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journal

Things I did in 2025 that have nothing to do with the internet

Duration
8 minute read
Last Updated
Jan 2026
Topics
  • year-in-review
  • personal

What I did

  • Did not buy any new clothing, save for DIY band merch. (I love fashion, and I did shop! I just only shopped vintage. It made it a really fun adventure, it turned every desire from a whim into a quest.)
  • Switched off Spotify to Tidal.
  • Started an earnest movement towards a diet of physical media only.
  • Stayed vegan for my 8th year, for the animals and for the Earth.

January

  • Drove to the wilderness of Wyoming on a whim on New Year’s Eve.
  • Put my car onto Öhlins Road & Track coils and a sport exhaust, holy smokes what a perfect car.
  • Rode my motorcycle in below-freezing weather for the first time.
  • Went to London on a whim (~24 hours from decision made to flight touch down) with my best friend, just to eat good, see some wonderful theater, and meet another strange website person, who would rapidly also become one of my best friends in the world. Saw some great designer motorcycles, saw some art galleries, saw Starlight Express and The Tempest.

A black coupe covered in snow, parked aside a national parks sign for Grand Teton National Park. The fore and background are both completely snowy and white.

February

  • Rewired my 1975 BMW R90/6, a 50-year-old motorcycle, completely from scratch, with the help of the incredible vintage BMW motorcycle community in Denver.
  • Watched Pride & Prejudice twice on Valentine’s Day.
  • Went to a few fantastic runway shows for Denver Fashion Week, and some really painfully middling ones.
  • Went to Chicago (for work), to New York City (for a deep love of the city), to San Francisco (for work), to New York City (see previous New York City trip rationale).

March

  • Fucked up a simple oil change on my BMW motorcycle so bad that my mechanic for an unrelated issue threatened me with a gun.

The mechanic didn’t do that btw, he just sent a “who did the last oil change on this” text. That’s a bit of “lying” for you

  • Apparently this is fr all I did this month. Rode motorcycles a lot, drove cars a lot.

The author, a white man with light hair, wearing a hoodie, sunglasses, and white sneakers, sitting atop a black 1970s BMW motorcycle, smiling off-camera.

April

  • Turned 30. It was fine, most folks are just weirdly scared of their own mortality. Not me. I’m normal about it.
  • Went to Portland to see about the city and try out the Web Dev Challenge with my friend Jacky. Got to meet a bunch of internet friends.
  • Back to New York baby New York City babey it’s all about the Mets.
  • Had a little local reunion show with my old emo band. Someone showed us the tattoo they got from our music.
Two Triumph motorcycles, one polished aluminum, and one black, sit atop a mountain. In the hazy background, rolling hills and forests can be seen.
Boy I really only took pictures of motor vehicles this year, huh.

May

  • Went to Leeds with bestie again, this time for All Day Hey, and to see my friends — some of whom would even be speaking. Went to London after, to hit Ronnie Scott’s with some devious co-conspirators and see what Soho has to offer.
  • Went over Echo Lake (elev. 11,000 ft above sea level) on my motorcycle for the first time. Got pizza on the way back to town.
  • Tried to start a bedroom Goth rock band. Was awful, learned a lot, didn’t stick the landing. Maybe this year!
  • Found out Olive Garden will sell you literally 100 breadsticks if you want. They give them to you in a big box which will not fit in the luggage of your motorcycle, so you will have to prop them between your knees while riding across town to the movie party you got them for. It will be hysterical and very dangerous for you.

June

  • Read Rimbaud for the first time.
  • BACK to New York City babey!!! This time I saw Turnstile and Boy Harsher under a bridge in Brooklyn, ate immensely good food everywhere in town, and got rained out so hard in Central Park that my phone broke and my paperback book literally disintegrated.
  • Went to Utah to get lost, skydive, shoot guns, drift ATVs, make music, read book after book in the sun, and make & tell stories with beloved friends. Wore a cowboy hat and rode on the outside the Jeep more often than I sat inside the Jeep. Fell out of a plane at 13,000 ft in altitude again, but this time I did a flip or ten.
  • Did the brakes on my car and shot myself in the eye with one of the pad retaining springs so solidly that it welted.
  • Celebrated queer pride by reading only queer poets and seeing queer movies, doing queer-only motorcycle rides, and parading in the street.

Two men in cowboy hats, pictured seated and from behind, having a conversation while the sun sets vibrantly in the far distance. Canyons and clifs fill with lavender haze.

July

  • Learned how to roller-skate. Will not be doing that again.
  • Joined the vintage BMW & Norton ride, just tons and tons of beautiful ancient motorcycles rolling over the foothills of the Colorado Rockies.

August

  • Did not go to Ren Faire. I know this isn’t like. Groundbreaking for anyone else but the last two years I went literally every weekend it was open during the Summer lol.
  • Started learning some Irish folk songs, jigs and reels and such, on the guitar!
  • Helped the BMW Bike Night boys build a 1968 R69US from the frame up
  • Had my first white Monster. Gotta say, fellas. Mid, very mid.

A hand holding a white monster can up against an incredible sunset. It is a thing to behold.

September

  • Took my Triumph cafe racer way, way into the mountains, even found some dirt roads I definitely shouldn’t have been on, but it turns out every bike is an adventure bike if you’re not a scaredy-cat.
A chrome Triumph motorcycle idling along a dirt road in the mountains. A dense forest to the background, and a dramatic overcast sky overhead.
Another angle of the Triumph motorcycle, this time showing the valley stretching out far into rocky mountain distances.
  • With the help of a local friend who is also a furniture freak, found a vintage Eames lounge chair in awful condition, and restored and reupholstered it. It’s been a dream for a long time and I managed to sort the whole thing for less than a thousand bucks.
  • Blew the clutch in my car to pieces. The technician that worked on it texted me to let me know he’d never seen one so torched — he even kept it so we could laugh about it when I picked up the car after replacing it.
  • Went over Guanella Pass on my BMW airhead to look at Autumn leaves. Every time that bike does any decent mileage or questing, it feels like an achievement for both of us. I’ve brought some immense life back to this bike since getting it, just going through the whole thing and sorting it out. It’s a real source of pride. And to think of the life it has had, from a factory in Germany a literal half-century ago, to nearly 12,000ft above sea level in the Colorado Rockies in 2025.
  • Made the most of the foliage. I’ve got a few friends who also love more spirited sports driving, and we sought out basically every great curvy road on the Eastern slope in order to see the aspen groves turn to gold.

Two black motorcycles, one featuring the author perched atop, in front of a jagged Rocky Mountain vista.

October

  • Off to the UK again, this time to Bristol to see my beloved friends and speak about personal websites at Web Dev Conf, which was an immense opportunity I am very grateful for.
  • And back to New! York! City! Literal one night trip to make the most of a layover back from England.
  • Ate at Eleven Madison Park, holy smokes one of the most incredible culinary experiences of my life.
  • YOU GUESSED IT NEW YORK CITY AGAIN! Lola texted me a few months prior about going in Autumn (why does it seem so inviting), so we did. Met Cloisters, dumplings, rain and shine, live jazz, bought some art. Celebrated Halloween in arguably one of the greatest cities in the world to people-watch in. Highly recommend.
  • While I was in New York I walked for a few hours on the phone with the gal I had been seeing, and the phone call made me smile so hard I realized I wanted nothing more than to make her as happy as she made me. I basically sprinted home to ask her to be my girlfriend.
  • Ate at Brutø with now-gf. What an unreal restaurant, and what a miraculous tribute to Coloradan agriculture.
  • Carved pumpkins. Do you like him. Do you think he’s nice.

A pumpkin carved to have a horrified facial expression, and adorned with two pumpkin arms, which it uses to feed itself a much smaller pumpkin.

November

  • Hit 50,000 miles on the BMW in its 50th year of life at 12,000ft. Hit ice and snow patches on the way back that were so serious I had my feet down just sliding down the road. What is life if not near-death!
  • Got into archery. Turns out those elves were on to something in that one movie.
  • Entered my cafe racer into its first motorcycle show, won best bike in show and even won the rev competition (the Triumph shoots flames when you rev it so it was hardly a competition 😉)
  • Started building a bike from 1974 with the Bike Night boys for the Bike Relief Project, which donates motorcycles to vets to help with PTSD.
  • Got a tape deck solely off the dream of putting this song on a mixtape I’d make for the girl I was seeing. I got her a restored vintage '80s Walkman to listen to it on. Typed up a love note for the liner on a Hermes Baby typewriter from like 1941.
  • Celebrated Thanksgiving down South with my parents and grandparents.
  • Flew straight from there to Dublin to celebrate a dear friend’s Big 30th Birthday.

The author, a white man with white hair, wearing all black and drawing a recurve bow in an archery range.

December

  • More time in Ireland. Beautiful country. Ate spice bag for nearly every meal.
  • Managed to see Deafheaven in Dublin after a tip-off from a beloved friend who had seen them in England days prior. The show was sold out but the band graciously left a handful of tickets at the door. Portrayal of Guilt opened. It was unreal.
  • Hibernated most of the month. Spent New Years Eve in the arms of a beautiful woman. What more could any of us hope of December?

The author, a white man with white hair, dressed all in black, pictured in Ireland, looking smugly over his shades at the photographer.

What I’ll do now

  • Stop shopping online.
  • Rebuild the '74 BMW airhead I’ve been neglecting for a few years.
  • Continue splitting my time between Colorado and New York.
  • Deadlift 300lbs.
  • Road trip on a motorcycle to more National Parks, certainly Glacier and Yellowstone.
  • Climb three 14ers.
  • Turn my elementary proficiency in Italian into working proficiency.
  • Stay vegan for my 9th year, for the animals, and for the earth.

Thanks for reading.