Happy new year. 2020 has been a long year in some ways, but also went by quick in some, as time flies ever onward. I’ve spent a lot more time at home, with no end in sight. This has both been a positive and a negative for my socially anxious self.
I had wanted to focus on my health in 2020, paying for an expensive insurance plan, but then Covid kind of derailed the usefulness of that by ensuring I couldn’t go to the doctor, so I did nothing with the insurance. I did focus more on what I could do at home, but there’s a lot more to do there. I’m doing more stretching.
I got some stuff done around the house and personal projects, but not nearly as much as I wanted to. I did repaint the parts of my deck I painted in 2019 that were damaged by hail in March. I installed new bearings in my car myself, which turned out to be quite a project. I did some plumbing, replacing some junky drain pipes under sinks and doing some snaking to get my kitchen drains not only unclogged but draining smoothly and not smelly. I planted some bulbs. There were various other small things too.
I bought paintings from my Uncle Joe’s estate, among other things, and hung them around the house. I received some dining chairs as a Christmas gift from Sweet Modern. I did a couple camping trips after several years break from it, buying some stuff to make it more comfortable. I bought a latex mattress topper to make sleeping at home more comfortable too. I bought and watched part or all of some TV series and movies, such as Mr. Robot, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and Columbo. I finally got home internet.
I added a few projects on github I had been planning for a while, but didn’t get far with them. At Cogneato, I spent quite a bit of time preparing our software to upgrade to PHP 7, creating a new server setup with Digital Ocean and Cloudflare, and moving some of our sites over to it. Still a lot more to go though. Also a lot of bug fixes, fighting with spam bots and other nefarious actors, adding various e-commerce and other features to our CMS, and stuff like that. It’s been a bit slow as far as new sites and bigger client projects go.
My Aunt Jan died. I’ve seen a lot less of the family, especially cousins, aunts, and uncles. Four family members or connections that I know of caught Covid, two of whom were near me around that time. As far as I know, I never got it, though I have had plenty of allergies, coughing, sneezing, runny nose, feeling cold, other such things that I always have going on.
Sports have been limited, though Lebron won another championship, and the Browns and Cavs are both looking promising.
I got some inheritance from my Uncle Joe, including a car and some money. The car, a “Bugeye” Sprite that likely hasn’t run in decades, is going to be a huge project and is occupying my garage instead of my normal car. Most of the money went into the stock market, which was timed very poorly at first but has ended up turning out well. I donated some of the money to 12 charities, trying to do one per month but ending up skewing more toward the end of the year.
Politics has been a bit crazy. I’ve at times found myself sucked into continuously looking at the news, not that that hasn’t been a problem in the past. I’ve been working on limiting my input and limiting screen time to stuff that’s can be seen as useful.
2020 has been tough for many people and I hope the new year is better for them. I hope Covid gets more under control and things return more to normal. I will continue to work on improving myself and my life.
Buck up, little camper. We’ll beat that slope. Together.