This year, my annual report is going to sound like a crazy travelogue. I did so many things that I needed to split this entry in two pieces. You’ll see why in the second installment.

In January, I celebrated my 57th birthday with a few close friends: Lori, and my singer, Maggie and her husband Ian. We had dinner at home, cocktails and played a couple of games. It was a lovely, low key way to ring in the new year.

For MLK weekend, Cyndi and I flew to New Orleans to celebrate another birthday. MIT friend college friend Tricia threw a huge 60th birthday party for her husband, John, so I coined the event “JohnCon 2025”, 3D printed a handful of logos and handed them out

Fellow MIT grads Vadim and Justyna also met us down there, and we took a SteamBoat dinner jazz cruise together.

Then some of us were stranded there, as the city received a record 10″ of snow, thanks to Storm Eowyn. It didn’t take long for the snowmen to become christened with Mardi Gras beads, a month ahead of schedule:

At the end of the month, I joined another college friend, Alla, and her sister Raisa at their condo in Boca Raton, FL for 10 days. This is becoming a winter tradition for me, and I’m very grateful to be invited. We did not get any snow, but one of the things we did was visit the Everglades in fan boats to see alligators:

I returned just in time to celebrate Adam’s birthday in February, at their house in Troy, where we made enchiladas. Adam is masking up, because I had just returned from FL on a plane. He was about to leave for the MTG Pro Tour, and could not risk getting sick:

Last year, our college friend Anna asked me to accompany her to a resort in Cancun. This year, she asked me to accompany her to the Dominican Republic in March. I had a great time, but unfortunately, she fell ill with medication related side effects(later in the year, the side effects gradually disappeared). We made the best of it, and still enjoyed the resort. Our butler, Anibal, reminded me a lot of Tim Duncan, especially when he’s not smiling. He says he gets that a lot:

Near the end of the month, I helped organize a birthday party for my Martini Wife, Erica. Married to Eddy, their kids also grew up at Trinity, but they are roughly Aria’s age. She’s one of my Church Drinking Buddies, so she calls me her Martini Hubby. After dinner, we ended up at Belicoso Martini Bar and Cafe, and as you can see, we had a blast:

At the very end of March, I drove out to visit my high school best friend, Patty, and her husband, Ingo, in the DC area. I went to see the National Cherry Festival, something I had done back in 2012(the link is to an old blog post, but unfortunately, I will need to restore the pictures to that entry, currently misplaced after a WordPress update).

Nearby was the Dr Martin Luther King Jr Memorial, also a very humbling and inspirational place

While I was there, I also visited the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. In my view, this park provides much needed introspection and inspiration for our national leadership.

In April, Cyndi and I rented an AirBnB for a 3-day weekend getaway in Port Austin, MI. I wrote about it previously, so click on the link for the details.

The next weekend, Cyndi flew to FL to support her dad as he underwent surgery(fully recovered from that). Later, we celebrated Aaron’s birthday, with Travis. They are in Kiss My Friends band together, but Travis is yet another member of what I call ‘Trinity riffraff’ who grew up with our kids. They’ve been playing music together ever since. Unfortunately, I didn’t take the first picture until after we sliced the cake, oops.

Starting last week of April, I took a long road trip, from Michigan to Wisconsin to Omaha, NE to Colorado to Texas then finally back to Michigan! I stopped in Wisconsin for the first night, to visit my friend Anna. But stopping after ‘only 7 hours’ also meant a shorter drive to Nebraska, where I finally made time to visit the Strategic Air Command and Aerospace Museum, in Ashland, just past Omaha.

At this museum, I found many of the aircraft I used to read obsessively about when I was a kid. In this picture alone are several aircraft, include the two largest bombers the US has ever built: B-36 Peacemaker, and B-52 Stratofortress:

I then drove to Strasburg Colorado, to visit my high school friend and fellow clarinet player, Karen, and hang out for a night and a day before Aria was able to receive visitors in Denver. Karen has a beautiful view out her backyard:

After visiting Karen, I met Cyndi, Aaron and Cyndi’s sister, Debbie. We had all converged to witness Aria’s graduation from Rocky Mountain College for Art and Design. Although she was not scheduled to complete all her requirements until August, she elected to walk the stage in April 2025, instead of waiting until April 2026.

We also got to meet Aria’s boyfriend, Luke Taylor. They took us to the Western Sky Bar and Taproom, which is an ordinary bar, except that you are welcome to bring games(or borrow theirs) and play. They also had live music. Very good vibes at this place.

From Denver, as the calendar flipped to May, I drove to Texas, first stopping in Amarillo, which owes its early growth to the railroads, having been a major hub for cattle. This was outside the restaurant and hotel where I had dinner:

On the way to San Antonio, I stopped to visit my friend from middle school(yes, middle school!), Christa, in Belton, TX. We had dinner, then I installed a bathroom faucet in the new vanity, but ran out of time to get the right adapters for the plumbing. She got that resolved later.

Then it was onto San Antonio! Mom had plenty of Honey-Do’s for me, including tearing up deck that my father built many, many years ago(it had started to rot badly):

One of the things that I had not done since I was a kid was to visit the coast to go fishing. My brother Mike and I took mom out the coast, with all the fishing gear, and we stayed up late each night fishing on the pier, cracking jokes and reminiscing:

Mom and Mike, the next day, waiting for the fish that never got the memo:

I guess this is how we Mexicans mark the spot NOT to fish from:

I will force myself to write a separate article about the rest of this San Antonio trip. So many food pictures…

In May, Cyndi and I returned to my favorite camp site, Wilderness State Park. I wrote about this earlier, see Soo-Locks and Old Mackinac Point Lighthouse.

In June, we drove to NY to witness Tessa’s wedding. She is the daughter of our close friends, Blane and Rev Jeanne Hansknecht, whose kids all grew up with ours at Trinity Episcopal Church(Trinity ‘riffraff’). Aria was co-maid of honor:

In May, we celebrated Father’s Day at Adam and D’Arcy’s house in Troy, where Adam BBQ’d for me and I pretended to supervise. I also helped Adam clean gutters around the house(he had injured a shoulder or something rock climbing, but healed not long afterward).

This month, I started rehearsing and performing with a cover band called SNaP, which stands for Steve Napier at Powell’s, and local dive bar with an outdoor stage. This has been a lot of fun, but boy, we have a huge repertiore and go through almost 30 songs each gig! It’s been great to help me develop as a bass player

Nearly every month, I try to perform at open mic at The Owl in Milan. The weekend before open mic, I usually get together with my singer(and very good friend) Maggie and her husband Ian, at their house to rehearse music, eat dinner and have drinks. Lately, we’ve been inviting other friends over to ‘rehearse’ with us, ie, practice making cocktails and drinking them. These Friday nights are always a blast, and we’ve been doing this for years. This year, we’ve been inviting other good friends on a sort of rotating basis to join us in what amounts to a private bar scene with decent music.

In the summer, Cyndi and I have been going to the outdoor Ypsilanti Farmer’s Market to buy local produce and, occasionally, other products. This year, Cyndi got me this cool handmade button-down shirt. It’s become one of my favorite shirts to wear during gigs

Also this month, I paid another visit to Anna in New Berlin, WI, who is a foodie and very knowledgeable about the local cuisine. For dinner one night, we went to Tofte’s Table, in Waukesha:

That’s it for this installment. There’s much more to write about for the second half of the year. Stay tuned…