As much as I would love to write it off, I did actually accomplish a number of things in 2020.
I think 2020 was the first year that I did not travel anywhere by air in at least 21 years.
I hit 100 rides on my Peloton. And then 200. I ended the year about 10 shy of 300. I did ride over 6000 minutes though.
I survived my second full year volunteering as a Cub Scout Den Leader. This year I learned to maximize the use of Den Chiefs, and figured out better time management for meeting prep. Birdhouses were built. Pinewood derbys were run. Tears were shed, but we made it.
I made a ton of discoveries on both my mom and dad’s sides of the family in my genealogy research. I learned the magic of good old fashioned, sleuthing, including reaching out to local county clerks for records.
I started volunteering my time with JRI-Poland to further the cause of Jewish genealogy by helping them build the digital marketing program around their NextGen platform. Successfully helped the organization build and execute its first digital fundraising campaign and crushed our goals.
Helped Jen launch her wine education series with both live and virtual events. The virtual events really exploded after quarantine hit.
Started gardening again, brought some nice plumage back to the yard and veggies into the garden.
I spoke at a conference after a 3 year hiatus or so. My talk on web personalization at the Sitecore Symposium 2020 was great fun, as it was a chance to showcase some great work our team did to a collection of peers.
Launched a new brand over at @ICF.
We rediscovered our love of board games with some old favorites and some new additions like Cat Crimes, Chickapig and Kill Merlin.
Reconnected with lots of friends through talk. Even though there wasn’t as much “seeing”, we did lots more talking, texting and sharing.
Kept our cooking game going strong. It was a year of briskets, and homemade sauces and latkes and tostones and chicken parms, and more. Made lots of homemade bread. Honed our natural yeast game and sourdough skillz.
Very strong movie and TV year despite not leaving the house. Our favorites included, The Queen’s Gambit, The Umbrella Academy, and Mandalorian. Not to mention a bevy of old favorites and classics we got to relive with the kids.
Survived a full year owning two dogs.
Survived nearly a full year of the family working and schooling in the same home.
Thankful to be alive and healthy and employed and enjoying the work that I do.
Rethinking a bit how I want to focus my websites to accommodate the areas that I want to talk about. Will keep you folks apprised so that you hear more of what you’re interested in and less of what you’re not.