Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 29: A Quick Trip To NYC Part 2: A Day In The City

 A Quick Trip To NYC Part 2: A Day In The City

The morning after the show, Paige and I got up at 8:00 a.m. After getting ready, we went downstairs and had an impromptu breakfast with Jill and her family. By the time we got out of their house, it was 9:30. 

 Our first stop was Times Square, which, honestly, was kinda a bust. After that we made our way to the Brooklyn Bridge and on the other side we got pizza at Grimaldi’s which was really good. After we finished most of our pizza, we left and headed to a pier.

From this pier we took a ferry to Governors Island. Governors Island is located in New York Harbor, just South of Manhattan. When we had been making plans for the day with Jill before the Cousin Simple show, she gave us a bit of history about it, and for this installment, I did a little bit of research just so I could understand the setting. Most of what I learned is not super relevant to this installment. Obviously there were some Native Americans who lived there initially, the Dutch and the English settled there in the 1600s, and the island had prominent roles in the Revolutionary War, and both World War I and II. In 2003, the government sold the island to New York for public use.

Jill described it as a year round fairground. They have events all the time. On that day, there was a pumpkin patch event, (though it was more tailored for kids than we initially believed). What was really cool about Governors Island was… it was like it was time locked. Like yes, there were smart phones, and people walking around in modern clothes, but the island itself felt very old world. 

Now what I have not been good at in this installment is keeping track of what time we did everything and that is by design. From Jill‘s house on we were on the move the whole time, even if we were just sitting around waiting for the subway, and it was really hard to keep track. By the time we were rushed off the island it was somehow already 6:00 p.m. 

We made it back to Jill‘s house by 7:00 and we played a game of Uno with her, her husband and her kids shortly after we arrived. The funniest part of the night was one of the kids kept calling Paige “young lady,” with way too much confidence.

I went into this quick trip to New York City knowing that we weren’t going to see everything. While the day flew by, we still did a lot of stuff,  considering that we were only in New York for a little bit under 48 hours. Still, I can’t wait to go back and see more! 

To Be Continued… 

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 28: A Quick Trip To NYC Part 1: Mr. Disney

 A Quick Trip To NYC Part 1: Mr. Disney

On Sunday, October 26, 2025, in Orlando, my grandpa, Pop-pop, was doing some work at his partner Sara‘s house, at around 5:00 pm. To his surprise, his phone started ringing. “Hey, Pop-pop,” I said, “Paige and I missed our connecting flight. Can you pick us up?” 40 minutes later, we were in Sara’s car on our way back to her house.

“So,” Pop-pop asked, “what happened?”

“Well,” I replied, “it all started with a Cousin Simple show.” 

Cousin Simple had a show in New York City on Friday, the 24th. Usually, we wouldn’t go to an out of state show, but Paige has a cousin who lives there, so we decided to make a weekend trip out of it. We flew Spirit to save money. On our way to NYC, we went from Columbus to Fort Lauderdale to New York. We landed in Fort Lauderdale at 7:40 am, as our next flight was boarding.  We ran all the way through the airport to our gate, only to realize that it had changed to the gate right next to the one we had landed at. 

Miraculously, we made it to New York, and after a brief lunch, we made it to her cousin’s house. Her cousin, who I will call Jill, showed us to our room, helped us make a rough plan for the next day, and then she went to get her kids from school, and Paige and I chilled until it was time for the show.

The show was at a bar called Pianos, which was about 30 minutes away by subway. We got through the turnstile before being informed that all of the subways were down… because, of course, they were. 

We ended up Lyfting to Pianos, which, I mean… driving in NYC… it wasn’t the best… the bar was pretty small and I wasn’t really sure where they were going to play. But the venue itself was actually upstairs, and it was huge! There wasn’t a stage, so the band was on the same level as the audience, which was super engaging. The most exciting part of the show was when they announced that the next song on their EP, Mr. Disney, would be coming out on Friday, November 7th. Which for those of you who are following me live was yesterday.

This was really exciting because the entire EP was recorded during the gap between last season and this one, and it has been in the proverbial vault all year. While I have heard most of them (my favorite ones haven’t been released), I hadn’t heard Mr. Disney. I’m excited that we are now halfway through the EP, and they will all be available soon!

To Be Continued… 

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 27: Elana

 Elana

On Thursday, October 23rd, 2025, I ate dinner, got dressed up, drove to Luke and Josh’s house to drop off Paige and my parking pass and extra key, and drove to the Exchange at Bridge Park for the 11th annual Thread Of Hope (TOH) benefiting Sam’s Fans. As you might recall, TOH is a fashion show. When I walked in, I was slightly overwhelmed.

See, when I first joined Sam's Fans, almost 10 years ago now, I knew pretty much everyone at the events. Over the last few years, however, the trend has been that there are more people that I don’t know at events as the organization grows. Though, to be fair, I haven’t volunteered as much in the last two years, which I need to start doing again, but my point is,  S.M.'s family and friends are always busy, and other than talking to each of them individually for a bit, I don’t really know anyone else.

At TOH, this year, I ran into two people. The first was one of Paige’s cousins' girlfriends, who I’m going to call Kristen. “Hey,” We both said, hugging each other. “What are you doing here?” she continued. After I explained the connection, she told me that a friend of hers worked for Thread (the store that puts on the show). After talking to her for a few minutes, I went and mingled with S.M.’s family and friends until the live action started. The auction raised $1 million!!! After the auction, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Hi Mitchell,” Elana said when I turned.

“Oh my gosh,” I replied, “Hi!”

Elana was in S.M. and my class at OLP and was a great friend to both of us. Her older half sister, Natalie, set me up with my first girlfriend, and her baby sister, Jenna, went to high school with Paige. The last time I saw Elana was when I started working at Kroger (she quit a few months after I started).

We started to talk, and she caught me up on what she has been doing since we stopped working together. She decided to go to college in 2021, after initially believing that it was not for her, and she’s been dating a guy since 2022. When I went to tell her about how I have been, she replied, “Oh, I know everything! I’ve been following you since you started your podcast. My niece was diagnosed with autism in November of 2019.”

After the fashion show ended, we mingled with everyone for a little bit longer, and then I told Elana, “I have an early flight in the morning, so I gotta go, but we should get coffee soon.”

“I would love that!” She replied. 

If I haven’t made this abundantly clear in both this series and Once in a Lifetime: A Song For Sam, I loved S.M. and I miss her every day. Sam's Fans was a major part of my healing process because it was a way for me to channel my grief as a result of her death. S.M.’s Dad has been quoted as saying, “As Sam's Fans grew, so did her spirit.” And he’s not wrong. The work that S.M.’s family and friends do is work that she would have done had she survived Fanconi Anemia, and being part of that makes me feel close to her. But even separate from Sam's Fans itself, reconnecting with Elena is something that makes me feel close to S.M. because I know S.M. loved both of us, and I believe that she is happy that we have reconnected!

Have A Greattastic Day And Be Safe

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 26.5: As Seen From Afar

 As Seen From Afar

On Sunday, June 22, 2025, Paige and I arrived at Wolf Park at 7:30 am for the annual Sam's Fans 5k. I have helped with the 5K every year since I joined the organization (though I did run it the year I dramatically joined). This was the first year, however, since I joined that I (we) ran it.

We walked up to the registration table. As soon as we got in line, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and saw my friend and former classmate Anna and her fiancé, let’s call him Shaun, who I had not met before. The race started at 8:00, and in that 30-minute time period, we talked to Anna and Shaun as well as S.M.’s friends and family. Even though it was good to see everyone, there was one person from my past who was there that, at the time, I didn’t know had seen me from afar. 

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 26: Friends Of Noah

 Friends Of Noah

One day in 2018, a year before I met him, Noah was getting off the bus after work. As he walked to his apartment building, he heard someone walking up behind him. It was a man who just happened to live in the same building, and he introduced himself as Owen Blake. I have met Owen Blake a handful of times, but I didn’t know until this last summer that this meeting marked Noah‘s first adult friendship. 

From there, Noah’s friend group expanded. As I said, I met him in 2019. In 2021, Noah started hearing about another blind athlete, who we will call Emilia. Emilia and Noah heard about each other’s fame in their respective sport, but each believed that the other did not know who they were. It was not until 2023 that they officially became friends. Over the last year, Noah has also become friends with three other women, Luna, Leah, and Leah's sister Nora.

Noah’s 33rd birthday was on Wednesday, October 1st, 2025. On Saturday, October 4th, at around 4:30, Paige and I drove to a music store, got Noah guitar strings and picks, went back to the apartment to finish getting ready, and then at 6:15 we left to pick up pizza at Adriatico’s on campus. Then we drove to Luna's house. Owen Blake, Leah and Nora, and obviously Luna, were already celebrating with Noah when we arrived at 7:00, but Emilia and her fiancé, Jake, were driving from Pittsburgh. 

We spent the first hour eating pizza and getting to know each other. The theme of the party (admittedly more for everyone else as opposed to Noah) was Spider-Man. Luna had gotten a ton of Spider-Man stickers, got a Spider-Man cookie cake, and even had made the invitation Spider-Man themed. That theme is very relevant, but we’ll get back to that in a second. 

When Emilia and Jake finally arrived, we all began to talk about how Noah met everybody. After this, Luna informed us, “So before you all got here, Noah sucked some helium and sang a song.”

I replied, half jokingly, “You let him do that before we got here?”

This led to us all taking turns, breathing in helium from balloons. It was something that none of us had done since we were little kids, mostly because it is actually really bad for you if you do it too much, but there were a couple of funny moments. Noah’s was one of the funniest, but it's really hard to describe because, generally speaking, he's just a funny person so pitching his voice up just makes him almost unbearably funny. My voice is already high, so it was really funny when I took my turn because my voice was almost too high-pitched for any of us to hear. But the best had to be Owen Blake's.

As I'm sure you've noticed, I have only referred to Owen Blake by his full name. While it is a pseudonym, I chose a full name because Noah only calls him by his full name, and honestly, it fits because he is a full name kind of guy. He has this very chill, suave vibe about him. As he stood up to fill up his balloon, we all waited with bated breath. He put the balloon to his lips, took a breath in, and then, almost oblivious to the tension that had built in the room, Owen Blake said, in his normal voice, “I don't think I did that right!”

After that, but before we were able to have the cake, Leah and Nora had to go home. Before they were able to say their goodbyes, Luna suggested that Noah give a speech, and I started chanting, “Speech, speech, speech,” and the others followed. I like to think that I am a pretty good public speaker, but Noah's words were so pure that I am not even going to try to quote them; it would not mean the same thing coming from me. I will, however, paraphrase them. Noah said in a way more elegant way that he is the person that he is because of us, and that he couldn't imagine his life without us.

There was a lot more personality and comedy in the way he said it that would not make sense in this installment if I tried to put it in. But in the moment as we all laughed and smiled as Noah professed his appreciation for us, I started to reflect. Other than Owen Blake, I have not met any of Noah's friends before. However, if there's one thing that Noah does chronically, it's talk about his friends. The fact that the theme of the birthday party was a Marvel character was very fitting because, based on Noah's stories, we all already knew each other, and everyone finally being together basically had the same vibe as an Avengers movie. We all got to see each other grow individually (Noah's stories), and we finally got to interact in a big crossover (the party). 

It is general human nature to judge the other people in the lives of the people you love. It doesn't matter how good of people they actually are, you are going to make harsh judgments because they are close to someone you care about, especially at first.  I think that it is a testament to how great a person Noah is that there wasn't a single second where I doubted any of his friends.

Have A Greattastic Day and Be Safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 25: Fever Dream

 Fever Dream

On Friday, September 19, 2025, after I got groceries on my way home from work, I pulled up to the apartment building, put my hazards on, got out of my car, and ran up to the door. There is this brick that people use to prop the door open when they are moving in. I propped it open and began running the groceries up to our apartment, where Paige was waiting to help put them away. On one of my trips, a neighbor’s dog by the name of Waffles ran into my building, and the owner and I spent 5 minutes chasing him.

That night, Box Seats was supposed to play a show with two other bands. However, both bands dropped out at the last minute, so it was now just Box Seats playing. My parents were out of town, and I hadn’t told Luke that we were coming. As we walked to the car, I told Paige, “So, Luke texted me when I was at Kroger: If you come to the show tonight, I will give you a tambourine and let you come on stage.” We laughed at what was clearly a joke.

We parked at Luke and Josh’s house, the 245, and walked the rest of the way to the venue. When we walked in, the only people there were Luke, Josh, their band mates, Freddy and Max, Freddy’s longtime girlfriend, Kelly, Luke’s college roommate, Malcolm, his current roommate, and two girls who I have seen at a few other Box Seats shows. When I saw Luke, I sarcastically said, “This might be the biggest show you’ve ever played!”

“Well, don’t be mean about it,” he quipped as the girls laughed, and I felt a little guilty.

5 minutes later, at 7:55, about four more people and Ryan entered the venue, and the band got on stage. We all stood in what would have been the front row at a normal show, except Paige stood a little further behind to get some videos. I stood right next to Kelly.

About 10 minutes into the show, after they finished playing a song, Malcolm lifted up a piece of paper. It read: LET ME PLAY! Luke read it and brought him on stage. Once Luke had introduced Malcolm to the crowd, they played a song that they have not released on Spotify yet. When the song ended, and Malcolm got off the stage, I laughed and thought, That’s gonna be the best thing that happens tonight. Boy, was I wrong.

Now, in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the main character's older brother is in a punk rock band called Loaded Diaper, and Luke was a huge fan of that series, even writing (and publishing in a limited capacity) a parody book based on it in middle school. The first song that Box Seats wrote is called Almost There, so when Luke called Ryan onto the stage and said, “This is the first song we ever wrote,” I assumed it was going to be Almost There. Instead, it was a rock ballad, in which Luke just aggressively sang the words “Loaded Diaper” for like 30 seconds. After they finished, Ryan got off the stage, and they actually played Almost There. After that, I rallied the crowd and asked for an encore, during which Freddy left his guitar and started playing on Max’s- while Max was still playing. I leaned over to Kelly and said, “This is a fricking fever dream.”

Since Luke also plays with Cousin Simple, he and Ryan play together all the time. But after the show, we went back to the 245, and I ended up falling asleep. Because the only time Ryan has played with Box Seats was a song that Luke totally wrote as a joke, before Box Seats even had their name, on top of me chasing a dog through my apartment building, and the bands general manic-ness, if I didn’t have pictures of the show, I think I actually would have believed what I said to Kelly about it being a fever dream. Sometimes we feel like if something is small, it's not as awesome as it would be if it were bigger. But as I think Box Seats proved, something doesn’t have to be big to be…Greattastic 

Be Safe everybody,  

J. Mitchie Ulibarri

Season 8 Goals And Dreams Blog 24: A Cosmic Twin

 A Cosmic Twin

OCALICONLINE is an international conference online that focuses on people with low-incidence disabilities, including autism. I have spoken at OCALICONLINE two times. The first time I did it in 2022, I spoke with my public speaking mentor, Dr. Brooks, and coincidentally, Noah’s (now former) soccer coach, Katie. The presentation was based on research that Katie did with Dr. Brooks about my impact on preservice teachers. Needless to say, I loved this opportunity and experience! Dr. Brooks and I talked about the possibility of eventually doing a research paper along the same lines as that first OCALICONLINE presentation, but fast forward to 2025, and that had still not happened. Quite honestly, I had almost forgotten about it.

In the middle of February 2025, Dr. Brooks responded to a public call for articles focusing on collaboration to be considered for a special edition of the Journal of Special Education Preparation (JOSEP), a higher education journal published by the teacher education division of the Council for Exceptional Children. It was a long shot, but she shared about how I collaborate with her class to talk about my personal experiences with autism and why this is an effective method in teacher education. Guess what? WE GOT PICKED!

Not only did the editors of JOSEP respond to Dr. Brooks, they paired us with a team from New York - a professor and a self-advocate who have the same type of collaboration as me and Dr. Brooks, but in Buffalo. Dr. Brooks - and I’ll call the other professor, Dr. Kabe - met in early April to talk about their college programs and collaborate about how these experiences could be shared in an article to help other college professors begin similar programs in their courses. Dr. Kabe works with an autistic woman named Kayleigh who comes and speaks in her class, just as I speak in Dr. Brooks’ class. Kayleigh and I mirror each other in ways that have many similarities, but differences at the same time.

Firstly, while I use speech to communicate, Kayleigh uses an AAC Device. An AAC (or Augmentative and Alternative Communication) device is an electronic device that often resembles an iPad that helps generate speech for those who are nonverbal. Second, while I started out in a public school setting and moved to a more segregated school (special ed), and back, she started segregated, went to a more public school setting, and bounced back and forth for the remainder of her career. As Dr. Brooks and Dr. Kabe started writing this joint article, they sent me and Kayleigh emails asking us interview questions that were included in the final draft of the article. They listed us as secondary authors in their publication, acknowledging our voices and the collaborative partnerships we help to create in university classrooms. After a lot of back and forth, including several reviews that addressed the feedback of three different editors, on Saturday, August 9, 2025, we got an email from JOSEP accepting the article! After making minor type edits, it was formally published on September 16, 2025. Information about the article can be found at the following links:

Link to our article (starting on page 50): https://openjournals.bsu.edu/JOSEP/issue/view/393/175

 JOSEP speaks podcast is also available. This is "AI" generated episode of each issue. https://open.spotify.com/show/7edqJAkTj9siYAJJ0xB1zG?si=86921051e9974947&nd=1&dlsi=ce69a8b64d6c4e78

I have named this season goals and dreams, as I am trying a new system to motivate myself to continue reaching new goals. I have always hoped to be published in a research paper since I started working with Dr. Brooks. After OCALICONLINE 2022, it was admittedly one of the only goals that I had hardcore giving up on and/or did not have a contingency plan to make it happen, even if it didn’t happen when I wanted it to. The fact that it did happen, with almost zero intervention from me, has emboldened me in my effort to reach my other goals.

What’s also cool about this particular goal is that it brought me and Kayleigh together. We are two people, who are seven years apart, three states away, and on different parts of the autism spectrum, and yet we have very similar life experiences. I believe that Kayleigh is a cosmic twin of mine, and I am so grateful our paths have crossed. 

Have a Greattastic day and be safe!

J. Mitchie Ulibarri