2022 Fandoms
I’m someone who loves being a fan and loves fandom. If you know me, you know that when I get into something, I am really into it. I love sharing my love with others.
I don’t typically do a review on my fandoms over the year but thought it would be something fun to try this year. I’ve decided to create some categories and share something I’ve been a fan of this year related to that category. Those categories are: Photo, Entertainment (TV & Movies), Music, Book, App, Game, Food/Drink, and Place I Visited.
Here are my fandoms for the year 2022:
Photo: Daniels Family Photoshoot
Here is my favorite photo from the year (our friend Betsy Blake took this for us)
Entertainment: Fantasy football
I have never played fantasy football before. Growing up, I was a huge football fan (the Browns and 49ers) but when I went off to college, I lost touch with my teams and I’ve not really paid much attention until about 3 years ago. A few friends of mine love playing “fantasy” but I didn’t really understand the appeal, but as I’ve started getting back into watching the NFL and listening to various podcasts, I decided to try it out. I surprised myself by how much I enjoyed playing almost immediately. So much so that I invited a bunch of colleagues and created my own league.
Sleeper, shown above, was my favorite league/app of choice (ht – Corey Easterday)
Music: Pedro the Lion – Havasu
I love music as much as the next person. My Apple Replay says I listed to 4, 955 songs this year. 😅
My favorite album of the year was Pedro the Lion’s “Havasu.” Give “First Drum Set” a spin.
The other top albums based on my “Replay” in heavy rotation this year were:
- Jungle – Sunshine Stereo
- Arcade Fire – We
- Danger Mouse and Black Thought – Cheat Codes
- The Smile – The Light for Attracting Attention
Book: Bullet Journal by Ryder Carrol
I didn’t get a lot of reading done this year. I’ve found reading to be hard post COVID (I’ve been having a hard time focusing). But this summer, I decided to go back to Bullet Journaling and use that as a method to help me get more focused. I borrowed the Bullet Journal book book from the library and enjoyed reading and implementing it into my own system.
App: Coda.io and Ivory
Two years ago, I was looking for a way to collaborate on putting together a wedding ceremony for one of my sister’s getting married and I came across Coda.io. I was impressed with it instantly. It’s like a cross between Notion, Google Suites, and a simple website builder. You can do pretty much anything you want with it. It’s part of the NoCode movement, which is all about creating platforms that let anyone use them to build all kinds of interesting things without knowing how to code. I use Coda for project management, collaboration with colleagues, to run my small business, Fireweed Coffee Co, to build tiny websites for presentations I give, and for building out courses. Here’s one I’m really proud of. It’s part syllabus, part course, all very participatory. I built this for a class I taught last spring at Guilford.
Ivory by Tapbots is in beta but is a beautiful app for Mastadon. I’ve been a longtime user of Tweetbot, their Twitter client. I like Ivory even better.
Game: Retro Bowl
You’ll likely notice a theme. My favorite game I found this year, is Retro Bowl on iOS. Retro Bowl has been around awhile and on various platforms but I was feeling nostalgic for Tecmo Bowl earlier this year and started looking for something similar. I’ve played 11 seasons so far (they go fast) and love it. If you liked Tecmo Bowl you’ll love Retro Bowl too.
Food/Drink: Copper Door Coffee Roasters
You all know I love coffee so much that I own a small coffee roasting business of my own. When I visit other cities, I love to scope out the local coffee roasters there. This November, I went to Denver. When I was there I had a cup of Ethiopia Yirgacheffe from Copper Door Coffee Roasters that blew me away so much that I’m still thinking about it.
Coffee from Copper Door Coffee Roasters in Denver.
Place I Visited: Portland, OR
Emily and I had a chance to visit Portland, OR in August and I loved every moment of it. I was invited to come and speak at Reedwood Friends Church (while there I spoke on the subject of Jesus Against Empire and some material I’ve been developing with about “Liturgies of Empire, Liturgies of Resistance” (see Liturgies of Empire). But it wasn’t all business. While there Emily and I had the opportunity to kayak on the Estacada Reservoir, hike near Multnomah falls, stay in the Ace Hotel downtown, which we’ve always wanted to do, visit Powells, have breakfast at our favorite spot “Jam’s on Hawthorne,” and spend time with a number of friends, including Mark and Megan Condo – dear friends from Ohio.
Podcast: The Ringer Fantasy Football Show
This won’t come as much of a surprise: The Ringer Fantasy Football Podcast. I like the three commentators. They’re smart, funny, and I like the ways they have every episode following different themes. It keeps it fun and engaging.
Course or Class I took: Building a Zettelkasten for Creative Expression
I have been needing a refresher on note-taking, researching, and writing. In comes Bob Doto this past spring. I first learned of Bob during a seminar that Nick Milo put on a seminar with Linking Your Thinking and some key guests. I sat in on Doto’s presentation on Zettlekasten and learned a ton, so I signed up for his course. It has been really helpful for me in thinking about how to compile research this year. I’d recommend it to anyone interested in learning how to building your own Zettelkasten.
Building a Zettlekasten for Creative Expression with Bob Doto
Ways to Connect with Wess:
If you like this post and/or have feedback you’d like to share you can connect with me on Mastadon: @wess@writing.exchange or through the Contact