2017 was a pretty big year. My mantra for the year was “Good things come to those who hustle.” Here are a few of the many good things that came after a year of hustling hard.
- 30 Before 30 – In January, I spent most of the month backpacking around Europe. I visited with old friends, met distant relatives and explored new places. By the end of the trip I had reached my goal of visiting 30 countries before my 30th birthday a few months later and had learned a thing or two about settling down too.
- I turned 30 and like any responsible 30 year old who is afraid of heights and gets motion sick…I went skydiving.
- 2017 was my first year as a full time freelance filmmaker and I managed to get my first IMDB credit, work on 3 features, cam op a tv pilot and film in 5 states.
- I also traveled to 12 countries last year with 4 of them being work related.
- I went on 30 planes and 23 hikes in 4 national parks in Canada and Honduras.
- I wanted to work on more longer form visual stories and managed to complete one before the end of the year (2 are still in post). It’s online here.
- I was able to help film a documentary in Rwanda which will be premiering in Italy in March 2018.
- I completed my first backpacking hike in Honduras carrying a 45 pound pack and filming short form mini documentaries. It was brutal. It was a lot harder physically and emotionally than anticipated and I lost a toenail in the process. (Cory who is a professional backpack hiker said that was the hardest one he had ever done. So it was a great one for me to start out on…) But it was a great learning experience (in hindsight of course) and didn’t deter me from trying to keep backpacking. The mini doc should be released sometime in January.
- I went backpacking to a North Carolina fire tower with one of my friends who is new to the game like me. But we crushed that hike if I may say so.
- I got engaged to Cory just after sunrise on top of a mountain overlooking a lake in Banff, Canada.