Goodbye 2021 Out From the Haze

When I sat down to summarize 2020, I started with the fact I had not traveled on a plane the entire year for the first time since I was ten years old. As it turned out, I wasn't on a plane in 2021 either! I expect this will change in 2022 and if I can at least get to the UK to see my family I will be happy.

I did continue to run regularly and finished the year over 1300 miles and have now totaled 25,000 miles in the last 25 years. Not too bad. In my early days, I used to only catalog my good times (and not total miles run) so I can only go back 25 years when I started to count. Check back in another 25 years and see if I kept it up. I also did not return to the New York Sports club gym as I anticipated and, due to their terrible customer management, will never return.

In 2021, I read a few long non-fiction titles which took a lot of time, so my total titles read was less than the last few years. Two of these books - Stalin and The Romanovs, were pretty heavy going. I had the latter on my list for a while based on a review I read, but having watched Catherine The Great (Hulu) I decided to read the real truth. The same author wrote the Stalin title. Both are recommended but note, these are very violent people.

My favorite book of 2021 was Muhammad Ali's autobiography which was very entertaining and revealing. During the read, I also went back and watched some of the fight videos against Liston, Fraser and Foreman. It was great to watch the video and then read what was happening in the background.

As noted, last year there were far fewer photos taken in 2021 versus other years; sadly, a reflection of the minimal travel schedule for the year. I hope this changes in 2022.

I don't listen to many podcasts but my consistent favorites continue to be Pod Save America, Lovett or Leave it and POD Save the World by the ex-Obama staffers at Crooked Media. My three favorite Podcast episodes were not from them however; these were, an episode from Stay Tuned with Preet where his partner Joyce Vance interviewed Roger McNamee about his relationship with Facebook, an interview by Tony Belew (is Angry) of Ricky Gervais was a riot and the annual round-up by Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway on Pivot was great.

Television was less exciting this year versus 2020, but we still enjoyed Catherine The Great (Hulu), The Beatles (Disney+) and Mare of Eastown (HBO). We are also in the middle of re-watching every Seinfeld episode (Netflix) and Better Call Saul (AMC).

This blog went over 1.5 million page views in 2021 which I guess is a decent milestone but could have been a lot more if I'd been more consistent posting over the past five years.

Here's hoping 2022 is much better than the past two years: I very excited about my new role with APA and I expect to move to a new house in March so there's every chance.

Good luck for 2022.