2022

2021 ended with good news on the health front in that I learned I wouldn't (for the foreseeable future) need to have surgery in my head. That was a relief so 2022 started (and mostly continued) with good health.

To "celebrate" starting off this new year with such good news, I treated myself to a new guitar: An Epiphone Les Paul Custom in a sunburst finish. I got a great deal on the guitar used. For whatever reason, Epiphone has stopped making the LP Custom in this finish which is a shame because it is BEAUTIFUL.

As it turns out, I didn't actually keep the guitar for more than a couple of months. One of my best friends in the world casually mentioned he wanted to get back into playing guitar after a bit of a hiatus. I ended up sending it to him as a surprise so it's (hopefully still) gracing his home office in Texas and bringing some joy.

Since I was down a guitar, I decided to try my hand at customizing one. I bought a Fender Telecaster (probably my favorite guitar ever) and decided to drop some G&L ASAT MFD pickups in it. I had a G&L ASAT a while back and loved it. So it was on. I'd never soldered a thing in my life so it was a bit nerve-wracking but I got through it and it was much easier than expected.

I also took the good news in health to try to get back into shape, which is harder now that I'm getting older but I've managed to lose 35lbs since the beginning of the year. A lot of that can be attributed to the fact I started playing golf again after a very long hiatus.

I had a goal of breaking 90 for the first time and I'm happy to say it only took me a few rounds to do it. I shot an 87 at The Rock. It's a short course so I took it with a grain of salt. But, I pretty much backed it up with sub-90 scores in the latter part of the season. My lowest score was an 86 playing at the Walker Course at Clemson University which quickly became my favorite course in the area and the one I played most frequently.

I got to play a lot of golf over the summer, during the month my wife and daughter spent in San Diego visiting my sister-in-law while I stayed home in South Carolina. They had a great time and attended the Pride Parade which my daughter freaking loved.

Aside from golf, I've also started running over the passed month and half or so. I only run a couple of miles every couple of days but I successfully ran my first 5K (on a treadmill) with just a few days left in the year. I have no desire to become a runner so that's probably the biggest milestone I'll hit in the activity lol.

In the fall, I embraced my mid-life crisis (I'll be 40 in 2023 - yikes) and bought a motorcycle. I had motorcycles growing up and they were a big part of my childhood. It felt great to finally get one now that I'm older. I ended up getting a Husqvarna Vitpilen 401. It's not the biggest or the fastest but it suits me very well. I love it.

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It's felt good to be more active this year. After nearly a year of not knowing what some health issue would bring, it was so nice to actually be outside and doing things. 2022 wasn't all great on the health front as I had a seizure in September while waiting to have a routine (for my condition) MRI. So I got to spend the day in the ER and that sucked. But, pro tip, if you're going to have a medical emergency, the best time/place to do it is when you're already at the hospital lol. No one seemed to be able to find out what the cause of the seizure was and I haven't had any more so that's good at least.

On the work front, I celebrated my seventh anniversary with Apartment Therapy in November. This year, I've been on our "Loyalty and Retention" squad. It's been great for me to be on a squad building new features (and expanding on current features) that directly effect our readers and their experiences on the site. This year we've shipped additional features around Recipe Box and The Cure programs as well as new features like Topic Following on Apartment Therapy that allow readers to follow the topics that interest them that we then surface around the site and in their user profiles.

That's basically 2022 for me. It was a pretty decent year. There were some struggles but a lot of good in it as well. I feel like I was more "myself" this year than I have been in a long time, and it has felt great. I'm curious what 2023 will bring. Onward.