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The Good in 2020


Coletti

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It would be impossible to say 2020 sucked in a way that hasn't been said before, but out of these 365 days, surely some good things happened to us all - so let's talk about it and revel in some much (always?) needed positivity!

* We bought a house! In July, my wife and I closed on our first house after 8 years of apartment life. It's my second (house and marriage), but it still felt amazing, and getting the kids a home was always super important to us!

* My daughter came out! I touched on some tough times in the Dad Zone, but besides doing better since, she felt comfortable to be fully out with everybody. There's been some negatives to that - judgemental shitheads gonna judge - but she's had nothing but love and support from her parents/stepmom! I also acknowledged my own lack of straightness to her, which was very wholesome!

* We got a PS5! I mean, that was just kinda cool and lucky...

* I made over $10K in overtime! This meant I had to work a ton of OT traveling, but it was worth it (hence house, PS5, etc). Speaking of travel/work - yeah, not the best time to be seeing the country but so be it. 69 nights in hotels, a shit ton of new food I've never tried, and I've now been to or through all the main 48 United States! 

* Maybe more added as I think about it...

 

So, friends, what good shit happened to y'all???

Edited by christopher.annino
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When you said, "came out", I totally read that as literal.   "Well, that's a weird - though accurate - way to describe childb--oohhh."

I opened a retirement account, finally.  It's so weird.  I'm admittedly a "high-floor, low-ceiling" kind of person.  I don't need to make a LOT of money - Hell, I bought and paid off a car in the calendar year, so that's 2 good things and I know how to manage my money - but I've never made enough to do anything but live paycheck-to-paycheck until the last few years, because I've never been as cheap as I possibly could be.  But with the car no longer a concern, it was time to actually invest something for once.

And now that I have, I'm triple- and quadruple-guessing EVERY. DAMN. PURCHASE.  I didn't expect it to be such a drastic alteration to how I see my money.  But I am wondering if I could get particularly thrifty and max out my contributions every year (only on pace for 2.4k of the 6, but I'll probably toss more in even if I don't actually cut down my costs at all).  And of course the moment they announced the new stimulus bill was actually being signed, I chucked another $600 in there so it counted against this year's contributions rather than next year's.

Edited by Contentious C
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My wife gave birth to a new human being which was fucking weird, she went into hospital and then we came out with an actual new person who shits and pisses and cries and sleeps and is an actual thing that I spend every fucking moment thinking about and worried about instead of just worried if Man United are going to win or if Taylor Swift's new album is going to be any good.

Wait, for street cred reasons I have to say I HATE Taylor Swift. Okay, I don't really. 2020 is the year Taylor Swift released two great fucking albums. Also, the year I had my first child. Okay, having a child is more important than Taylor Swift but only barely. 

I also got new socks for Christmas which was great as well. 

2020 can go fuck itself but a lot of good shit happened too. New socks, pretty much.

Oh, and Taylor Swift. 

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My daughter LOVES Taylor Swift so that was a positive here, too. She also got really into indy music. She plays stuff in the car, lots of great new shit I otherwise would've missed mixed in with stuff like Pavement and Cocteau Twins. 

Ah, and my teenage son became a Souls-game master and is finally better than dad at videogames ??

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The only good thing I can say about 2020 is that between the stimulus/relief and being allowed to collect unemployment while furloughed from work, I was actually making more money quarantining at home than I would have been had I been working (by about $200 a week), so my finances are in the best shape they've ever been in. 

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I'm not really looking at this as "Good things that happened in 2020" and I know I should. The 18 year old graduated from high school and started community college ok with some potential plans moving forward. He eventually got his license. The 3rd grader is reading at a 7th grade level. We survived potty training. No one got sick inside our household. Etc.

I'm looking at it thinking what was good that wasn't scheduled to happen anyway and the big thing for me has been the lack of a commute. I'm usually out of the house from 6:10 am to 6 PM. And only at work for 9 of those 12 hours tops, commuting the rest. So being home not just for those extra three hours but theoretically for all the rest, whenever I had to pop up, and having the kids home too, means that we were much, much more of a mutual part of each other's lives and daily existences than we would have been otherwise, and to catch the younger ones at this developmental stage for extra time was pretty priceless. I get how lucky I was that I could work from home in this time, that we live in a part of the country where there wasn't a lot of question that they'd hold the kids home, but despite all of the inconvenience and danger of the lockdown, for me personally, the ability to go upstairs whenever I wanted and hug the three year old or to catch the 8 year old when her breaks and mine coincided (which was plenty; I taught her to ride a bike in there somewhere), there's nothing better than that.

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There's actually been a fair amount of good but I'll pick just one:

For the first time since 2012, I'm not dealing with extremely frequent back pain. Haven't really made any changes specifically, I just feel better. As you might imagine, it's been really, really great. 

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The best thing that happened to my family this year might be getting Covid-19 in the fall.  Pretty much everyone in my household, plus both sets of grandparents, plus various aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. tested positive in the past couple months.  Couple dozen people all told.  The good news is that no one was hospitalized and only a few people had more than mild flu symptoms.  Two elderly members of the family are still dealing with fatigue but improving daily and seem in good health overall.

I've read different things about the chances of getting reinfected and how long antibodies last in the system, but it seems likely we at least have limited immunity for a couple months or more, so hopefully we're all vaccinated by then (or at least the older members).  My stress level is a lot lower since it seems unlikely my 80-year-old parents and in-laws will get reinfected in the next few months and I don't have to worry about that as much daily.  Neither set of parents are homebodies, so they've only been willing to give up the parts of their routine that the government forced them to.  I wasn't surprised when they caught Covid, given their activity level, but I did expect it to be much worse given their ages and underlying conditions.

My business is doing really well during the pandemic.  That's about all else I got.  

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The people I know personally, family and friends who survived 2019, also survived 2020. No one I actually know in real life got infected by covid (or at least weren't confirmed).

I was working the whole year, no lay-offs or any unpaid time off work. Was able to bounce back from last year's very unexpected costs of fix ups in our apartment. Not completely, but about as well as I expected.

Was able to visit Poland on winter holiday with my wife , just before the shit hit the fan in Europe. Probably at the last possible moment to get back home and dodge the corona bullet that time around . 

Had one of my best work out years in recent memory, despite all of this going on and fighting off the notion that I may have peaked physically for another year (psst, I  have, don't tell anyone)!

I found Cobra Kai, saw a bunch of great wrestling, found a great deal of 80's music that I hadn't heard (or heard in decades).

Bunch of small things that made the life worth living, despite things going off the rails globally. I'm pretty glad to be living in Finland, rather than just about anywhere else during this pandemic. My heart goes out for everyone who isn't so lucky.

Still, next year just can't suck this bad overall , please!

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I got to essentially be a stay at home dad from March To August.  Get to see my wife a lot more with both of us working from home, which will go on for at least 6 more months. Getting Covid when I did somehow made for a better Christmas than would’ve happened otherwise.  None of that makes the suffering others have gone through ok or justified, but those specific things have been real positives for us  

My five year old started kindergarten, and loves it. He learned to ride a bike within training wheels and played t ball for the first time. 

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I had a helluva hard time thinking about good things this year.  But it's always a highlight going to Magfest in January.  So much fun was had before the world shut down.  And in 2020 fashion even that got ruined due to the shithead that runs it.

I would say that it's cool to spend our first year in a proper house with mortgage and other crap to worry about.  It's cool to see that we can be responsible homeowners with all the families in the neighborhood it has made us consider having a kid of our own.  Then the past couple months happened so I'm hoping early next year to give it a go.  I'm also happy to have the cat she grew up with.  Hate that it's for reasons related to her mom but that darn cat is a ham and half.  I'll get around to posting pics in the pet thread because I can't help but take photos of him at least once or twice a week.  The little guy is a cutie.

Aside from that that's pretty much it personally.  There was awesome wrestling to be had though and you can't go wrong with what happened in early November.

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I read that the air quality in Europe is the best that it has been in decades, due to highly reduced air traffic (and slightly reduced car traffic) and a relatively warm winter, so far. I hope that one of the things that we keep from this situation is companies realizing that lots of business trips can be replaced by cheap and clean virtual teleconferences. This plus people having to wear masks in waiting rooms of doctor's offices and hospitals.

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52 minutes ago, Robert s said:

I hope that one of the things that we keep from this situation is companies realizing that lots of business trips can be replaced by cheap and clean virtual teleconferences. 

God, I hope you’re wrong about this.  I hate teleconferencing with a passion!

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I finally got off the waiting lists and into therapy and on medication for depression. This, I should have had happen in high school. I'm not in great health, but nothing serious happened last year to my knowledge. Maybe I can work on that this year. My parents are rolling along with the retired life and they've helped me keep my head above water. 

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3 hours ago, Leonidas said:

So cute! Wire fox terrier? Looks a bit like Snowy from Tintin in this close up pic.

He’s a soft-coated wheaten terrier with an Irish coat. The Snowy comparison is accurate, though he’s probably gonna end up being 45-50 lbs (our last wheaten was 34 lbs full grown, which is average).

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After thirty five years of existence not making any films because I wanted to wait until the right moment and right script, this year I just said “screw it” and made a low budget horror film set almost entirely in my flat and convinced a few friends to record some stuff virtually. Then released it for free on YouTube. I then spent months sweating how I was going to follow it up, and in December said “screw it“ and shot, edited and released an adaptation of A Christmas Carol in two weeks.

2020 was an awful year, but I enter 2021 with zero regrets or what ifs. I spent my entire life wanting to make a film, and last year I made two. Which I’m proud of, even if I’ll admit it’s utter schlock. Luckily, I love schlock cinema.

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As weird as it sounds, after floating in wrestling circles for years and always feeling like I’m on the outskirts looking in on the conversation, I finally met some friends were I feel like have similar goals to me. It’s led to me watching hours of footage on my off work time a week, and I’ve finished the AWA DVDVR set and all major matches in 2002 RoH as well as parts of 80’s Joshi, and after we finish APW King of the Indies 2001 we are gonna start our Portland deep dive. It’s honestly felt freeing. I have always described myself as having “just missed” most major projects. I got excited for the 80’s project just as it ended, and got into the GWE in 2016 just long enough to know my ballot for it was going to be garbage. Now I might actually be one of the people helping the GWE for 2026 to get off the ground, and that’s super cool for me.

 

Other then that, I got back into DnD again and it’s been a constant joy for me this year. I ran a game for some friends during COVIDs first couple months, and am now playing a weekly game that I adore.

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