Year End Retrospective 2023

Here are the highlights from 2023.

The year in twelve snapshots: (January) drinking a fruity cocktail in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; (February) Out for a walk through the neighborhood; (March) Playing around with Hipstamatic; (April) Selfie on the Sofa (patent pending); (May) Officiating my first wedding; (June) Columbus Stonewall Pride; (July) Brentford vs Aston Villa; (August) Stratford Festival; (September) Universal Studios Orlando; (October) Reading the paper; (November) Crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge; (December) Leaving Las Vegas

2023 was a good year. I traveled quite a bit, did or started a whole bunch of cool and interesting things, and made progress on some long-term goals that had eluded me in years past. I’m hugely grateful for my family and friends, especially some dear and distant ones who we had the good fortune of visiting throughout the year.

Things I did (or started doing) this year

Officiated a wedding
Adopted the Unicode ㎆ character (U+3386)
Started playing pickleball
Lost 40 pounds (and kept it off)
Six-mile run/walk across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge
Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot, five-mile run/walk in Columbus
Started posting weekly updates on my blog, and have kept it up for 40 weeks straight
Registered mihobu.lol for my personal blog and rwau.cc for my recipes website
Marched in the Columbus Stonewall Pride March
Presented at a data expo hosted by my employer
Started using Micro.blog and Tinylytics
Saw Brentford play Aston Villa at FedEx Field
Started journaling with Day One
Published several new “My” pages (/uses, /subscriptions, /defaults, /travels, etc.)
Added my name to the Europa Clipper mission
Launched Recipes We Actually Use
Launched a digital garden type thing, called V.I.N.Cent
Celebrated the Columbus Crew’s third MLS Cup championship star
Flew 16,051 miles on 24 flights (all on Southwest Airlines)

Things I started but didn’t finish

Italian language course from Wellesley College and 2U/edX
Learn to draw mandalas
52 week photography challenge
Listening to Jeff Kinzbach’s Rocking the RV Life podcast
New social media apps/sites: Glass, Threads, Bluesky, Nostr, Hipstamatic
StreetPass - it’s there but I never think to look at it
MelonLand - signed up but haven’t played with it

People and Places I visited this Year

Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
A friend in Athens, Ohio
Friends in Orlando, Florida
Friends in Kent Island, Maryland (plus Annapolis and Baltimore)
Carleton College (Northfield, Minnesota)
Hamvention (Xenia, Ohio)
Schnormeier Gardens (Gambier, Ohio)
Stratford Festival (Stratford, Ontario) 🪣
Family and friends in Detroit, Michigan
Major Lazer in Las Vegas, Nevada
Cincinnati Zoo (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Columbus Oktoberfest
Oktoberfest Zinzinnati (Cincinnati, Ohio)
Radio City Rockettes, New York, New York 🪣

🪣 Bucket List Item

What’s Out and What’s In?

Out with the old		In with the new
Flight Aware	→	Flighty
Kindle Paperwhite	→	Kindle Scribe
Specialized Hard Rock	→	Priority Turi
Lawn mowing service	→	EGO Electric Lawnmower
mSecure	→	1Password
Icon fonts	→	SVG images
Google Workspace	→	Fastmail
OneNote	→	Bear
WeatherMate	→	Carrot Weather

Wow! A lot happens in a year. I’m sure I missed some good stuff, but I managed to keep track of more this year than ever before and that feels great! What happy, fun-filled, exciting year it turned out to be. Best wishes to you and yours in 2024.