There’s but 10 days left in 2015, and my calendar looks fairly packed for many of them with family visits, cultural events, work and other commitments, so the shortest day of the year seems an apt time to review the year gone by, as I experienced and documented it online.

Counting this one, I have published 77 blog posts in 2015. In October, I marked the one-year anniversary of my decision to shut down Indie Moines and re-establish this domain as my primary home for new and archival writing after eight years of hosting my material elsewhere. I also added the 1,000th post to the site in October, with 20 years worth of material dating back to October 1995 now resident here. Traffic has been healthy and growing throughout the year, so I’m grateful to those who have followed along with my various adventures in writing.

I actually opened 2015 deep in the middle of one such adventure, managing the satirical Des Mean website (now dormant, former motto: “Is This Hell? No, It’s Iowa.”) under a pseudonym. It was a fun opportunity for the sorts of character-based, site-specific writing that I used to do at Upstate Wasted and Upstate Ether, among other places, all those years ago. I moved most of the Des Mean pieces to this site last summer. Of the pieces written in 2015 (Des Mean launched in 2014), I am particularly pleased with Rashomoines, Why Iowa First?, the “Iowa Art Crisis” series (Part One — Part Two — Part Three), Danny Allamakee’s Iowanferno and Universal Iowa Recipe. Fun to write, hopefully fun to read.

Despite busy work and personal schedules, I did find time to travel in 2015. In late January/early February, Marcia and I spent two week in Fort Lauderdale, giving me the chance to get my nerd on during a road trip up to Kennedy Space Center. Then in May, we went to Spain and Portugal on a wonderful small group tour, where we framed a fun new travel game. I’ve also visited Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Iowa for work purposes, and made two volunteer trips to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, where I was elected Chairman of the Board of the American Institute for Economic Research, and then to Troy, New York, where I was keynote speaker at the Chapel + Cultural Center’s Committee of 100 Dinner. I also spent a few days with my mother, visiting the homeland in Low Country South Carolina. There were cemeteries.

Our biggest step, from a travel and lifestyle standpoint, was a permanent one, leaving Des Moines this past summer to live in downtown Chicago. The move has been a wonderful one, filled with all sorts of fascinating diversions. There are, of course, still some mysteries. After arriving and settling in Chicago, I began a new job in August. There are some things I miss (Katelin first and foremost, since she still lives there), and some things I don’t miss about Des Moines and its environs. After four years in state, though, I left with one deeply held conviction that trumps all others: the Iowa Caucus is bad for America.

I read a lot this year, and documented some of my 2015 favorite books. I also added a couple of new installments to my Five By Five Books Series, writing about Evangeline Walton’s The Mabinogion Tetralogy and Peter Currell Brown’s Smallcreep’s Day. I launched a new creative writing series called 90 Minute Stories, and plan write one piece per month this way in 2016. On a music front, I updated by Top 200 Albums of All Time listing and named David Gilmour’s Rattle That Lock Album of the Year for 2015, after running one of my music tournaments to reach that decision. A tune from the soundtrack of the wonderful movie, Frank, won the Family’s “Most Played Song” Title of 2015.

Other miscellaneous ups and downs include finally re-experiencing the pinnacle of American baseball fandom when my Beloved Royals won the World Series in October, watching a former writing employer go belly up in a most public fashion, and losing both a dear, sweet member of our family, and a long-time creative friend and foil.

Those sad notes notwithstanding, it was a very good year for me and the family, and I appreciate the opportunity to journal it here, for both posterity’s and my own sake. Thanks to all who read here for being a part of it, each in your own ways.