With a little bit of a delay I come to this post to officially close up another year. 2012 was a year full of stressors and releases. Ray’s mom got diagnosed with cancer again (a different one and worse, but the treatment seems to be going really well) and the Presidential election seemed to drag on forever.
Like I had mentioned a year ago, President Barack Obama’s re-election to the White House for a second term was going to be of paramount importance for my chances of permanently staying in the US. The campaign dragged on for months and the GOP’s pick, Mitt Romney, looked like the Republican’s best chance at recapturing the White House.
Fortunately, Obama stayed on message, was somehow able to match the GOP in fundraising (they likely spent around $2 billion this election cycle, which is staggering and frightening), and in the end triumphed over his opponent. His victory, which came fairly early on November 6, was a time for celebration!!
Now the Supreme Court is on the verge of taking up both DOMA and Prop 8, and it’s nice to know that we have a Commander in Chief that has our backs. We also won marriage equality in three more states (Maine, Maryland, and Washington) and defeated a constitutional amendment in Minnesota that would have banned same-sex marriage for good. It was the first time that we won at the ballot box and we didn’t just win once but four times!!
2012 was a banner year for gay rights, visibility, and acceptance also for the many celebrities that came out of the closet without much ado and 2013 is already gearing up to be a nice follow up.
2012 was probably the year I traveled the most in my life too. I took 4 vacations, 3 of which were last minute decisions. First, we went to Wildwood, New Jersey, for the July 4th holiday. It was a nice and relaxing beach vacation that I enjoyed very much. The beaches were the biggest I’ve ever seen and the boardwalk was very enjoyable at night.
Then, for Labor Day, I went to Italy for a few days to visit with my parents and see my friends again. It wasn’t as relaxing because of the jet lag, but not having kids or dogs to worry about for a few days was nice! Thankfully, my parents are both doing well, aside from the expected age related issues.
Third came the only really-planned-out vacation of the year, and how well planned was it! My friend Vittorio and I had picked a destination and purchased plane tickets around March for a vacation that would have to wait until the Thanksgiving holiday (boy, I really seem to be taking advantage of those holidays!!).
But not only had we picked a destination, Northern California, we had also already laid out our whole fifth Road Trip. All the cities we’d have visited, how long we’d have had to drive each day, and how much time we’d have spent in the final leg of the trip, San Francisco, a city I had seen before and really liked.
Needless to say, the trip was a blast. We got to see pretty much all we wanted, and can really say we “saw” that area of the country. It’s so beautiful too, with the most varied landscapes imaginable. We landed in San Francisco and headed down the coast, then turned east towards the mountains, then up to Lake Tahoe, and back west, via Sacramento and the Napa valley, to the coast again. Then we went all the way up to Mendocino and from there headed back south to San Francisco for a grand total of 1,268.5 miles!!
The last trip was organized around New Year’s Day. The family flew down to summery West Palm Beach, Florida, and from there we drove to Fort Lauderdale and then south to the Everglades. We actually stood on the southernmost beach of the (landlocked) state!! We saw alligators and took an air boat ride through the Everglades too!! From there we drove north-northwest to Captiva Island for a couple days of relax in a resort before swinging back to the east coast and flying back to freezing Connecticut. 794.1 miles in all!
While no real news affected my job, a lot happened with my photography, which started taking off when I joined several Meetup groups with which I got to travel to all sorts of locations where I could stretch my picture-taking muscles!
It has been a blast really. I got to see towns and villages I had never ever heard of before; I visited botanical gardens, cemeteries, and public parks; I saw new parts of New York City and Boston, beaches, a butterfly conservatory (!!), sunsets and sunrises, countless varieties of flowers and plants, and in the process I learned a bevy of new information on how to improve my picture taking and take it to a new level. I’ve also had a chance to photograph professional and semi-professional models, as well as regular folks, which gave me a taste for taking portraits like I had never done before.
All in all, 2012 was the richest year of my life in regards to photography and I’m looking forward to a new year of adventures and further improvements in knowledge and techniques. On the way, I’ve also met new friends who share my love for photography, and I’m looking forward to spending more time with them as well.
No real news on the kids’ front, other than a marked improvement in the relationship we are building with our son Daniel. We finally seem to have gotten on the right path in dealing with his issues, and now we have to work on helping Nicole with hers, before the onslaught of puberty’s tempestuous hormones take us all for a wild ride.
Our older dog, Diablo, hit another milestone this year: she turned 16, which for a dog her size is quite remarkable. And she’s doing really well too, in spite of a tumor, weight loss, and reduced eyesight and hearing. She’s still with us and for that I’m grateful, and so is our “younger” dog Mina, who turned 12!!
Last, but not least, here’s the list of movies that I watched last year (another meager one in actual theater visits, where I went only 4 times…):
9
A Single Man
Midnight in Paris
The Artist
The Bridges of Madison County
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo8
Bridesmaids
Coal Miner's Daughter
Game Change
Hugo
Kung Fu Panda 2
Prometheus
Rango
Source Code
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Young Adult7
9
Puss in Boots
African Cats
Corpse Bride
Drive
Fright Night
Moneyball
The Ides of March
The Iron Lady6
Cowboys and Aliens
Friends with Benefits
Marvin's Room
Mirror Mirror
Tron: Legacy
Underworld
Underworld: Awakening
Underworld: Evolution
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans5
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
4Green Lantern
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
The Tree of Life3
Fright Night
The Haunting2
Equilibrium
Valhalla Rising1
Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat
42 titles that pretty much were all over the ratings scale, except for the very elusive 10! Looking at the list, I’d pick the following 5 as my favorites:
A Single Man
Midnight in Paris
The Artist
The Bridges of Madison County
Bridesmaids
and I’d have to crown A Single Man as the best movie of 2012, with The Artist a close second. Both movies were very original, but I feel like A Single Man has a more lingering echo somehow. It’s such a heart wrenching story told with passion by a first time director who was able to create a cinematic gem.
On the other end of the scale, Dr. Seuss' The Cat in the Hat takes the crown as one of the worst examples of “movies” I’ve ever had to bear witness to. It’s so bad, I’ve effectively taken it out of the rotation of allowed kids’ movies at home.
Ok, so long 2012 and hello 2013. Let’s see what tomorrow brings us…
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