2013 - Year in Review - Part 3

2013 – Year in Review

Part 3 – A Certain Kind of Writing Report:

By way of background information for any uninitiated readers:  I am currently working on a novel entitled A Certain Kind of Weird.  I hate trying to describe the plot of the novel because I can’t make it sound exciting at all, but the basic idea is that it follows the everyman protagonist through a normal yet eventful week; it’s narrated in the first person with each chapter consisting of a single day.  Okay, wake up now.  I began the novel in 2002 as a freshman at BYU and continued working on it until I left for my two-year LDS mission to Brazil in August 2003.  At that point, I had completed slightly less than 2.5 chapters, but I was confident that I would hop right back in the saddle and finish my novel within a year of returning to the States.  Well, that didn’t happen.  I did my best to resume writing but soon found that going to school and working a part-time job and trying to have a social life made it very difficult to do much writing at all.  Eventually it reached the point where I felt so removed from my novel that I began to doubt whether I would ever finish it.  I couldn’t figure out how to reconcile the differences in who I was when I started the novel as a nineteen year old kid and who I was as an older student and later college graduate.  Even with that mental obstacle, my novel, especially the characters, were never far from my mind.  Finally, near the end of 2010, I realized that not only could I finish my novel, but that I had lived more and experienced more and was better prepared to understand my protagonist and what he goes through.  If ever I had one of those “ah-ha” light bulb turning-on moments, that was it.

With that mental hurdle cleared, I spent all of 2011 thinking about my novel, rereading my first draft and compiling all of my notes and outlines, re-conceptualizing the plot and characters, and preparing myself to begin rewriting my novel from the very beginning.  I knew I couldn’t just pick up where I had left off, not after that long of a hiatus.  Finally, in April of 2012, about a month and a half before I started dating the one-and-only Melissa Thompson, I began the rewrite of A Certain Kind of Weird.  (I should mention that at that point we had been hanging out away from work, and, as Melissa likes to claim, she had already begun exercising her muse-like influence upon me).

I wrote at the beginning of the year that 2012 needed to be my year of actual writing, not just thinking about writing.  Unfortunately, 2012 was not the year of writing; it was more like a few good months of writing.  2013, it turns out, came much closer to being the year of writing, but it still fell a few months short of being a complete year of writing.  Something about getting engaged, planning a wedding, then actually getting married, and starting an all-new phase of life threw off my writing routine.  I know – excuses, excuses, excuses.  I’m not trying to shift the blame for my periods of inactivity at all.  I’ll own up to it.  I just think anyone who’s attempted any kind of long-term creativity knows how essential routines are and how hard it can be to restart one once it’s fallen by the wayside.

Nonetheless, I am pleased with the progress I made in 2013.  By the end of the year, I was well into the fourth chapter of my novel, which might not seem like much, but trust me, that translates into many handwritten pages.  You’re probably asking yourself, “What kind of weirdo still writes by hand?”  This weirdo does.  It just works better for me, slows my brain down to the optimal speed for composing.  I later go through and type up my handwritten pages.  I’m quite a ways behind in typing up my work, but let it suffice to say that by the end of the year, my novel was at least 100,000 words total, most of that written in 2013.  The realization just struck me that at this point I have written enough for a book, just not enough for my book.  That’s both satisfying and disheartening.  Oh well.

Here are a few quantifiable stats from 2013 that I can pass on:

• Total time spent writing:  115 hours and 56 minutes – that’s 6,956 minutes in case you’re curious.  And yes, I do track stuff like this.
• Total pages written:  452.5 – unfortunately, that number is spread rather disproportionately throughout the year.
• Best month for writing:  October.  I wrote for 24 hours and 5 minutes and completed 99.75 pages.  It killed me later to see how close I was to 100 pages that month.  If I’d written for just another minute or two I would have had it.  I didn’t let myself round that number up to 100 because I wanted to hit that mark legitimately.  (Spoiler alert:  I already have in 2014).
• Worst month for writing:  September – a whopping 3 pages in 59 minutes.  Yip, total turd of a month.  However, perhaps it was my abysmal showing in September that prompted my renewed efforts in October and throughout the rest of the year.

So what’s the prognostication for 2014?  It might be too early to say, but I have a feeling that 2014 is going to be the fabled year of writing for me.  As I’ve already let on, things are going pretty well.  I believe that if I stick to my current routine, I will definitely finish the first draft of my novel in 2014, which is a pretty big deal for me.  After that I’ll have the daunting task of revising this thing into a taut and engaging work, which, with my long-windedness, will be like whittling a toothpick out of a redwood.  Oddly enough, I’m looking forward to it.  I must be a glutton for punishment.

Though perhaps the truly afflicted will be anyone unfortunate enough to read my book at some future point.  To that poor soul, perhaps reading these very words right now, I apologize in advance. 

But not really.

That’s it, folks.  The end of my three-part year in review.

2013 - Year in Review - Part 2

2013 – Year in Review

Part 2 – Official Media Consumption Report:

Like anyone with an above-average interest in art (mostly film/television, literature, and music), I like to talk about my interests and, if possible, find some way to incorporate those interests into another one of my interests:  making lists.  What follows are a couple lists with some additional commentary. Just because life might be short, that doesn’t mean my blog posts have to follow suit.

Lots of Words on Lots of Pages, a.k.a. Books

I set a goal at the beginning of the year, an unofficial New Year’s resolution, to read twenty-five books in 2013.  That’s a tiny fraction over two books a month, roughly one book every two weeks.  Nothing difficult there, especially for a former English major and aspiring novelist, right?  Sadly, my reading output in previous post-college years has frequently failed to reach such mediocre heights.

It is with great pleasure that I announce my goal for 2013 to have been met, surpassed even.  Turns out that I read a whopping twenty-eight books.  Still, that’s nothing extraordinary, but it is better than other years, and that’s nothing to scoff at.  Anyway, here are:

The Top 5 Books I Read in 2013:

• Butcher’s Crossing – John Williams.  Williams is a great 20^th century American writer all but unknown to the world at large.  Butcher’s Crossing, one of Williams’s four novels, is a tale of the West in which the protagonist leaves Harvard, heads to Kansas, and bankrolls an expedition to hunt a massive buffalo herd deep in the Rockies.  The novel chronicles the hardships the adventurers suffer on their journey as wisdom succumbs to obsession, winter and intense physical hardship falls upon them, and they return to find their world irrevocably changed.  Williams writes with intense clarity, and though the book is a bit of a downer, it is a powerful reading experience.  I also recommend William’s novel Stoner, especially if you are someone who loves to read books written about other people who love to read books.
• Dom Casmurro – Machado de Assis.  My exposure to Brazilian literature has been criminally limited so after reading about the author, widely considered the greatest writer of Brazilian literature, I knew I had to read this novel.  It’s the story of a man who allows his unfounded jealousy (he admits his evidence is flimsy) of his wife, whom he believes has betrayed him, to completely disrupt his life.  I found the English translation (as my Portuguese is not up to snuff to read the original text) very rich, engaging, and darkly humorous, which only confirms the author’s brilliance.  The first-person voice is so strong that I was continually amazed by how modern the book felt despite being published over one hundred years ago.
• A Lesson Before Dying – Ernest J. Gaines.  This book, another light read like my previous entries, deals with deep racial issues still at play in America.  Set in 1949 Louisiana, the novel is about a young black man, Jefferson, charged and convicted of murder despite being an innocent bystander.  During the trial, his white lawyer argues unsuccessfully against the electric chair, comparing Jefferson to a hog.  Jefferson is convicted, sentenced to death, and sent away to jail to await his execution.  His godmother then convinces her friend’s nephew, a young schoolteacher named Grant, the novel’s narrator, to visit Jefferson in jail and teach him to be a man before he dies.  So yeah, nothing important going on with this book.  Gaines’ novel shows, as Grant struggles to reach Jefferson, how difficult it was and still is to struggle against a society/system that continually dehumanizes an entire race by reinforcing the falsehood that they are sub-human, nothing more than hogs.  It is a powerful novel with themes still very relevant in contemporary America.
• A Song of Ice and Fire (series) – George R. R. Martin.  I began watching the HBO series Game of Thrones this spring and burned through the three completed seasons in no time at all.  I was hooked and had to know what was going to happen to the characters so I started reading the novels, and I didn’t stop until I had finished all five of the unfinished series.  Now I live in constant fear that George R. R. Martin is going to die before completing the series and wish he’d stop wasting time with unessential projects.  If you’re unfamiliar with the series, it’s a fantasy series, albeit a very mature one, revolving around a power struggle involving multiple families.  There are some magic and mystical elements involved (dragons!), but the heart of the story is the political intrigue, deception, and betrayal at play in the power struggle.  It’s a very fascinating and well-written series, though Martin can fill page after page with unnecessary lists of foods being served at meals and how hundreds of different banners look going into battle – the man loves his food and banners – but once you get sucked into the story, you’re there for the long haul.  At the very least, Martin did share how the story ends with those responsible for the TV series, so there will be some sort of closure no matter what.
• Ender’s Game (series) – Orson Scott Card.  I read Ender’s Game to prepare for the upcoming release of the film adaptation.  I’d always heard good things about it from friends, so I wasn’t surprised to find that I enjoyed the books.  They were fairly quick reads but also deeper than a lot of other sci-fi stories, so I kept going once I finished Ender’s Game.  Of the entire series, Speaker for the Dead was my favorite, but I enjoyed each of the novels, usually for different reasons.  It’s just a well-written and engaging series by a talented author.

There we have it.  2013 was a pretty good year for reading.  So what’s the plan for 2014?  More of the same, no doubt.

The Tunes of Our Lives

I did enjoy me some music this past year.  I didn’t set any goals to listen to x number of albums or anything because I didn’t have to.  In 2013 I continued to scour the Internet for music, both new and old, in an effort to stave off becoming that old guy who only listens to stuff released ten years ago and is completely out of touch with contemporary music.  Not that I want to be the old guy obviously trying too hard to be hip.  I just want to keep discovering and listening to awesome music.  Here are the results of my efforts.  Note:  I tried to provide a link to each song mentioned below, usually the official music video, if available; otherwise, I tried to link to the album recording and, if that wasn't possible, a live recording.

Top Ten Albums of 2013:

• Vampire Weekend – Modern Vampires of the City.  This is hands down my favorite and most listened to album of the year.  It’s rare that an album feels both fresh and timeless upon first listen, but that was my experience with this album.  Prior to its release, I enjoyed a handful of Vampire Weekend songs, but I always felt the band was more style than substance, some hipsters cribbing world music sounds and rhythms to be cool.  This album changed all that, and all it took was one listen to “Step,” my favorite song on the album and my favorite song of the year.  Then I heard the rest of the album when it streamed early on iTunes, and I was hooked.  Their two earlier albums suddenly clicked because of the perfection of Modern Vampires, and now I’m a convert.  Everything is just so good: the songwriting, the lyrics, the production, everything.  Must listens include:  “Unbelievers,” the aforementioned “Step,” “Diane Young,” “Hannah Hunt,” and “Hey Ya.”
• Arctic Monkeys – AM.  I slept on this album for an unfortunate amount of time. Here is another band that I had enjoyed prior to 2013 but never really gotten into all that much.  I saw the British group play at Coachella in 2007, and the singer was remarkably arrogant.  Maybe it was because we were a bunch of dumb Yankees or something like that, but I remember being both amused and put off by his condescension and smug attitude.  Maybe Alex Turner and co. were just a bunch of cocky twenty-one year olds then, and they’ve always known how to write a good song, but AM is, for me, their best album, the work of a band growing and refining their craft.  Listen to:  “Do I Wanna Know?”, “R U Mine,” “Knee Socks,” “One for the Road,” and “Arabella.”
• The National – Trouble Will Find Me.  The National is not a band that deals in surprises.  Why reinvent the wheel when it’s working so well and sounds so great? While this album fails to hit the peaks of High Violet, it is still extremely enjoyable and consistent.  As an additional commendation, The National put on the best show I saw in 2013.  Recommended listening:  “Sea of Love,” “Pink Rabbits,” “Graceless,” and “Humiliation.”
• Chelsea Wolfe – Pain is Beauty.  I read about this album one late summer day and fired up the album on Spotify.  I was immediately entranced.  The music, made of mostly electronic elements, has this dark, hazy atmosphere and a frequent sense of dread; yet amongst that dread there is often beauty, usually in Wolfe’s voice and lyrics, but not a sunny kind of beauty, as the album title suggests.  (This is probably why the song “Feral Love” is so perfect in the trailer for season four of Game of Thrones).  If you can listen to the sprawling eight and a half minutes of “The Waves Have Come” and remain unmoved, then Wolfe and this album are not for you.  If you find yourself burning the next part of an hour replaying the epic and crushing song over and over, you’re welcome.  Take a chance on these songs:  “The Waves Have Come,” “Feral Love,” “They’ll Clap When You’re Gone,” and “We Hit a Wall.”
• Janelle Monae – The Electric Lady.  In a day and age when so many artists are an instrument only performing someone else’s songs, it’s refreshing for someone with pipes like Monae to also write fantastic songs.  This album is a continuation of Monae’s earlier work (also definitely worth checking out), and she once again jumps from song to song and genre to genre with remarkable skill to create an album remarkably varied yet incredibly consistent.  There are some serious jams on this album.  See:  “Primetime,” “Can’t Live Without Your Love,” “Electric Lady,” and “Dance Apocalyptic.”
• Marnie Stern – The Chronicles of Marnia.  Ridiculous title aside, this album rocks.  Marnie Stern is an acclaimed guitarist, noted for her technical skills and tapping style, and this album delivers on that reputation.  Turn up the volume for this one.  Rock out to:  “You Don’t Turn Down,” “Nothing is Easy,” and “Hell Yes.”
• Queens of the Stone Age - …Like Clockwork.  Keep the volume turned up for this one.  Josh Homme and co. deliver another album of their cocksure and swaggering rock and roll.  This was their first album to really grab me since 2002’s Songs for the Deaf.  I will always remember listening to this album like five times the day before my wedding as I drove up and down the Wasatch Front, to and fro, stop and go, helping put the finishing touches on everything.  Raise a lighter to:  “If I Had a Tail,” “My God is the Sun,” “I Sat by the Ocean,” and “I Appear Missing.”
• Lorde – Pure Heroine.  Before “Royals” was played a million times on the radio, before the Grammy’s, Lorde was an Internet darling, and that was where I first found her.  Now that my indie-cred is secure once again, I’ll just say that I am fully onboard with Lorde’s minimal pop stylings and look forward to her future creative output.  I enjoy:  “Royals” (duh), “Tennis Courts,” “Team,” and “A World Alone.”
• Charli XCX – True Romance.  Here is another extremely talented young popstar, criminally unknown despite writing “I Love It,” Icona Pop’s summer anthem.  Yes, that “I Love It.”  Melissa and I have seen Charli perform twice, and she killed it both times.  Just twenty-one, she is poised for a massive breakthrough at some point.  I mean, she unceremonious released a non-album track as incredible as “SuperLove” like it was nothing.  Her best include:  “Nuclear Seasons,” “You’re the One,” “You – Ha Ha Ha,” and “Set Me Free – Feel My Pain.”
• Lucius – Wildewoman.  This album was the last addition to my list, and I technically didn’t even hear it until 2013 had come and gone.  That’s okay because I don’t care.  It’s from 2013, and it’s a fantastic album, full of great hooks and outstanding songwriting.  Lucius is basically what a 60’s girl group would sound like if some time traveler (Doctor Who, Bill and Ted, Marty McFly and Doc Brown, etc.) went back in time, scooped them up, and dropped them off in our day.  Give these a spin:  “Wildewoman,” “Hey Doreen,” “Tempest”, “Turn It Around,” and “How Loud Your Heart Gets.” 

My Baker’s Dozen Top Songs of 2013 (w/o repeating an artist):

• “Step” – Vampire Weekend.  Favorite song of the year, hands down.
• “Do I Wanna Know” – Arctic Monkeys.  The retroactive rock anthem for my expired bachelorhood.
• “SuperLove” – Charli XCX.  Just try to not get this stuck in your head.
• “The Waves Have Come” – Chelsea Wolfe.  The most epic song of the year.
• “Tether” – CHVRCHES.  Good song turns great when the synths go to 11.
• “Supreme” – Postiljonen.  Like M83 with a female singer – be excited.
• “If I Had a Tail” – Queens of the Stone Age.  Serious swagger with this bad boy.
• “White Noise” – Disclosure w. AlunaGeorge.  Best dance song of the year.
• “Wings” – Haerts.  Melissa says this should play at the end of an 80’s movie; I think it sounds more modern, especially when they pump up the bass in the final third.
• “Au Revoir” – The Front Bottoms.  Just good old rock and roll.
• “Hey, Doreen” – Lucius.  Two rockin’ female vocalists=yes, please.
• “The Wire” – Haim.  Up-and-coming, very talented rock band made up of three sisters and some random dude drummer.
• “Giddy Up” – Fe.  I don’t know anything about this singer/group except that I was immediately hooked on this song.  Love that dirty bass.

Note:  Here’s a link to a Spotify playlist with fifty of my favorite songs from 2013, featuring all of the above except “Giddy Up,” which isn’t on Spotify at the moment.

On the Silver Screen

Alright, this thing is getting a bit long.  I’ll try to wrap up this final section quickly. 

I thought 2013 was a pretty good year for movies.  Looking at the Best Picture nominees for this year and last, I’d definitely say that 2013 sported a stronger field.  Anyway, Melissa and I partook of many films, be it at the theater with a large popcorn (a must) or at home on Netflix or DVD.  Here are the top films I saw that were released in 2013.

Top Five Films of 2013 (plus some honorable mentions):

• 12 Years a Slave – A worthy Best Picture winner, this is a very powerful and visceral film.  While watching it may have not been my favorite experience of the year, as it can be quite upsetting due to the nature of its story, I felt that it was an important experience.  Everything about the film is impeccable, especially the acting and directing.  Some film's just feel important and vital as you watch them, and this is definitely one of them.
• Frances Ha – A Noah Baumbach film that feels less like a Noah Baumbach film and more like an homage to the French New Wave.  Credit for that probably goes to Greta Gerwig, co-writer and star, who is enchanting as Frances, a 27 year old struggling dancer in New York, and carries the film nimbly upon her shoulders.  It's a very funny and moving character study, and it's already streaming on Netflix so go watch it.
• Fruitvale Station – This is a very unassuming film about the final day in the life of Oscar Grant, a young black man shot and killed by transit police in Oakland.  Grant is played by Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Friday Night Lights), who does a fantastic job, worth an Oscar nomination in my book, in portraying a flawed human being shot in a senseless and controversial act.  I felt the film did a great job portraying the tragedy without getting mired in racial politics; what it does, rather, is show that any life cut short, be it white, black, or any other race, is a needless and devastating loss.
• Her – First things first, Joaquim Phoenix absolutely deserved an Oscar nomination for his work in this film.  He is onscreen for 99% of the movie, with that mustache and those high-waisted pants, and is captivating every second of the way.  Masterfully written and directed by Spike Jonze, this film is about more than a guy falling in love with a sentient operating system; it's all about Love:  what it means to love another being, what love requires of us, how it feels to lose that love, etc.  Scarlett Johansson is fantastic as Samantha and should have been nominated for Best Supporting Actress despite never appearing onscreen during the film.  I'm looking forward to rewatching this film when it comes out on DVD. 
• The Way Way Back – My final selection is a charming little coming-of-age tale about Duncan, a fourteen year old spending the summer with his mom (Toni Collette) and her boyfriend (Steve Carell playing a very convincing jerk)  at his beach house.  Liam James (young Shawn Spencer from Psych) is great as Duncan, but the real star of the show is Sam Rockwell, playing the young-at-heart water park manager who befriends Duncan.  Rockwell is just flat-out hilarious throughout the film while still bringing the pathos at all the right times.  Just a solid little film worth seeing.

Honorable Mentions:

• American Hustle – A very well-acted, well-written, and funny film about con artists. 
• Before Midnight – The often very harrowing third act to Richard Linklater's series about Jesse and Celine, eighteen years after their pivotal night in Austria.
• Dallas Buyer’s Club – Matthew McConaughey kills it as an AIDS patient trying to circumvent the hospital system to get the medication he and other patients need.
• Gravity – Seeing this in the theater was one of the best filmgoing experiences of my life.  Just a massive spectacle to behold from Alfonso Cuaron and co.
• Inside Llewyn Davis – The Coen Bros. fail to disappoint yet again with this tale of an unlucky folk singer struggling to get by in the NYC folk scene in 1961.

So there we have it, my official media consumption report for 2013.  Stay tuned for the final piece of my year in review:  Part 3 - A Certain Kind of Writing Report.

·       

2013 - Year in Review - Part 1

2013 was a good year.  Unlike many people on my Facebook feed, I was not overjoyed to see it go.  When all is said and done, and if ever some misguided soul seeks to write my biography, there will be many reasons to remember 2013.  I intend to document a few of those reasons right now in the first of a three-part year in review; maybe I’ll save that unlucky biographer some work.

Part 1 – I am a Person and I Had a Personal Life:

I rang in 2013 with Melissa, my then girlfriend of seven months, at a low-key party with friends.  We’d had the big marriage talk two weeks prior in mid-December, and, with an influx of capital from the sale of my company stock when Ancestry was acquired by a private investment firm, I plopped down some Benjamins on a shiny rock and prepared to pop the question to Melissa.  No, I did not go to Jared’s.  On January 22^nd, I invited Melissa over to my place of residence under the false pretense of eating dinner before going to catch a screening at the Sundance Film Festival.  She came over, and I surprised her with a recreation of our first date (first official date, not pseudo-date for those who reckon the beginning of our relationship differently, whoever that might be…) and a low-key but heartfelt and intimate proposal of marriage.  Blinded by the off-the-charts sparkliness (I just coined that term) of the ring, she accepted.  

(You can read her tale of the proposal here).

Thus commenced our engagement.  After sharing the news with family and friends (most notably, for me, with my overjoyed and speechless mother – there was hope for me yet, Mom), we set about planning the wedding.  We chose the second weekend in June for the date – an almost unheard of five and a half month engagement for a couple Mormons in Utah valley– and settled on the Bountiful Temple for the location.  Then we decided on buying a very comprehensive reception package through a place in Spanish Fork, allowing us to easily make almost all of the remaining plans in one or two brief meetings.  “But Chris,” you’re probably asking yourself, “aren’t those two locations a ways away from each other?  Isn’t that asking a lot of people to make the drive?”  If I were being honest, I might say yes, but it’s essential to know that, in making all of our plans, the question Melissa and I continually asked ourselves was, “How can we inconvenience as many of our family members and friends as possible?”  Or so some people thought.  Mostly it came down to this:  with no immediate family in the area to bear the burden of helping plan, set up and take down the reception, and all the various other wedding-related tasks, the only expectations we sought to gratify were our own.  Sure, it sounds selfish, but everything I’ve ever seen written about weddings says that your wedding is the only time it’s acceptable to be selfish.

Anyway, our “long” engagement flew by, and the big day was upon us.

08 June 2013, 07:00 a.m.   I got up after a short five hours or so of sleep, having spent the previous evening finishing up a few last minute wedding-related tasks (slideshow for reception, etc) and conversing with Mr. Whitney Jones, radio producer extraordinaire who had just jetted in from New York, New York.   I readied my physical appearance, donned my wedding uniform, and hit the road at 8.  I had to deliver a few forgotten items to Melissa (I did not prematurely see her at that point) at her aunt's place in South Jordan, and then it was off to the Bountiful Temple.

As one would expect, my bride took longer to get ready and arrived at the temple after me, but I didn’t mind.  After standing around for twenty-five minutes or so, I was told to stand in a certain place and face a certain direction so that Melissa could approach me without being seen.  Then, after receiving a tap on my shoulder, I turned around to face my would-be wife.  She looked, if I may say and I think I may since I was there and all, absolutely and gloriously beautiful.  Words are insufficient to capture the scene, the beauty I saw before me, the love I felt within me, and the excitement of joining my life with her’s.

There are a few occasions in life in which a person, upon looking back with any iota of honesty, can only conclude that he got luckier than he ever deserved.  For me, Melissa is the grace I could never earn of my own accord. 

It is amazing how radically life can change in such a short amount of time.  Melissa started working at Ancestry in October 2011, we started dating at the end of May 2012, and just a short year later, around 11:30 a.m. on the aforementioned 08^th of June in the year two-thousand and thirteen, we were married for time and all eternity.

Yeah, it was a pretty great day.  A pretty great day indeed. 

We were blessed to be surrounded by family – literally surrounded by the near infinite number of Thompsons or Thompson-related kin – and friends celebrating with us.  My family put together an enjoyable luncheon following the sealing, and we got to spend some time relaxing, eating, and catching up with everyone.  Then there was the reception in Spanish Fork that evening where we got to spend more time being congratulated and receiving well-wishes and enjoying the whole spectacle aspect of the wedding.  It was great to have so many of our friends and family there.  A very big thank you to everyone who joined us on our big day, especially those of you who helped us out in any way.  It meant a lot to us.  The reception was an overall success.  There was a first dance to Sam Cooke’s “Nothing Can Change This Love”, delicious crepes were served, and our car was vandalized with balloons on the inside and washable markers on the outside – we have not forgotten and will have our revenge in time, oh yes. On a tragic note, Melissa never got around to eating her crepes; I had no such problem (the benefit of being the less social spouse, I suppose).

(You can read Melissa's account and see some pictures of the wedding here).

The reception ended, everyone got to go home, and the next day Melissa and I were boarding a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina.  I don’t have anything against Charlotte or North Carolina, but we were grateful to not spend any more time there than we had to.  Why?  Because we were going to Jamaica.

There are plenty of preconceptions about Jamaica floating around our culture (everyone saying ‘ya, mon,’ dreads, Rastafarian hats, and so on), and, for the most part, they’re true.  But there is something I want everyone reading my words to comprehend with perfect clarity:  Jamaica is paradise.  Behold:

That was the view from our hotel room in Ocho Rios, Jamaica.  How did we end up there?  A little back-story:

During our engagement I became addicted to browsing the Groupon Getaways – if you have any inclination to travel the world, DO NOT LOOK AT GROUPON GETAWAYS FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS GOOD AND DECENT!  Sorry to yell, but I had to give my warning the appropriate gravitas.  It occurred to me, while browsing the Getaways, that Melissa and I, in our position as well-employed people, could afford to make our honeymoon destination as memorable as we wanted.  I began to take note of the deals for all-inclusive resorts, predominantly located in the Caribbean, and the idea that this was what we should choose took root in my brain.  Melissa agreed with the idea – maybe it was more like she was similarly seduced by the idea – and we ended up settling on an awesome deal to the Jewel Dunn’s River Beach Resort, an all-inclusive adults-only resort in Ocho Rios.  We booked the dates at the hotel and purchased airfare to and from Jamaica, and then it was only a matter of time.

This was my first time in the Caribbean, really my first “luxury” vacation ever, and I must say that staying at an all-inclusive resort is amazing.  From the moment we arrived at the airport in Montego Bay, we were taken care of very well.  The food in the resort, from the outdoor grill and fire-oven pizza to the more formal Caribbean or Italian restaurants on site, was fantastic.  The jerk chicken wraps, in particular, were life changing.  We ate at least two of them every day, one for lunch and one later at night.  We loved going into a restaurant, looking at the menus, and realizing there were no prices next to any item (other than on the wine lists, but that didn’t matter to us).  It’s weird how much more enjoyable a 5-course meal can be when you’re not worried about how much each course is costing you.  I could go on and on about the joys of an all-inclusive resort, but I’ll reluctantly move on.

It was warm and humid in Jamaica but never sweltering or unbearably uncomfortable.  A breeze blew most of the time, and, for the duration of our visit, there was hardly any rain.  (See?  Maybe I wasn’t exaggerating when I called it paradise).  The blue-green water of the Caribbean was so warm and inviting that it made the Pacific feel like an ice bath.  At night, when the noise and commotion had died down and the swimming pool’s artificial waterfall was turned off, Melissa and I would just listen to the breeze blowing through the trees and the waves breaking on the beach and wish that, somehow, it could last forever.

It couldn’t, unfortunately, but we did our best to make our experience there as memorable as possible.  We went on a couple excursions to get a feel for Jamaica away from the resort, but it’s not like we ended up in backwoods, non-touristy areas.  Tourism is the national industry in Jamaica, and it is a well-oiled machine.  Our first excursion was a trip to the Dunn’s River Falls, a 900-foot cascading waterfall, but before we reached the Falls, we were taken to Reggae Wal-Mart, a collection of vendors and shops with very motivated locals trying to sell souvenirs to tourists.  Melissa enjoyed negotiating with the vendors, and we ended up buying some pretty cool handmade goods now on display in our apartment.  From there we visited a botanical garden and walked amongst the lush vegetation.  Then it was on to the Falls.  We strapped on our Jamaican water shoes, found our local guide, and began our trek up the Falls.  As I said earlier, the Falls are a 900-foot cascading waterfall in the jungle, and with the aid of your guide, you hike up from the bottom of the Falls to the top.  The rocks are frequently scrubbed to make the climb safe for everyone.  The going was quite easy and enjoyable, with frequent stops in areas with deeper pools, and we had a great time.

For excursion number two, we went to the Mystic Mountain where we rode a ski lift through the jungle to the top of the “mountain” and enjoyed some spectacular views of the bright blue ocean and the Jamaican coastline.  At the top of the mountain we first took a ride on the bobsled track; it was like a small metal roller coaster without any real climbing or loops or scary maneuvers, but it was still a fast and enjoyable ride.  We then geared up and rode five separate zip-lines through the jungle canopy.  It was a ton of fun; we both finished the final and furthest ride hanging upside down.  Following a second ride on the lift, we spent some time at the top of the mountain going down a meager water slide and chilling in an infinity pool with a fantastic view.  Good times.

Mostly, we just enjoyed every second together in paradise, whether it was being lazy and catching some rays on the beach or stuffing our faces with food or going on some adventure in the jungle.  Now, nearly eight months later, we still think back to our time in Jamaica and sigh, knowing that if it were possible, we’d go back in a heartbeat.

(You can read Melissa's account of Jamaica, along with more pictures, here).

Married life post-honeymoon has also been great.  We love our two room apartment and the fact that we had to acquire but minimal furnishings (mostly just a bed and TV – thanks Costco!) to start our life together.  We began renting our apartment in May so we were able to move our stuff at a leisurely pace, saving only the big stuff for a Saturday morning move that only took a couple hours thanks to some very helpful friends.  Melissa moved in to the apartment two weeks before the wedding, and I finished moving the rest of my stuff into the apartment the morning before the wedding – don’t worry, Melissa was then staying at her aunt’s house in South Jordan so everything was good and proper.  We really lucked out with this place.  It’s a good size, it’s in a quiet neighborhood, and it’s only a six to seven minute drive to work.

The rest of our year has been very good, if obviously less memorable than the wedding/honeymoon.  We’ve taken trips to Las Vegas (the Beatles cirque du soleil was amazing!), Vernal (wedding open house and Christmas), Yellowstone (camping over the 4^th of July), Moab (rafting the Colorado River), Phoenix (to see my sister’s baby boy), Los Angeles (Melissa’s brother’s wedding) and Denver (early Christmas with Melissa’s family).  We’ve enjoyed a wide variety of activities together:  attending a Broncos game, the Utah State Fair, hiking, river rafting, floating the Provo River, jet-skiing, camping, a ropes course, bowling, Laser Tag, a corn maze, golfing, and so on.  Really, it’s been a blessing to spend so much time together and make so many memories.

As for the professional side of things, Melissa and I both continued to work at Ancestry.com.  Melissa was hired as an analyst for the AncestryDNA team so she left the team responsible for our meeting, but it was a great move for her.  She enjoys the work, she gets to use her educational background in stats, and she moved up a couple levels of sugar momma-ness.  I stayed on the same team after she abandoned us, and things have gone well there.  I started pushing myself to do more and take on more responsibilities and was rewarded with even more responsibilities and work to do, i.e. a promotion.  I haven’t worked on anything as significant as I did in 2012 (the 1940 US Census), but I enjoy the work and feel satisfied with my contributions.  Ancestry has been and continues to be a great place to work.  It was there, after all, that Melissa and I crossed paths.

Future years are going to have to work hard to be more memorable than 2013, not that there won’t be better years coming our way.  2014 already has a few highlight reel moments on the docket: a second consecutive Valentine’s Day trip to Vegas; another Groupon Getaway, this time to Peru where we will visit Lima, Cuzco, and the one-and-only Machu Picchu.  And that’s just through the end of April.  I’m sure there will be adventures aplenty to report in another 340-ish days.

Next up in my review of 2013:  Part 2 – Official Media Consumption Report