Baseball

I have been playing baseball since I was about the ripe old age of 2-years-old.  I played all throughout high school and I played two years of club baseball at High Point University — my freshman and senior year.  During my senior year, our team came in second at our regional playoffs in Peachtree, GA.  During the summers back in South Dakota I played for a couple amateur baseball teams, the Sioux Falls Saints and the Renner Rangers.  In the summer of 2016 and 2017 I also worked as a coach for a 14U baseball team.  I’ve been looking into amateur leagues in Charlottesville and Richmond, so I may be playing again soon.  I included a small gallery at right with some of the images from my baseball happenings.  My wife Kelsey and I also have a goal to see a game at every MLB ballpark together!

Disney Trips

As you might have guessed from the banner, Disney is a popular vacation spot for us!  Kelsey and I have been to both Disney World and Disneyland Paris together, but we are probably going to wait a while before we plan a trip to Disneyland.  If we are trying to go to Disney any given year, we generally plan trips for around both of our birthdays as they usually coincide with Epcot's International Food and Wine Festival.  My current rank on Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin is Cosmic Commando with a score of 836,100 (proof in the images at left), but I will become a Galactic Hero (999,999+) one of these days!  I have not yet perfected my technique on Toy Story Mania, but I have gotten close to the daily high scores at Test Track and Soarin'.  When Ellorie gets older, Kelsey and I are looking forward to taking her to the Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique.  We are also hoping to eventually go on a Disney cruise, especially with the new ship joining the fleet.

Fantasy Football

Some of the graduate students at UVA put together a re-draft fantasy football league around the time I started my first year.  I joined and we've been playing every year since.  We've recently started a hybrid dynasty/keeper league, too.  This has become a favorite hobby of mine, and I enjoy getting to keep in touch with friends from UVa that are now off working or doing post-docs.  Recently, Kelsey started to manage a team when we joined a league with some other friends, too.  I'm hoping to start into a dynasty league at some point, too.  This past year I was able to pull off a championship run in both of our UVA leagues!

Hiking, Camping, and Fishing

Kelsey and I enjoy going on hikes, camping with family, and fishing.  We usually try to go camping at least once a year with Kelsey's parents and/or her sister's family in various places around Virginia or North Carolina, but we are all hoping to go more in the future.  We also are hoping to get out and fish more now that we are in Charlottesville, especially now that our nephew is old enough to go.  At left are some pictures from some of my various excursions.

Photography

Similar to dabbling in astrophotography, I enjoy doing just general photography every once in a while.  I know a lot less about it, but it is fun to try new exposure setting combinations and learn what makes for good photos.  I'm sort of partial to landscape and nighttime (shocking I know, haha) photography, but as I learn more about how to shoot other scenes I might try some other things out.  Kelsey and I have a Nikon D3400 that we usually bring with us on trips and hikes and such, but I also just use my phone most of the time right now.  I think some of my favorite photos are the landscape panoramas that I sometimes take (a few of them are featured in the banners on various pages).  I've included a few pictures that I've taken that I enjoy at right (and the banner above), and I might try to keep that updated as I learn more about shooting with our DSLR.