2015 was ok. Things that happened include promotion, outdoors, travel, friends (old and new), Magic, and beer, to name a few. Some notables from the past ~10 months:
Saw DJ Kristian Nairn, better known as Hodor from Game of Thrones, during his Rave of Thrones show in Denver. I don't follow Game of Thrones and I also don't really listen to EDM, but it was a pretty cool show. I was exhausted from attempting to dance the entire night.
Visited the Great Sand Dunes with family during Memorial Day weekend. The place lived up to expectations: sand dunes and more sand dunes. Also hail and rain and wading across a cold creek.
Won a Preliminary Pro Tour Qualifier on Easter Sunday, which qualified me to play in a Regional Pro Tour Qualifier 20 minutes from home a few months later. I do not envy the people who traveled 8+ hours to play in it. Missed the top 8 on tiebreakers after narrowly winning the final round of swiss due to my opponent's mistake on a crucial turn, so it's yet another 2-match-wins-away-from-qualifying-for-the-Pro-Tour for me. Also finished in the minimum cash bracket at Grand Prix Las Vegas this year, but wasted a strong start while doing it by trainwrecking the final booster draft deep into Day 2 (still 2 match wins short of a PT qualification). For the most part, I played out of my mind this past summer and ever since these two tournaments my level of play has slid downward to the point where I needed to take a break and regroup my mental state.
Participated in the Dragon Boat Festival again. I feel like we had a fun group of people on our team this year and I look forward to participating again. I began training to be a stern this year but did not feel ready to stern at festival, so hopefully next year I will be sterning dragon boats for real.
Did the Tough Mudder again. They really intensified all of the obstacles this year compared to last year, and as a result I did not successfully complete many of the strength obstacles. Some of us had a hard time walking afterwards, for various reasons. Had more teammates this year, which made the experience much better. Also scraped up my left knee in the Crybaby obstacle while scrambling to escape from the peppermint air makeshift tear gas and got a tetanus shot a few days later just to be safe. Was sick for almost a week afterwards as well.
Been hanging out with Anna (high school friend who found her way to Colorado) more often this year. She's opened my eyes to the mountains of Colorado that I've never explored on my own, including scaling rock slides sideways near the top of fourteeners that probably aren't supposed to be there in the first place (and hopefully skiing next month). Also beer at the Mountain Toad and Rocky Mountain oysters.
Went to my first NFL game, and it was a good one.
Went to a Seattle Rock Orchestra show with Stephen and crew. That was a good show. There was even an astronaut roaming around. Also crashed a date afterwards (oops).
Spent a week in southern California for work, which was the first time that I've ever been to southern California. It was nice. Got to follow some friends online who were tearing it up at a tournament in Vegas while I was in California, which was also nice. Their results that weekend may even inspire me to play more and get better at Magic again too.
Also been reading and listening to some self-help material, because I have issues and want to overcome them. Despite all outward appearances, my inner negativity, low self-esteem and complete lack of confidence in life are really dragging me down mentally and negatively affecting everything that I do. I'm pretty sure they've been with me for forever, but I'm just now recognizing how much it's affecting me and that I need to do something about it if I don't want to succumb to it.
