If 2022 was a year of cautious re-emergence from lockdown for myself and my family, 2023 was an acceleration of that trend. One that came with benefits, but also a personal cost for myself as I’ll get to. It was indisputably a cost worth paying, however. Life was not back to normal, to be clear. Much as there was a permanent demarcation between what travel was like pre and post 9/11, so too is travel in the wake of COVID a fundamentally different activity. There’s a lot more overhead to travel these days, the least of which is masking. But if 2023 was a reminder of anything it was that physical, face to face connections are priceless, and therefore worth that overhead.

Every year involves a certain amount of sickness, loss and tragedy both on the personal and global scale. This year was no exception in that regard, but that was balanced by an appreciation for what I have, both for the time spent with the people close to me and for an opportunity to reconnect with friends I had not seen, in some cases, for decades.

It was a complicated year, then, but a good year. As always then, these are the moments – significant at times but mostly not – that characterized my year personally. Before we get to the pictures, however, a quick check-in on travel and health.

Travel

For better or for worse, my travel in 2023 was a mild escalation from the year prior. While thankfully falling far short of my hundreds of thousands miles a year peak, my 2023 travel schedule ticked up from twenty thousand miles to around twenty five. A couple of extra trips in the fall and spring travel seasons, no more, but the trajectory’s slope was up. That bears watching for 2024, because while my current travel load is sustainable, it’s important to me that it not escalate to anything like my pre-pandemic slate.

Health

Overall, my health and fitness in 2023 was steady. I lost some more weight in the first half of the year, added a bit of it back in the second half and didn’t end up exactly where I wanted to be but I’ve been able to more or less hold the line.

That was possible in large part thanks to my continued love of walking. I was active 334 out of 365 days, and I just missed hitting 3000 miles walked this year at 2,973, a number which was almost 500 miles ahead of my 2022 total. My BFF and I have a joint 3K goal this year, so fingers crossed time, availability, weather and health permit us to hit that goal.

With all of that said, on to the pictures.

January 1

As is my custom, rang in the New Year watching Trading Places and drinking the world’s best beer.

January 2

As literally no one could have predicted, Kate got absolutely hooked on the World Junior Hockey Championships while watching it with her family, so we watched a lot of that.

January 9

A year later, I finally finished rebuilding our basement after it flooded.

January 18

With a “write a persuasive letter” assignment at school, the great dog campaign of 2023 was launched.

January 23

First big snowstorm of the year.

January 24

The dog campaign’s pressure kept ratcheting up.

January 29

First visit of the year to our friends up at Absolem Cidery.

February 4

It got cold. Very cold.

February 12

Ate terrible food and beer with friends for the Super Bowl, then had to walk 12 miles the next day. Suboptimal.

February 18

Borrowing an idea from my friend Lewis, we did a Dad’s “Best Day Ever,” in which we sat around in robes, drank beer and ate terrible food.

February 25

First Red Sox game of the season.

March 4

Saw college friends I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic – at the usual venue.

March 16

Family outing to Bluey’s Big Play.

March 18

Annual St. Patrick’s Day event at our place.

March 25

To all who celebrate.

March 26

Kate’s mini portable projector makes its debut.

March 29

Frogs were back.

March 31

From a still undetermined source, I got COVID for the first time. I was fortunate, first in that it was not too bad for me – roughly 36 hours or so of a very sore throat and mild fever – and second that the girls were in Boston, so I was able to successfully quarantine myself in the basement without them getting it. Oh, and lucky for the vaccines that made my case mild.

April 8

Finally tested negative.

April 22

Kate and I did a spa weekend. No one had told me spas had outdoor hot tubs, saunas and steam rooms. I thought they were just for manicures, pedicures and the like. I like spas now.

April 28

Traded in my Apple Watch for an Ultra because, after testing, it was clear that the former wouldn’t last me through a long distance walk I was planning.

April 29

Missed brush pickup day in town by a matter of hours and had to take all of the winter’s downed pine tree limbs over myself.

May 1

Last training session for my planned long walk, and also my longest distance up until that point.

May 6

First doors off day for the Jeep.

May 12

First Seadogs game of the year.

May 19

Thanks to a strained calf, it wasn’t clear that this was going to happen, but I managed to walk 50 miles for the first time.

May 25

Got to see some old friends in Colorado.

May 28

Eleanor got to run the bases at Hadlock. She came in dead last, all because she wanted to help a little friend.

June 8

Chaperoned Eleanor’s schools’ Beach Day. I was responsible for keeping an eye on a mere four kids, and my big takeaway was that teachers should be paid seven figure salaries.

June 10

Eleanor had her first Irish step dance recital and was great, in spite of one of her fellow dancers who almost tripped her up.

June 21

I had to meet him via Facetime because I was traveling in NYC, but the inevitable outcome of the great dog campaign of 2023 – a black lab named Sully – arrived on this day.

June 22

Speaking of NYC, walked the High Line trail there for the first time. Great little park.

June 25

Missed the first day of summer because I was away, but got our annual Jaws viewing in nevertheless.

June 27

Not sure if the video will ever see the light of day, but in one of the more surreal work experiences I’ve had an entire film crew flew into the Portland to shoot a video with me and a client. It was absurd.

July 4

Turns out trying to get someone to come out and address your complete lack of water pressure is challenging on a beautiful 4th of July day – hence the bike pump (worked the first time, not the second). The entire well tank ended up needing to be replaced, and the guy who installed it a week later said he had no idea how the old one had not started a fire.

July 6

Sully was not sad that we live just up the road from a beach.

July 19

We got a wood fired hot tub. Lots more on that addition here.

July 22

As cool as it was to get a hot tub that was how miserable it was to deal with a sewage back up. And as with the well tank situation, trying to get someone to come out and address a septic system on a gorgeous July Saturday proved to be impossible, which is why I now know a lot more than I’d like to about how septic systems work.

August 19

Last time Ferd and I saw a show together, it was Pearl Jam. This time around it was Sigur Ros in Boston. They’re so good live.

August 22

Made the annual pilgrimage to the falls with my little sidekick.

September 5

Not sure how this happened, but we had a second grader on our hands.

September 7

Like everyone else these days, we got our share of Canadian wildfire smoke.

September 9

A friend turned 40 so it was time for a lakehouse.

October 5

Another Monktoberfest in the books.

October 7

The timing couldn’t have been worse coming on the heels of our event, but I kept a promise and flew down to NJ the day after to attend my high school reunion. And while I grumbled about the flight, it was beyond worth it. Catching up with the first friends I ever had – some of whom I hadn’t seen in literally decades – was an incredible experience. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time, and we all picked up as if we’d seen each other yesterday. Just a delight from start to finish as I got lucky with my high school friends.

October 15

Got back up to Bremen for a cider pressing for the first time in a few years.

October 27

Maine is a safe state in most respects, but we are, sadly, no more immune to gun violence epidemic than the next state.

October 28

As with our St Patrick’s Day party, we’ve continued our Trunk or Treat Halloween party begun during the pandemic. The best part was when the costume parade turned into a costume race.

October 31

Speaking of Halloween, no one takes it more seriously than the island.

November 2

Hit my annual walking goal for the a couple of months early.

November 11

Time for the Biggest Little Game in America.

November 20

Last year was the first time I’d walked the distance of the Appalachian Trail. This year it was the Pacific Crest Trail distance.

November 22

Had a fantastic Thanksgiving out in Minnesota with my brother’s family.

December 19

The island got crushed by a windstorm, with trees down everywhere including large limbs in our yard.

December 31

To ring in the New Year, Eleanor had a grammie sleepover, we boarded the dog for the night and Kate and I headed down to Portland. Kate did a cold dip with a friend, which I noped right out of, then we had dinner at Street and Co and a quiet night on the town.

Let me be clear about this up front: we were not hot tub people. If someone had told us a year or two ago that we’d end up buying a hot tub – much less a wood fired one – well, I can’t speak for Kate, but I would not have believed it. Neither of us grew up with a hot tub, lived somewhere that had them or belonged to social scenes in which hot tubs were a regular method of socializing.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being a hot tub person, obviously. It’s just that that was not a descriptor that would have applied to us. And yet we are now technically hot tub people, of a sort. How did this happen?

Three things conspired to turn us into the proud owners of a Goodland wood fired hot tub.

First, and most importantly, was our move to the island. One of the things that happens when you move to a beautiful place is that you’re not inclined to leave it for anything less than exotic destinations. As we shifted away from spending a summer week at cottages on the coast up north, then, we decided to deploy some of that vacation budget to exaggerating the vacation-like characteristics of our existing house. How could we make it even more enjoyable to spend time here during vacations? As we might put it in tech, how could we give our regular house new features? That led us to begin considering various additions like saunas – something we still might do eventually. We did some research, and that’s when social media kicked in.

Second, then, was YouTube. As we started casting about for ways to upgrade our house, YouTube’s algorithm inevitably led me to this video about a family that purchased a Goodland wood fired hot tub. Not only had I never heard of Goodland, I didn’t know wood fired hot tubs existed. The idea of a wood fired hot tub, which is an experience quite distinct – for better and for worse – from a traditional electrically heated hot tub, however, seemed intriguing. They’re not for everyone, as I’ll come back to later, but we were at least in the target demo as wood is our primary heat source for the house in winter.

Last came the unexpected and improbable discount. Knowing what we know now, which is that the hot tub gets basically daily usage, I wouldn’t have waited on a discount. We’d pay full fare, and happily. Not being hot tub people at the time, however, we were intrigued but on the fence, skeptical as to how much we’d use it. Then, having signed up for Goodland’s newsletter, I got this email.

Over a thousand dollars off because it literally fell off a truck and got scratched, and the tub was already here in the great state of Maine. That seemed an awful lot like fate, so we pulled the trigger. And since it arrived in July, at least one of us has been in the hot tub nearly every day that it hasn’t rained. Also, a couple of days when it did rain.

If you’re at all curious about the Goodland, you probably have questions. I certainly did. To Goodland’s credit, they’ve answered a ton of them here. But here’s what I’ve figured out thus far after six months of usage. If there’s anything I missed, drop a comment or email me and I’ll update this. I’ll also do a follow up post on our water treatment process later; that’s involved enough to need its own space.

Why get a hot tub?

Everyone’s reasons here will differ. For many, as mentioned above, it’s socializing. While you can technically fit four adults in this tub, however, that’s not why we bought ours. What we were looking for was an opportunity to spend time outdoors, in all seasons, in a place that is inherently screen-unfriendly. Whether it’s the whole family, Kate and I, or just one of us individually, hot tub time is a time to sit, soak and take in the blue sky or the night sky. Particularly if you’re in a relationship with someone, a hot tub – at least in our experience – represents an opportunity for more focused, less distracted one on one time. It’s an investment, in that way, in your relationship.

I’ve also found that if I’m quiet enough while I’m out there, it’s like being in a blind for watching nature go by. So far I’ve seen foxes, raccoons, deer and several neighborhood cats saunter by no more than twenty feet away – totally unaware of my presence.

Why get a wood fired hot tub?

Part of it is cost. For a traditional hot tub we’d have to have an electrician in to do potentially expensive work. For us, on the other hand, as a household who already deals with firewood on a daily basis, there is no additional cost to a wood fired hot tub. But there is also an almost meditative benefit to using a wood. It’s inarguably less convenient than a regular hot tub where the temperature is maintained constantly – it can take a couple of hours to get up to temp. But the process of building and starting a fire has value in the same way that heating the house with wood does. For me, at least, the ritual of heating the tub is an enjoyable one, a contemplative one. Your mileage may vary on that, of course.

Why buy a Goodland?

For us, at least, it was a couple of things.

• Aesthetics: the Goodland hot tubs are beautiful to look at. Aesthetics are generally more Kate’s concern than mine, but even I appreciate the way it looks.
• Company: the company, which is very small and Canadian (a plus for Kate as her Mom is Canadian), encourages via their products a slower, more thoughtful approach to life – an approach that resonates in a world that gets more sped up by the day.
• Design: the hot tubs are well and thoughtfully designed, and not only are easy to take apart and set up, but can be moved and installed by two people. They’re also built with materials intended to last.
• Price: at ~$6300, the Goodland is not cheap. But given that quotes for a lot of the traditional hot tubs start at $10,000 – and that’s before the requisite electrical work, installation charges and so on – the Goodland was more affordable for us even absent the discount. And it has no impact on our monthly electrical bill either, unlike the traditional alternatives.
• Size: not being hot tub people, as mentioned above, we did not want a huge tub that would seat half a dozen or more people. We also don’t really have the space for that. The Goodland’s size fit our needs best.

Is it worth the money?

Everyone’s answer to that will be different. For us, it was about usage. If we spent that much money and we used it every so often, as a special occasion, that would be a waste of money. If we used it multiple times per week, on the other hand, that would be worth the money.

For us it’s easily been worth the money. Honestly the first time I used it in the dark and the cold – and more recently, the snow – and looked up at the stars while floating in 100 degree water, it was worth it.

If I buy a Goodland, do I need the cover and end covers?

If you’re going to reuse the water at all, you definitely need the covers. Even with them it’s amazing how much crap ends up in the tub. If you’re not going to reuse the water, you probably want them anyway to keep leaves and other debris out of the tub when it’s empty.

They’re an added expense, yes, but it beats having everything the wind blows ending up in your tub.

Speaking of reusing the water, is the hot tub’s water treated with chemicals?

The short answer is that you can do either untreated or treated water. And as the tub is cedar and aluminum, you can also do salt water which is what we do.

Which should I do?

That depends entirely on your situation. In the video I linked to above, they pump water into their tub from a nearby lake when they need it, and drain it when they’re done. So they don’t treat their water. If you have a nearby water source, be that fresh or salt water then, you can just use that. This is much simpler and lower cost.

We don’t live on a lake, and we’re on a well. Our well is good and deep, and the tub’s capacity is comparatively small at ~250 gallons, but we don’t want to run the risk of overtaxing the well at our primary residence so we treat our water.

I’ll save the process for another post, because while it’s simple enough once you figure it out there are a lot of moving pieces. Detailing all of that would take more space than I have here.

How long does it take to heat the tub?

It all depends on your starting temperature. When I’ve got residual heat left over from the day before, and it’s a temperature in the sixties or seventies, it’s maybe an hour and a half. If temps are in the thirties or forties, however, it’ll take several hours. Instead of starting a fire in the afternoon, then, I just do it in the morning.

I’m concerned about the water freezing in the winter: how long does it take for the water to cool down?

Longer than you’d think. If you’re heating the water every day or every other day, it’s not an issue unless you’re dealing with extreme cold. In our case – with only an extra layer of rigid foam insulation sitting under the tub – here’s an example. Firing up the tub one afternoon, the temperature peaked at 103.6F at 2:30 in the afternoon. The low temperature that night was 17F. By 8:30 AM the next day the temperature was down to 65.3F. And that’s a more extreme example; typically if the overnight temps are in the twenties and thirties you might see the hot tub temp the next day in the seventies.

The takeaways, then, are that extreme cold can bleed heat reasonably efficiently, but even in very cold weather a heated tub is not going to freeze overnight. And you can slow that further by deploying insulation on top of the water and/or a tank de-icer (though as I discovered, you can’t use that with salt-water because the stand is not stainless).

What are comfortable temperatures?

Everybody’s tolerances differ, obviously, but speaking personally the sweet spot is 98-101F. 102F is hot, and 103F is too hot for me for more than a few minutes.

To maximize time in the water, however, I’ll get in at any temp north of 90F and comfortably wait for it to warm up.

How do I manage temperature?

There’s a bit of a learning curve here, but it’s not too bad. Generally, you use a Goodland like you would a wood stove. I generally line the bottom of the stove with small logs, light a firestarter like fatwood on top of those and then place kindling strategically around that.

That will typically burn for an hour or two, then I just feed it until I get close to my target temperature and back off. When I want combustion to stop or slow, you can either close the opening entirely or leave a slim crack at the back open.

How do I get the temperatures even at the top and bottom of the tub?

Left to its own devices, any body of water will stratify into layers of differing temperatures. To ensure that you’re not stepping through a top layer of hot water into much cooler water, the contents have to be mixed. In an electrical hot tub, this work is performed by jets. In a Goodland, you have two options.

First, you mix it by hand. Goodland includes with the tub a nicely designed paddle which will ensure the water mixes top to bottom.

In our case, however, because we’re treating our water, we have a filter that sits in the tub and circulates the water as part of its normal operation.

Surprisingly, however, because most traditional hot tubs come with their own filtration system, it was difficult to find one appropriate for a wood fired hot tub like the Goodland. I eventually settled on this one designed for above ground pools. It’s a little too big and attachment is wonky, but it works and keeps the water clear.

What other accessories do I need to budget for?

Aside from the chemicals if you’re going to treat the tub, and filter system mentioned above, there are a couple of things that we use. Some of which are necessary whether you treat your water or not; others of which are optional.

• Hose Filter: our well water is full of iron, so this screws on to our garden hose and pre-filters the water before it hits the hot tub.
• Water Temperature Sensor: we have an Ambient weather station in our house, and this floating wifi temperature sensor pipes our current temperature into our display at home. As a bonus, you can also check the tub temperature via the Ambient app, and via their API you can pull a JSON feed which I use to display the hot tub temperature on our family dashboard.
• Smart Power Cable: in order to be able to remotely turn on and off our hot tub filtration system and our salt water system, I picked up this smart outdoor power plug. I can schedule them and turn them on and off as necessary from my phone.

Do you happen to know how much a fully loaded hot tub weighs?

The tub weighs approximately 275 pounds with all of its parts, and the 257 gallons of water weighs approximately 2143 pounds, so before any people are in the tub you’re looking at a weight of around ~2450 pounds.

Can my deck support that much weight?

I was curious about the answer to this myself, because a lot of the Goodland videos you see have the tubs deployed on decks of varying heights and design. Because my wife is a lawyer, however, I’ll note that none of the below constitutes advice and I have no idea what your particular deck may hold. But I can at least tell you how I looked at the question.

The first thing I did personally was inquire with an engineering company as to what it would cost to get a professional assessment. Their quote was $2K, which meant that I could spend a third of the cost of the hot tub only to be told that my deck could not support the weight. I opted out of that.

Google research, meanwhile, told me that a deck approximately our height off the ground could support up to 100 pounds per square foot. My conservative math said that the Goodland would represent between 125 and 150 pounds per square foot, so our original plan was to drop in four new posts to over-reinforce the existing area of the deck.

Given that this would have mean trying to dig four foot deep holes under the crawlspace of our deck, however, we decided to punt on the matter and simply set up the tub on the ground. That was a good decision, because I no longer have to worry about load capacities and so on but more because I didn’t have to roll around under the crawlspace under our deck for a week.

What should I know about a wood fired hot tub that isn’t obvious?

The amount of work that goes into it, especially if you treat your water. It’s worth it for us, but if you’re the kind of person that just wants to get in and get out with no work on your part, this tub isn’t for you.

Anything else to add?

Just that we’re very happy with our Goodland and highly recommend it for those willing to put in a little work. For those with Goodlands already, meanwhile, I’ll follow up later with a post on our water treatment plan if there’s interest.

Whatever else it might have been, 2022 was a better year for me than the the one that preceded it. It was a year marred by worldwide tragedies major and minor, struggles on a personal level for myself and of many people close to me, all of which played out against the backdrop of the ever present invisible menace of a pandemic gone endemic. A pandemic that was and remains deeply traumatic, and whose trauma continues to be made manifest across the population in ways both predictable and not.

But while life was not back to its pre-pandemic normal, the reality is that – barring a universal vaccine which is not on the near term horizon – it never will be. What we’re left with instead is a world of constant risk calculations, a world in which, as one doctor put it, before the cautious among us go to an event we have to decide whether it’s worth the possibility of getting COVID to attend.

In several cases this year, for myself and my family, and for the first time in years, that risk was accepted. Which lead to a number of fun adventures, both here in state and out of it, that we’d have ruled out in years past. Whether that’s the appropriate calculation or not is, of course, a matter of perspective. But it’s what we did, and it was a good year. The best year out of the last few.

So as always, these are the moments – significant at times but mostly not – that characterized my year personally. Before we get to the pictures, however, a quick check-in on travel.

Travel

How much I traveled in 2022 depends on what it’s compared against. Relative to my pre-pandemic travel heydey, I traveled virtually not at all. But relative to the last two years, I was a globe trotter. Between my first visits to Colorado and San Francisco in three years (yay!), and my first visit to Las Vegas in the same amount of time (sad face emoji), I had to figure out how flying works again. It’d been so long that I’d forgotten the sequence in which I need to put on the messenger bag and Patagonia backpack I travel with typically, and thus got completely tangled up in them while taking them off to clear security my first flight out.

And not only did I get on a plane, I left the state multiple times again for the first time in years.

I have mixed feelings about this, to be honest. I actively don’t want to resume my prior heavy travel schedule and have no intention of doing so. But it was genuinely delightful to see so many people in person this year for the first time in ages, and the realization that I will not be doing so as often is a bit sad. But as the man says, compromise is about being “halfway happy.”

With that, on to the pictures.

January 1

As is our custom, we spent the New Year’s holiday drinking fine beers with friends.

January 3

Which then necessitated us following up with drive by COVID tests before school resumed.

January 7

Got some good snow and was first out on the trails that morning.

January 14

Pretty nice little sunset.

January 17

Almost got blown off the bridge. Not for the first time.

January 22

Cold enough to mark the opening of the skating pond on the vernal pool next to our house.

January 29

Went out for a walk in a blizzard.

Came back to practice my traditional nor’easter tradition of reading Night Shift by the fire with hot cocoa that may or may not have had bourbon in it.

Also came back – in what is typically referred to as foreshadowing – to some minor water intrusion in our previously dry basement.

February 12

Two weeks later and it was “warm” enough that we went down to the beach.

February 13

A day later, it was cold enough that everything iced back up, I fell (again) while out walking and broke at least one rib.

As injuries go, it could have been a lot worse, but I do not recommend it.

February 17

The good news with broken ribs is that other side of my body worked just fine, and while it took a lot longer not being able to use my left arm at all, I got the firewood loaded with basically no problem. If you’re going to break a rib, I do recommend breaking it on your off hand side.

February 19

Went ice fishing with friends and got to see a bald eagle grabbing fish off the ice not fifty feet away. Did not get a usable picture of it, however.

February 26

She called it a “beauty day,” but I believe the UN considers having things repeatedly jammed under your fingernails torture.

March 9

More foreshadowing: minor water intrusion in the basement shop. It was not a lot of water, but it was a very “ominous portents” kind of day.

March 13

Woke up the next day to full basement flooding. I spent something like two hours hauling it out manually, another three rigging up our brewing pump to pump the water out, but whatever I pumped out flowed right back in. Tried to call our insurance company and couldn’t get through. My only guess was that it was blocked gutters, and I made an emergency visit to rent a tall ladder from Home Depot, which I got home in sleeting rain only to discover that – my measurements notwithstanding – it was a good five feet short of being tall enough.

Eventually I got through to the insurance company who told me to have Servpro come out and pump it out. Servpro started with one truck. Then another arrived. Then a third, and a fourth.

When we went to bed that night, they had had no more luck clearing the basement than I did with my shop-vac.

March 14

As it turned out, the basement couldn’t be cleared, because the end of the french drain system that surrounds our house had frozen. Which mean that as water drained down along the sides of the house and collected in the drain system, it could not exit the system and instead flowed into our house.

Once we figured that out, an excavator punched a bunch of holes in the pipe, there was a geyser of water and Servpro subsequently cleared the house in a half hour.

That was the good part. The bad part was that our insurance company initially told us we weren’t covered at all, and it wasn’t until our broker got involved that they allowed that there might be some coverage. Which there ultimately was, but not nearly enough to cover the damage and it took months for the carpet to be replaced and patching the sheetrock they extracted is still pending, though hopefully soon.

The lesson here is: if you have french drains, check them to make sure they will not freeze. Just trust me on this.

In a fun bonus, it turned out that the first leak was a totally different problem that had to be discovered later: a partially blocked valve in our septic system that overflowed when high volumes of water were passed through it, as in a shower. Not good times, bad times.

April 2

After a long delay thanks to COVID, we finally had a service to celebrate my Dad’s memory. It was as crushing as it was needed.

April 10

The debut of a brand new soft top for the Jeep.

April 15

Red Sox home opener with my little fan.

April 21

Windstorm did a number on the island.

April 24

Sacrificed the beard as part of a birthday present for Kate. This has elicited a wide variety of commentary, the most notable of which was “DUDE! YOUR FACE!” She was appreciative, at least.

May 7

For better or for worse, we’re all in on heat pumps now. Furnace and tank were removed.

May 14

First doors off day with the Jeep.

May 17

First time on a plane in 894 days. As mentioned above, it was a bit of a rough reentry.

May 20

First time seeing my BFF in three years, was immediately Tom Sawyered into demoing a deck.

More seriously, I never again want to go a year let alone three without hanging out again.

May 27

The wait was excruciating, but finally Stranger Things Season 4 dropped. And what a season it was.

June 9

Awful day. What I thought was a minor dental issue for my cat turned out to be a tumor, and I had to say goodbye to my feline companion and friend of almost twenty years. You were loved, Pook.

June 11

Went to my first reunion in years, and got to see the BFF for the second time in a month, my college buddies and a host of other folks over a couple of days in an absolutely bonkers setting.

June 15

Lucky enough to be up the coast a bit for a week with friends at one of the best beaches in Maine.

June 21

First day of summer.

July 4

Fireworks with friends.

July 15

The girls were featured players in the local parade.

July 16

Pretty nice little sunrise.

Followed by a visit to an incredibly cool private island in Casco Bay, one that features WWI and WWII military bunkers including a climbable submarine tower.

July 21

Went to see The National for our first concert in who knows how long.

July 23

Excellent visit with Crazy Uncle Corey in Vermont.

July 29

Went camping with friends. That absurd amount of gear is what we brought for a single weekend.

August 5

Someone made her theater camp debut as a “flying squirrel,” in a costume that she made herself.

August 27

Family outing with my mom, brother and his kids to Splashtown Funtown. Other than the Tilt-a-Whirl, which was a terrible mistake, a good time was had by all.

August 30

Took the best kid in the world to one of my favorite spots in the world, completing my annual pilgrimage in the process.

September 6

Said best kid in the world enters the first grade.

September 17

Our down the street neighbors, whose two little girls have the most adorable tiny beekeeping suits, invited us over for their honey harvest.

September 18

The next day it was time for our annual cider pressing.

October 6

For the first time since 2019, we were able to host our conference, The Monktoberfest. This one was special because my Mom was a guest of honor to commemorate the 10th year, and because my BFF gave a talk about his own event, the Flyathlon, which has raised a half a million dollars for local conservation efforts. It was a lot of blood, sweat and tears holding an event in the COVID era, but it was legitimately incredible to see everyone.

October 22

Hard top: reactivated. Sadly.

October 27

In 2021, I set a goal to try and walk 40 miles a week for the year. It seemed ambitious, but as it turned out I enjoy walking so much I hit my goal two months early. I got up early to get the walk in, and shotgunned a beer to celebrate the mark. If you’d told me a few years ago that any of this would have happened, I would have said you’re crazy. But it did.

October 31

No one takes Halloween more seriously than the island. No one.

November 2

pic.twitter.com/NXhteWFm21

— steve o'grady (@sogrady) November 3, 2022

RedMonk had a significant birthday, which we thought we could sneak past people, but instead which our coworkers conspired against us to generate reactions which were literally overwhelming.

November 8

My daughter’s stuffie Tiana Sprinkles visited San Francisco for the first time and I visited it for the first time in three years and it was so, so good to catch up with work friends I haven’t seen in far too long, and even more to the point one of my best college friends.

November 19

Celebrated the kiddo’s bday at the climbing gym, an inspired idea of Kate’s, clearly, not mine.

November 27

As happy as I was to be back in San Francisco, that’s how sad I was to be back in Las Vegas. The cabana we rented the first day eased the blow, however.

December 20

As I’ve been stretching out the distances I’ve been walking this year, it occurred to me that I might be able to complete a marathon distance walking. After I saw that the training plans maxed out at 38 miles a week – or two less than I’ve tried to average – I decided to try it. Thanks to logistical support from Kate ranging from assuming drop off and pickup duties at school to drive by checkins with me, guidance from my BFF on how to best manage plantar fasciitis and distance events, and advice from coworkers on local footwear options I was able to complete a marathon distance walking.

It’s not running, obviously, but it was still a fun undertaking, and if nothing else I have to be the only person ever to complete that distance on this two square mile island.

December 25

Quiet Christmas at home. Note how my wrapping skills have dramatically improved.

December 27

Went on a post-Christmas ski vacation with our family, Kate’s family and my Mom. A ski vacation that included a lazy river that sold Heady Toppers.

December 31

As is our custom, celebrated the New Year with our friends and fine beers.

I opened the first morning of summer vacation by trying to kill time with Eleanor by making breakfast eggrolls. Not only did she not want to eat them, she managed to repeatedly scald me with molten oil by dropping them in from a foot above the wok.

Not good times, bad times.

Later that afternoon, however, we were up at Kate’s parents’ place for a birthday party and some cousins time.

The next day, she disappeared for an hour and wouldn’t let me see what she was doing until she emerged with some homemade – and hand decorated – armor.

wrote up the experience of putting together a little family dashboard in our kitchen.

if you've got a lot going on in your house, and especially if you've got kids heading back to school, this might be of interest.https://t.co/oWbbo8Jjk7

— steve o'grady (@sogrady) August 16, 2022

Out of both a desire to be productive and a need to begin prepping for school re-entry, I took some time to set up a combination digital calendar/picture frame/weather station/family to do list/tide chart. So far, so good.

With the girls gone for dinner at a friend’s house, I took the opportunity to try and make dumplings from scratch by hand. Unsurprisingly, things didn’t end well and I did not even ask them to try them later.

Apart from the aforementioned light fixtures and curtain rods, the only real home improvement project was building a shelf behind the old, inherited sectional couch in our basement. I cut up the same 2×6’s that once were part of the wheelchair ramp I made for my Dad, stained them, dropped in a power outlet and called it good.

I’m not sure that I’ve ever caught a sunrise while on vacation before – in fact, I’d bet against it. But I was there for a couple of good ones.

Later, we built a fort.

And she read to me in it.

We rode bikes all over the island, which was mostly fun. Except for the days when it was hot and she’d want to walk the bikes back halfway across it.

Set a walking goal before the start of the year, and after crossing a particular milestone there was only one GIF to talk about what was left.

headed up to my mom's house tonight for a cookout with my brother, who's in from out of town. bright sun when we got there.

this was five minutes after we brought the food outside and fired up the grill. pic.twitter.com/s5HHrNrpNp

— steve o'grady (@sogrady) August 25, 2022

Headed up to my Mom’s place to see my brother and nephews, and, well, the usual weather followed.

The next day the cousins came down to the beach by our house and, well, the usual weather followed.

Two days later, we all went to Splashtown Funtown. It was as advertised, though just take my word for it: don’t get on the Tilt-a-Whirl. Even if your beloved daughter says “Daddy, will you take me on the Tilt-a-Whirl?”

In between our various adventures, Eleanor and I spent a lot of time sitting together on the couch reading while poor Kate had to work.

Then there was the day I was tasked with sewing together “vests” for her stuffed animals, and sewing tiny ferns on to those vests. Turns out I’m a lot better at reading to her than I am sewing.

Another night, one when Kate had to work, Eleanor and I made orange chicken together. The bad news is that she didn’t like it and wouldn’t eat it. The good news is that she didn’t manage to burn me this time.

Arguably the highlight of my vacation was taking Eleanor up to my happy place, one I’ve visited every summer for well over a decade. We were supposed to do this as a family, but the weather and schedule didn’t cooperate the week Kate had off, so instead I just took my sidekick.

Over the weeks I was out, I got a lot better at making cardboard weapons.

To the point that I ended up having to create an assembly line of sorts to manufacture them at scale.

By the end of vacation it was cool enough for firepits, and we got to deploy the new Solo heat deflector for the first time. Early verdict is that it does work and deflect heat to the sides, but you have to be close.

Vacation nights, I’d close the day by watching the kinds of movies that I hadn’t seen since a sleepover at a friend’s house when I was a kid. And probably didn’t need to see again because they were awful and should never have been made.

And then, on one of our last beach days of the summer, Eleanor got to make her paddle board debut thanks to an incredibly kind neighbor.

All in all, while it wasn’t all sunshine and unicorns – there were some rainy days in there – it was a summer of adventures that Eleanor hopefully will remember for a long time. And worst case and she forgets, I can always send her this.

After I talked last month about walking and how it’d played a role in my weight loss, a couple of people reached out to ask me what I was doing about food. “If you can’t outrun a bad diet,” one of them asked, “I’m pretty sure you can’t outwalk it either.”

Which is true enough. If you’re eating badly, unless you’re running the Iditarod and burning nine thousand calories a day it won’t matter how much you exercise. Walking has been critical to helping me burn more calories, but as I had a big hill to climb that wasn’t going to be enough. I had to reduce my intake of them at the same time. Here’s how I’ve done that. But first, the caveat.

The Caveat

If you read a review on the Wirecutter, one of the first things they’ll do is explain why you should listen to a particular reviewer. They’ll go through their various qualifications, the testing methodology and so on in an effort to establish their credibility.

I’m going to do exactly the opposite here. I am not credible, and I have no relevant qualifications whatsoever. I’m not a nutritionist, I haven’t tested and compared different diets or approaches – I haven’t even really studied them. Literally the only reason to pay attention to any of this is the fact that, as pictured here, I have had a little bit of success losing weight in recent months so I can at least relay what has worked for me.

My goal here therefore is not to convince you that my approach or particular diet is right. It probably isn’t. What I’m going for here instead is to walk you through my thinking on the chance that something in here can be applied to your situation. And perhaps more importantly, serve as a reminder that a few small, doable changes can add up to meaningful gains.

What I Was Not Willing to Do

• Calorie Counting: A lot of diets that work for people come down to counting calories. Either literally doing just that, or via some system of points that are easier to count than the calories themselves. That sounded tedious and exhausting to me, so I’ve steered clear of that entirely. My hope – thus far born out – was that if I both increased my caloric burn and just broadly decreased my intake of food, I could skip the calorie counting. So far, so good.
• Metabolic Hacking: Similarly, a lot of people have had great success with keto or other metabolic hacking diets. I didn’t want to do something like this, first because I wasn’t particularly keen on dramatically specializing my diet out of a concern that it might be depriving me of things that I might need, but more because that didn’t seem sustainable to me. Even if I was successful taking off pounds using one of these plans, it seemed likely that I’d just put them right back on unless I adhered to the diet indefinitely. This wasn’t what I was looking for.
• Rigid, 24/7 Restrictions: Lastly, I didn’t want any set of rules that I had to follow 24/7. I didn’t, for example, want to get together with friends on a weekend and have to navigate around a bunch of restrictions. Instead, I try to do the right most of the time and not get in a twist about the occasional indulgence (read: beers on weekend nights).

What I Was Willing to Do

• Track my Weight: This is a non-starter for a lot of people and I completely get it. It’s hard to get on a scale if you’ve let things go. But what success I’ve had with losing weight historically has come from the line diet, so for me weighing myself daily was not optional. And after that first weigh in, I just keep my focus on trying to beat my number each day.
• Eat Less: As I’ll get to momentarily, I started with exercise, not diet, but that just made it easier for me to make the decision to eat less. It’s not like I was eating fast food all the time or anything crazy, but I had to be willing to make some cuts to my food intake. Otherwise my progress, if any, would have been slow.
• Make Some Changes to What I Ate: Again, I didn’t have to do anything really radical here because I wasn’t gorging on burgers or eating pints of ice cream in a sitting. But I did make a few small changes here and there for nutritional purposes as well as weight loss.

The Rules

• No Breakfast: This wasn’t a big deal for me, as I haven’t eaten breakfast regularly since I was a kid. My PCPs over the years have had varying opinions on the importance of breakfast, and it seems like one of those medical subjects where each new study contradicts the last. For me, at least, I don’t have any less energy if I don’t eat breakfast – I walked over ten miles this morning without any – and I actually tend to feel sluggish if I do. Your mileage may vary here.
• No Eating After Dinner: This was a more significant change. Because I had a tendency to stay up too late, I’d end up getting hungry around midnight and would raid the fridge for leftovers. Under the new plan, I don’t eat anything after dinner, and with very rare exceptions I do this pretty much seven days a week. Eating before bed is not super helpful in general per the science, and it’s additional calories I just didn’t need.
• Eat a Varied Diet: There’s not much question that eating a diet heavier in protein versus, say, carbohydrates is helpful from a weight loss perspective. And as I’ll get to, I’ve tilted my consumption there just a bit. But I also wanted to make sure that I was getting an appropriately diverse set of nutrients – carbs included.
• No Beer Four Days a Week: When the pandemic began, I was adhering to a pretty strict schedule of only having beer Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. I held up for about a month or two, then that went out the window. I wasn’t getting shellacked every night or anything, but I was having at least a beer or two every night, if only for medicinal purposes. Those extra calories had to go. So for several months now I’ve been back to the Thurs/Fri/Sat schedule, and you can see the difference quantitatively.
• These Are More of a Set Guidelines, Not Rules: If the time that will work to meet friends for a beer around a firepit is Tuesday night, I have beers on a Tuesday night and I don’t think twice about it. If I’m at my college reunion and we make food late night, I eat after dinner – so be it. The core assumption here is that if I do the right thing most of the time, the good will outweigh the times when I have to make an exception to the above rules.

The SOG Diet

Enough with all the rules and guidelines and caveats: what’s the actual diet? The joke is that there actually isn’t one. Basically, I eat two meals – lunch and dinner – and occasionally a snack in the afternoon if I’ve walked a lot.

Lunch: is always the same: what I refer to as “terrible tacos,” pictured above. These consist of a tortilla into which I place first some sort of protein. Could be turkey, bacon, left over actual taco meat or most often chicken or turkey sausage. On top of this I throw in a bunch of different random vegetables from our fridge: some combination of lettuce, avocado, pickled jalapenos, onion, carrots, cabbage, cukes, carrots or tomatoes. The more different colors that are represented, the better. Then I add a fried egg – my cholesterol numbers have always been pretty good – and some sort of hot sauce. It’s thai sambal above, but I rotate regularly through a bunch of different sauces from Big Tree Grocery (which, as an aside, is so, so good). One day it’s sambal, another it’s chili crisp, next it’s gochuang and so on. I leave out filler I don’t need and probably wouldn’t be able taste anyway like cheese.

None of the ingredients make any sense, there’s no cohesion or thought into how they might taste together, but the terrible tacos cover a couple of bases for me:

• They get me both protein and more and more varied vegetables than if I was having, say, a basic turkey sandwich
• I can make and eat them in ten minutes or less, which is helpful on busy days
• I don’t need any specific ingredient; I can work with basically whatever we have as long as we have tortillas
• The Big Tree sauces are excellent, and either hot, overpowering from a taste perspective or both, so I get some variety in how my lunch tastes
• The taco is filling, if mostly comprised of vegetables, so I’m never hungry after eating

That’s pretty much it. I eat these things close to seven days a week, unless we go out for lunch or pick something up special. So far I haven’t gotten sick of them, though I’m not much of a food person in any event so that’s not a major surprise.

Snack: is always something small. A protein bar, maybe, or a wedge of cheese. Maybe a small portion of this tabbouleh salad our local market makes that has kale in it, but in which, mercifully, you can’t taste the kale.

Dinner: basically I eat whatever we’re having. Could be rice bowls, could be a grilled chicken salad, could be sushi – or it it’s Tuesday, it could be normal, non-terrible tacos. Basically the only adjustments I make are first by going lighter on the carb portions than I might have otherwise; a little less pasta, for example, or a little less rice, and second by eating a little more protein than I might otherwise. These adjustments are very slight, I’m still eating both carbs and protein, just a slightly different ratio than I might have otherwise. Overall, however, it’s simple: eat a little less overall, and a little less of foods that aren’t great for your weight and a little more of foods that can be helpful in that regard. And after dinner, that’s it. No more food until the next day.

And that’s it. That’s the “diet.”

Things That Aren’t a Problem for Me That Might Be for Other People

• No Dessert: For the most part, I have no sweet tooth. I don’t care for cake, ice cream, pie or most desserts. So skipping desert is not a big deal for me. I do, however, really like peanut butter, and got a couple of bags of peanut butter cups for Christmas. They’re still up on the shelf. I find it’s easier to not eat them if I don’t have a fresh memory of what they taste like. So while I could indulge myself per the guidelines/rules item above, I’ve just dropped anything sweet entirely.
• I Eat the Same Thing Every Day: After he retired, my grandfather ate the same thing for lunch – a bowl of corn flakes – every day for decades. I appear to be cut from a similar cloth in that respect, because as mentioned above I eat basically the same thing for lunch seven days a week, week in, week out. That’s probably not something everyone wants to do.

When to Start

Personally, I found it easier to start with an exercise plan and then gradually adjust my diet. As I ramped up my physical activity I was burning enough calories via walking that I was seeing some weight loss, which meant that dieting for me was essentially an accelerant. This meant that I was getting concrete, tangible results faster, which made the challenge of making adjustments to my diet much easier to swallow. If you’re losing, for example, a quarter of a pound per day on average and then you can watch yourself double that after a few small diet changes, the incentive to make and keep those changes is much higher.

How to Roll Out Changes to Your Diet

Much like an exercise regimen, I think diet changes are best rolled out incrementally. If your entire diet is different overnight, it’s a shock to the system that’s more difficult to sustain over time. If you make one change, learn to live with it, then make another, and so on, you can boil the frog, so to speak, and wake up after a couple of weeks with a significantly different diet that seems to have materialized out of nowhere. I’ve described a bunch of different changes above, and they were all made at different periods over time, and thus the changes while significant in the aggregate at no time have seemed onerous.

The Net

As stated above, the way I’ve done things is not for everyone. My version of the tacos, as but one example, is not going to work for a vegan. For those of you that don’t have access to a kitchen for your lunch, likewise. But the idea isn’t that you have to do what I’ve done. If anything in here is helpful to you, that’s fantastic, but that’s not the point.

The important takeaway for me, at least, is that if you’re struggling with your diet and your weight – and I’ve heard from a bunch of you that are – you can make a small change here and a small change there, and it all adds up. You might not think you can, at times, but literally anyone can make a small change. And then another. And then another.

Don’t worry about the big picture, just put one foot in front of the other and focus on those small changes. Make enough of them and you’ll get where you want to go, I promise.

Good luck.

Eighteen years ago this month, I hopped in the car and drove up to Augusta to the Kennebec Valley Humane Society. They had a cat there that no one, apparently, wanted to adopt. Which, in turn, made me want to adopt him, hence the ride up north.

As it turned out, however, someone did want to adopt him, and drove off with their new cat about an hour before I got up there. They tried to talk me into coming to see a new batch of kittens that had come in, but I resisted, having had my heart set on the cat that had been adopted. Eventually I gave in because, well, kittens.

When I walked into the room with the them, they were rolling all over each other and play fighting. One of kittens looked up and saw me, sprinted over and proceeded to climb my leg like a tree. When I pried her off my hip, she was purring loudly.

Her name was Azrael. I had to have her put to sleep last week.

---

When she came home with me that June, I was living alone up the coast from here in Maine, far from friends and family. Az was my companion in those early years. She was my local friend. She rode in with me to the office every day, and rode home with me at night. She curled up in my lap if it was available, and next to it if it wasn’t. She would drape herself over me at night, or crawl under the blanket and go to sleep behind my knees. And her most favorite thing in the world was to be carried. She’d sit in the crook of my elbow, paws on top of my hand and just quietly sit as I wandered around randomly carrying a cat and trying to do things like laundry one handed.

My relationship with her, however, was a lot different from other people’s relationships with her. In my experience there is a type of cat that is basically a one person cat. I grew up with one. Azrael was another.

She liked Kate, which didn’t help much since she’s allergic. One of my happiest memories, meanwhile, was when she gave the newborn Eleanor a tentative lick the first time they met – and she was a very patient cat with a very affectionate toddler. She also got along just fine with my best friend Andrew.

But that was pretty much the list. She hated pretty much everyone else – even people who were kind enough to make sure she had food and water while I was traveling. Best case, they wouldn’t even see her. Worst case, there would be hissing. And if you didn’t pay attention to that and got too close, she would cut you. Happily. The last veterinarian we went to tried to get me to take a fancy plastic cat carrier for free because they were so scared of me taking her out of it. I assured them she’d be fine for me, and she was.

Azrael may have been a tiny cat, but she was fierce. Even those of my friends that didn’t like her – which is to say most of them – would allow her that much, I think.

---

If she wasn’t particularly friendly, however, she was adaptable. She lived in everything from a one room cottage to a loft to a basement to, when we had that finished, the RedMonk office briefly. She took it all in stride. She was on a plane more than my daughter’s been to date. She didn’t like it, but as long as I was able to stick my hand in the cat carrier so she could know that I was there, she’d settle.

I worked with a guy once whose cat crapped on his clothes as a means of expressing its displeasure when he traveled. Az never did anything at all to protest; she was just overjoyed to see me when I got back.

Throughout all of the changes in my life over the last two decades, Azrael – most commonly referred to in the house as “Pook” – was there for me. Moves. Marriage. A daughter. My deteriorating and then recovering health. My Dad’s death. Throughout all of the ups and downs, I could sit down each night, she’d curl up next to me and I’d feel loved.

Pets have many wonderful benefits, but I’m not sure there’s any that are more important than that.

---

Last week, I noticed a couple of things that were off. Her food bowl was fuller than it should have been and she felt lighter. And she was making a noise as if she was grinding her teeth, which had never happened before. I took her in assuming it was a dental issue. They called and told me it was a growth, very likely squamous cell cancer. In the span of about thirty seconds I went from wondering how long she’d be in for dental work to desperately trying to get around the fact I was going to have to say goodbye.

Because that was clearly what had to happen. Surgery on the mouth of an eighteen year old cat would be trading at best a few months for me to come to terms for an agonizing, painful struggle for her, which of course is no trade at all. It would mean selfishly putting her through hell so that I didn’t have to feel sad until later.

We might not always be able to be kind to people in these situations, but we can at least do that for our animals.

---

A half hour later, I was at the vet’s sobbing as they brought her in. True to her nature, they’d had to administer the sedative before they brought her in because she tried to cut a few of them up. Even in her weakened state, she was still fierce.

I thanked her for always being there for me and for making me happy. I told her that she’d been loved. And then they gave her the second drug, and she was gone.

You won’t find many other people who liked her, let alone loved her. You, reading this right now, probably wouldn’t have. But I did. So very much.

Goodbye Pook. You were a great cat.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by stephen o'grady (@stephenogrady)

Since I started walking longer distances and have lost some weight in the process, I’ve gotten a bunch questions from people about it. My original plan was to wait and write this post answering some of those in early January, with a full regular calendar year of walking under my belt. Then it occurred to me that waiting to drop a post on walking tips until the middle of winter was a spectacularly dumb idea, even by my standards. Putting this up now in case some of you have the opportunity to use some of the following advice to walk during weather which is actually pleasant seems like a much more reasonable approach.

This particular revelation was triggered in part after reading a tweet from my friend Kim, the one here.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kim Lloyd (@kimlloydfitness)

That reminded me of a conversation I had a few weeks ago, in which I made a similar argument to a friend when I compared walking to cameraphones. The camera in your phone might not always be the best option to take a picture, but it’s much more likely to be the camera you have on you. Similarly, walking may not always be the most metabolically efficient activity, but it’s one that most of us can nearly always do.

It may not be the sexiest exercise, but it’s accessible as hell. So here’s a bit on why I walk and how I walk, and why you might want to as well. Best case, something in here will be of use to you.

Why You Should Walk

Weight Loss

It’s not hard to find studies on the internet that tout the benefits of walking in terms like “lower mortality” or “greater longevity,” but as far as I’m concerned that all comes back to the single greatest benefit of walking for me: weight loss. As I discussed back in December, my physical condition wasn’t so hot pre-pandemic and had deteriorated to outright problematic by last fall.

Historically, the best and most enjoyable way for me to exercise was running. But when you haven’t run regularly in years and you’ve gotten out of shape in the meantime, getting back on that particular horse can be challenging.

Fortunately for me, while on hiatus from a couch-to-5K program due to a back tweaked while on said couch-to-5K program, I ran into our local walking legend Dean. After a single conversation with him about his experiences walking 10+ miles a day as someone a few decades older than I am, walking went from little more than a mere rehab activity to a primary exercise focus. Shortly after talking to Dean, I Googled for “online activity calorie calculator.” This is what it told me I might expect to burn calorically:

• Cycling, moderate pace for 30 minutes: 375 calories
• Running, moderate pace for 30 minutes: 675 calories
• Swimming, mild pace for 30 minutes: 375 calories

Those aren’t bad, and literally any exercise is better than none. But given the weight I’d added, I was looking for something a little more significant, and the reality of the couch-to-5K programs I was trying to ramp up on was that it’d be a month or more before I’d even work up to 30 minutes of moderate running.

After hearing about Dean’s experiences losing weight via walking, however, I asked the calculator what kind of calories I might burn if I walked for two hours. The answer?

1150 calories. If I could find a third hour in there every so often? The number jumped to 1750 calories.

All of a sudden, walking became a lot more attractive as an option. Now most of the cyclists and runners I know will object, noting that they don’t work out at a moderate pace, they crush their workouts. But particularly when I started all of this, I simply wasn’t in a position to push like that. I was, however, willing and able to walk, and to keep walking.

As it turns out, the calories burned on those long miles pay off. Here’s a line chart of my weight over periods stretching back over a decade. As you can see, I wasn’t in a great place with my weight even before the pandemic hit, but that – and a number of other things going on, it must be said – didn’t help.

It took me just shy of 70 days of walking to get back to my pre-pandemic weight, but that was still too heavy. A hundred days after that, I was lighter than I’d been since 2011. And I’m 15 pounds lighter than that now.

More importantly, walking has become part of my day to day in ways that other exercise routines haven’t, which means that this feels more sustainable. This isn’t some crazy, crash diet sprint I can’t maintain, it’s the accumulation of a few small changes and an exercise I genuinely enjoy.

My current plan is to keep going and see if I can get to my high school / college weight; still a ways to go there. But worst case, if I can do nothing more than hold more or less where I am, that would be an enormous win versus where I was a year ago at this time.

It’s Enjoyable

I am not a morning person. I never have been, and I never will be. I’m just not wired that way, and if I needed more proof my six year old is cut from the same cloth. Getting up at five in the morning, therefore, is not something I do for fun, or even willingly without major justification.

And yet I regularly get up at that unholy hour to go for my walks, because – the 5 AM part aside – I genuinely enjoy it. The only hard part is rolling out of bed; once I’m up, out and walking I’m happy about it. Here are a few reasons why:

• It’s meditative, for one. When all you have to do is put one foot in front of the other at a deliberate pace, your mind is free to wander, to process or just to zone out. Walking is a perfect way to temporarily detach from your day.
• You can get to know your community better. I’ve gotten to know a bunch of other regulars out on the trails, not to mention their dogs, and they were good dogs. At the same time, they also have gotten to know me. Embarrassingly, I’ve had close to a dozen people that I don’t know other than from the trails stop me to say kind things about my progress losing weight, and to cheer me on. After seven months, one even stopped to show me a “secret” trail that I never would have found otherwise.
• You may get to see things you wouldn’t otherwise. Chris Arnade, for example, walks 12 miles a day in cities all over the world and the pictures he’s taken are incredible. While my walking has been strictly local, however, I’ve seen all kinds of things I would otherwise miss, including some incredible sunrises like the one above (good) and a skunk that almost sprayed me (bad).
• Lastly, while I could never manage the trick of listening to audiobooks while running – I needed music – I can while I walk, which means that I’ve been absolutely plowing through books.

No Impact

In the interest of full disclosure, “no impact” is a little bit of an exaggeration in my case, since I ended up going down on icy trails and roads this winter several times, breaking a couple of ribs on one occasion. But that was based on some poor choices on my part.

The simple fact is that relative to a number of other exercises, most notably running, walking has next to no impact. Per this study, for example, “Running produces ground reaction forces that are approximately 2.5 times body weight, while the ground reaction force during walking is in the range of 1.2 times body weight.” The cardio benefits of running offset that additional impact, to be sure, but particularly if you’re just getting started or are restarting with a fitness regimen walking is easier on the body. It is, of course, something that a lot of us do every day anyway.

It’s Easy to Scale Up

Not only is walking low impact, it’s inherently easy to scale up or down. You can start slow, and up your pace. You can walk a short distance, or walk a little further. You can also, as I’ve started to do a bit on our trails here, mix walking with running to get a little extra cardio work. It’s inherently flexible and adaptable to whatever you might have on a given day.

How To Start Walking

When you get started walking, the single most important thing – as with any exercise regime – is to start gradually and build yourself up over time. I started by walking across the bridge and back to our house. Then I started walking past the house and back via a nearby trail. Then I added a loop. A route down one side street to a local dock. Another down to the ferry. Then loops on the next next island over. And so on.

This meant two things.

• First, my mileage grew in a slow, manageable fashion. I’d walk a route, and when I felt comfortable with it, I’d add some distance. I started out by walking 1.6 miles last October. Over a recent 12 week stretch prior to a week of travel, I averaged a tick over 8 miles per day six days a week.
• Second, it means that I can very easily add or subtract distance based on the window of time I have available. I can walk a route as short as a half hour, as long as four or more hours, and anything in between just by manipulating my routes up or down.

A few other quick tips that may help you get started:

• Plan: I’ve found it very helpful to map out my week on Sunday nights. I look over my schedule, the weather and – depending on the season – the sunrise/sunset/civil twilight times, and slot in tentative plans for when I’ll be walking each day and for how long. Predetermining the schedule both ensures that I’ve thought through what my windows are for each day, and also helps ensure that I’m not surprised by the days when I have to be up and out early in the dark.
• Rest: Walking may be low impact, but I’ve found it beneficial to still build in a day per week where I have no walks planned. If nothing else, it makes me look forward to getting back out on the trail the next day.
• Yoga: I get asked about stretching a lot: do I stretch before I walk, after or both? With the caveat that I am absolutely not the person to take advice from on this subject because even playing sports in high school and college I never really stretched, I do not at this point stretch before or after my walks. What I have found success with instead, however, is 15-30 minutes of yoga at night before bed. I’m more flexible today than I was a decade ago, and yoga is the reason why. I don’t know for certain that it’s helped me from getting tight even after three or four hours of walking, but I’d bet it’s a big part of it. Yoga With Adriene is my recommendation if you’re interested in that.
• Injuries: When I was in high school, my coaches impressed upon us the difference between being hurt and being injured. While playing contact sports, the reality was that something was going to hurt pretty much all the time. This is also what happens as I’ve gotten older; something, somewhere is probably going to be sore. The trick is distinguishing being hurt from being injured, which is to say a situation in which continued activity might make something worse. This is a hard thing to learn, and it really depends on an individual’s history, tolerance for pain and so on. In my case, I find that when I get sore while walking, more often than not if I just keep walking the pain resolves itself, and usually pretty quickly. Every so often, however, something worse pops up and you have to take care of it. Listen to your body, but not too quickly, if that makes sense.

How to Dress for Walking

Clothes

One of the things I had to adapt to while ramping up my walking, particularly as it grew colder this past fall, was working out the appropriate layers. Running generates enough body heat that even in winter, I used to run in shorts and a long sleeve top. Walking doesn’t generate anywhere near that much heat, and I have the added complication that the bridge I walk across is significantly colder than the rest of the island, so layers – lots of them – were key.

It’s a little more complicated than this depending on windspeed, precipitation and so on, but these are my starting points for different temperature bands:

• 60 or above: shorts and a t-shirt
• 50 – 60: pants, t-shirt and a merino 1/4 zip
• 40 – 50: pants, t-shirt, a merino 1/4 zip and a merino vest
• 30 – 40: pants, t-shirt, merino vest, merino hoodie, merino hat, merino glove liners
• 20 – 30: pants, t-shirt, soft shell, merino vest, merino hat, ski gloves
• 20 or below: pants, t-shirt, soft shell, merino 1/4 zip, merino hat, ski gloves and scarf

You’ll note that there’s a lot of merino in there. I’ve had merino gear for nearly a decade now, and as far as I’m concerned it’s the perfect fabric. It’s lightweight, keeps moisture off of you and is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. I’m in the process of replacing any clothing I can with merino alternatives, right down to my boxers.

My gear comes from a variety of manufacturers: the 1/4 zip and hat come from Minus33, my hoodies and boxers come from Woolx (if you want $20 off anything from there, incidentally, click here) and my vest and glove liners come from Ibex. All of it is good, and I recommend all three companies.

The only thing I’ve found that merino does not deal well with is pet hair, but that’s a small price to pay in my view.

Shoes

With the exception of walks in heavy snow or ice, all of my walks this fall, winter and now spring have been in Hoka’s – specifically the Bondi 7. I’d never even heard of the company, but when I looked up reviews on the best cushioned running shoes Fleet Feet said the Hokas were it.

I like the Hokas so much I’m now on my third set, and I have even gone out and replaced my Salomon hiking boots with a Hoka alternative. They’re heavily cushioned, stable and great for both putting miles in on pavement and even the occasional sprint down single track trails.

Can’t recommend Hoka enough, even if some of the boots look goofy as hell.

Backpack

One of the things I learned to carry early on was a backpack. As you peel layers off, it’s nice to not have to carry them or tie them around your waist. It’ll be handy come summer as well to stash water in. I picked up this cheap, ultralight pack from LL Bean. It weighs next to nothing and does exactly what I need it to do.

Equipment

I’ve never worn crampons regularly before this winter, but then I’d never fallen on an icy trail and broken ribs before either. Now I carry these. They’re a bit of a pain to put on while on a trail, but they do the job nicely.

What’s the Catch?

Walking isn’t all sunshine and unicorns. A couple of the downsides.

Time

By far the biggest catch to walking is the time it requires. With other exercises, you hit it for a half hour or an hour, and get back to your day. Walking, at least if you want it to be comparable calorically, simply takes more time because it’s much less metabolically efficient. In my case, it hasn’t been too hard to find windows because my commute for the last year and a half has not been a half hour down to Portland and a half hour back up, but the ten seconds it takes for me to walk downstairs. Between that reclaimed hour and an hour for lunch, that’s all the time I need to walk around seven to eight miles.

Still, while all of our schedules at RedMonk are flexible, they are very, very full these days. When I can’t find that window during the day, then, I have to resort to alternative tactics.

• Go Before Everyone Wakes Up: As mentioned above, if I’m out the door a bit after 5 AM, I can get two hours in and be back in time to wake up my daughter for kindergarten at the usual time of 7:20 AM. This is admittedly easier in the spring when it’s light out and the weather is clear than the middle of winter when it’s dark and you can’t see the ice, but you do what you have to.
• Break up the Walk: Don’t have two hours? Take an hour in one window and an hour in another. Or four half hour chunks. Whatever works.
• Work While You Walk: This is a staple of mine particularly for longer 2.5-3 hour walks. I almost never have those kinds of windows during a weekday; but I do frequently have listen-only multi-analyst briefings, conference talks I need to catch up on and so on. I can’t really engage, because of wind noise if nothing else, but I can absolutely listen to a briefing while walking.
• Offset Work: If all else fails, sometimes I can trade work hours for evening hours. I try not to do this too much because it was an unhealthy if necessary habit during the period of the pandemic where my daughter was home full time, but every so often it’s my only option. I go for a walk during the day, and write – or do whatever else was on my plate – at night, after everyone else has gone to bed.

The point is that there’s usually a way to find time. It might be more or it might be less depending on your situation, but generally where there’s a will there’s a way.

It is inarguable that walking is expensive in terms of your time, but it’s a cost well worth paying at least in my case.

Weather

Maybe it’s hot where you live. For me that happens, but it’s neither common nor excessive. My problem at least over the winter months is ice, and more specifically falling because of ice. The first time this happened was a shock; by the fifth or tenth time, I had the process down. Or thought so until I broke my ribs. After which point I bought crampons, which brings me to the point here: prepare for whatever your climate brings. If it’s hot, dress accordingly. If it’s cold, layers are your friend. If it’s ice, get crampons. And if it’s really, really cold rain, do what you can, and make sure to wear a raincoat that has not delaminated like the one I wore for too long, but be prepared that you’re probably just going to be really, really cold.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by stephen o'grady (@stephenogrady)

VO2 Max

Walking has had a major impact on my weight loss, but its effect on my overall cardio health was more muted. My VO2 max – even as measured imperfectly by an Apple Watch – has ticked up to the point that I am now technically “above average,” but the above part is literally by 0.1. So the “above” is a little bit of an exaggeration. Plan on finding higher intensity exercises, then, to augment your walking approach if cardio health is a priority.

Safety

Walking can be dangerous depending on where you live – certainly it was for Stephen King in this very state. Maybe it’s the neighborhood, maybe it’s the weather or maybe it’s the wildlife. Walking is safer statistically than some other fitness options, but it’s not risk free. A few suggestions:

1. Walk Against Traffic: I’m always surprised when people don’t do this, but it’s surprisingly common. If you’re walking around cars, and the sidewalk isn’t an option, proceed against the flow of traffic so you can see the cars ahead of you and get off the road if necessary. Which reminds me:
2. Mind Your Surroundings: It’s sometimes good that walking is meditative, but not always. My biggest issue in this regard was zoning out and missing the presence of black ice this winter – but after a couple of hard, painful falls, I got a lot more attentive.
3. Don’t Freak Other People Out: I’m not that small of a person, I’m a guy, a lot of my winter attire is black and up until a couple of weeks ago, I had an often crazy beard. All of which is to say that my sudden appearance on back trails frequently elicited emotions like alarm from other users of the trail systems, particularly women on their own. Especially the time I hadn’t realized that my nose had started bleeding and crusted half my face and beard over with blood. It’s gotten better over time at least with the regulars as they’re used to seeing me, but I haven’t yet figured out how to convince new people that I’m just trying to get my work in. What I do, however, for their safety as well as my own – particularly if they have dogs – is smile, steer well clear of them, move slowly but steadily on my way. It always hurts my heart to know that people are, even temporarily, frightened of me, but that is unfortunately the world we live in. All I can do is try not to make it worse.

Boredom

The Arnade piece linked to above mentions boredom as a real problem, but to be honest I am never bored. I’ve been walking variations of the same paths on the island here six days a week for months, and I can’t say that I’ve ever been bored. Probably part of that is that we live in a beautiful place, but honestly I think it’s the combination of distractions – be those in audiobook, conference talks or other forms – and the purely meditative nature of walking for me. Your mileage may vary here, however, so consider options for keeping yourself entertained.

The Net

All of the above is probably more than you ever wanted to know about walking, but if by some odd chance I missed a question you have post it here and I’ll answer it if I can.

This piece will obviously be less relevant for those of you with fitness routines that already work for you, but for those of you without that, all I can tell you is that in my life so far, there’s a before walking phase and an after walking phase, and that I’m a lot healthier in the after.

If you’re looking to get healthier yourself, you might give walking a try.

A little more than a year after he died, our family came together yesterday to remember my Dad. It was wonderful to see so many friends and family, some for the first time in a decade or more. For those of you that would have liked to attend but were unable, the following was the eulogy I delivered, as best I was able, at the service itself.

---

Years ago, when my brother and his wife got married, I was seated in the front row at the church with the rest of the groomsmen. My parents were sitting in the pew directly behind me. A couple of minutes into the ceremony, I heard some sniffling, then a couple of barely suppressed sobs.

I turned around to tell my Mom to pull herself together only to discover that my Mom was just fine. My Dad, however, who I maybe saw cry four or five times as a kid, was nearly bawling. And this, after yelling at my Mom the night before because she fell apart at the rehearsal.

And for anyone inclined to doubt that story, I encourage you to swing by the reception after the service – we have pictures.

Anyway, I’m bringing this story up now for two reasons. First, because I generally don’t like reading from scripts and never do this when I have to give a talk for work. I hope you’ll all bear with me, however, as I don’t believe that I have much of a choice due to the second reason, which is that I’m very likely to have a “Dad at Nick’s wedding” style breakdown momentarily.

---

My brother will talk to you about who my Dad was, and he’ll do that better than I could have. I would speak to you instead of what my Dad would want you – all of you – to know. What he would want you to remember, and to be.

For a guy just shy of six feet, my Dad seemed like a literal giant as a kid. We grew up on stories of his adventures – the postcards home from Swiss Scouts talking about my Uncle Jeff swimming naked or one of his fellow scouts falling down a chimney (but not to tell his parents) were particularly entertaining. It all became the stuff of legends. As did the stories of his freak athleticism – how many people – ever – have broken their dominant wrist, trained themselves to play tennis with their off hand, and made the state semi-finals? The businesses he ran, the rare stories he’d tell from his time in the service – all of it – turned my Dad into an almost mythical character.

Honestly, the man even had a bull whip like Indiana Jones that he picked up at a scout jamboree. It was almost too on the nose.

As the years rolled by and I became yet another surly teenager, my Dad was reduced for a time from hero status to that of a mere man. I focused on what my Dad couldn’t do, or perhaps more accurately what I thought he couldn’t do, and ignored what he could.

Eventually I grew up. I had jobs. I ended up running a business of my own. I paid taxes. I had relationships, then a marriage, then a child of my own. I had to think about bills and revenue and houses and schools and tuition and what I wanted to pass on to my daughter. And I understood how hard all of that could be. How tiring.

And I understood something else: that my father did all of the above, and still found the time to coach both my brother and I in two sports. And serve on town committees. And his church.

When he retired, I used to joke with him that he was the world’s worst retired person, because he couldn’t simply be content and play golf every day, or learn to fish. Instead he became active in the local schools, the local church, the local town, the local food truck and even the local fire department.

The first thing that my Dad would tell you, then – never, ever explicitly, as that was not his way, but strictly by his own example – is this: be of service.

---

I never really thought about it when I was younger, but looking back it’s remarkable how many of my family’s significant moments were narrated to me by my Dad. For my cousins who are here today: each and every time one of you got into my college, it was my Dad who shared the good news with me. Same with your engagements. For my aunts and uncles, your new jobs. Whether the news was good or whether the news was bad, my Dad made sure I knew what was going on with my family.

He absolutely hated to talk about himself, but he certainly loved to talk about all of you and how well you were doing. He did that because he loved his family, and because he was proud of his family – most of all, of course, his grandchildren. 

He also loved the people his family considered family. He understood, for example, that my best friend, who had the misfortune of booking a vacation for his own family in the Caymans the week before we picked today as the date for his service, was family to me. And so my Dad treated him like family and asked after him the way he would about family – which backfired, unfortunately for him, the time he came home with me for Thanksgiving and my Mom had one of her rare but spectacular cooking misfires with an experimental pumpkin soup served in an actual pumpkin.

But maybe the best example is our wives. He adored you both, and would have done anything for the both of you. He loved the families he indirectly joined. There’s a reason those families are here today, and there’s a reason my Mom insisted that they sit in the family section. It’s because my Dad would have insisted on it.

The second thing my Dad would tell you, then, would be to cherish your family – both the family you’re born to and the family you choose.

---

After my Dad died, some of my first thoughts were two things.

First, the time that I drove a golf cart into a service ditch full of goose excrement with his mother sitting next to me. On the way home he was apoplectic and swore “we will never laugh about this.”

We laugh about it still, as my aunts, uncles and cousins can confirm for you at the reception.

The second thing that came to me was much less memorable, just a random morning from a couple of years ago. My daughter Eleanor had had a string of ear infections, and woke up with a fever and couldn’t go to daycare on a day when both Kate and myself had work obligations that would be difficult to reschedule. I called my parents – forty five minutes up the road – with no warning, and out of desperation, but reconciling myself to the likelihood that they would have had something else going on, busy as they both were.

I needn’t have worried, because my Dad said what he always said, “No problem. We’ll be on the road in ten.”

I honestly could not count the number of times he – and my Mom – both have bailed me out.

• “Dad, I need you to pick up a thousand pounds of crushed rock.”
• “Dad, I have three sheets of plywood waiting at Home Depot.”
• “Dad, I need help moving.”
• “Dad, I need a place to live while we get this business off the ground.”
• “Dad, I need you to rent a wood chipper and help me get rid of this massive brushpile.”

And, my personal favorite:

• “Dad, Eleanor’s vomiting everywhere but I’m in San Francisco and can’t get home until tomorrow: can you and Mom help Kate?”

When the news broke that he’d died, there were dozens of stories of my Dad making an introduction, getting people a job, talking them out of bad jobs, mentoring them as they progressed through their careers. There were all the kids he coached, telling us that they were passing on the lessons he taught them to their own kids or the teams they coached.

He never did any of this with a thought of reward. He would brush off any gestures of gratitude. Thanks, likewise, were unnecessary. He helped because he could help. That was it, and he didn’t think any more about it.

There are hundreds of other things that my Dad might have told you today, but the last thing I’ll leave you with, then, is that it’s not about you, it’s about being there when the people you love – particularly your family – need you.

He was always there for me, and I’ll miss him.

Goodbye, Dad, and thank you.

It’s funny now, but there was a time when we all thought 2021 would kick off the new roaring twenties. Instead, we left it much as we did 2020 – meek, frightened and exhausted. The initial shocking efficacy of the vaccines and the incredible, unprecedented speed of their development led many to hope in the spring that the light at the end of the tunnel was finally in view.

As it turned out, that light was the train called Delta which plowed through all of our tentative, carefully laid plans to get back to a world that looked, well – maybe not normal but normal-adjacent – like a runaway freight car. And just when it looked like the Delta train was done rolling through the station and we could once again move forward, along came another bigger, faster one called Omicron that the epidemiological math says is worse than the measles and had countries dusting off their discarded lockdown policies and kids back in masks at schools.

But for all that 2021 was underwhelming at its best and tragic, awful and spitefully brutal at its worst, I remain grateful because it got me to 2022. It also, with one crushing exception, got my family and friends here. Given the state of the world the last year, and the decade that was March 2020 before that, that’s about all I can ask. For all that the world these days might look grim and dark around me, being here inarguably beats the alternative.

Last year, I debated whether or not to do this sort of year in pictures post. This year I didn’t think about it much, because if I could do it last year, I could do it this year – and I felt like I should.

So as always, these are the moments – significant at times but mostly not – that characterized my year personally. Blessedly, with but a few exceptions, there are no politics in here because I don’t have pictures of it. Before we get to the pictures, however, a quick check-in on travel.

Travel

The tl;dr version of the travel section is that there was none. Or very little. I had desperately hoped that 2020 was the last year I’d go without seeing my best friend who lives in Colorado. It was not. Here’s hoping 2022’s the charm in that regard.

For the second consecutive year, we didn’t leave the state, though we were fortunate to see some friends who left their state to come visit ours. We played it safe and cautious for another year because Eleanor was ineligible for vaccination for the bulk of it and thus unprotected. We played it safe to the extent that I got offered Red Sox playoff tickets – twice – and turned both of the very kind offers down.

These would have been my seats for the second game.

The Red Sox – in the form of the maligned-at-the-time deadline pickup Kyle Schwarber – would hit a grand slam in the second en route to a 12-3 win. I promise that I will recover from missing this game.

Someday.

Anyway, there was one positive development travel-wise. While I did not leave the Great State of Maine, that dot at the top of the map up above, the one north of Farmington and Skowhegan marks the return of a tradition that had taken a hiatus due in part to COVID and in part to our move. But we’ll get to that.

With that, on to the pictures.

January 1

Kicked off the New Year with a lazy day in our PJs.

January 2

Took advantage of the holiday break to continue getting the shop set up, this time with a wall-mount for my drill/driver set.

January 6

today is a stain on the United States of America that can never be removed, and one of the darkest days of my lifetime

— steve o'grady (@sogrady) January 6, 2021

Will never forget this day, sadly.

January 8

Literally counting the days until the vaccines’ arrival.

January 8

Cranked out an exceedingly poorly crafted outfeed table for the shop.

January 17

My reboot began.

January 20

Joe Biden sworn in. There was only one suitable beer to celebrate with.

January 25

Received the worst two telephone calls of my life. The first was my Mom, letting me know that my Dad was en route to the hospital and that it didn’t look good. The second, an hour later, confirmed that he had died on the way and that they had not been able to resuscitate him.

I fell apart. Did my best to pull myself back together. That night, I watched one of his favorite movies, a movie he had watched with my brother and I over and over when we were kids.

I miss him every day, but carry what he taught me and am doing my best to pass it on.

January 30

With my Dad gone, my parent’s house was too much for my Mom to manage on her own, so my brother and I began the process of helping prep her house for sale. I did what was needed on the ground, he took care of the harder, finance related questions.

February 1

Speaking of my brother, bless him, he sold my Dad’s truck remotely. Because of parts shortages the vehicle market was so bonkers it sold for better than twice what I’d hoped for.

February 5

Started down the rabbit hole of DSLR-as-webcam, which as an aside, you should never do.

February 12

Per usual, got some help loading the woodshed.

February 19

My birthday present made its debut a couple of days early.

February 20

Celebrated my birthday with Hearts. As is right and proper.

February 24

RedMonk shut down for the morning to watch one of the six year old’s favorite people absolutely smoke her dissertation defense.

March 1

We watched the first spring training game together, per tradition.

March 6

It took her less than five minutes to learn to skate better than I can.

March 18

After your kid’s been out of school for hundreds of days, you have to get creative.

March 19

Got an absolutely incredible, wildly over-the-top care package from an old friend I hadn’t talked to in far too long to cheer us up after my Dad’s death. One of my gifts – a print of my Dad and I – left me in tears. All of Eleanor’s, however, were a huge hit, not least of which the pictured squid.

In case that friend is reading this right now, as I know she checks in from time to time: thank you. I will literally never be able to communicate how touched we all were. Are.

March 20

First roof off day of the year.

March 27

Having never tried to repair audio gear before, I was mildly shocked to have successfully swapped out a broken woofer on my twenty-two year old HSU Research subwoofer. This seemed like an excellent improvement to the home theater setup until I cranked it up and discovered that it could be felt two floors up and at the opposite end of the house which made people not watching what I was watching rather unhappy.

April 2

Opening Day. At last.

April 8

Dose 1 for me. If social distancing wasn’t the rule, I would have been running around high-fiving random strangers. Thank you science.

April 10

Continued to help my Mom get ready to move.

April 30

Dose 2.

May 14

For a brief moment in time, I felt invincible.

May 26

With our oil burning furnace nearing the end of its lifespan, and afraid that if it went we’d be out of luck due to supply chain issues, we decided to bite the bullet and preemptively replace it with heat pumps.

So far, so good.

June 1

Went through box after box of things of mine that had been stored in my parents’ basement. All of my childhood and high school memorabilia. Some of my early work documentation. Remote control cars. Several dead mice.

Some real gems emerged.

June 15

Emboldened by the vaccines, I did my first meetup with the Maine tech community since the pandemic had broken out.

June 17

Tough to beat a lake house with friends.

June 20

First day of summer means only one thing.

June 21

This table – the top of it, anyway – has been in our family dating back to colonial times. Now it lives with us for the next generation of O’Grady’s.

June 25

It was Hadlock Field rather than Fenway, but this is the first time I’d been at a ballpark of any size in, what, years? My longest drought probably since I was in college.

July 3

Every July 3rd, I pay my respects, as my parents taught me.

July 4

4th. Fireworks. Friends. No masks. Life was good.

July 16

The actual move was a slow moving disaster because her buyers’ shitty realtor who almost blew everything up at the last minute due incomplete financing on their part, but my Mom managed to sell and get into her smaller, more manageable house thanks in large part to her realtor, who is incredible.

July 26

Took a ride up to Boothbay to see the trolls.

August 6

For the first time in a decade or more I didn’t make it up to my happy place last year, but I made sure to remedy this last summer. The water level was a little lower, the temperature a little warmer, but otherwise all was as I remembered it.

August 21

This was supposed to arrive a lot earlier to provide us with some distractions while she was out of school, but better late than never.

September 7

After 543 days of being out of daycare / pre-K, we had ourselves a kindergartner. It’s been a fantastic development for everyone involved.

September 21

Between the climate change-driven increase in violent weather and the fact that we live on an island, one of our top priorities after moving in was a standby generator. Step 1 began on the 21st. The good news is that the guy we had come dig the trench called DigSafe first. The bad news is that the DigSafe guys missed the cable that provided our internet, which it turns out doesn’t like backhoes much.

It turns out it’s a little challenging to work from home with no internet.

October 7

There was no Monktoberfest, sadly, but seeing a bunch of Monktoberfest people – in person – was the next best thing.

October 17

It took a month and a hell of a lot of wrangling between three different vendors – just finding a propane company willing to service a generator only account was an ordeal – but the generator finally went live.

October 29

Boosted.

October 31

There is no small island on this planet that has more Halloween gear than this one, I guarantee it.

November 9

Dose 1. Hallelujah.

November 13

It was a lot closer than it needed to be, but the good guys pulled it out in the end.

November 24

First time I’ve seen these nephews in something like two years.

November 30

Birthday girl.

December 1

Happy bday – here’s your second shot.

December 5

This indoor birthday party was brought to you by at home rapid tests.

Unrelated, the decision to switch from the giant wooden pole to the foam bat was a good one. The piñata was a tank.

December 12

Sections of the grout were coming up, so I regrouted them. The new grout held for approximately one week.

December 19

Wasn’t much, but technically qualified as the first plowable snow of the season, which meant the debut of our battery powered snowblower (it did just fine).

December 31

Nothing fancy, but closed out the year in fine style with sushi, quality beverages, Hearts and friends – again, thanks to testing.