How was 2021?

When I think of the year 2021, I immediately think about how it got much safer with a pandemic on because we finally had a vaccine against coronavirus and I took mine the week it was available in January. There was hope that if everyone took it, we'd have herd immunity by summer. Everyone did not take it. And we did not reach herd immunity by summer. Far from it in fact. As the vaccine simply became yet another reason to disagree as a country. At least in-person schooling came back in April for Johnnie's Kindergarten glass, and then again in the Fall for 1st grade. And we parents started to get used to lining up to get kids into the entry gate and kids getting tested on a weekly basis. Summer of 2021 was the summer of Penmar Camp for Johnnie and then off they (Johnnie and Lisa) went to Hawaii for 3 weeks. I ended up watching the dog Claire, which was also one of the new things that happened in 2021... Lisa got a dog. Oh and by July, Greg had retired and moved to Arizona so effectively it was just Scott and I left to play golf on Sundays by the last part of the year. But at least I did keep on playing. On the work-front, it was a pretty quiet 2021, although I did end up speaking about cybersecurity in no less than 3 events, including a national event in Las Vegas. I did end up picking up another department to run <the EHR Support team> and by year end, that was my job: to run 3 departments all interconnected with I.T. 

As far as what I wanted to manifest in 2021, I wanted to manifest financial freedom and to be retired from my job by the end of the year. I believe I had enough in my 401K to retire on but I did not create enough certainty about how much was enough and so retirement didn't happen. I did manage to increase my 401K savings from $720,000 in 2020 to $842,000 in 2021. With additional cash in the bank enough for me to live on for at least a year, I was at approximately $920,000+ in net worth. 

All in all, other than increasing my net worth, I think I was a good dad to Johnnie, even while Lisa stayed true to her personality from when we were still married. I played golf on weekdays a few times, and I was pretty healthy all year. All in all a pretty good 2021. Here's to 2022 being even better.

End of 2021

So it is New Year's Eve today and I already got a nice present from Lisa letting Johnnie sleep over my apartment last night. And so it was a bit of a surprise to wake up with him sleeping soundly in the couch outside the bedroom.  Lisa did say to bring him back around lunchtime today. So we went and had our usual McDonald's breakfast, then I let him watch a bit of Wild Kratts, and then we went to Target Westwood, mainly to replace a lot of the ink pens he had for drawing that had already dried up. And I did a lot of my groceries done too. By the time we got done, it was already 11 AM and so I figured we could just stop at Panda Express Westwood on the way to pick up lunch for Johnnie. One thing he does do more of when he is with me is EAT.  And a lot of horseplay. Funny this morning Johnnie mentioned that his mom was looking for a man. And that "never mind about Dad" when he brought me up. I chuckled about that at first. But I will admit that thought stayed in my mind and kept coming up all throughout the day. I don't know why really. After all, we ARE divorced. She deserves to find a man who she can love and who can love her. We all deserve that don't we? I think what ended up sort of staying in the back of my mind wasn't that LIsa was with someone else. I am ALL FOR THAT. As I am all for me finding someone too. I think where I hesitate is that I still want to be Johnnie's dad to the degree that I am right now and maybe I felt some sort of anxiety about a man in Lisa's life taking over that role from me. Or at least changing the dynamic with Lisa, Johnnie, and I.  But hey, if she's looking for a man, I hope she finds one. And to keep it win-win, I hope I still get to have Johnnie for half the week or however much time I get to see him these days.  I reminded myself that if it is THAT which I want, then I am pretty sure it is an outcome I can manifest. And that the Universe will have my back.  I simply need to focus on being Johnnie's dad and being the best dad that I can be. 

I brought Johnnie back to LIsa's house at 12:30 just like we agreed. He had been fed already and he was actually ready to go back. When we got there Lisa was having a conversation with the gardener about replacing some of the trees, including the calamansi tree in the corner that has never brought fruit for whatever reason. I sort of kept it around as a sort of symbolic tie to my dad. But hey this isn't my house anymore is it. Better to replace it with a tree that WILL bear fruit. Yeah I'm sort of giving up on it. Johnnie started to play with the dog in the yard (see pic).  Anyway what I didn't know was that Lisa's mom was coming by and soon as she drove up with Johnny and her dogs, I realized it was time for me to go too. I did stick around long enough to at least say hi to her. And then back home I went. I figured I'd do my usual year-end stuff I usually do, which is to say evaluate how the year went and maybe re-set for the coming year.  And then of course since it IS New Year's EVe after all, i went and got myself a nice piece of boneless rib-eye. I may not be going out tonight, I never really was big on New Year's Eve partying past midnight thing. But I could enjoy a nice steak, have some wine and watch retro movies. That is what I did last year.  Because of another surge in the Covid virus, this time with the omicron variant, New Year's Eve celebrations were supposed to be a little more subdued this year, just like last year. But last year none of us were vaccinated at this time. Different today. OK to go out. Still, I didn't hear much fireworks going off in my neck of the woods, and I didn't even watch the rest of the world wave 2021 off and enter in 2022. Symbolically, Johnnie and I already did. See the pic I posted? HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

Last Workday of 2021

So it started raining hard last night and it didn't seem to have stopped raining through today. Of course it HAS been raining off and on since before Christmas even. I know we here in SoCal need this rain and all, but this much this fast this long? The last time I remember it raining like this was about 4 years ago... and it was a La Nina year that year too. So today is the last work day of 2021 and I at least kept to script by having my team meetings as per usual. This being Kennedy's last day as a full time employee, I wanted to emphasize to my IT guys it won't be business as usual for a bit, not until I can replace him anyway. Because they tend to get complacent like that. I also wanted to emphasize to Kennedy that we do have expectations still and I hope he keeps working as he usually does. So I did my EHR Team meeting too and that one didn't even go a half hour. A good thing too because minutes after the meeting was over, my internet gave out. It just stopped working. I turned the router and modem on and off and still no go. You never expect the internet to go down, or maybe you just take it for granted because it is something you just expect to be on, just like electricity or something. But a call to Spectrum's tech folks confirmed it... my internet modem is dead. And I need to get a new one. And so I wolfed down those turkey quesadillas from Trader Joe's for lunch and headed to the Spectrum store. Yep, and it was still raining pretty hard. I thought they had a store in Santa Monica but I guess they don't anymore. I went to the one in Westchester by La Tijera. I waited about 15 minutes and then I got bored so I finally reached out to Lisa to see how they were doing. It was 2 PM. I hadn't heard from her since the apology on Monday. I was hoping to see Johnnie maybe for a little bit until they headed out to whatever she had planned for New Year's weekend. I left a VM since she didn't answer. Then i got my modem and went home, plugged it in and I got my internet back! Thank God! 

It didn't end there though as an hour later we would have a systemic Spectrum outage in the area. Great. Anyway, I got a text from Lisa asking if I wanted to come to dinner tonight. Of course I wanted to go. But I wasn't sure what Lisa wanted to eat. Remember the whole thing about food was how we got into a big fat mess last weekend to begin with. Johnnie asked for a churro though and so I told Lisa I was going to get him one at El Pollo Loco and if she wanted me to bring chicken from there. Seemed to be safe enough. If she didn't want to eat it she didn't have to. I was pretty sure like last Friday afternoon she wouldn't have anything to cook in her fridge. And so I brought a can of chicken noodle soup for Johnnie, all the veggies I had in my fridge - which wasn't much mind you and then went over to her house. All I wanted to do was see Johnnie. I got a lot more than I was expecting. Lisa was playing Minecraft legos with Johnnie one minute and then the next she was on a call that lasted for a while. And so I ended up making Johnnie his dinner <still chicken noodle soup> and with the churro, that was sufficient. I ate a couple of pieces of the chicken for myself, leaving Lisa with a piece. It was almost 8 PM and Lisa was still on her call. Johnnie was already done playing Minecraft so he ventured upstairs to see what his mom was doing. It was then that Lisa suggested that I take Johnnie to sleep over my apartment tonight. And to bring him back at noon tomorrow sort of like it was a Saturday thing. MUCH MORE THAN I expected! And so it was that I got Johnnie back in my house tonight. He immediately went for my fridge and started eating junk like he always does. I have to say when he went to bed, him breathing softly with a warm blanket around him on my sofa made me feel like everything was back to normal. Or back to usual such as it were. I mean it was THURSDAY night but I hadn't seen him all week. Thank you Lisa for letting him spend tonight with me. Thank you very much.

Felt Like A Tank Day

As the year winds down, I will admit to thinking since there are only a couple of days left in the week, I am DEFINITELY taking my foot off the gas for work. Not quite tanking mind you, I still have a couple of things to do, but the fact that I am focused on a special session during lunchtime that is completely not work related tell you where my head is at. That would be the Bengston Research special session for about 45 minutes, the purpose being <according to the man himself> to collect data points on recording the image cycling session. There were almost 300 participants on the call. So his premise was, what if not just one person is recording the image cycling, but 300 people simultaneously? How would that affect the energy. I must admit it was a pretty good premise. And I reminded myself that although I had paid for the weekend session, I barely made it through Day 1. One more of those programs I purchased but did not actually finish. Sometimes I do get frustrated at myself that I do not have the discipline <or is that the attention span??> to educate myself further. It's my impatience for results. And I realize that learning is not something you delegate. Not if you want to do things yourself. Anyway, I thought attending this session would at least move me in the right direction for continuing to learn what I need to in order to get the outcomes that I want. Short for saying, help me manifest better and more effectively. The thing about this image cycling method is that it is chill, seems to chill in fact. You just cycle images - which really becomes a memorization exercise - and then you manifest them? It does sound that simple. And after the session, it seemed even more simpler than that. The longer you sustain the cycling of the images, the quicker it comes. They talked about doing it in nature outside, and it was clear this group formed sort of a community of "healers". Which I myself wouldn't mind being a part of... once I get some proficiency in the practice. There is where that word comes in...Practice. THAT is the key.

So i did the image cycling session and it became clear to me quickly that I needed to work on my images. And that I could use NLP to enhance the efficacy. Make them bigger. Play with the images. That was my takeaway from the session. The more you make it like PLAY, the better the results. I sort of knew that already. Manifestation is not something you force. You pull outcomes towards you from an infinite number of possibilities. But the harder you "work" at it, the less effective it is. It's like the Universe doesn't want to play. Gotta work on that. In the meantime, it keeps on raining this week. It has gotten so bad, you hear about flooding all over the place. Huge trees falling on cars. Heck I can see flooding right outside my door just on the street. Let alone the pictures from stuff on the news. At least I kept buy doing steps. AND I did it while watching the Book of Boba Fett, the new offering from Disney Star Wars. I mean anything about STAR WARS is something I'm definitely interested in. I would have wished it was the new season of Mandalorian which I followed the last 2 years, but I guess this year it will do. As it was, it was just ok. I mean it's not like Boba Fett was a main character. I mean on Episode 9, he was swallowed up by the earth by some living monster. This tracks what happened to him and how he got to where he is. HIs story is interesting, and worth following since it is part of the star Wars arc. But I will be the first to admit I may not be as interested.  Still, it is something to follow from here on.  So I made myself some spaghetti for dinner, finished my 11,000+ steps and OBTW it seems a lot easier now to get zone minutes. Even easier than the older Fitbit. I do admit I miss Johnnie as I thought maybe Lisa would remember she thought about letting him spend the night with me tonight, but that's ok. I will check on them tomorrow.  One more work day left for 2021.

A Burst Of Work

And so I woke up this morning and right away realized that this is the first Tuesday in a really long time that I am not driving to McDonald's first thing to get Johnnie his first breakfast. Yes Lisa and I made peace last night and then I know they will be at Coronado for the first part of this week, rain be damned. And it was already raining first thing this morning. It's going to be like that for most of the week I'm afraid. But that's ok... since I knew I am still working this week. Although it felt like a chunk of the office isn't even around, I still had all these things to finish up and do. Things to sign off on. Contracts and what not. I mean it is the end of the year coming up at the end of the week. Anyway, I did have plenty of stuff around the house to remind me of Johnnie, starting with his latest drawing that he posted on the wall. I was even looking through my YouTube Library to start cleaning it out and of course I would run into a couple of Johnnie just laughing. I remember thinking when I recorded them I did it exactly for days like this when he's not around and I wanted to think of him. That laugh of his makes me laugh. It made me laugh a lot this morning. And then I got to work. The thing was that I pretty much stayed in my pajamas for the bulk of the day. Didn't shower or anything, just waited until I was absolutely hungry before I even made myself something to eat for breakfast. And so with a late breakfast came a late lunch and I had all kinds of food leftover anyway. All that to say I never left the house for most of the day. Even when I was doing steps. I was perfectly happy doing it while watching something on TV. I realize I had a lot of reconciling to do in terms of evaluating the year, in terms of evaluating my finances. I mean after all, in another reality, I was supposed to have retired by Friday, living off dividends off of $1M in my IRA. But I'm not because of a tiny bit of uncertainty that crept into my head about the stock market. Even though we're in the middle of a Santa rally such as it were. I keep reminding myself that if worse came to worse, I have plenty of cash to live on for at least a year. That isn't something a lot of Americans can say right about now and so I am feeling good positive vibes about that.  And so by the time I ventured out, the sun was already going down (see pic). And it was already the end of the work day at 4:30 in the afternoon. It wasn't raining anymore. The sky was actually pretty. But it was cold. And I decided to venture out to a new place for dinner. It was a Chinese place called New Flavors which was off Centinela and Washington. I must have driven by this place all the time when I picked up Johnnie 4 years ago from Carmen's daycare. I chose to come here to pick up something I hadn't had since we were still living in Westwood. I remembered I used to enjoy shrimp egg foo young all the time from First Szechuan a mere steps from our penthouse apartment. Something about the memory of that food made me time travel back to Westwood. That place was one of my Happy Places. Johnnie was very much remembered there every time we came and I would sit in just so he could have face time with the servers. I didn't have the same expectations with this new place. After all I'm only picking up takeout. I was just hoping for some pretty good egg foo young. I posted a pic. As it were, it wasn't bad. It wasn't as good as the one from First Szechuan. But it was good enough. After what has it been... 5+ years? I immediately had a memory of those old flavors and all those times I would order this for takeout for myself. Tonight, this would be the play of the day. And helped make this Johnnie-less Tuesday tolerable. And best yet, I had plenty of food - so much food there would be enough for lunch tomorrow. Short work week halfway over.

Exhale...Forgive...Exhale

I woke up this morning maybe not 100% ready for the work week, but then again it IS a short week after all isn't it? And my calendar IS pretty much empty isn't it? How rare is that? It will be a light week to be sure. But first I must move through the emotional "heaviness" and baggage of this past weekend. I was ready to move on. And fortunately for me I came across a video that helped me do just that.  It was a simple video that focused on raising one's vibration over action. And while listening to that video I actually settled back, closed my eyes, and relaxed. And got myself in state. As in I was in alpha or theta and I started to mentally forgive everything. Starting with the events of the past weekend. And all the other events that had bubbled to the surface and came to my attention because they all had negative vibrations. And when I forgave, I let them go. And gave myself permission for different outcomes and different emotions. And slowly I could feel my vibration rise. And then I remembered the whole narcissist stuff too. It's not like I am giving power to Lisa's negative reactions, more like giving power for me to let that stuff go by as if I'm sitting on a surfboard, letting a might wave simply pass me by. Because I can let it do so. And while I remain calm. And I remain safe. And I remain at peace. Totally made my morning. And when I went outside to start my morning "walk", it was nice and sunny. Still a bit cold, but as long as it wasn't raining, I didn't care. I was curious to see how I'd be able to pull my usual 100+ active minutes since I had a hard time even cracking 70 with the new Fitbit during the last part of last week. And it felt like I worked harder too. This morning though, it seemed easy. I got to the usual 5000 steps well before 9:30 AM. And since it actually gave me credit for 2 minutes instead of 1 every time my HR cranked past 125 bpm, I was well over 40 active minutes. Maybe it won't be as hard as I thought. And to cut this part of the story short, I finished the evening at 11,000+ steps AND 122 active minutes! This is the last Monday of 2021. So I assured myself of keeping up that particularly streak at least through this week. YES!

VERY EASILY the best part of today though, was that Lisa called. She was already on the way to San Diego as she and Johnnie are spending the next couple of days at Hotel del Coronado with Feifei and her kids. It is GREAT that Johnnie gets to spend some time with his biological brothers. It more than makes up for he and I not seeing each other on Christmas Day.  It was already raining. Yes, raining. Never mind the nice of picture of my street from this morning. The sun didn't last through the afternoon. So Lisa gushed with probably the biggest apology I've ever hear her utter, at least to me.  It was more than enough. All I wanted was that she acknowledged that she messed up, that she owned it and apologized for it. Of course I forgave her. I already did from this morning's meditation. And we were able to have a conversation. I know she was remorseful. Which is hard for her to do. I mean  if you cared for someone for real, you would be feel that kind of remorse. And so I was satisfied that she got there.  Talking to her even for just about 10 minutes or so felt light and positive and afterwards I may have been half amazed at how great the exercise from this morning turned out. It really is all about raising your own vibration. It really is all about TRUSTING THE UNIVERSE and KNOWING WITHOUT A DOUBT THAT YOU ARE SAFE and that everything you might even feel like worrying about, is already taken care of.  How cool is that! I spent the rest of the evening basically just chillin'. I mean usually I'd pick up Johnnie. But this is also a good opportunity to reset for the end of the year. For me.  And I have the next couple of days to do just that...

What is Sunday Without Golf

When I went to bed last night it was raining cats and dogs. But I did look ahead to today's weather forecast and it was supposed to be a nice, sunny day. So I wasn't concerned. What we do know is that with all the rain all week, the golf course was going to be soppy wet. Still going to go out and play. I didn't really have any doubt Scott was going to be there since his main plan was to maximize his points for the remainder of the year. We would find out later on that the points system is going away at the end of 2021, which is a week away. Still we still had today. To cut a long story short, I didn't really focus on my game today, just making sure my newly discovered 50-degree angle swing from the fairway was put into use. That it was as I can say I hit at least 4 great shots from the fairway that travelled well over 150 yards and bailed me out of some goofy shots from the tee. Which is to say i didn't really have my usual blasts from the tee today. But all in all, I would say I had pretty good shots on most holes. Hole 1, were I missed my usual par but did get a bogey. Probably because my bump and run from 50 yards out went well past the hole on my 3rd shot. Couldn't really blame the wet grass for that one. On the next hole I was again within 40 yards right in front of the hole after my 2nd shot. And proceeded to score a 7. 5 shots from right in front. Sigh. The third hole was really the only hole where I just tanked it. One of these days I'm actually going to shoot well on this nice short hole. Hole 4 same thing. I'm on the green in 3, missed the par putt, settled for a bogey. Hole 5 was my best tee shot and landed again 50 yards from the hole right in front. But this time, my bump and run got stopped dead on really wet grass. And ended up with another bogey 4. Hole 6 I was pin level on the fringe after 3 shots with one of those said rocket shots from the fairway. But scored a 6. Hole 7... another rocket shot from the fairway. But missed my par putt for another bogey. Hole 8 was just ok. Got a 5. Hole 9 produced my best fairway shot yet after 2 whiffs. I blasted my 3-wood 200 yards right in front of the green from way way back. So really on 7 out of 9 holes I produced good shots that put me in range right in front of the tee. Now to master it from there... 

But hey I did play, I didn't play too badly though today produced no pars on a course where we should get at least 3 pars every time. I went and got Crimson salmon kabobs for lunch which I hadn't done in more than a month. And finally I started to decompress on Lisa's latest blowup without the negative shit that I had to process yesterday. The South Park cartoon said it all. If everything is me pushed out, and Lisa was once again playing the victim card, that means it is ME that is creating that by pushing out my own victim agenda. Lisa was merely an actor in my play. And so that is what I must strive to release, is the victim programming. That I am under-appreciated, ignored, and I needed attention. I don't need any drama to remind me of my own self-worth now do I? And so it was that my own anger drama turned from a full 10 out of 10 yesterday after I processed it, to pretty neutral tonight. Which is pretty good. I don't need any drama of my own making. And it is up to me to let it go. In the meantime, it is Sunday, the end of the long weekend and I actually have stuff to do. Routine stuff. I didn't do any shopping yesterday since I stayed in all day so guess when I had to do the Ralphs-Trader Joe's-Whole Foods errand? Tonight. I bought myself some turkey from Ralphs and finally I did the turkey-stuffing-mashed potatoes Christmas dinner a day later LOL. It was pretty good too. I spent the afternoon watching the Rams clinch their play-off berth so we will get to watch at least one game past the first week of January. Can we see them in the Super Bowl? Why not? I also started to watch the Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime. What is it with these period pieces like that and the Witcher from the times of horses and bows-and-arrows that I get attracted to? I ended up watching until almost 1 AM! Oh well, long weekend over. Last week of 2021 coming up...