Wow, it’s the end of the year already… so in addition to wins this week try to think back over the last year and reflect on things that went well. You can share them if you’d like but don’t feel pressured to.
My weekly win - I’ve got the rest of the year off work. Looking forward to relaxing, playing some games, and maybe writing some code.
This year, idk, I’ve made a lot of progress on some personal growth goals I’ve had. Been a lot calmer this year. It’s been nice.
After some not insignificant scope creep I’ve finally finished rebuilding and updating FIM’s pit power road cases! Now we just need to get them back to FIM.
Weekly wins:
It was Christmas time, got a new tool bag, Ryobi speaker and other stuff on my list. I’ve been to three parties this week, have another one tomorrow so I’ll see most of the family in person this year.
My favorite gift? My mother will be picking up our team’s kickoff kit and dropping it off so I can stay and lead the brainstorming/rules research instead of driving in the car 1+ hours each way. She asked what I wanted most and since I couldn’t find a volunteer it worked out well. I need to still set her up as our surrogate, but at least that’s covered.
Yearly Wins:
It’s been a year of giant life changes. Losing family, switching careers, getting married, going on our honeymoon, seeing the team grow and shrink back to the size it was when I joined originally over a decade ago. Not all of the things in a year will ever be good, but there’s always something positive to find even in the worst moments of a day, week, month. Because of @Andrew_Schreiber and this thread I can look back at a given week and find something positive that happened as proof. So thank you again for another year of making things a little brighter!
Weekly Wins: This week I got to celebrate with a lot of family, and overall had a great time enjoying the holidays. I got some fun gifts, had a lot of delicious food (including a lot of cheese), and some of my favorite deserts. Last Saturday was the last shop day of the off season, and I’m terrified that by the posting of the next Weekly Wins thread, we’ll be roughly 36 hours from Kickoff.
I know it seems like I’ve got a lot to talk about, but part of the purpose of this thread is to be able to seek out the positives in our lives. I encourage everyone to look back on this year, and even though it may have been a difficult one, find the things that might be hard to recognize when more pressing, negative things seem to capture your attention.
Also…
This reminds me, we have this seemingly official tote that appears to have been used at an event at some point. No idea how we ended up with it, but we did somehow.
You have a 2015 game piece that is being used for storage. Can’t tell if the markings are for your team or FiM, though. It may have been used at an event, or may have just been in your team’s shop since 2015. (It was also used to pass out the Kickoff Kit.)
And yes, I’m being 100% serious that it’s a 2015 game piece.
Today’s win: Informing one of Today’s 10,000. IYKYK. 
Got sick for Christmas 
I’m sorry, I can’t in good conscience follow my normal rule for these threads and like this post. Being sick stinks. I hope you feel better.
Weekly wins:
Back to my folks’ place for the holidays!
Made substantial progress with modifying my dissertation proposal since it came back from committee (being frustrated at the circumstances that resulted in this and getting a patronizing message from my advisor is a different matter).
Yearly wins:
Figued out a lot of “being a person” stuff this year, despite growing pains.
Brother’s friends got him a (rescue) puppy for xmas since his dog passed in Nov. Apparently this handsome little feller was found by a dumpster in western ND. I have no idea who would throw away a perfectly good Chesapeake Bay Retriever, but we are all very happy he is in our lives. Name is Grizz.
I’ve had a lot of fun this week. It’s mostly been spent cat sitting, with a very friendly, silly, and vocal cat. I also somehow managed to already lose one of the hats I made last week, buts its somewhere in my house, maybe in the blackhole where all my things disappear to. Got a decent haul for Christmas, not to many things but almost everything I asked for (save for a Lego tuxedo cat).
Went up to my grandparents for Christmas and saw a bald eagle! Forgot how common they are up there and got surprised when it swooped by into the tree lol
Other than that, a friend gifted me Papa’s Freezeria, so it’s been a fun experience reliving a part of my childhood. Other than that mostly just been chilling with my cats (can you tell I like cats) and preparing to take my brother to our local indoor skatepark tommorow
For my Yearly wins: I graduated Highschool, got accepted and started classes at my first choice college with a decent amount of financial aid, was made captain of a varsity esports team, and made plenty of friends this year. It’s been a long experience from feeling like I don’t fit in anywhere, to feeling like a family at my college. It’s been a great year and I’m really looking forward to the next (for the most part lol)
Yearly Wins:
Was hospitalized three times and didn’t die
Got an awesome new team who I love more than almost anything.
Booked tickets for my 2025 worlds trip
Became an official art school student
Came up with my motorcycle dream
Met a lot of interesting new best friends
Got my adopted brother back (long story)
Played a lot of awesome video games (and overspent on adjacent merch)
Got six job interviews within one month
Had an awesome time working at the crisis hotline
Started therapy
Had an awesome time with FRC volunteering
I definitely have more that I can’t think of right now so I will be making a second post.
I reorganized everything I own, didn’t get institutionalized, and survived!
2015 was, like, only a few years ago… right? Right???
Managed to make it through the year alive, which is a pleasant surprise
This week I made a nice Christmas dinner of homemade butter chicken with my girlfriend and my closest friend and her family. I also polished up and consolidated a lot of internal data into one spreadsheet that I believe will make it easier to do things at work. Among the new data points I added to the sheet was what percent of all FRC teams my region has, and we went from 1,5% when we had our first event in 2018 to 5,1% today (7 years).
in terms of yearly wins.
It’s been a busy and progress filled year. 
Hope the next year is this good.
I wish everyone a happy new year!
This has been a good week. Highlights:
The whole year? Wow, that’s a lot to think about. I’ll just say that it has been very good.
Yep definitely one of FIM’s. Tom might take it off your hands.
Just to follow up…
I should have recognized this as a definitive Recycle Rush game piece immediately. I just didn’t know if it had other purposes.
So I might have been on to something! The way it was marked with the text on that tape stood out to me as unusual compared to the rest of our storage. A fellow member of the team pointed out that we might have received it from FIM because its lid is damaged with a hole in it.
Looking back, this wording definitely wasn’t the best way to explain what I was saying. I definitely should have added a clause to denote “out of game play”.
It’s 10th Anniversary next month!!!
Also, (no picture this time) it appears my school’s janitorial staff has gotten one of our 2015 recycle bins confused with their own, as I walk past one branded with the FIRST logo every day to and from my Computer Graphics class, not too far from where our shop located.
If you store other FRC/FTC game items in it, instead of using it as a trash/recycling can it’s less likely to get mistaken/taken. Ours is tucked in a corner and hasn’t been taken in all this time thankfully
We actually have another one in the shop that we use as a receptacle for used bottles and cans. The lid is marked accordingly.
