“2021 ended on a low note for me as I contracted COVID-19.”

This was all I completed for my 2021 reflection, its now nearly the end of 2022.

I figured I’d finish this entry quickly and for fun. Writing a retrospective nearly a year later seems kind of dumb but whatever.

Events of note in 2021:

I learned to sail. After too much watching sail boating on YouTube I finally took a sailing class at Lake Davenport Sailing Club. I spent most weekends that summer at the club. I’m incredibly fortunate to have met a few sailors who were willing to help and encourage me to learn sailing. Alan Abbott took me for a sail on the Banana MC sailboat. Josh Johnson encouraged me to come out and race even though I barely knew how to sail. Don Allebach helped me get MC689 out of mothballs. It was a good experience and it was cap stoned with sailing old MC 689 at the Polar Bear Regatta (and coming in dead last). But still having a great time.

I read nine books in 2021 and started cataloging them on my website. I like doing this because its interesting to reflect on what I actually read.

In 2021 my last Grand Parent passed away. I eulogized my Grandmother Beverly Rose Tack in May 2021. It was a difficult experience. Of all my grand parents I have the most and the best memories of my Grandma Tack. Here is roughly the eulogy I gave:

May 18, 2021

Preparing to speak to everyone today was very difficult for me.  I really loved
my grandmother and I struggled a great deal trying to figure out how to best
express in just a few minutes the impact she had on my life.  How do you encapsulate 
someone’s lifetime in just a few words?


The best I can do is reflect on some of the memories I have of her.  I remember
visiting her and my grandfather on their farm.  I found the place utterly fascinating.
The steep lane down into the valley and once you were there it felt like a place
that time had forgotten, it was as if 1968 was transported forward to 1988.  There
were still goldfish in the bulk tank and one of my chores when I was out there was
to burn the trash.  All about the farm were the abandoned and antique machines. 
I could explore the place and ask questions about everything.  My grandmother was
always great at answering all these questions.  She was always so generous with her
stories.  She told us so many stories about her childhood and living with my
grandfather on the farm and raising my mother and my aunt.  And what was like 
for her as a kid.  Growing up poor with 10 brothers and sisters.  Her stories were
always interesting to me because they were about my family history.
And her childhood contrasted so greatly to my own.

I remember being interested in forgarging everything on the farm.  We’d go and
get windfall apples and turn them into pies.  Us grandkids would pick mulberries
and gooseberries and she’d humor us kids and also bake them into pies.  I even
remember her taking me fishing, something I doubt she would have done of her own
interest, and pan frying the bullheads we had caught.  At night on the farm
she’d play marbles with us and when we were older she taught my brother
and I how to play 500 rummy and Pinochle.

My grandmother shared her love of books with me as a kid.  I remember looking
through all the interesting books she had about the house.  And of course I could
take any I wanted to read.  I remember being about 11 or 12 and taking Harry
Harrison’s “East of Edens” Paper back off her shelf.  A book about men living
side by side with intelligent dinosaurs, I still have the book.    She was interested
in science fiction and returning to nature.  She was a woman of interesting contrasts,
she was unique. She had a wide range of interests and she shared all of them with us grandkids.

To conclude, for me, what's hard about my Grandmother's funeral is not the end
of her life on earth.  My grandmother lived a rich and full life and left behind a great legacy.
For me, what is hard is the sense of loss one has when one remembers a time
they cannot return to.  Something which has passed and was nearly forgotten.  What’s
powerful about a funeral is we get to refresh these memories and pull them back
into the present, to enjoy them once more.  I want to say thanks to everyone who’s
come here today to remember my grandmother. I hope all your memories of her are as
good as mine are.

At work 2021 was a year of high’s and lows. I picked up a big an interesting project to deploy a new database at Shopify. Sadly after a year working on the project and it actually succeeding - after I thought it might not. The project was cancelled by the CEO at the end of the year. A bit of an unexpected twist. I spent the end of 2021 at work burnt out and disappointed.

The annual family vacation this summer was to Gatlinburg TN and Folley Beach SC.
We spent two days at Dollywood and stayed in a nice place in the mountains. At Folley Beach we stayed at a beachside condo and visited Charleston. The better memories are visiting with Nelson and going out on a sailboat.

I’m sure there’s other 2021 retro’s to do but these are the most notable memories a year later…