by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)
Welcome to my 2011 Wrap-up post. This blog will be a list of stuff I (or Chris and I or Miguel and I) did over the last 12 months that was interesting, good, or bad. It’s nice to have a quick review of the year like this. It’s a bit like covering your yearly goals to see what you accomplished or failed to accomplish plus more cool stuff.
- Hangman’s House of Horrors: Once again we (Miguel and I) worked with the local charity haunted house making some videos. I decided I didn’t want any direct involvement with the house this coming year because their ‘core’ volunteer and employees rub me the wrong way. I will be glad to help behind the scenes but that’s about all.
- Renegade Anime business: In 2011 I started my Anime model business back up. I have focused on online sales and conventions for the quick turnover. It has been mildly successful. I will continue it through 2012.
- Dallas Comicon: I setup at the 3 conventions that the guys in Dallas put on. The convention moved to the Irving Convention center this year and was a big success. We posted a week’s worth of thoughts about it.
- Every 15 Minutes: This is a highschool program tries to turn kids off drinking and driving with bloddy re-enactments. I helped video the one that Decatur put on at the Highschool this year.
- House Work: For some reason 2011 turned out to be all about house and yard work. I took on a lot of repair work around my own house and my mom’s rent house. I did a couple of blogs about the work I did on my house.
- Rent Property Work: My mom’s rent house was trashed and I started a rather tedious blog about repairing the damage. The blog is still going on.
- New vehicle: I had issues with my little Ford pickup and decided it was time to put it out of it’s misery. I pulled the trigger and bought a new (and much larger) truck. That was not before I spent money to get it fixed and it wasn’t fixed right.
- Season 2 pickup day: Chris cornered me into shooting some missing stuff from Season 2 so we had a day of pickup shots (not shot where I am in a pickup, but shots we missed or were lost).
- New VW: This fall I bought a 1970 Beetle from a co-worker. I didn’t have the money to buy it outright so they put me on a payment plan. It’s a nice beetle and I hope to use it as a daily driver in 2012. Read about it here.
- College: I took some health care government funded classes from Midland college during the 2nd half of the year in preparation for a certification exam. I passed both the class and the test. I then turned my sights to going back to real college and getting a Bachelor’s degree.
- Concerts: I am approaching 40 years of age in a couple more years and believe it or not I have never been to a concert until 2011. My first concert experience was Duran Duran (who else?) at WinStar casino. Low and behold they came back to Texas and I got to see them again at Verizon center! Will miracles never end?!
- Flash Ahhhh!: Chris got at least one big goal he started out on (with me in tow). We are talking about our whopping 52 part Flash Ahhhh! serial that can been seen here on the According To Whim blog. At times I was inspired and other times I couldn’t give two farts about it but in the end I am glad we did it.
All in all it was a fairly busy yet quiet year. I can’t describe it well. I am hoping that 2012 will be awesome in so many ways but I know that I will have to make things happen.
For those of you who bother to read our stuff: thanks so much.