Personal Joel Personal Joel

Recap Goals of 2016 - How Did I Do?

Each year I put together a list of a handful of goals for the upcoming year. I try to make the goals realistic but also things to better me as a person whether physically or mentally. For goals I've found that looking back on how I did, not only at setting goals, but also achieving them can be just as important as actually accomplishing them. So how did I do?

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Entertainment/Tech Joel Entertainment/Tech Joel

Ranking The TV We Watched in 2016

Last year Jenn and I started a new annual tradition to write up and rank our favorite shows of the year. It began with 18 shows last year and ballooned out a little this year to 24 for me and 21 for Jenn. This list does not include the multitude of political shows we watch (Last Week Tonight, The Daily Show, Real Time with Bill Maher, and Full Frontal) or reality shows (The Amazing Race and Top Chef). This list only includes scripted shows where we completed at least a season in the year.

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Personal Joel Personal Joel

Christmas Decorations - 2016 Edition

There's something magical each year when Jenn and I bring the multitude of Christmas boxes out of storage and into our home. This year we decorated (like we have for many years) the Saturday following Thanksgiving. After renting out the freight elevator and taking up our boxes of Christmas trees and decorations Jenn went to work on making our home beautiful. I helped where possible (building the trees and lugging boxes up and down from storage) but for the most part I stepped back and let Jenn work her magic. 

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Entertainment/Tech Joel Entertainment/Tech Joel

12 Nights of Christmas Movies - 2016 Edition

Welcome to our second annual 12 Christmas Movies post. We tried for many years to watch a dozen Christmas movies during the holidays but failed a couple of times before suceeding last year. In fact I was reading my post last year and found one glaring error, I called it 12 Days of Christmas Movies when in actuality it was really the 12 Nights of Christmas Movies. That has been corrected in 2016 and with it an updated batch of Christmas movies. Many have remained the same from last year with a few exceptions. 

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Entertainment/Tech Joel Entertainment/Tech Joel

Ranking Political Satirists on this Election

I originally wrote this post before the election. Now with the results known this post has quite a bit less relevance then I thought it would. I still believe that although we as a country lost a big battle this November, I do want to highlight some of the bright spots of this political season. These were the voices of reason that Jenn and I clung to up until days before the election. 

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Personal Joel Personal Joel

A Final Look Back on the 2016 Election

On the night of the election I wrote a post titled Election 2016: Completely and Utterly Devastated. It was written only minutes after the official word came down that Donald Trump would be the next President. In the last week I've felt an immense sense of loss that I can only compare to that of losing someone close to me. It appears there are many in this country who feel the same way. As I write this there are protests happening across the country in protest of the President elect.

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