2025 was certainly a year. Despite the horrors I persist. I still managed to have a pretty good year personally. A lot of it was a blur. I guess I'll try to start at the beginning.
My year started cold. Not just the weather outside but a few days before the new year my boiler shit the bed. Since it was also the weekend I had to pay an emergency call out fee to have a tech come and try to fix it but he didn't have the right parts to finish the job and had to order a few things. The main problem was he didn't have the right size burner nozzle, so while he got it going again it was running rough. Before the end of the month my boiler was resetting almost every day because the burner was clogged and eventually wouldn't start anymore. So my guy came back out at the end of the month and replaced what he needed with the correct parts, cleaned everything (I had neglected to do seasonal cleaning for a couple of years oops) and got me up and running again.
We also didn't get our usual January thaw so the snow kept piling up. and up. and up.
Newgrounds wise I won "worst mod" for a 2nd year in a row.
In February I planned a trip down to Floriduh to skydive. My wife and I had gotten our A Licenses over the summer and to stay current we needed to jump every 60 days. Our last jumps were in December for an end of year party at our home drop zone. We checked out Sebastian and they were really cool. They had huge planes and even offered free coaching to newbies like us with under 100 jumps. We even happened to see a friend we made the summer before. She was traveling in a campervan over the winter and coincidentally was at the same place. We got to do a fun jump with her on our last day and it was great!
March, April, and May were low key. Winter persisted deep into Spring and I didn't find the time to go skiing. I had even bought a pass good for a couple of days at a bunch of mountains! Oh well maybe this winter! I also bought some swag from @bluehippo and he sent me some cool stickers and a print along with my kickass windbreaker (Buy his stuff!!). Our home drop zones opened and we started skydiving nearly every weekend.
In May I chatted with @Aalasteir for his A100 podcast:
June was a rollercoaster. My wife got hurt pretty bad and fractured her hip. She needed emergency surgery and was in the hospital for a few days. The doctors patched her up really good but she couldn't work for at least 2 months. I lost 2 weeks of work just caring for her. She's a real trooper and even insisted she go with me to the drop zone that very next week, 4 days after she got hurt for a canopy course (needed for my B License). She was supposed to take the course too but couldn't jump due to obvious reasons but the instructor let her audit it but I was dragging a zero gravity chair back and forth from the classroom out to the landing area for her all day as well as getting 5 jumps in to practice everything we were learning in the classroom. It was an extremely good class to take and I learned so much and my canopy piloting was better almost instantly.
July was more doctors appointments and my wife picked up helping with manifest at the drop zone. I reached 100 jumps and we went to a big party at a lake where I got to jump a round parachute into the lake. It was one of the coolest jumps I've ever done!
August was a really great month. My wife was cleared to return to full activities by the doctors. I took a day off work to bring her to her last appointment with the surgeon and he said she was good to go and we went straight to the drop zone. She did a tandem with our good friend who's a TI just to make sure there was nothing like PTSD that she wasn't aware of but she did great and then she went right back up with her own gear again with our coach friends and passed her coach jump and we were able to jump together the rest of the weekend! The next day was our 17th wedding anniversary and the weekend after was another drop zone party and I got to do my first night jump. What a surreal experience! The moon was only a little more than half full but I could see so much when I was in the sky!
September was low key. We camped at the drop zone a few times and my wife reached her 100th jump and worked on catching up to me in jump numbers.
October was a difficult month. We had to say goodbye to our spookvoid cat Sansa. She had been sick for a few years and was not able to keep her weight anymore. It was a very difficult decision but it felt like the most humane one. Even though I have 4 other cats it's still a big hole in my heart. She was a shelter cat we adopted in 2019 and they didn't really know her age just that she had been in and out of foster care and before that had a couple of litters of kittens that the shelter helped rehome.
November was the end of the skydiving season but we got a few costume jumps in the first weekend and had an end of year party with friends. Thanksgiving was uneventful and we hunkered down for the winter
December was also lowkey. Had 1 last jump on the 13th for end of year party in the cold and snow and then a dinner with everyone. Christmas was fine enough and spent with family.
Newgrounds wise it was another quiet year but I was impressed by a lot of new stuff and I really like Takeover Tuesdays. Can't wait to see what new stuff people submit in 2026!
Some stuff I favorited in 2025:
