2022 Year in Review
Since I barely blogged anything this year, I figured I might do a little year in review. Since my memory is terrible, I’m mostly relying on my photos and the few blog postings I did write. I had been thinking that nothing happened this year, but now that I’ve had a look at my photos, I realized that actually quite a few things happened.
Health Stuff
I did blog about my renewed need for glasses and my new need to take thyroid hormone. But I also found out later in the year that I have high cholesterol. Getting old sucks.
On the plus side, I hit personal bests for bench press and back squat this year, so it wasn’t all bad.
Travel
I wrote about my first plane ride since the Before Times, which was to go to my mom’s to help her recover from surgery. Definitely not the trip I would have wanted to go on, but I was grateful to be able to be there and I’m very grateful that my mom is doing great now!
The Okanagan
In May I took a road trip to the Okanagan with some girlfriends for a trip that is affectionately known as Wine Bitches. A group was doing this prior to the pandemic, but it stopped for a few years, but now it’s back and I joined the group. We visited lots of wineries and tasted lots of wine.
Winnipeg
In June I went to my first in person conference since Jan 2020. This was also my first trip to Winnipeg, aside from the time that I drove through Winnipeg on my way to move from Ontario to BC. But this was my first time spending any time in the city.
Seattle
In July I took my first trip across the border since the Before Times – a road trip to Seattle with some friends. We may or may not have gone there to play a Pokemon Go event. I will refrain from mentioning said friends’ names in case they don’t want it on their Internets that they would do such a silly thing. We had a pretty good time and it was a good excuse for a road trip!
Portland
In September we went on a road trip to Portland. Went to one of my favourite places (Powell’s City of Books), hiked up to the top of a waterfall, visisted some brew pubs, some distilleries, and this cool whiskey bar:
The trip was only marred by the fact that the back window of Scott’s car got smashed overnight in the hotel parkade. 🙁
Montreal
In October I went to Montreal for board meetings of the professional society that I’m on. Was just a quick weekend trip, but was really nice to interact with colleagues in person. And a few of us took a quick hike up Mont Royal to see the sunrise on one of the mornings before the meetings started.
New Orleans
In November I went to a conference in New Orleans. I’ve never been to New Orleans before and so I made sure I had some extra time to see the sights. And I have to say, New Orleans is an amazing city, full of such interesting history and culture. Beignets were consumed, music was listened to (on both the tourist-y Bourbon Street and on Frenchman Street, where I am told the locals go for music), and we went to the oldest continuously open bar in America (which apparently stayed open throughout Prohibition under the guise of being a “blacksmith shop” (despite being made of wood) and due to the owner being so fearsome that no one dared to close it down). My hotel room may or may not have been haunted.
I went on a tour of the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, where I learned a bunch of history of the city and saw the tombs of Marie Leveau, the Voodoo Queen of New Orleans, and Nicolas Cage. Yeah, the actor. And yeah, he’s not dead. The tour guide said that apparently Nicolas Cage bought this plot in the cemetery and build his pyramid shaped tomb because he was going bankrupt due to owing the IRS a bunch of money and under US law, the government can’t take your final resting place. I also did a walking ghost/vampire/voodoo tour of the French Quarter where I learned a lot of other interesting history about the city, saw some allegedly haunted buildings, including one that was the site where a women tortured slaves and was said to be haunted after that so no one would go into it, and then many years later was bought by… Nicolas Cage. Who eventually lost it in his bankruptcy. So yeah, go to New Orleans and you will learn more than you every imagined about Nic Cage. And my final tour was a swamp tour, where I learned lots of cools things about swamps and alligators and I got to hold a baby alligator named Ripple. And now I want a baby alligator.
And then finally the year ended in an anticlimactic fashion with the trip that never was.
Stuff I Found Amusing
Not sure how I first stumbled on this, but I really enjoyed this Instrgram account where a guy has four cats (Frog, Toad, Newt, and Doug) and he gives them funny voices and hilarious personalities. Their main interests seem to include Santa and business. It makes sense if you don’t think about it.
I also don’t know how I came across this, but Dr. Glaucomafleckin does these hilarious videos on Youtube where he makes fun of various medical specialties and makes some pretty biting comments about US health insurance companhes and electronic medical records systems.
One of my students introduced me to this catchy Chicken Nugget song:
How can you not like a song that rhymes “nugget” with “hug it”?
Other Stuff
- There were municipal elections in BC this year, and my friend Pat got elected mayor of New West. So that was pretty exciting.
- Go to finally go to a live show of a podcast that I was supposed to go to on March 12, 2020, but that got cancelled because the world abruptly shut down.
- I also got to go see John Mulaney with Kalev, in another live show that was postponed due to COVID (though not for nearly as long, thank goodness!)
And, of course, the kitties were a source of endless joy, as always. Let’s all look at their cuteness!
So that was my year.
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Tags: 2022, year in review