The 2010s: A Mixed Bag of High and Lows

If I had to pick a moment of the last decade that defined it for me, it would be at 3:51 pm CDT on Friday, March 29th, 2019. I'll explain why later.

History is not a linear progression. History is complicated, an interwoven mass of events that may lead in some direction or not. I would like to think that the events of this decade helped me to prepare for the '20s, but only time will tell. Maybe when I am writing a follow up post at the twilight of the 2020s, I will see how the 2010s played their part. But for now, here is what I experienced:

2010
It seems surreal, but I was still in high school at the advent of this decade. It was my last semester at Bishop Carroll and it was event filled. I was "dating" someone when this decade began. It didn't last. The highlight of the waning months of high school for me was capturing a state championship in Scholar's Bowl, in exceedingly dramatic fashion I might add.

My sister Felicia, myself, my mother, and my brother Dominic at my high school graduation

Then came graduation. I got a summer job afterwards and began what would be a long college career, starting at a local community college learning Spanish. Still though, even though I did not know where my future lay, I was brimming with optimism as any 18 year old might. Summer passed into Fall, where I learned that I loved pumpkin spiced coffee, often sipping one as I drove to Andover to take classes at Butler. I got a job at Walmart, starting on a path that would have profound effect on this entire decade. I was still in contact with my high school friends and it was with them that I began...

2011
I continued my directionless path as this year opened. I discovered that I loved classical music, a trait I found in a music appreciation class I used to satisfy a Humanities elective. The coldest temperature I have ever directly experienced, -17 Fahrenheit, occurred in February of that year. Around Easter, I felt a change. I had a particularly moving experience during the Holy Week masses of that year and decided I wanted to try my hand at something that I had intermittently pondered during my teenage years. I tried to join the seminary.

May brought my first real hard time. I was interviewing for the seminary and actually got a job that summer with the cemeteries of the Wichita diocese. Everything seemed to be going great until Thursday, May 19th. That's when it all broke down. That's when a customer of mine at Walmart told me that one of my classmates from high school, Kathleen Duling, had died. Two days later, I found out I would not be going to seminary after all. Two weeks after that, Philip Green, someone who I played football with in high school, had drowned.

2011 was a bitter, long summer. It proved to be the hottest in Wichita history, setting a record with 53 days of 100 degree heat. Three time it got to 111 degrees, which is my personal heat record. Ironically, the first time the thermometer struck 111 happened to be exactly five months to the day that my cold record of -17 had been established. During this hellish heat, I was working at the cemeteries still, even though I would not be going to the seminary. I also worked Walmart the whole time as well. Even though it was a difficult time, I was able to pay off my first car more than a year early because of my work that summer.

Fall arrived and I continued at Butler. By now I was rapidly approaching the end of my community college career and I had decisions to make. I applied for and was accepted into the University of Kansas, but I did not feel that was really practical. At the time, I desired a combination of history and political science. I'm not sure what I ever intended to do with those, but they were what fascinated me most at the time. Regardless, I was looking forward to this miserable year ending and counted down the start of...

2012
by the minute from ten weeks out. I opened this year with fewer friends, but I was still overjoyed to leave the miseries of 2011 behind me.

Two of my old high school classmates, Kristen, Jean-Marc, and I on New Year 2012

I finished my last semester at Butler, getting a rather milquetoast Associate's Degree in Liberal Arts and Sciences. It was kind of a catchall degree that said I did my general education requirements. I did get top notch grades the entire time I was there, even with the troubles that 2011 brought. I would bring that high GPA to Wichita State, where I did pursue a history degree.

2012 did bring an important change to my appearance. Since high school I had been rather fastidious with my appearance, maintaining a clean shaven look. For Lent of that year, I vowed not to shave. I completed that and decided I actually liked having facial hair. A month after Easter, I decided to grow out my goatee. It has been a permanent feature ever since.

I started that Fall at Wichita State, taking history and literature courses. I maybe had an idea of doing postgraduate work in History. I certainly had the intellectual capacity to do so. But, I was never really committed to it and plans often get derailed by outside forces.

My outside force was named Savannah.

As 2012 began to wane I still had not been in a serious long term relationship. It was not for a lack of trying; it just had never worked out in my favor. I was introduced to Savannah through a friend of a friend and we began dating seriously. It was my first real relationship. How could I not be excited for something I had sought after for so long?

2013
Savannah and I did not have a good relationship. I still wonder to this day why I let it go on for so long. I broke up with her after eight months. Honestly, I had an opportunity to do it after four months and I didn't break things off then. Why? At this point it doesn't matter. It is what it is and this relationship is long buried in the past.

From the outset, Savannah did not like my family and connived to pry me from them. To my shame, I almost let her get away with it. She tried to convince me to go to Emporia State with her. I was not enthusiastic about the idea. Her next ploy was the University of Kansas. I had passed on the idea a year before because if I was going to get a History degree, I could have just as easily done it at Wichita State. But Kansas had something that Wichita State did not: Meteorology.

It had been true that I had always been interested in the weather. The first serious weather event I remember happened on Monday, May 3rd, 1999 when I was 7 years old. I had even asked a meteorologist how to get a degree in the field before I was 10. But it had never been something I had thought about in high school or the early part of college. But my interest in the weather provided Savannah an opportunity and she tried to seize it.

That summer, I moved onto her family's farm, though not directly in with her, but instead in a converted shed. I transferred from my original Walmart to one in Lawrence. I abandoned Wichita with barely any warning. And then Savannah decided she didn't want me anymore. It made things much simpler when I finally broke up with her in August just as I was about to start at KU. I moved to Lawrence and tried to put Savannah behind me.

It didn't work. I was not ready for being out on my own like that. I struggled mightily that first semester at KU, with finances, with grades, with everything. I even tried to self publish a book I had written in hopes of making a quick book and that flopped badly. I abandoned meteorology pretty quickly when I failed Calculus I and went back to History for the Spring of...

2014
If I thought that I would recover doing something I was more familiar with, I was mistaken. I had a hard time that spring as I had the fall prior, even with subjects I was more intimately familiar with than meteorology. I was a categorical mess that whole semester. I decided to move back to Wichita fairly quickly in the semester, starting back up at Wichita State doing who knows what. But at least I would be home.

Easter 2014 with the siblings and cousins

I was at my lowest point in the early part of 2014. I turned 22 that Spring, an age once where I had thought I would get married after having completed a degree. I honest to God cried when my birthday arrived because at the time I had no plan for my future, be it in a career or relationship and I seemingly had no hope for my future.

On top of all of this, I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder that Spring. Finally, the truth was laid bare, why I had always felt different from everyone else around me, why I was delayed in social maturity, why I was so good at math. Even though the technical definition of autism refers to it as a disorder, I still, to this day, refuse to admit I have a disorder. I have autism yes, but I can still function as an independent adult.

I came home in May. I went back to my original Walmart and took on my responsibilities than a normal cashier as time progressed. In the wake of my relationship with Savannah, I tried to date seriously again. I went on a date or two and even had a quasi-serious relationship in the fall of 2014. But the damage that Savannah had done was deep and needed more time to heal. I abandoned the idea of dating as...

2015
began. I focused on getting my affairs in order, working three jobs to build up some money, which I promptly used on a down payment for a new car when my old one broke down for the last time. During the spring, I finally made a decision that I had been pondering for months: that I would back to meteorology. This time, I would do it on my own schedule and for my own reasons, not because I was pushed into it.

As it turned out while I was hashing out the details of my return to KU, I discovered that I only need three classes to get a History degree with a Political Science minor. I was planning to do some of the general education requirements for meteorology at Wichita State anyway, so I decided to finish up the History degree.

That summer, I took the class that contributed to my failure the first time: Calculus I. This time, I got a B+. It was such a relief to know that I could do it after all. I was also promoted at Walmart that summer to a cashier supervisor. Everything was looking up as 2015 continued and I felt that when I got up to Lawrence, I would resume actively looking for someone to be with and hopefully marry.

Fall 2015 was my best semester in years, other than a bout of pneumonia. I graduated on December 10th and prepared to move as...

My stepdad Tim, myself, and my mother at my graduation from Wichita State

2016
started. I moved back up to Lawrence and short order but did not transfer to the Walmart right away. The person in charge of that in Lawrence had told me to my face that there were positions available I could transfer into, but when I actually tried to do it, she balked and said I could not transfer at that time. She strung me along for three months before I got fed up with waiting and got a different job at the Home Depot. Five and a half years of loyal work meant nothing in the end.

In the meantime, I started at KU and definitely bit off more than I could chew. I tried to do 18 credit hours that first semester, with the intent of graduating in two years. I got through it, barely.

The day before I left to go back to Wichita for Spring Break, I met one Ashley Thomas on an online dating site called Plenty of Fish. We chatted the whole week while I was in Wichita and agreed to meet when I got back to Lawrence. We hit it off right away and developed into a close relationship.

That summer, I continued going hard on school, and switched from the Home Depot to Hobby Lobby. Fall arrived and I started struggling again. I was dealing with the most difficult coursework I had ever experienced and I was rapidly approaching burnout because I had not had more than a month away from school in over two years. I found out I would not be staying at Hobby Lobby and when the calendar flipped over to... 

Ashley and I's first Christmas together

2017
I got a job pushing carts at Walmart, though not the same one that had hosed me the year before. I settled back in with the understanding that the cart pushing would not be a permanent state of affairs. I made an important decision early in this year when I decided to ask Ashley to marry me. I planned my proposal very carefully and we were engaged exactly one year after we started dating.

In school, I reached full burnout and had to drop a meteorology class that I would not be able to take again until 2019. I took that summer off and gave myself a rest from classes so I could prepare and be successful for the fall.

Pushing carts, however, was really beginning to wear on me physically as I often worked by myself, even on weekends, and was forced to delay and skip breaks to keep up with it. I asked for a transfer repeatedly from July on as I knew I was not going to last long going on as I was with the carts.

Fall arrived and I started back up at KU. I handled myself well that semester, taking fewer classes to ease the burden on myself, especially since I was running out of classes that I needed to take for my degree. In November, cart pushing finally got me and I developed the beginnings of a hip injury that plagues me to this day. Walmart's solution was to give me two weeks rest and then throw me back outside.

We didn't get engagement photos, so this is the closest thing we have

2018
I quit Walmart within a month of the year starting. My hip injury had become entirely unmanageable and it was clear they were not going to let me transfer off the lot after six months of asking. I picked up Lyft driving at that time, something I still do today.

I took another few classes, leaving myself with two left when I would pick it up again in Spring 2019. I had other things going on as summer began. I started an internship at a local news station and, at long last, married Ashley.

A Reading of Vows

Ashley has PCOS, so we did not know if or when she would be able to get pregnant. In what I have often classified as a miracle, she got pregnant the month after we got married. We had something to look forward to as...

2019
arrived. I started what I sincerely hope will be my last semester of school ever. I only had three classes, so I was able to continue driving as Ashley's due date approached. Everything I had ever wanted, a family of my own, finally came to be at 3:51 pm on Friday, March 29th, 2019, when our son James was born.

Our first family photo

A month later, I got my degree in meteorology at long last. I am working hard to support Ashley and James, actively looking a job so she can continue to stay with James at home. 

Those were my 2010s. They had their ups and downs and I am loathe to classify the decade as mostly good or mostly bad. What I do know is that I have my family and with the three of us together, we can face down anything the '20s have to offer.

Into the '20s together

How I Ranked Star Wars Episodes I-VIII

I watched all of the Star Wars movies that comprise the "Skywalker Saga" in the lead up to the last movie that will be due out tomorrow night. Here's how I'd rank them.

8. Episode II-Attack of the Clones
I don't think anyone would disagree with me when I say that Anakin and Padme falling in love together is portrayed awfully. Hell, when I was watching all of these movies, their scenes together were so bad for me this time around that it brought the movie to a screeching halt each time they were on screen.

The rest of the movie is merely okay. The main plot thread besides the butchered love story revolves around Obi-Wan unveiling the existence of the clone army and the formation of the Separatist coalition. There's nothing particularly show stopping about this thread; that won't come until the next movie.

7. Episode I-The Phantom Menace
Did you walk into Star Wars in 1999 for the first time in 16 years and expect to watch C-SPAN? Probably not. Nor did you expect the horror of Jar Jar Binks. In my mind, Jar Jar is merely annoying, which is why I ranked Clones lower.

Where the good parts of Attack of the Clones were merely good, the good parts of the Phantom Menace are amazing. The two scenes I have in mind are the lightsaber duel between Qui-Gon, Obi-Wan, and Darth Maul, and the pod racing scene. The drawback with the pod racing scene is that it does go on for a long time, a full twenty minutes in a two hour movie, which does kind of bog the movie down. The lightsaber duel, however, is probably the best out of any of these movies. It was action that hadn't been shown in a Star Wars movie before and an epic score by John Williams to match. It's not enough to save the movie as a whole, but on its own, it's one of the best moments in any Star Wars film.

6. Episode VII-The Force Awakens
Honestly, this probably wouldn't be so low were it not for its follow up, which we will get to later. But upon repeat viewing, the Force Awakens doesn't add anything new to Star Wars. It is more or less a rehash of a New Hope, merely playing it safe, not doing anything bold, just playing the hits to please the crowd. In retrospect, that is kind of disappointing.

That being said, the action is great, the effects are unreal, and there is some air of mystery the movie does manage to create makes me interested in what would come next, not that the next movie would do anything with it. It's a solid popcorn flick, nothing more, nothing less.

5. Episode VI-Return of the Jedi
I refuse to believe that the Empire would be overthrown due to the intervention of Ewoks. The Emperor stated his best legion was waiting for the Rebel strike team on Endor, so let's imagine this is the 501st Legion, which was dubbed "Vader's Fist". Is that a squadron that's going to lose to overgrown teddy bears wielding archaic weapons?

Anyway, the other problem with this movie is its opening, which to be fair is not this movie's fault. The Empire Strikes Back froze Han Solo in carbonite because the film makers didn't know if actor Harrison Ford would be back for the third film. So when they realized they would get him, they had to shoe horn in his rescue, as opposed to focus on the main plot thread revolving around Luke's ascension as a Jedi and the defeat of the Empire.

Speaking of which, I think that is portrayed rather well. Luke stood toe to toe with probably the most powerful Force wielder in the whole saga and came out on top because his belief that Darth Vader could be turned back to the light won out over the power of the Emperor. Then there is the Emperor himself. I am so glad that Ian McDiarmid portrayed Palpatine in all three trilogies because he is easily the most interesting character in the whole series.

4. Episode VIII-The Last Jedi
I might have ranked this near the bottom were it not for a repeat viewing I finally had last night. A lot of the problems, not all of them, but a lot, didn't seem to be problems on the second go around. That being said, I still don't think that Last Jedi works as a second movie of a trilogy. Overall, very little happens in this movie when you think about it; the First Order grinds down what remains of the Resistance down to nearly oblivion. Coming out of the film, I thought that it left too much unresolved and found it difficult to see how the Rise of Skywalker could resolve all of the plot threads brought up by the Last Jedi. On top of that, the whole of the Resistance fits onto the Millennium Falcon at the end of the movie and we're supposed to believe that this group will somehow bring down the First Order in the space of a single movie. I find that difficult to believe, though we will see how that goes Friday.

When I knocked the Force Awakens for not trying anything new, I said that as a direct contradiction to this movie. The thing I liked about this movie the most was Luke's lessons on the Force. He showed that the Jedi were deeply flawed and also showed how the Force works. I really liked it on the second viewing. Other than that, the movie was good to okay. The effects weren't up to the Force Awakens level, but still very good. I thought the comedy was really forced and out of place, but that is a minor issue. The film itself was shot beautifully as well, from the shots of Luke's island, the Snoke's throne room, and especially the kamikaze light speed attack by Admiral Holdo.

3. Episode III-Revenge of the Sith
People often seem to lump the prequels together as being universally bad, but the Revenge of the Sith is by itself, a good movie. Here we finally see the machinations of Palpatine brought to fruition and any movie that revolves around that character is going to be a good flick. The problems that plagued the other two prequels are far less noticeable here. Anakin and Padme only have one, rather brief, bad scene of their love and it's easily forgotten by the time Palpatine tells of Darth Plagueis.

The action is pretty good as well. There are more lightsaber duels in this movie than the rest of the series combined, highlighted by Obi-Wan's and Anakin's duel that I would probably rank second behind the Darth Maul duel. I would also argue that this film has the best score out of any Star Wars film as well, which really enhanced, among others, the Order 66 scene. Does the film have problems, sure. Anakin's turn to the Dark Side was a bit haphazard. But compared to the other prequels, the problems didn't outweigh the good aspects of the film.

2. Episode IV-A New Hope
All sagas have to start somewhere and as beginnings go, this was really good. It clearly established the characters and made them memorable, it clearly established the conflict and the stakes of said conflict. It also established some background on the deeper elements of the story, such as mentioning the Clone Wars and a beginner's explanation of the Force.

Really, I'm trying to think of anything this movie did wrong. The only thing I can think of really is that this movie clearly came out in the '70s just by the way it was made, but that's not really a problem so much as an observation. Really, it's a solid opening film.

1. Episode V-The Empire Strikes Back
The follow up to A New Hope outdid the original without undoing it and it is awesome. Considering a New Hope was clearly written without the knowledge that Darth Vader was Luke's father, this follow up film was able to drop that bombshell in a way that made it seem natural instead of forced. The mythology of the series is built on to, as shown with Yoda training Luke in the Force. Really, everything Yoda did in this movie was awesome, from revealing himself by arguing with Obi-Wan about Luke's shortcomings to "That is why you fail."

I ranked Attack of the Clones the worst film because of how is showed Anakin and Padme falling in love, which actually now that I think of it is even worse in light of how this film showed Leia and Han falling for each other. It didn't seem forced like Anakin's and Padme's was, and I found it to be totally believable, again unlike in Attack of the Clones.

Darth Vader seemed more in his element in this film than the previous one. A New Hope kind of portrayed Vader as being somewhat underneath Grand Moff Tarkin, but that isn't the case here. He is clearly in charge and has many dead subordinates to prove his point. We see the Emperor for the first time in this movie as well and while it is basically a glorified cameo, it shows the relationship between apprentice and master fairly well.

Those are my rankings. We will see how the Rise of Skywalker fits into this at the end.