dropped at the end and now I'm curious about the final book in the trilogy.

Veronica Roth - Divergent
I really enjoyed this book, I liked the mystery and intrigue surrounding a future where Chicago is empty save for this transplanted colony of people. I've heard some people draw some parallels to The Hunger Games, they're wrong. There is a strong female lead, and it's staged in a different future that's where the similarities end.

Antonio Mendez & Matt Baglio - Argo
Argo was great, The movie was great and did the book great justice (with some extra Hollywood thrills) but the book...It made the story real and believable. Affleck played Antonio Mendez the real CIA agent who wrote the book and carried out this mission. If you liked the movie and you like mystery/history books you'll like this one.

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse V
I started this on the plane coming home from PR thinking I would finish since it's so short, except I fell asleep, so I didn't. Anyway...someone in college told me to reread this book and more Vonnegut saying, 'I think you'd like it'. Sure enough, I did. I'm looking forward to reading more.

George RR Martin - A Feast for Crows
Book 4 from A Song of Ice and Fire threw me for a loop, no Danerys, Jon Snow, or Tyrion? Far too much Cersei. But finally Sansa doesn't suck (so much). This book was half of a giant bridge to book 6, I just have to read book 5 to get the other half, I'm expecting it to be MUCH better.

I spent most of 2014 working through JJ Abrams and Douglas Dorst's experience 'S' I have really enjoyed it but I shut down early on and didn't read it or anything for months after I invested some more time into it I really enjoyed it. I'm not done as of this writing yet.

Hows my little November in December update?

I'm on track to have the least productive blogging year in my history of maintaining this space. It's not due to a lack of content either! Oh well. November has been a fun and busy month! Check it out:

I started the month off by running the Indianapolis Monumental Half Marathon. It's amazing what a person is capable of achieving if they actually stick to a dedicated plan. This year I did almost all of my workouts up until the last three weeks when two different minor/major injuries stacked onto a vacation. All of that didn't matter on race day though, I made a good plan in the morning and started the race feeling great. It wasn't until about 5 minutes after finishing that everything caught up to me. I set a new Personal best, with a time of 1:49:14, my best before was 1:52:35 back in April of '12. It was an unusually cold day and I ended up wearing almost everything I brought, I had planned for chilly weather not freezing weather. I keep thinking I'm going to retire the plaid tights but I just can't bring myself to do it.

The next weekend my mom came for a visit and we headed over to Indy to do some crib shopping. We found one! Plus it was actually delivered yesterday and we set it up. It's very exciting. After a long day of shopping we met our cousins for some dinner and laughs. The next weekend we did some extra shopping after we dropped Mom off at the airport. We stopped by pottery barn kids and I couldn't believe how blah the color scheme of their stuff is! It was like walking into a gallery of pastels, there was nothing to get excited about and Laura and I agreed their room mock-ups seemed almost somber. Anyway, sorry about the kid rant, but this stuff is supposed to be fun and bright (in my eyes).

The following weekend was supposed to be a bit more relaxed because we had been on the go for the past three/four weekends but since we found a crib we decided we needed to paint baby's room before it arrived. We found a nice shade of middle grey and are actually really happy with the color. The idea is the bright colors of baby things are going to be a nice contrast with the walls. So far so good!

Jinx helped.

I do all the edge work because I'm good at it *toot toot*

Grandma Jacobson...er Laura did all the rolling, we make a good team.

 Laura and I had a Thanksgiving with just to two of us this year. Laura's Mom had the good idea of asking if we wanted to get things done with the long weekend rather than entertain. We did. So we made a pretty easy dinner of beer butt grilled chicken delicious bean casserole and a wonderful pumpkin silk pie from pumpkins we bought at The Great Pumpkin Patch in Arcola.

Over the long weekend I finally remedied our treacherous back steps. This is the best before picture I could find taken in April 2013:

I had to cut out half of the steps to place that corner post for the pergola, I thought I was being clever by only removing half the stairs. Little did I know I only planted a seed of procrastination. "I'll get to it eventually...at least we can get up them!" After Laura came down with a serious case of pregnancy I decided I needed to get these stairs finished before winter. I didn't want her or anyone with baby accidentally falling into the pit of de-stair ; ).

As all of my Loyal followers know, I hate and suck at math. Geometry is like the ugliest practical math to me and these stairs mostly look like a bunch of right angles. Look again, my brain got such a workout with this my hair actually grew an extra inch over the weekend. I'm very happy with how they turned out, the steps are more sturdy than what we had ever before and there is so much room now! Next spring we'll get around to staining them along with the rest of the back porch. Also hopefully the clematis over there will find its way onto the balusters.

Laura took a stab at gnocchi over the weekend with really tasty results. It's actually easier than expected so I think we'll make it again. Due to our abundance of pumpkin we used that over potatoes this time around.

Flour, pumpkin, parmesan

Yum!

So, life's been busy, fun and rewarding, but busy.

Hows my little eastern traveller?

Laura and I adventured out to the East for a Post-Harvest/Belated Anniversary/Birthday/Babymoon Adventure. Every year we like to do a smaller adventure but since we will probably be taking some time off from major adventures due to our incoming child we bumped it up a bit.

Our first full day out was into Canada. Why Canada? Well Brian was living out in Buffalo, NY and we were like 'lets visit and see Niagara Falls' but his life plans changed and he moved back to MN, so we decided to stay the course because ultimately we were going to be in that direction anyway. Night number one was spent in this fantastic little town Niagara-on-the-Lake, that's really what it's called, hyphens and everything. There was a great little downtown strip full of shopping and restaurants and it's right on Lake Ontario and the Niagara river, it's beautiful. As an added bonus there are like 50 wineries within a half hour of town. One of our only regrets from the trip was not spending more time here. Also because we didn't check out the tourist mecca that is the town of Niagara falls at all. From what we briefly saw it was like the Wisconsin Dells had a little brother in Canada.

After wine and beer tasting and a great birthday dinner we headed over to Niagara Falls the next day. I was expecting to be relatively underwhelmed with the falls for some reason, but they definitely captured my heart. Since we went in thinking Niagara falls is a once in a lifetime visit we decided to play it up and do a couple of the attractions that make up a falls visit. We did the Journey behind the falls where you take an elevator down to the base of the falls and you can watch the water pour over the top of the falls and get sprayed by the mist of the falls. When we got onto the elevator the worker that rode with us specifically gave me a separate poncho, and had a stack for everyone else in her other hand. I thought, oh that was nice she got a tall one for me, it was a child size, I just barely fit. I don't know if she was playing a funny joke on me or just grabbed the wrong one. Regardless I looked pretty silly. After you're done watching the water fall you can take a tunnel that goes about a third of the way across the falls, but underneath and behind the falls. There were a couple of tunnels that looked out into the falls and you could see white water splashing around. But hearing the roar of the falls was pretty cool.

Niagra Falls from behind.

Normal person poncho

Kids poncho on a large person.

That's what the american falls look like from Canada.

This is the famous horseshoe falls viewed from Canada.

Up next we took the Hornblower cruise, which is a newer more Canadian version of the Maid of the Mist, to the base of the falls and got misted again by it again. The view from the water was pretty cool.

The maid of the mist in front of the American falls lookout platform.

That night we headed over to Watkins Glen New York to check out the Finger Lakes wine country. We paced ourselves fairly decently and drove all over the lakes to catch the last clinging fall colors and saw TONS of grapes. Even though we've been done with harvest for nearly a month they were right in the middle of it. So it was neat to cruise around and watch some other people work. Since Laura is sick with child we took it easy on the winery visit even though I wanted to stop at all of them. The next day we hiked the gorge in Watkins Glen State park. It was a great little hike that apparently has been a well known tourist walk for over a hundred years. We stopped at a couple more wineries afterward and then headed to Ithaca for some grub.

Laura is excited to drink these in the spring.

Watkins Glen

We really wanted to finish our trip with some camping but since the overnight temps were going to be in the low 30's we decided to find a cabin to stay in. A few weeks before we left I asked the people of r/Pennsylvania on reddit if they had recommendations around Allegheny National Forest. I got a tip about Clear Creek State Park's cabins. So we booked one, and they were great! Sometimes the strangers of the internet are the best. So on our way there Laura saw a sign for the Zippo museum, free admission, so we stopped because we needed to stretch our legs, and why not? The museum was pretty interesting and we liked looking at all of the customized lighters they had on display. Ironically (or not?) we forgot any matches or lighter for camping and our cabin was heated by a wood burning stove. We even said in the museum that sold all sort of lighters, "I just can't think of a reason to buy a lighter right now." Fortunately our cabin neighbors had some matches to spare and gave us some to use. On our next day we headed into Allegheny and hiked the Mission Creek 6ish mile loop. This part of Pennsylvania had lost all of their leaves so we didn't get any nice fall color vistas but the day was beautiful and the hike was great.

This bridge was over a 30 foot drop, we chickened out.

I'm not sure what this pose means.

Altogether our trip was fantastic, I brought back a bunch of wine that I'm very excited about and we added a few more growlers to the collection, it's time to make the shelf bigger! The road trip was fun too except it was incredibly uncomfortable for the two of us, due to whatever is going on in my back. Sitting in the car for extended time was awful and Laura isn't always comfy anymore. But we made it work and had a lot of fun. I'd recommend Niagara-on-the-lake to anyone as well as the falls if you're close to the neighborhood. And as the rumors go, the Canadian side of Niagara Falls is so much better than the American side, can't cross the border? Ride the Maid of the Mist for sure. Finger Lakes winereis made some great wine, their reds reminded me of the Michigan reds we had a while back in that, just because the grapes can grow there doesn't mean that they make the best wine. The whites on the other hand were phenomenal and lovely. I got conflicting reports of whether or not we were actually in upstate New York (turns out New York is huge) but regardless, it's a great place to visit in the fall.

Hows my little thirty year old?

Dearest friends whom I've given shit about being old,
  The karma pendulum has now swung back into the middle and things have balanced out. Here I stand on the eve of my twenty tenth birthday and I can't sit for shit, literally. Something has materialized in my lower back and hurts like a banshee. I'm now officially old, I've got back pain and a baby on the way. No more a twenty something with the world at my finger tips I'm just another old man hobbling out of bed and around town.
  It's been an interesting adventure so far, and by far the strangest injury I've had for several reasons. I don't know when it officially started, there was no snap, crackle, or pop. No item that was too heavy nor a fall or shock that was remarkable in any way. One day I stood up and went boy my back is sore, it feels like I need a nice crack to make it better. Oddly sitting is what aggravates it most, I can stand, walk, heck I ran 10 miles on Sunday but sitting is what's the worst. As most of you know I partake and enjoy good long (duration) poops from time to time. I'm just a normal guy who sits down to shit and it's now one of the most uncomfortable things in my life.
  Laura and I are beginning our drive all the way to upstate New York tonight. This is going to create issues, so yesterday I went to a local urgent care, thus doing something I never wanted to do in my life, seek medical care in Danville, IL, and learned they wont prescribe pain meds to walk-ins. Those damn drug seekers ruined it for us honest people. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em...right? So went somewhere else, but the 80 minute wait kept me away from my opiate or steroid fueled future. Fortunately for me I've got some leftover meds from when my appendix was stolen from me, so sitting in a car for hours at a time should be at least bearable.
  So if this what becoming old is like, count me out.

Yours truly,
Tony

Hows my little summer update?

This has been a summer full of fun things that I just haven't put into blog form. So here are a bunch of photos to give you a recap of what's been happening.

Laura's flowers have been looking great all summer!

Tubing at Kickapoo

Laura is officially a certified PHR!

The garden has been good and bad, bad tomatoes (plants), great beans and onions.

We watch fireworks from our roof, everyone else watches them at the park down the road.

We got a new TV stand! This corner looks SO much better.

You know those awards stuck on bottles or the ones hanging from bottles at a winery that no one knows anything about and gives little regard to? Well, we won earned a few this year. This is me accepting one at the state fair.

Can't go to the IL state fair without checking the butter cow.

Amanda, Andy, Sammy, Cotton, and Tipper(not pictured) stayed with us on their move back to MN

We visited Justin and Allison in Dayton, OH.

Harvest started earlier than expected this year, it was also very light.

I started taking an online class towards an AA in Enology.

Brian and Melanie got married! Due to a lucky weekend off from harvest we unexpectedly got to see it!