I Got Engaged!

Back in December, I proposed to my long-time partner (and technically high school sweetheart, but that feels corny to say) Amaya. We had talked about it before, and the only thing she wanted was for it to be a surprise. Her mom helped me set it up: she would invite Amaya over and I'd surprise them there. I also brought in her dad from out of state to be there too.

She said yes!

Josh on the right kneeling down presenting the ring to Amaya, who is covering her mouth in shock and delight.

We have a date for February of 2026 already set. Now the real fun begins: coordinating the event itself. That'll be where I spend most of the next year.

Rock Climbing

Some friends in college got me into it during my time at FSU. Since then, it's one of those hobbies I bounce in and out of. Now I'm in my "bounce in" phase and enjoying it, but feeling myself slipping out of it. I feel like I plateau at a low difficulty grade quickly. Once I'm stuck there, the enjoyment gets sucked out and I move on to other things. Of course, the answer is usually:

work out outside of climbing
go climbing regularly

I missed a few weeks this month because of that, but I'm determined to keep going.

Volunteering

I'm on the Board of Directors for my local Friends of the Library branch. Mostly, I'm assisting the Treasurer as of now and doing some tech support for them. I'll also assist with events the library or other members of the Friends run and even run my own. Right now, I'm running a monthly board game event for adults, but I'm working on a coding workshop aimed at teens to teach them JavaScript and a little game dev with the kaplay library. Overall, it's been a really rewarding experience :)

D&D

I'm in three ongoing games of D&D: two where I'm DMing and one where I'm just a player. I've been DMing for some time now, but our games aren't that frequent, so I wouldn't consider myself seasoned. I almost dropped it at the end of last year, but decided to pick it back up again. It was the right call; I've really been enjoying it the past few months.

I'm trying to find inspiration for the games I run. I've read Keith Baker's Dreaming Dark series (since the first book takes place in Sharn in the Eberron campaign setting, where I run my two games), and I'm looking to the Mistborn series as well. Some of my friends are really into Brandon Sanderson, so I'm giving that a try. I currently have it on hold on the library and am next in line.

Side Projects

Wookieepedia Status Article Nominations

I've been working on it on and off for over a year now. It's been almost done since the end of January. I'm taking it over the finish line as we speak. I'm a little embarrassed it's taken this long, but I'm determined to see it through.

For some context, I have a friend who's an admin on the Wookieepedia, the Star Wars wiki. Every year, they ingest a bunch of data about work people have done and give out awards. The app I'm working on for them lets them manage that data and make it available to others.