Re: A camera / Sully Shoots

In case you missed it, I got my hands on a wonderful mirrorless camera a couple of months ago — the Fujifilm X100V. It’s ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. Having not carried a phone for a couple of months (and not going back) but still wanting to capture lovely moments of life, I knew I’d have to get a discrete camera. One that I’d enjoy using as much as I’d enjoy the pictures from. Also one that wouldn’t drag me too deep down the photography rabbit hole (I’ve already got guitars, audio, cycling, etc..). And bonus points if it’s small and easy to travel with! The X100V checks all of my boxes. I’ve come to love its fast, fixed prime lens and have really enjoyed finding compositions within the focal constraint. It’s drawn a lot of my love for photography back from my childhood horseshow photography days — with about 24 more megapixels to work with 😆.

I’ve been posting many of those pictures on Sully Shoots — a self-devised way of sharing my photos without being a social network or being tugged on by any of the addiction-causing feedback loops like the Like Button™️. I’ve gone back and forth a bit on the implementation of the idea, but the principle stands! It’s a place where I can post my favorite pictures — sort of what I felt Instagram used to be.

Re: Social Media

😪 Social media is tough. While it was pretty easy to get rid of my Twitter and Instagram accounts, Facebook has proven to be more of a challenge. (1) There are a couple of Facebook groups that I genuinely want / need to be aware of, (2) Facebook marketplace is legitimately much better and stronger than Craigslist, and (3) as much as I’d prefer all of my friends to follow this site directly, I’m sure most of them don’t know it exists (yet).

I think limited use can alleviate #1 (just check Facebook once a week for a couple of minutes on that group only) but #2 is a bit trickier. Selling something on Marketplace does warrant some sense of reachability within a timely manner. A couple of hours in most cases, I’d say. #3 is moreso around trying to leverage the equity/reach of the network I’ve built up over years on the platform to (hopefully) inform folks in my network that I’m posting things on this site now. Whether or not people want to follow me here is totally up to them — I’d just like some means of utilizing my already-existing reach on Facebook to say “Hey 1500+ friends! I’m posting over here now!” Though of course Facebook doesn’t like that idea 😛.

Where I was previously not logging into Facebook but maybe once a month, I’m now checking it a few times a day. I don’t think that’s a change I’m happy about, but I’ve got a couple of items on Marketplace and I’m trying to inform my friends of my content here (posting links back to this site, basically). So… very much a work in progress at this point. I’d like to get to a point where I can fully deactivate my Facebook account, but I don’t have a path to get there quite yet.

Re: Traveling

While most of our close friends are aware at this point, I suppose this can serve as public announcement 😛. Kalika and I will be transitioning to full-time traveling beginning in October of this year! We’ll be traveling around the continental US for the first 6-8 months and will hopefully be taking a long tour of Europe starting in mid/late 2022 😁. I’ll continue to work full time and Kalika will be free to pursue the hobbies and passions she wants to while we’re meeting new folks and seeing new places. Don’t worry, we fully plan to come back and settle down in Columbus. We’re excited! We’ve got a lot of packing to do. The trip is being planned and set about 6-7 months ahead-of-time and we’re staying a month at each stop so right now we’ve got Denver CO, Orlando FL, and Charlotte NC lined up. TBD for next stops after that!

Re: Music

I have so, so enjoyed playing music at Faith Life. Just being a part of such a fantastic group of believers and getting to do worship with all of them is a blast. It’s also just been great to play some guitar out of the house again — to be a part of a proper, large production. To do the full-fledged in-ears, stems, etc. stuff. It’s fun to be on this side of the mixing desk! Gear wise I’ve swapped out my Kemper Rack + Remote / Rack setup for a Kemper Stage and while I’ve still got my PRS Modern Eagle III and my original MIM Strat (with true-blue JM Big Dipper pickups), I’ll be picking up a PRS Silver Sky in a few days! Super excited to play with it! Still figuring out what music stuff I’ll be taking with us as we travel. Good chance it’s just the acoustic 😅, but I’m looking forward to meeting other musicians all over the world.

Re: Cycling

RAGBRAI is just around the corner! Chris and I will be riding four days this year — Sunday through Wednesday. I absolutely have not ridden enough this year to be ‘properly prepared’ but I’m hoping my youth will carry me 😅. I actually just haven’t ridden a ton this year (lots of other life happening!) but I’m looking forward to seeing Iowa again. In order of days, the mileage will be 84, 67, 55, 67. I’m pretty sure I can make it 😁.

Re: Marriage

Marriage is fun 😊. Kalika and I are doing really well and while we’ve had our occasional moments, we’re full of joy and so excited about life. We’re tremendously blessed and grateful to be where we are. I can tell we’re heading into a neat season of life and we’re so glad to be doing it together. I feel like people think of marriage as being a one-way ticket to the ‘settling down’ train these days but we both knew from the beginning that we wanted to take a few years to see the world and enjoy being partners in this life before having kids! I love our relationship, I have since I met her, and we have great faith in the joy of our coming travels.

This summer we’ve really enjoyed getting spontaneous time with friends. There have been lots of weekends or evenings that we don’t have anything planned but decide to just get together with people. Maybe it’s a rebellion against 2020’s shut-in-syndrome, maybe it’s the good weather, I’m not totally sure… but it’s been a lot of fun. We’re making the most of our time and people here!