We have now completed 25 years in the new millennium and a quarter of the way through the century. 2025 was a pretty good year; fairly normal, but I do have some things to work on in 2026 to make up for where I fell short in some of my goals. Of course, the goals for 2026 will be covered in another post. We will cover the same three categories.
We are now a quarter of a century into the new millennium. It’s hard to believe. Thankfully 2024 wasn’t as somber as the year before. In fact, 2024 was a fairly normal year. There are a couple of notable moments that I will get to in the sections below.
I cannot believe it’s already 2024. The years seem to fly by faster and faster the older you get. I know those are words old people always say but it’s the truth no matter how much you try to ignore it. Every year has it’s ups-and-downs and 2023 was no different. I’ll cover the usual stuff so let’s get into the 2023 Year in Review.
The year started pretty rough. January seemed to drag on; the last 10 days seemed especially long. Two people I cared about passed away. They were not in my family, thankfully, but they felt like extended family. I still mourn them and I’m still praying for their families, especially during the recent holidays.
Another year over (and a new one just begun – John Lennon). I hope everyone had a great Christmas and you survived New Year’s Eve. We will get to “New Years’ Resolutions” in another post. Every year I like to do this post to reflect back on the previous year. It’s a great way to think about goals and intentions for the coming year. I’ll try not to be too verbose as we dive into the 2022 year in review.
I traveled a lot more than normal in 2022 but I visited places I’d never been. Places like Wisconsin, Boston, and Gatlinburg. In fact, I traveled so much that I had to work a little bit while visiting my in-laws for Christmas. I will be returning to Wisconsin again, in February; and I would like to visit Gatlinburg and Boston again (minus the Covid) but probably not in 2023.
Yes, I finally caught Covid, while in Boston. Ironically Boston is the only place where we wore masks a lot and that’s the place where we caught it. It was only a mild case and I was back out running after 4 days.
Let’s get into the rest of the 2022 Year in Review.
Well we made it another year. It was still a tough year for some but I feel like it wasn’t nearly as awful as 2020. 2020 still remains the year we all would like to forget. Granted, 2021 still presented it’s challenges, primarily in the form of the pandemic (still) and the cicada invasion.
To get the shot or not to get the shot was the theme. I’m not going to get into the politics of it. If you did it, I think that’s great; if you didn’t, that’s your choice and I still respect you for it. While I’m confident in my immune system to beat it, should I get it, I’m still choosing to take precautions. However, if you didn’t get it, that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see you, because I do.
2021 is also the year of the 17 year cicada brood. I have never seen, or heard, anything quite like this. I cannot believe how many cicadas there were. I almost swallowed one while I was out running.
Why in the world would I want to review 2020?? Without a doubt it has been the worst year for everyone. God willing none of us will ever experience another year like 2020. It has been a cruel year for all. We’ve all experienced grief, fear, anxiety, denial, selfishness; but we’ve also experienced hope, perseverance, kindness, and heroism. While we praised the heroic efforts of some we spurned the foolish and parochial choices of the “I won’t live in fear” crowd.
I pray for the health and safety of our frontline workers, for the ones who didn’t make it and for all of us that have survived. If there is one thing we should take away from this year it should be to never take anything for granted; especially doctors, nurses, teachers, and grocery store clerks. I hope 2021 is a year of rebuilding and recovery and the return of civil discourse.
I know this year has been so vicious and I know it sucks starting out on a somber note but I just want to get it out of the way. Every year I mention notable celebrities that passed but I don’t want to just remember them. The hardest losses this year are those that succumbed to this terrible virus. The frontline folks that gave everything trying to keep the rest of us safe and healthy; their heroism will never be forgotten. I am NOT trying to overshadow their sacrifice by mentioning these celebrities.
In fact, for brevity, I’m doing it different this year. I actually started out typing out quite a bit about these folks but I’m going to simplify it into one paragraph. In television and film we lost Alex Trebek (80 – cancer), Regis Philbin (88 – natural causes), Kirk Douglas (103 – undisclosed), Sean Connery (90 – pneumonia), David Prowse (85 – COVID-19), Jeremy Bulloch (75 – Parkinsons), Kelly Preston (57 – cancer), Grant Imahara (49 – aneurysm), Carl Reiner (98 – natural causes), Fred Willard (86 – natural causes) and Jerry Stiller (92 – natural causes). In sports and music Kobe Bryant (41 – helicopter crash), Gale Sayers (77 – dementia), Jon Huber aka Luke Harper (41 – undisclosed), Jay Johnstone (74 – COVID-19), Joe Morgan (71 – polyneuropathy) and Whitey Ford (91 – undisclosed). The music industry lost Eddie Van Halen (65 – cancer) and Little Richard (87 – cancer), Joe Diffie (61 – COVID-19) and Kenny “The Gambler” Rogers (81 – natural causes). Thank you for the memories and joy you brought us and Rest in Peace.
Seeing a movie was different in 2020. By the end of March all the theaters were shutdown and they remained that way for half the year. When they did reopen, it wasn’t in every state and only at partial capacity. Needless to say we did not see any movies in the theaters. However that didn’t stop us from watching movies that were “released” on streaming services instead. While it was kind of nice to still see new releases, albeit in limited supply, I still cannot wait to return to the theater. I pray that they survive this pandemic. Here are the movies we watched in 2020 (although some were not released in 2020), click the links to read the reviews:
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood and Saving Mr. Banks are based on true stories, Mr. Rogers and The Making of Mary Poppins (respectively). I am often a sucker for true stories, depending on who they are about. In this case the true story of Mr. Rogers is the best of this lot. If you grew up watching Mister Rogers Neighborhood then it’s a must see. Actually, if you grew up watching Mary Poppins then Saving Mr. Banks is also a must see.
Onward is actually pretty good and something I would watch again. Trolls World Tour, on the other hand, isn’t really worth your time. It only made the list for us because we have a young kid who loves Trolls and it was her birthday present. We managed to sneak in one last movie on New Years Eve, the latest Wonder Woman film (a review will come later).
My pace according to the Sheriff’s department
This year I finished the Walk to Mordor challenge on September 16th, which I believe is about two weeks sooner than the year before. Therefore, using a simple Year-Over-Year calculation, I had a 75% growth in completing the challenge sooner. Here are my 2020 FitBit stats:
I had over 300,000 more steps from the previous year and approximately 180 more miles. To finish the And Back Again portion of the challenge, I need an additional 1,625 miles. After completing the Walk to Mordor challenge I went another 652 miles. This means I need just under 1,000 miles to try to finish the “And Back Again” challenge. I doubt I will achieve it this year, but I think I can make some more progress toward it.
Happy New Year to one and all. I hope 2021 is safe and much kinder to all of us. Please think of more than yourself this year and perhaps then we can truly get through this together.
/cheers
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