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In Review: 2022 (Part Two)

If you’re going to go, go all the way.
— Charles Bukowski, ‘Roll the Dice’

In Part One of my 2022 year in review, I talked about how the year was filled with some very personal challenges because of my father’s degrading health, and the death of my grandmother. In this post, I’ll talk about how that prompted me to begin some life changes.

At the first of the year, I was feeling pretty unhappy with how I let myself go, physically. I remember driving my truck and looking down at my stomach and thought, “This is too much. I really need to fix this.”

I snapped a full-body picture of myself (clothed, of course), stepped on the scale,  took some measurements, and then got started on a path to change my ways.

It was a slow start.

January 1: 240.2 lbs.

I started with intermittent fasting, but found it rough to break out of the cycle of eat, do nothing physically engaging, and then eat some more. Fasting is like a muscle, and it needs training to get into practice of it. I was very much out of practice. Even though I wasn’t off to the races, at least I started thinking more about what I ate.

February 1: 237 lbs.

After a month of stops and starts with a lackadaisical opening to the year, I found more a groove with intermittent fasting, starting on Valentine’s Day. I finished the last half of the month with longer daily fasts. I discovered that eating on an 18:6 schedule (not eating for 18 hours, then eating for a six-hour window), led to steady decreases in weight. I was traveling a lot this month to run back and forth dealing with issues with dad, and fasting was about the only tool I had available during that busy time. When eating during my six-hour window, I ate whatever I wanted, and starting walking on our basement treadmill.

March 4: 231.6 lbs.

We moved dad into an assisted living facility March 1.  The whole month was difficult. I didn’t intermittent fast much, and my physical activity came to a halt for the last two weeks of this emotionally charged month.

April 1: 232.9 lbs.

Since March had little progress on the weight front, I became more focused starting in April. Watching dad degrade so quickly from January through March woke up something within me. Now I wasn’t just wanting to change for my present; I was laying a foundation to try and fight off a similar fate in the future. In mid April, I spent $10 on a day pass to my local community center. I have lifted before, and thought maybe my community center would be enough to get me started down the road to regaining strength.

After we moved dad into assisted living, I brought home some things from the family home from my childhood which included some old action figures. That decision would end up being helpful in the months to come. I sold some of the action figures, and invested the money into my own health: I signed up for a one-month membership to the community center. By the last week of April, I was regularly lifting weights and going for daily walks.

May 1: 228.4 lbs.

Things started to coalesce when I combined resistance training using the 5×5 workout program and daily walking. Intermittent fasting was becoming less a part of my routine, and I started tracking calories with an app called Carbon.  As the weather warmed, it became easier for me to get moving more. I wasn’t seeing much when I looked in the mirror, only a glimmer that change was beginning. Most important, however, was that I was building a routine: resistance training was a couple of days per week, and walking was most of my other exercise. I walked a lot.

After selling some more action figures, I signed up for a three-month membership to the community center. I had my plan for the summer.

June 1: 223.4 lbs.

In June, it simply came down to patterns. I would intermittent fast a few times per week in a 16:8 pattern (shortening my fasting window helped with my food cravings that occurred with increased physical activity). I lifted weights, moving forward with progressive overload. I would take one really long walk every Saturday morning (usually four or fives miles), while also walking every morning upon waking. My routine became engrained: wake up, and walk for 30 minutes. Track my food intake with the Carbon app, and try to meet the caloric and protein goals it established for me. Resistance training a few times a week. Over and over, day after day, I was a broken record. It was a simple pattern, repeated over and over for weeks.

By June, my dad’s house was sold. The impact of this weighed on me: my past is truly behind me. Now I must keep building for the future, especially regarding my health.

July 1: 217.3 lbs.

By now I’m seeing a pattern. I’m losing around five pounds per month. I feel more energized, and in turn it pushes me to do more. I walk everywhere for everything. Need a beverage? I can walk to the nearby store for that. How about a few groceries? Yeah, that’s just a slightly longer walk to Walmart for me. I got this idea that maybe I could push hard in July and see if I could reach my goal of 200 lbs. by July 26 (a date I picked because it’s my wedding anniversary). It seemed lofty and too much, but I kept it as a goal anyway. I figured that even if I don’t hit the goal, the work toward it will still be worth it. The second week of July I completed a 45-hour fast (just water).

When July 26 hit, I reached 206.9 lbs. Although short of my goal, it felt like an impressive accomplishment. I was thrilled.

Two days later I would test positive for covid for the first time (and only time, as of this writing).

Aug. 1: 206.6 lbs.

After recovering from covid, I picked up where I left off. It was tough at first, because covid left me feeling wore out and sluggish. I clawed my way back.

A major change I made around this time was the building of a home gym in our basement. I loved going to the community center, but often found myself competing for space on the squat rack, which is where I did most of my work. I figured I could build a home gym with a squat rack and a bench press, then I would be set.

I found almost everything used on Facebook Marketplace. Instead of going to the gym, I brought the gym home to me.

On Aug. 28, I ran a 5k. I had to take four, two-minute walking breaks during the race, but I finished (which in itself felt like a big accomplishment).

Sept. 4: 199 lbs.

It was a goal of mine to get to 200 lbs. or less all year. That became my obsession. You lift, walk, run a little, watch your food intake, and then repeat over and over and over.

And then one day, it just showed up. For the first time in decades, I was under 200 lbs. That was a killer day.

Oct. 1: 203.4 lbs.

By the time I hit my goal in September, I was a little burned out. It’s good to take a break from things every once in awhile, and I was definitely in need of a break. Around this time, I switched my nutrition tracking from Carbon to Macrofactor and but kept up my exercise routine. But the weather was changing into fall/winter temps, which meant that more things were going to be inside from now on.

I dipped below 200 lbs. several times during the month of October, but it wouldn’t stay that way as we entered the Season Where Every Holiday Focuses On Food (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Eve).

On Oct. 2, I ran my second 5k of the year. I didn’t stop at all this time.

Nov. 1: 202.2 lbs., Dec. 1: 202.8 lbs.

I have ticked up on the scale, slightly, but I am not discouraged by that. In fact, given all that the last three months focuses on food consumption, I have found it fairly encouraging to be stable for now. I’m fine with stable.

The future

So, the kicker of a question … given all that happened with my dad and his disease, was 2022 a bad year?

Although I’m terribly saddened by the progression of Alzheimer’s Disease in my dad, it got me going to work on my own health. I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I am determined to fight it.

And the funny thing is, what started as a focus on my health, eventually became a focus on what makes me feel fantastic. It’s very difficult for me to have a bad workout. Even if I’m not able to give 100 percent, just the act of working does wonders for my mood.

I have loads more energy to push me to do things with my family. It still makes me feel great when people who haven’t seen me for awhile come up and say, “Wow, what happened to you?” It’s those times when I get to smile, say thanks, and say, “I’ve been working on myself this year.”

In 2023, the journey continues. I’ve had enough time off working through my stability period, but I’m ready to push the reset button and start over. But this time I get the benefit of starting from a different point this time.

All in all, 2022 was a fantastic year. It was a year I found myself again, and I am so glad I did.

On to 2023!

In Review: 2022 (Part One)

Sometimes in life, a sudden situation, a moment in time, alters your whole life, forever changes the road ahead.
— Ahmad Ardalan

It’s that time again, where I reflect on the past year and ponder a new one.

For 2022, I had these specific goals in mind:

  • Visit two more states with the family (visited one, but the year isn’t over yet)
  • Partially finish our basement (not done)
  • Re-stain our deck (not done)
  • Write and self-publish a book (not done)
  • Read 10 books (not done)
  • Go to three concerts (completed)

Normally, I might beat myself up over not getting most of my list done. I’m giving myself a pass this year, and the following outlines why I think that’s quite OK.

In short, it was a very hard year. Because of this, I’m going to split this into two parts.

The Long Goodbye

My dad has Alzheimer’s Disease. He was diagnosed in 2021, and the family worked through his gradual decline that year. Last December, we went to his house — the house I grew up in — to spend Christmas with him. He was living on his own but had assistance time to time from my sister (who lives close to him), and the holiday visit went pretty well.

Within a month, everything changed.

Dad caught covid in late January, which we later learned can exacerbate conditions for dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease patients. He quickly went downhill after that. His mental decline was such that he couldn’t live alone anymore, so he stayed with my sister and her family for a couple of months until we could figure out next steps.

I was making trips just about every weekend to help give my sister a break from taking care of him. At three hours each way, those were some long weekends. It was heartbreaking, in addition to being mentally and physically exhausting.

In March, we moved him to assisted living. He made it three months until he needed to be moved again to memory care. His mental state degraded so fast his doctor said, “I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

Memory care is pretty much the last stop, unless he ends up going to a nursing home (which is certainly still a possibility).

We sold the remaining 99 percent of his possessions, and then sold his home in June to help pay for his care. Pardon me for being selfish, but a lot was taken away within six months. My dad is so different now that it feels like he’s no longer here. The childhood home where I lived from birth until 20 years old, in addition to the place my children knew as “grandma and grandpa’s house” was in the hands of new owners. My connection to southeast Kansas, once another part of my existence, became deeply severed.

It’s funny that as I write this, I realize I haven’t really processed some of the events of this year. The first six months of the year was such a whirlwind, it really was a lot to deal with.

There was always a warmth I had “going home,” and after mom died in 2018, visiting dad at the house offered a little bit of a connection to her life. It wasn’t the same, of course, but being in that house would bring back wonderful memories. It was certainly tough to remove dad from the home and put him in assisted living. But it was equally rough to say goodbye to a life and history that had been part of my life for so long.

And as a cherry on top, my last remaining grandmother Opal, died on Oct 4, 2022. She was dad’s mom, and because of his condition, he couldn’t attend her funeral (and barely understood that she had passed).

So yeah, kind of a few bummers here and there. Sounds like 2022 really sucked, huh?

Well … not exactly.

In Part Two, I’ll talk about how the bad of this year led to some interesting opportunities.

In review: 2021

Discipline is doing what you hate to do, but nonetheless doing it like you love it.

— Mike Tyson

If I had to pick a theme for this year, it was mostly about discipline.

As the covid-19 pandemic continued on, our household figured out our standing operating procedure. Some practices were discarded, such as leaving packages in the garage for a few days or wiping down groceries. Those practices seem silly now, but in the beginning they fell into the “this sucks, but it can’t hurt” territory.

Other practices, such as masking indoors, avoiding large crowds, working from home and putting off in-person gatherings, are part of The Way We Do Things. We put our eggs in the “we hope this vaccine pans out” basket, and we were disciplined about our practices.

It seemed to have worked. Time marched on, actions remained disciplined, and we were able to keep everyone in the household from getting sick. My family is fully vaccinated, and everyone is physically healthy. Life is good.

The thing I learned this year about discipline is that it can be a freeing process. One of the other disciplined things I wanted to do in 2021 was to document every day with a picture of something I found interesting. I posted my experience to my Instagram. Every day, a picture. Every day, an experience.

What I found was that we had a good year. We lived life. It was different than in the before times, but it was still full of experiences. I’m very happy I decided to document the year in pictures, because it achieved the goal of giving me the ability to look back and say, “Where did the year go?” Even in pandemic times, it was still good. I’ve certainly had worse years (about 2/3 of the year 2019 was awful for me).

Goals for 2022

I’ve got some specific goals I’m shooting for in 2022:

  • Visit two more states with the family
  • Partially finish our basement
  • Re-stain our deck
  • Write and self-publish a book
  • Read 10 books
  • Go to three concerts

In addition, I have some one less-specific goal that I would really like to work on, but I realize I’ll need to have some more specific components to make it happen.

Covid has made me realize I need to take my health more seriously. In the past, I’ve misconstrued health to mean “lose weight.” While true that losing weight can have benefits, it’s only part of the picture. My Apple Watch has been telling me for awhile that my cardio health is not great. I would like to bring that measurement up to a more acceptable level. I’m also incredibly inflexible. I want to be physically stronger (I used to lift weights regularly). I’m unhappy with this diminished physicality that has happened in the last few years (which started before covid).

Mental health has been a challenge as well in the pandemic. While we have kept our family healthy physically, there’s certainly some challenges with regard to mental health, and I want to work to improve that as well for my whole family. I have also dealt with a bit of loneliness, as many of my co-workers have participated in The Great Reshuffle. I’ve said goodbye to many I have worked with for years, and while I’m happy for their continued success, seeing them depart when we’re doing a lot of remote work has added to increase loneliness. It now takes more work to overcome that, but it’s worth doing.

So, I say to hell with the scale. A mirror and asking myself “How am I feeling?” is all I really need. To get where I want to go, I’m going to need to figure out some specific steps. As this excellent comment said, you need process based goals, because without a process, you’ll never achieve you desired outcomes. That’s the part I need to figure out, and fast.

A Prediction for 2022

Lastly, a prediction for a new year: covid will become manageable in 2022 and we’ll move to a more endemic phase by the end of the year.

For now, it appears the Omicron variant is more communicable but less devastating. This week, there were two drugs approved for treating covid, which should help alleviate the burden on the healthcare system. The virus will spread, but many will be able to ride it out at home. We’ll figure out a way to live with covid, because like influenza, covid is here to stay.

We’re certainly neck deep in a new world. Here’s to 2022 and the possibility of a better future. Because really, when you’re at the bottom, there’s only one way to go from there.

Stay safe!

 

Getting back into writing

For awhile now I’ve been thinking of getting back into writing, and I’m starting to get my juices flowing again. But having been away from it for some time with any great consistency is showing me I am a little rusty.

I have started writing some posts, but end up saving them as drafts. This is harder than it looks. When I am in a good flow, I can usually just let things fall on the keys. But like all things, when you are away from it for awhile, it can take some time before you get the “flow” again. Writing is no different — it can take some doing to get your brain to catch up with the keyboard.

However, there is no substitute for experience, and what it will take to get back into writing will take me to simply write, and write regularly. It is not about finding the right keyboard, the right mouse, the perfect pen or the ideal notebook. No, you only need to write, and write consistently.

Time to get started pounding those keys.

Empty toiler paper aisle of Target.

2020: The Warning

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I dislike the unknowns of SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, no treatment has yet proven effective, and—like putting on a seatbelt—it’s easy for me to mitigate a lot of downside risk until more data paint a clearer picture … I am constantly looking for such “seatbelts” in many areas of my life. Dead-simple ways to cap some or all of the downside risk.
— Tim Ferriss “Some Thoughts on Coronaviruses and Seatbelts“

I’ve been a longtime reader of Tim Ferriss. His book, “The Four-Hour Workweek” reshaped how I do things in my career, although not to the degree as advocated in the book. His podcast has been excellent listening for me over the years, and his blog is often another wealth of information to pick from.

In February 2020, he wrote a blog post called “Some Thoughts on Coronaviruses and Seatbelts“. In that article, Ferriss linked to a post by Ben Hunt called “Body Count,” which gave me quite a jolt. Both posts warned of a newly-discovered virus called SARS-CoV-2, which we have now come to call COVID-19. Both posts highlighted some interesting aspects about this new disease:

  • There was no known effective treatment.
  • There is no known effective vaccine.
  • The virus can spread rapidly without showing symptoms in some people, making them “super spreaders.”

Ferriss’ posts goes on to ponder what might be needed to combat the spread of the virus. This got my wheels turning. Unlike it’s cousin SARS, the ability for this virus to be transmitted asymptomatically was concerning. With SARS, if you were infected, you showed symptoms. It was easier to fight. But with COVID-19, anyone could be a carrier; anyone could be infected.

After reading those articles in February, my wife and I talked about it. She is the coordinator of all grocery purchases in our household, so I told her, “Let’s start putting away a few things, just in case.” I didn’t want her to go crazy with purchases — just get some extra protein bars, canned goods we use, and peanut butter — but I did want her to go ahead and get a little extra in her runs to the grocery store. We began our meager stockpile, and then went about life as usual.

At the end of our conversation, I told my wife what concerned me the most.

“I don’t know that I’m afraid of this virus,” I said. “What I fear is panic. People get crazy when they’re afraid.”

It was time to make some plans. I wasn’t sure how long it would take for the virus to come to our corner of the midwest here in Missouri, but I certainly thought it was a possibility.

Hope is not a strategy.
— James Cameron

Several years ago, we were coming back from visiting family in western Kansas. It was snowing, and one of my children needed to use the restroom. We stopped at a trucker-oriented store on I-70 as we headed east back to home.

While my daughter was using the restroom, I struck up a conversation with a trucker. We were talking about the inclement weather and the cargo he was carrying, and then he told me this:

“There’s only three days worth of supplies in grocery stores,” he said. “After that, you’re waiting until the next load gets in. Most people have no idea how fragile the supply chain really is.”

I tucked that away in the back of my brain. It piqued my interest in prepping, but every resource I found at that time went deep into the rabbit hole of end-of-the-world scenarios, and that was a path I couldn’t follow. Although I entertained such scenario as a possibility, I weighed the likelihood against reality and decided the case for it wasn’t that strong. Rather, I was more in line with the Boy Scout motto from my youth: “Be prepared.”

In the years that followed, I went down that path, although in hindsight, not with enough vigor. But certain events kept the embers burning enough so that I was never fully unprepared. There was the Joplin tornado, ice storms two years in a row that dumped more than a foot of snow each year, and another tornado in my hometown of Baxter Springs, Kan., that kept me always thinking about never being caught with my pants down.

Or, so I thought.

By early March, the chatter about the spread of COVID-19 became something no one could ignore. There was debate on whether or not this was overblown, or if this was something we should all be really concerned about. I didn’t know for sure. The one thing I did know were the three items from the beginning:

  • There was no known effective treatment.
  • There is no known effective vaccine.
  • The virus can spread rapidly without showing symptoms in some people, making them “super spreaders.”

After work on Thursday, March 12, 2020, I went by some grocery stores on my way home. My two youngest children had been fighting off a difficult cold, and my wife wanted me to get some medicine for them, in addition to a few extra medicines that might be needed should there be a run on the grocery stores.

I had some difficulty finding the right meds. By the time I got to the store after work, most of the shelves had been picked clean of over-the-counter medicines. On social media, I heard there was a run on toilet paper, which seemed incredibly bizarre, but I my curiosity drove me to the paper products aisle. I was shocked. It was completely bare.

Empty toiler paper aisle of Target.

The empty toilet paper aisle of Target, Thursday, March 12, 2020.

What started at Target as shopping for cold medicine became a journey to see what this was really turning into. I went to Costco. There was no toilet paper. I stopped by a CVS, getting a few more meds and found a handful of rolls of toilet paper. I purchased a couple of packages for us, and left the rest for someone else to purchase.

I live very close to a very large Walmart, so I made that my last stop. And there, in the epicenter of middle-class capitalism, in the paper good aisle, I stood amazed.

It was empty.

Empty paper goods aisle of Walmart.

The empty toilet paper aisle of Walmart, Thursday, March 12, 2020.

Walking to the back of the aisle to take a picture, I stood by a man wearing a Vietnam veteran’s hat, much like my dad wears, doing the same. I thanked him for his service, and then said, “This is really something, huh?”

“Yup. Food’s next,” he mumbled.

In an instant, I thought about that trucker on the snowy road in Kansas. Three days of supplies.

I left Walmart empty handed, and almost crossed the road to head home. Then, I decided to head into Hy-Vee, a grocery store across the street. Walking back to the meat section, I purchased the largest tube of ground beef I could carry.

Walking in the door with a tube of beef, my wife looked at me with a bewildered look. I went past her, down to the basement, and threw the tube in our small deep freezer.

By the end of day on Friday, March 13, 2020, it seemed we had turned a corner in Kansas City. There were rumors flying at work that we would be told to work from home for the next two weeks, as the city moved toward a lockdown to try and slow the spread and not overwhelm the local healthcare system.

I waited around until 6 p.m. that day, waiting for the rumored email. I chatted with Bill, a co-worker with some past military experience, and we talked about how crazy all this was. Feeling like the official notification telling us to work from home wasn’t going to come soon, I asked my boss, Michael, if it was OK that I took my gigantic monitor home just in case. I was given his blessing, and I loaded things up in my car.

Before I left, I said goodbye to Bill.

“I’ll see you in a couple of weeks; three weeks tops,” I told him.

Home Depot was on the way home, so I stopped in. Social media chatter mentioned that toilet paper could be found there, and my drive to evaluate this unfolding situation kept pushing me to investigate. Perhaps it’s the ex-journalist that lives in me, or just my curious nature, but I had to see for myself.

There was no toilet paper in Home Depot.

“Oh, I’m not doing this shit,” I said out loud.

And after years of thinking about it, but never acting on it, I finally had my impetus: I walked over to the bathroom aisle of Home Depot and purchased the only bidet sprayer they had. I have often wondered why bidets were popular in other parts of the world but not in the United States, so I had researched them before but never bought one. But now, faced with the thought of spending day after day looking for toilet paper after our supplies ran out, I decided that wasn’t an acceptable option.

From there, I went to another home improvement store, Menards, and bought two more. And then I went home and collapsed on the couch.

Those two days were mentally exhausting. I was drained. There was roads of uncertainly ahead, and I wasn’t sure what to make of all of it.

Later that evening, I got the email I was waiting around for. We were to work from home for at least the next weeks.

As I sat down to dinner, I looked at the family and said, “Well, I guess we’ll be staying in for awhile.”

“Two weeks; three weeks tops.”

In review: 2020

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It is not the strongest or the most intelligent who will survive but those who can best manage change.
— Leon C. Megginson

Every year at this time, I take stock of my life over the past year.

I review: what did I say I wanted to do? Did I did it? Were there wins or losses? How could I have improved?

When I did this exercise last year, I didn’t lay out many publicly stated goals. Instead, I wrote this:

“My goal is to be unrecognizable at this time next year versus who I am at this moment. I am ready to put my past behind me, and move toward a more consistent and stable future.”

I was serious about taking this year by the horns, but I had a much different scenario in mind. Instead, this year has been mostly about survival. Since March, we in the United States have been dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. My plan is to write more about my personal experience with the pandemic later. For now, I’ll just say the year was all about survival.

That’s not to say it wasn’t without some accomplishments. For starters, in April I put in new flooring in our bathroom, replacing carpet that had been in there likely since the house was built (gross). I also changed the paint in the bathroom from a dull brown to a less-dull “agreeable gray” color. I like it.

 

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In June, I replaced our deck floor with the help of my wife. Although difficult, it was a most satisfying project.

 

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I tore my right meniscus in late 2019, and decided to get it surgically repaired in July.

 

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After my surgery, I ended up taking quite a few walks during the summer. I spent time with the family more than ever. My wife and I went on many dates throughout the year. In August, I had a goal of filling all my rings on the Apple Watch for the month, and I accomplished that (if you’re an Apple Watch user, you know how addictive that can be).

I paid off my car loan in September. In October, my wife was rear-ended, which ended up totaling the car. She had a few minor injuries, but I believe she is all healed up now.

 

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A totaled car led to my most fun purchase yet: a truck. I have enjoyed driving a truck so much that I can’t believe I waited this long to get one. I’m usually against gas guzzling vehicles, and look forward to a future when electric or more fuel-efficient trucks make greater strides. But man, this thing is fun and ever so useful.

 

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In December, I made a workbench, setting me up for some projects to work on in the coming year. It sure was nice having a truck to get all the lumber in the back to build it.

 

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At the start of the year, I started a savings experiment. I took my empty Ally bank account, and then saved $2 incrementally.I receive two paychecks a month. For the first paycheck, I put $2 in savings, then $4. I did this to make it feel like I was getting paid weekly. It kind of nonsensical, but I did it for the sake of this experiment.

So, by the end of month one, I had $20 saved. I kept going. I was diligent. Even with the pandemic, and the fear of uncertainty, I kept at it. In February, I added $10, $12, $14, and $16. By the end of February, I was up to $72. Now, fast-forward to November: I kept at it all this time. The interest rates are crap, but anything added was fine for this experiment.

Of course, it got tougher the deeper into the year I got because the weekly numbers were higher. I pressed on. By the time it was time to do Christmas shopping, I stopped saving. I started with $2, and ended with $1,859.28.

Christmas gifts are all paid for. I won’t be carrying holiday debt into 2021. I feel awesome about that.

And now, we’re ticking down to the end of the year. We’ll spend New Year’s Eve at home as a family, watch the ball drop, and prepare for 2021 and whatever it brings.

Goals for 2021

There’s clearly going to be a lot more of the same until the COVID-19 vaccine gets distributed. I worked a lot this year, and mostly from home. I see that continuing until at least summer of 2021, perhaps even later.

I will re-start my saving plan just as I did this year. That was an awesome experiment, and once that paid off big time around Christmas. I might tweak it a little bit, but it’ll be largely the same concept.

I’ve managed to set up a kind of makeshift gym in the basement, and the plan is to build on what I was doing during the summer throughout the winter. I’ve been complacent in the colder months, but now I really have little excuse to become more active.

Most important, my goal is to keep doing whatever it is we are doing to keep my family safe and healthy. I will continue to work hard at my job, be safe, stay at home when we can, wear masks, and wash our hands with vigor. After that, we wait to see how this pandemic pans out.

If 2020 was about surviving, then 2021 will be about finding ways to thrive.

Read of a crashed Toyota Corolla.

Saying goodbye all over again

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At the end of November 2018, I wrecked my Toyota Corolla. Of course, I did what any person in my situation would do: I went out and bought another Corolla.

Hey, the first one was a great car. Maybe the second one will be even better.

Some things just aren’t meant to last. Last weekend, my wife was rear-ended by a driver while she was stopped. I’m still navigating the ever-so-fun waters of insurance after an accident, but from the preliminary estimates, my car is totaled. I didn’t even make it two years with that car. In fact, I’ve barely driven it the last seven months thanks to the pandemic.

So much for the memories.

Thankfully, my wife and daughter who were in the accident, are mostly fine (the wife is still recovering, but isn’t 100 percent yet).

As for the car, it’s kind of a symbolic end for me. When I bought the car, I was a big mess. I was unknowingly severely depressed, still in shock from the death of my mom. I needed transportation, found it, and kept moving on.

Mom had a red van. Dad didn’t get rid of it until about a year after she passed away. At the time, I found it fitting that it was a red car. I realize I’m reaching in the symbolism department here, but it meant something to me. The red car came to me in a time of pain. And the red van stayed at my parents’ house for another year, and every time I saw it, I ached a little inside. I was so happy when I found out he had sold it, because I knew then it would be easier to move on.

And yet …

I almost wish I could sit in that van again. Maybe I could smell the residue from her perfume. Maybe I could hear the laughter of the grandkids who got in that van for a weekend getaway with the grandparents. Maybe I could see her again.

It’s October. My first child was born in this month. My mom died in this month. A car, and all its symbolism has been added to the list.

I have missed mom so much lately; icing on the layered cake of a truly insane year.

So yeah, I think my days of small cars are out. I don’t have any real reason, other than it’s time to make a change. I’m in no rush. I can take my time with a clear head and a more-healed heart, and replace the vehicle when the time is appropriate.

As silly as it sounds, saying goodbye this car makes it feel like I’m reliving the loss of mom all over again. Thankfully, I think I’m in a much better spot to weather the storm.

Me wearing a mask.

I wore a mask all day while I worked. Here’s what I learned.

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As mask-wearing begins to take center stage around the country, there’s a lot of questions about how masks might affect the wearer as they go about their daily lives.

Is wearing a mask all day safe? Will I get sick from wearing a mask too much? Will it restrict my breathing? Will I learn that I need to eat more Altoids?

There’s nothing wrong with asking these questions. We’re in a new world, and you only learn by asking questions. But I decided to take it a step further by doing a little experimenting.

Now, I’m a healthy individual, and most of my work involves sitting at a desk looking at a glowing rectangle all day. So, I figured I would wear a mask, and see how it affected me. But to make things more quantifiable, I decided to log my oxygen saturation levels of my blood with a pulse oximeter that I purchased in the beginning of May. You can find the exact one I purchased here.

To try and replicate a typical workday, here was my methodology:

  • At 8 a.m., I put my mask on and took a reading
  • Around every 15 minutes, I took another reading
  • I put the results in a Google Sheet, along with any notes about that moment
  • I took the mask off at lunch time
  • I took the mask off at two other times when I gave myself a break
  • Every time I took the mask off, I went outside

A little bit about my mask: It’s a standard cloth mask that can be found for sale almost everywhere by people who can sew better than me. It has elastic loops, and a slot where I can put a filter inside of it. My filter is a blue shop rag from Scott I purchased from Home Depot.

So what did I find about my experiment?

  • I didn’t experience any negative health complications from wearing a mask all day
  • Around noon, the loops around my ears started to get a little uncomfortable
  • On video conferences, people appeared to be able to hear me fine
  • I felt a little silly wearing a mask while on video
  • I didn’t drink enough liquids because taking my mask off would require me to go outside (I really tried to keep this as realistic as possible)
  • I drank 1/2 cup of coffee, which is way lower than usual
  • I was happy to take it off at the end of the day

But what about the data? Tell us about the data!

I put my data in this Google Sheet. Feel free to check it out for yourself. I’m happy to report that my pulse oxidation levels appeared to stay above the norm for the whole day, according to Mayo Clinic. I don’t think I would want to repeat this daily, as that would certainly require a new mask every day, and it isn’t the most pleasant experience to work with a mask on.

However, it is doable — at least for me — and it certainly beats shutting down a business.

TLDR; I wore a mask all day and didn’t experience anything negative, aside from not getting nearly enough coffee.

Negative value

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You got to know when to hold ’em,
Know when to fold ’em,
Know when to walk away,
And know when to run.

— Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

Recently my financial advisor called me and let me know about how my investments were doing.

A few of them aren’t doing well at all. In fact, they’re losing money regularly. There’s no sign that they’re going to get better anytime soon, and I was asked, “Would you like to keep holding onto them, or do you want to invest in something with a better return on your money?”

Man, that’s a tough call. I mean, I’ve poured a lot of money into all my investments, even those that are losing money. I don’t want to face the reality that I may have picked a few bad apples, but I’ve put so much into them. Should I go ahead and keep them, or take a chance on something that could produce a better return?

OK, I have to admit something: that story didn’t happen.

But I have been thinking a lot about negative value lately. However, I haven’t been thinking about it with money, but rather with regard to people.

If someone actually had come to me and said, “This thing you’re investing money in, it’s losing value all the time” then I’d have to consider what my next course of action would be. The way I see it, I would really only have two options:

  1. Stay the course. It’s possible that the investment will make an about face, and the returns will start moving in the right direction. All I need to do it wait it out. After all, you might have heard the phrase “Past performance is no guarantee of future results,” and just because something is in the toilet today doesn’t mean that it won’t rebound in the future. Apple was on the verge of bankruptcy in 1997 before Microsoft stepped in with a last-minute investment that saved the company. Today Apple is one of the most valuable companies in the world.
  2. Know when to fold ’em. Kenny Rogers said it best. You have to know when it’s time to throw in the towel and move on. Sometimes, you get to the point that you realize you’re not going to get your investment back. It’s gone, and the longer you hold onto it, the longer you push off admitting that you invested in a stinker, and there’s no coming back. This is also called the sunk-cost fallacy, and honestly, it’s a hard pill to swallow sometimes. But sometimes you realize that past performance is no guarantee of future results, and there’s no guarantee that you’re ever going to get your investment back.

But again, I’m not really talking about money here. I’m talking about people.

Sometimes, you invest so much in a relationship with someone, it’s hard to admit that you’re not going to get out of it what you put in. This is difficult, and painful. How can you just walk away after all the time and effort you put into someone?

I’ve seen this play out with people I care about, and I always give the same advice: ditch the people that drain you, and find others to invest in instead. There are people who add tremendous value to our lives, and those people are worth holding onto. But when it comes to people with negative value, people who that add no benefit and are actually costing you in energy, stress, worry, and depression, you need to think about how long you’re willing to hold on.

Is it time to cut your losses on a chance for better return on investments elsewhere?

Making the present

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Let the past die. Kill it if you have to. It is the only way to become what you were meant to be. — Kylo Ren in ‘The Last Jedi’

In July of 2019, there was an app that exploded in popularity across the internet. Appropriately named FaceApp, users could snap a picture, then alter the image using effects that could change their gender, add a smile where there wasn’t one, or modify their style.

But on social networks around the globe, one of the things people were most poised to do was use the aging feature and post the result of how the app predicted they would look like in the future.

I had to try it. I snapped a picture of myself (included here for reference), and then used the app to age me into a senior citizen. The result took me by surprise.

Picture of old man after using FaceApp.

I looked at this picture, and a thought initialized with a question only I could answer: “What does this guy wish he would have done different at my age?”

It’s possible this was the most important image I looked at this year.

Over the past few months I’ve been scribbling on notepads thoughts about my future. Since my mother died, I have been taking stock of my life. Am I were I want to be? What should I have done different? What does the future look like? What steps do I take today to try and reach that future?

Granted, there are things that are always out of our control. I will not worry about such things. Instead, I’m taking issue with the things that have been in my control. If I am honest with myself, and I mean really honest, I have had some fairly regular failures.

Yes, we all have failures. I definitely believe that failure is necessary for growth. But what I’m talking about here is consistent failures: mistakes I keep making over and over again.

For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. — Romans 7:15

Whether its health, career, spiritual growth, finances, or family relations, I feel I have a pretty good handle on what I should be doing. I have read many books. I have tried many self experiments. I know what has the greatest impact for me in a variety of areas of my life, and I also know what doesn’t work that well.

However, I am never consistent. I typically go through long periods of being fully on or fully off. I call it my “switch,” and I’m always toggling back between a fully open or closed state.

I am exhausted by the switch. It is something I am always waiting to turn on or off, instead of something I am actively pursing. I am done with this.

It is easy to look back at the past year and see the good and bad. I am finding it much more difficult to look back a decade do the same review. Not to say I can’t remember the past decade, but rather it’s difficult to look back at the past and see it all too well.

All his life has he looked away … to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was … what he was doing. — Yoda in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’

Since I have moved away from where I grew up and lived half my life, I have felt like I have had my feet planted between two worlds. Instead of using one as the foundation for the other, I have been kind of stuck between the two. It wasn’t too many years ago that I was considering moving back. I would find a job, move the family, and then continue on with life. But the door for a move like that closed, and I stayed put. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it is almost like the door closed for a reason. I needed to go ‘all in’ where I am in life now, but I didn’t fully see that then.

I do now.

This is time of year when people typically make out their resolutions or goals for the upcoming year. I am no different, and often post them online, then do a review at the end of the year. There’s great power in attempting the start of something new at a set moment in time that is meaningful to you like the beginning of a new year, month, or a special date. (Related: check out the awesome book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg.)

I have goals for everything I have mentioned here. I have deep desires to reshape almost every area of my life. But this time, I’m not going to publish these goals. I have them written down, and I will review at a later date. Until then, I will do the work.

If there is one thing I will publish publicly about how I hope my future will become, I will put it simply as this: My goal is to be unrecognizable at this time next year versus who I am at this moment. I am ready to put my past behind me, and move toward a more consistent and stable future.

The only way I will get there is to have my mind on today, and start making my present. Otherwise, the future will end up like it always has, and I’m no longer happy with that.

Here’s to a new year, and to making the present. Have a great 2020!