Responsibly Wild Blog

 Every few years there’s a film I’m scared to watch because the air around it just feels to heavy. These films come with a weight that will pull you emotionally to your knees and force you to take stock. These films last time I know for sure a film did that for me was The Florida Project (but also maybe Pig and my first viewing of Everything Everywhere, All at Once). I have referred to that film far too many times as an empathy test or empathy heroin. Only a sociopath or psychopath could watch that film and be untouched by it. Train Dreams has brought me back to that heavy place. I’ve tried to stay away from marketing, discussions, and materials about this film after I heard a brief mention on a podcast about its tone. That was right after it premiered at Sundance in January 2025. Since its release on Netflix I knew to wait until I could watch it uninterrupted. It’s been over a month and tonight was finally the night.  I don’t want to review the film or recount the plot, but t...

  Once again, we spent some New Years time in my favorite city in the world, Chicago. We had a good time. In fact, we had a great time. Truth be told, we had too good a time. We've been home for a day and I can not shake how our Chicago trip was this year. So rather than wallow in the reality of returning to our normal lives in suburban Iowa, I figure why not write down what was great about our time in the Windy City before it leaves my body and I forget why it is and was so good. I'll start with the lowest point. Wednesday, December 31 - Drive into a Party Last minute on Wednesday, we decided to leave a day early for our trip and 5 hours later we rolled in our Oak Brook hotel in prime New Years partying time. We stayed in Oak Brook as it was close to our planned Christmas lights event at Brookfield Zoo and almost always we're cooked after those dark, cold outings. The bummer with staying in a hotel on New Years Eve is it is a roll of the dice as the environment and the lob...