Best Things This Year (2024)

2024 is just about over and I can’t believe we have this dipshit Donald Trump returning to the White House. I feel the same as I did 8 years ago, but the second time around is going to be different in unexpected ways. I’m trying to stay positive and not get lost in despair and pessimism. Build the future and look out for friends and neighbors. There is a lot of things to be excited about in the world.

I write these every year to catalog all the stuff I did and it’s not always easy to remember. It’s a list of places I went and enjoyed.

Snoqualmie / North Bend, WA

I was in Seattle for a wedding and took a detour to visit Snoqualmie Valley and North Bend, WA to pay tribute to Twin Peaks. The falls are much bigger and more beautiful than I expected and the hike down to the bottom almost killed me a few times. Seeing the falls in person was emotional.

If that wasn’t amazing enough, Sasha and I watched every episode of the original series, The Return, and Fire Walk with Me. It’s not the easiest show to watch with your dad, but I was impressed with how many things she figured out right away. For Christmas she baked me a loaf of banana bread and delivered it, Dougie Jones style.

Sasha learned to Drive
Sasha can now drive a car and she borrows my car all the time. It’s great and crazy at the same time. Life comes at you fast

Odyssey of the Mind
Completed my 9th year as a coach and both Sasha and Owen’s teams advanced to the World Finals at Iowa State University

Live music
We saw a few great shows this year including Marc Rebillet, who I went as for Halloween!

We also saw
The Kills
Alanis Morisette
2nd Grade

Dataviz Meetup
Our bi-monthly data visualization meetup is still going strong and we get 50-70 attendees at each event.

Bluesky
Social media wise, you can mostly find me on bluesky these days.
https://bsky.app/profile/bengarvey.com

Travel
Seattle
Tulum
Wisconsin / Illinois
San Francisco
Monterrey, CA
Poconos

Movies
Rewatched a bunch of movies with the kids this year, but these were all new to me

Killing of a Sacred Deer
Poor Things
John Wick (1-3)
Dune Part 2
Oppenheimer
Godzilla Minus One
Furiosa
Hereditary

TV
WeCrash
Alexander: Making of a God
House of the Dragon
Kevin Can F*ck Himself
Disclaimer
Dune: Prophecy

Music
World Wide Whack by Tierra Whack
Marc Rebillet
Being Dead
St Vincent

Games
Stardew Valley
Factorio

Kitchen
This ice cream maker from Cuisinart rules.

Theater
The kids did some incredible shows this year including two (!) performances of Shrek. Collingswood High School did Shrek: The Musical and Collingswood Youth Theater did Shrek Jr. Sasha and Owen each had starring roles!

Shrek and Shrek Jr
Newsies
Broadway Night at CHS
Promageddon

I was so impressed with Sasha’s performance in the one act play, Promageddon. I have a lot of moments where I realize how much my father misssed over the last 18 years, but this was a big one. He would have been obsessed with Sasha as a comedic actor.

They both participated this year in the CHS Choir, Madrigals, and Sasha was selected for All-South Jersey Choir.

Carolyn
Had another great year with this lady. She celebrated the launch of Peak 2.0 in Audubon, did three comedy sketch shows with the Bomb Bomb Bombshells, and helped organizer Philly’s One Liner Madness.

Common Paper
Common Paper is growing fast, but there’s still lots of work to do. We shipped a new version of our Cloud Service Agreement and a Software License Agreement for on prem software.

Spirit of Philadelphia
Went on a surprisingly lit dinner cruise on the Delaware River.

Hung out with Vint Cerf!
And got him to sign a book my dad gave me in 1994 titled, “How to Use the Internet”

Books
Life as No One Knows It by Sara Imari Walker, who I saw in the SFO airport immediately after I finished it.
3 Body Problem by Cixin Liu
The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
The Man from the Future by Ananyo Bhattacharya