Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

Around every New Year I take stock of my balances in various frequent traveler points programs, both to see how well I've done in accumulating & using miles as well as to set goals for the coming 12 months. One thing that's different recently is now all the airlines I fly with and the hotels I stay with are doing it, too. They've been emailing me "Your Year in Travel" summaries. If nothing else it's fun comparing my records to theirs to double-check my accuracy— and theirs.

As I go through these balances you'll see that I refer to having a big balance as bad and having a smaller one, especially spending to get down to a smaller one, as good. That may seem contrary to common wisdom; isn't earning and saving a good thing? Sure, earning points is good, but their value doesn't come until they're redeemed. And that's where the rub lies. Loyalty points only ever lose value.

Points lose value because airlines and hotels devalue the redemption rates every few years. Saving them up for too many years hoping to take "the trip of a lifetime" is a mistake. By the time that opportunity comes years later you'll find that the points price has increased 2x, 3x, or more versus what it was when you started saving. The bigger the points balance you carry, the bigger the loss. Thus the more you have the more important it is to have a plan for how to spend them, soon.

I'll split airlines and hotels into two posts to cover a few of each. Here's where I landed in the various airline programs at the end of 2024:

⬆️ Southwest Airlines: Earn and Burn (Needs More Burn)

Southwest continues to be the airline I'm most engaged with. I was a tad less busy with Southwest in 2024 than the year before. I flew 26 segments with them vs. 2023's 31. That made it more of an effort to renew both A-List Preferred and Companion Pass elite status. But I focused on it. I not only had a plan, I had a spreadsheet. And because of that spreadsheet I was able to make mid-year changes to my plan. I requalified for Companion Pass in October and clinched A+ elite status just a few weeks ago, getting over the finish line late in the year thanks to my planning and replanning.

The flip side of pushing hard to re-earn status in a year with less travel on the airline is that most of my travel was on cash— which earns points— when my goal for the year had been to spend more points. I redeemed a tidy 121,000 points this year on Southwest flights... but I earned 241,000. That boosted my already-high Rapid Rewards point balance over 568,000— even more than the nearly 450k I held a year ago.

A lot of people would celebrate, "Woohoo! I have over half a million points!" I don't celebrate it because— as I explained above— carrying a big balance is a bad thing. Points only ever devalue so it's a poor idea to keep them banked for too long intending to use them later. For 2024 my goal was to burn faster than I earned. Well, I earned too much and didn't burn enough. Thus "Burn more than I earn" is my goal again for 2025.

⬇️ United Airlines: Redeeming Points, Again!

It's been another good year with United— good, because I used my miles! After sitting on a pile of 450k at the end of 2022 I worked it down to 280k by the end of 2023. Now I've further spent it down to only 62,500. "Only"! Years ago that would have been plenty for 2 round-trip domestic tickets in coach; today it would barely get me one-way to New York on an expensive week. That's an example of how badly points have been devalued over time and why I strive to spend them on good redemptions sooner rather than later.

Status-wise I maintain Premier Gold with United, a benefit of reaching Million Miler lifetime status years ago. What's the value of that status? Plenty, actually. First, I can reserve a seat in Economy Plus at booking. Those seats with extra legroom are a valuable perk that make flying actually bearable. It's worth at least a few tens of dollars per flight. That's what UA and other airlines charge to reserve comparable seats without sufficient elite status. Then there's free checked bags. I used that several times. Then there's lounge access when traveling internationally. We visited lounges 3 times on our trip to New Zealand in April and 3 more times on our Panama trip in December. Oh, and my designated partner gets all these Premier Gold benefits, too, since I'm a Million Miler.

Upgrades? Yes, those are a benefit, but as a lowly Gold it's rare I get one. Hawk and I did both score upgrades on our flight to Alaska in June as well as on the Houston-San Jose leg home from Panama. Those were definitely appreciated, just not gonzo like that monster upgrade we scored coming home from Australia in December 2023. But still, for as little as I fly United anymore— not enough to earn status annually anymore— I certainly appreciate the lifetime status from my blood, sweat, and tears of the past.

⬆️ American Airlines: The Mountain Beneath Me Grows, Again

I've had a crazy big balance with AA for years now. And this year I did nothing but build it higher. What's "crazy big"? If you thought my half million with Southwest was wild, try this on for size: I have nearly 900,000 AA points..

What makes this big balance even crazier is that I rarely even fly AA. I flew them once— one flight, not even one round trip— in 2023 and zero in 2024. Virtually all those miles come from churning their credit cards. See also, What's In YOUR Wallet?

My plan with AA in 2025 is the same as it has been for years now: find good ways to spend all those points!

↔️ Delta: 15k and Not Even Trying

Rounding out the list here is Delta Airlines. As little I flew AA in 2023, I flew Delta even less. I flew zero on Delta. And I retain a pile of points with them— though it's a waaaay smaller pile than with AA. It's not a mountain but a molehill. My balance of Delta Skymiles is a mere 15k.

My plan with Delta in 2025 is also the same as it has been for several years new. I will keep ignoring Delta until their flights and offerings seem relevant to me again. Meanwhile, my paltry 15k miles never expire. Though by the time I grow them into something useful that 15k might only be enough to buy a sandwich in-flight.

Panama Travelog #41
Back Home - Wed, 1 Jan 2025. 8am.

I'm posting this Panama blog out of order, (mostly) skipping ahead of the backlog to let people know we've finished our trip. We got home, as in walked through our own front door, last night a few minutes before 10pm.

It had been a long day of travel. We'd been up since 4:30am Panama time, which is 1:30am California time, to catch an early flight. Then our itinerary left us with a long connection in Houston. We could have booked a different flight with a shorter connection time but we concerned that if we cut it too short we could miss our connecting flight if the first flight was delayed or if there was some kind of snafu with immigration & customs checks upon landing at IAH. As it happened, all our flights operated on time and the biggest waits with the immigration-and-customs gantlet were waiting for our checked bags to appear on the conveyor belt and waiting in a slooow, non-PreCheck line to re-clear security. Even so, we would've had plenty of time with a 3 hour connection instead of our almost 7 hours connection.

Earlier this week and up through about noon yesterday we were optimistic that we could join friends for a low-key New Year's Eve celebration after landing. We knew it'd be a long day for us but figured maybe we'd nap enough on our flights to have energy left after arriving home at 10pm. Nope. We realized hours before that, while we were sitting in the United Club lounge at IAH, that we were going to be dragging by the time we got home. "I'm so wiped I'll probably just face-plant on the bed when I get home," I texted our friends.

I didn't literally face-plant in the bed as soon as I got home... though I certainly was tired enough to do so. Instead I stayed up for about 45 minutes to take a shower and unpack about half of our bags. Meanwhile Hawk pulled in a week+ of mail from the mailbox, sorted through it to find the important stuff, then took her own shower. Washing up after flights is important because the bottled air on flights is often lightly perfumed, which bothers us, and because of all the sweat and other crud that accumulates from traveling all day. A quick shower washes that all away and makes it easier to enjoy a good night's sleep.

Over the past several years I've made a habit of using New Year's as a time to reflect on, and take stock of, the year just finished. Ideally I would've shared my reflections on 2023 three weeks ago, at the turn of the new year. I've left this idling because it's been a challenge figuring out how to frame it. The challenge has been that my gut reaction to the question, "What was 2023 like?" has been basically Ugh, but when I start to consider specifics to substantiate that overall feeling of disgust, the facts don't support the negativity.

Why, then, the sense of malaise about 2023? That's the million dollar question, as "malaise" describes how many people felt, broadly, throughout the year. So many things, objectively, were good; yet there was such anxiety or over-emphasis on the negatives that it drove widespread overall pessimism.

Given this schism about whether 2023 was a good year or bad, I'm going to title it 2023: The Year That Was.

Travel & Experiences: Positive

As I break it down to understand what was good or bad about 2023, one aspect of 2023 that I should be feeling warm about is travel and experiences. 2023 was a strong year for going places and having fun, especially after the crimp that Coronavirus put on such things in 2020 through parts of 2021 and 2022. The joys seem too quickly fleeting so I remind myself:

• How we traveled so much in April and May I felt like I wasn't working anymore. We had not one but two really fun long weekends at waterpark resorts in Phoenix; a great trip of several days in New Orleans and Mississippi; and a most-expenses paid trip to Cayman Islands. Oh, and a few other trips, too, in the span of 9 weeks.


• We did two fantastic week-long trips, including a long-awaited trip to Australia at the end of December.


• We took lots of shorter trips (2-3 days) that were still packed with activity, like that day we hiked 7 or 8 waterfalls in one day. Wait, which day was that; there were two such days!

Friends & Family: Negative

2023 was a year of seeing my count of family and friends dwindle. One I lost to cancer. I've written extensively about that over the past year so I won't belabor it here.

A few friends I lost because I fired them from the position of being my friend. It wasn't easy, and they (predictably) blamed me 100% for having to do it, but I decided it was necessary. When people carry on like complete jackasses, when they lie and distort, and when they attack me when I challenge them on their plain untruths, and when all the above is not just a misunderstanding or them having a bad day but is their true character, I don't wish to associate with them anymore. I will not stay silent for the purposes of "keeping the peace". There's nothing worth keeping.

So, I was down a few friends in 2023. On the other side of the ledger, I didn't really make any new friends. Maybe in another 20 years after real friends keep dying I'll wish for lying, offensive jackasses who'll talk to me as long as I don't call out their bullshit.

Finances: Positive (though everyone feels negative)

Money. If there's one aspect of life that's the poster child for malaise in 2023 it's money. By and large people spent the whole year worried about money. For most of the year nearly everybody was predicting an imminent recession. That's a big part of the malaise: people's anticipation of bad times to come was far worse than reality.

That's not to say 2023 was a banner year. It wasn't. There was strong growth in the top few companies in the stock market— the "Magnificent Seven" of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, and Nvidia— but the broader market spent most of the year struggling just to stay even. As recently as mid-November the rest of the market was slightly in the red for the year. A December rally brought things up into the black for 2023. Overall my portfolio finished up almost 15% (net of new cash added) for the year.

Why money matters: I watch my portfolio carefully because I aim to retire soon. With no pension (companies had largely done away with those by the time I entered the professional workforce) and not being close to 65 yet (or even 62) it's totally self funded. Even once I'm 65 I'll want plenty of self funding since the social safety net in the US is so spotty.

Career: Mostly Negative

I enjoyed a bit of job recognition early in the year when I won nomination to president's club at my company. That provided a fun vacation to the Caribbean but alas not the stepping stone in my career I was looking for. I.e., I've been angling for a substantial increase in job title, to recognize the level of skill and capability I demonstrate, but that didn't come. And with new managers in my department since then I've now actually fallen backward a few steps as the new managers expect me to start over at square one in proving myself.

New management is also frustrating in other ways. I won't elaborate specifics here as I'm keeping this blog open, but let's just say multiple signs are telling me it's past time to leave. That's sad because I've been with this company for over 6 years and have had some good times and done some great work here.

The notion of it being time to find a new job is complicated by the fact I'm looking to retire soon. I really don't want to start a new job just to work it for a short period of time. When I decide I'm done here, am I done-done? As in ready to retire? I've been holding on in this deteriorating job for a few years now, telling myself I'm on a glide path. I've swallowed my frustration at numerous things for a few years, telling myself I've just got to keep gliding a little longer. How much longer now? I'd like to say this is the final year but I'm not sure. Meanwhile the frustrations mount.

Over the past several years I've made a habit of using New Year's as a time to reflect on, and take stock of, the year just finished. Recently I've posted a few retrospectives about travel. That's only one part of my life. As I've mentally composed this article about everything else I've wondered what the theme would be. Like, if there's a title for 2022: My Experience, what would it be?

It struck me over lunch today. 2022: Stuck in a Holding Pattern.

Coronavirus: The New Normal

The long shadow that Coronavirus continued to cast over 2022 is part of the feeling of being stuck in a holding pattern. I remember at the end of 2020 I expressed cautious hope that 2021 would be the year we beat Coronavirus. Vaccines with strong trial results were rolling out. It seemed the only challenge was how fast we could get to 90%+ uptake and start seeing the virus basically eradicated as has been done with smallpox and measles.

Alas by mid 2021 it was evident that people's mindsets had hardened along partisan lines, with Republicans denying that the vaccines were necessary or even worked at all. 2022 continued more of the same. There's still a stubborn 30% of the US population who refuse to be vaccinated. There's an even larger portion who oppose common-sense public health precautions like wearing masks in indoors public spaces.

Meanwhile we're seeing that the vaccines are not a "silver bullet". Unlike with smallpox and measles, the Coronavirus mutates just fast enough to work its way around vaccine induced immunity. That's not a reason not to get vaccinated, BTW. The vaccines still help, not only reducing your chances of infection by 2-3x but also reducing chances of severe symptoms by 6x.

It just feels like we never managed to fully turn the corner from 2020. It's like instead of 2020, 2021, and 2022 the years have been, movie title style:

• 2020


• 2020 Won


• 2020, Too

I'd say that 2023 is safe from 2020 homophones... except that it could still be "2020 III".

Health

I left 2022 in the same health I started it. Really I should work on getting healthier, especially losing some of the multiple spare tires I've been lugging around for years. I'm not sure when I'll break out of that holding pattern.

One upside of 2022 being same-same for me is that I didn't get Covid. Partly that's preparation: I got fully vaccinated as soon as I reasonable could, and I've gotten all the boosters available. Partly it's caution: I've continued to wear a mask in indoors public spaces and avoid the riskiest situations (aside from airports and aircraft when I travel). And partly it's just luck— or at least things I can't take credit for as deliberate choices. For example, when my spouse got Covid this past year I managed to avoid it!

Friends & Family

I'm going to damn 2022 with the same faint praise I damned 2021 with: At least nobody died.

Continuing to manage through The New Normal of the pandemic-turned-endemic meant not having as many chances to socialize with friends and family as in The Before Times. I haven't made any new friends recently that I can think of. Worse, I've chosen to fire a number of people from the position of being my friend. As I explained in Less Patience for Sucky People the forced alone time of the pandemic gave me a clearer perspective on whether people I counted as friends from years ago were still being friends or if they'd dropped down to jerks whose behavior I don't find amusing, or even tolerable, anymore.

Career

My career is definitely a "stuck in a holding pattern" situation. I continue to stick with a job where I'm underemployed and am being given no support to develop or advance meaningfully. Yes, I've requested it. A few times. Yes, I could push on it even harder— or just find a better job. But like I noted a year ago, I'm pretty much out of fucks to give. I'm being paid reasonably well, even if it is 25-40% less than I'd be making if my career hadn't been stalled the past 10 years. I believe I can retire in a few years. More on that below. Why scratch and claw to get ahead when I can relax on a glide path? There are some benefits to being in a holding pattern.

Finances

2022 has not been a great year financially. The S&P 500 was down 19% in 2022; some indexes were down even more. The silver lining to this cloud is that I actually beat the index in the non-retirement accounts I manage. I finished 2022 down only 6% there. In our retirement accounts we lost 15-16% for the year. I have less control over investing that money. At least we still beat the market there.

I track our investments closely because they're key to us being able to retire soon. What's "soon"? Several years ago I said to myself and my wife: Five Good Years. All we'd need is five good years, then we'd have enough to retire.

I knew when I made the mantra Five Good Years that it wouldn't be just 5 years on the calendar. Markets go down some years. I figured 5 good years would actually take about 7 years, allowing for one down market cycle in the period. How's that worked out? Well, across the past 7 years we've only had three good years, financially. We still need two more good years.

UPDATE: I forgot to explain why I'm overall satisfied with our financial situation at the end of 2022. It's not just, "Ooh, we lost less than the market." Silver-lining-to-a-dark-cloud is never satisfying. What's positive about our finances in 2022 is that we continued to save money, bigly. We set another new record for money saved in 2022. Basically we're living on one salary and saving the other. ...Actually we're living on less than one salary and saving the rest. Aggressive savings has been part of my Five Good Years calculation since the beginning. I'm excited we're outperforming even aggressive goals.

The Year Ahead: More Holding Pattern?

I don't have strong expectations for 2023. I mean, I'd love to think that it's going to be a banner year, one of those last remaining Five Good Years, etc. I'd love to think that, but there's no indication it'll happen. Financially speaking, most people are expecting a recession in 2023. Of course, most people were expecting that for a lot of 2022, as well, which is a large part of why the market was down 19%. Expectation of a recession creates a recession. Maybe 2023 will be another year of a holding pattern... or maybe we'll break out the other side of the holding pattern during the year and finish strong. I hope for the latter but prepare for the former.

Hawk and I took a fairly low-key approach to New Year's Eve this year. We decided weeks ago not to travel. That turns out to have been a prescient decision given all the chaos with extreme weather, flight delays/cancellation, and an operational meltdown with Southwest Airlines, the carrier we likely would have traveled. Instead we visited with friends locally.

This afternoon we drove an hour (give or take) to visit some friends in the area. One of them is very sick and needs the company— when he has energy for it. His spouse needs support, too. We had a good visit today and played a boardgame together.

Even the hour long drive to/from their house got dicey today. We're having heavy rain in the SF Bay Area. It was only a cautionary situation as we drove out to visit them around lunchtime. Cautionary, as in drive cautiously because it's raining. But by the time we left their house at 4:30 there were numerous road closures due to flooding, washouts, and downed trees. UPDATE: San Francisco received 5.46 inches of rainfall on Saturday, a historic amount that nearly broke the record for the rainiest day since modern record keeping began in 1849.

As we were driving home Hawk reached out to friends of ours who were hosting games at their house today. It turns out they canceled the games party because too many people were taking a raincheck... literally, in some cases. We suggested an impromptu NYE gathering at our house instead.

"I don't think we'll stay up 'til midnight," I explained. "We're old. But celebrating New Year's with the ball drop in New York at 9pm Eastern seems too early. Maybe we'll celebrate it with Chicago at 10pm, when they drop a convicted politician from the Sears Tower."

Our impromptu low-key party worked well. We had 4 guests over, for 6 of us total. We played a lighthearted game for a while, celebrated a toast with Chicago at 10pm, then kept on playing and socializing until midnight locally, and did a second toast.

Over the past several years I've made a habit of using New Year's as a moment to reflect on, and take stock of, the year just finished. Recently I've posted a few retrospectives about travel. Points and elite status with airlines, hotels, and credit cards are just possessions, though, and not even very good ones at that. Now it's time for a retrospective about things that really matter, personally.

A Singular Story Continued to Define 2021

I wrote a year ago, "A Singular Story Defines 2020". I meant Coronavirus, of course. Well, Coronavirus continued to cast its long shadow over the entirety of 2021, shading pretty much every aspect of life.

For the first few months of 2021 we continued to mask up and socially distance just like 2020. We went to no movies, attended no events, visited no hair salons, etc. We minimized trips for shopping. We ate no meals indoors at restaurants. We didn't even socialize in person with friends unless it was outdoors. We took one overnight trip, in March, driving rather than flying, and sweated being around all the mask-refusing knuckle draggers in the red areas we traveled through.

Things changed a bit after April, when both of us were fully vaccinated. 'It's time to start getting back to normal!" we both thought. We began traveling again in May. But then vaccination rates leveled off as a stubborn one-third or so of the country continued steadfastly to deny the reality of Coronavirus. Being vaccinated ourselves wasn't silver-bullet protection against the disease still being spread easily by the significant proportion of unvaccinated. So still we wore masks in public and minimized time in indoors spaces. Thought at least we could visit trusted, vaccinated friends indoors again.

Life continued through a kind of twilight for most of the rest of 2021, with the virus not going away enough to call it "Getting back to normal" thanks to so many reality-denying holdouts. At least we were able to call it a "pandemic of the unvaccinated".

Then, in late 2021, a winter surge hit, and it coincided with the appearance of the more contagious Omicron strain. Suddenly even being vaccinated with a booster shot seemed not to be enough. We reeled back in our willingness to fly on airplanes— we canceled a New Year's Eve trip we'd been looking forward to for months. We even stopped going to restaurants again.

Alas, in this respect, 2021 ended almost where it began.

Jobs

My job situation continued to be pretty "Meh" in 2021. I mean, I've got a stable job... so Yay? And it pays reasonably well... so again, Yay? But my career remains stalled. And as careers are expected to advance, stalled means falling behind.

But here's the thing about my career. I'm out of fucks to give. To a large part that's because I'm close to not needing to give a fuck anymore. With our finances (see below) I think I'm at most a few years from being able to retire. Why keep struggling to get ahead when I can glide to the finish.

I find some vicarious job satisfaction through my spouse. Her career is still trending upward. She earned a titular promotion this year along with a broadening of responsibilities. Go, Hawk!

Family & Friends

Nobody died in 2021. Lest it sound like I'm damning the year with faint praise, understand that many years I've haven't been able to say that. Oh, there were some scares in 2021. Covid tore through my youngest sister's household, where 6 people (out of 8) were unvaxxed. Everyone unvaxxed got sick. Fortunately all survived. Fortunately also another sister's family, all of whom are unvaxxed against not only Coronavirus but also measles, smallpox, polio, etc. (they're anti-vaxx), didn't get sick with any life-threatening preventable disease.

Do I sound like I'm running low on fucks to give here, too? Well, if you read the news at all you know that "Compassion Fatigue" is a thing.

Finances

If there's one aspect in which 2021 was "Up and to the right" as financial types like to say, it was finances. The Standard & Poor 500 Index rose 25% in 2021. Our investments grew along with it.



Along with growing our investments through the power of market returns we continued to add a lot of new savings to our portfolio. 2021 was our biggest year yet for socking away new cash, by a significant margin. Those new savings comes from having well-paying jobs and significantly underspending our income.

Underspending doesn't mean austere living, fortunately. We don't walk to work in holey shoes or subsist on peanut butter sandwiches. We've enjoyed nice trips to New York Maine, Hawaii, and other places this year. We're thoughtful about what we splurge on and we always look to make deft use of airline and hotel points to enjoy the nicer things in life at lower cost. Oh, and we bought a new(er) car this year. It was also an exercise in enjoying the nicer things in life at lower cost.

The upshot of growing our portfolio isn't just that we can afford occasional trips and driving not-cheap cars. The upshot is that we are reaching financial independence. Pretty soon we won't have to work to afford these kind of nice things in life. We'll be able to fund them all out of the growth of our investments!

The Year Ahead

Reaching the tipping point of financial independence will be huge. It likely won't happen in 2022. But it's not far. If 2022 continues strongly "up and to the right" it could be as soon as 2023.

"But what if 2022 isn't another banner year, financially?" you might ask. Well, we're prepared for that possibility. We trust that setbacks are temporary and things will recover eventually. A bad 2022 just means our financial independence is delayed a few years, until after things recover.

We trust that the world's not literally going to fall apart. ...Though maybe after what's happened the past few years the word "trust" should be replaced with hope. Things fractured pretty badly in 2020 and 2021. Our hope for 2022 is that the world doesn't literally fall apart.

So, let's go, 2022! Don't be the year of literal Armageddon!

Happy New Year! We canceled plans at the last minute to join our friends in Chicago because of the latest Coronavirus surge but chose to celebrate in appropriate pandemic fashion.



May 2022 be better in every way than this second-worst year in recent memory. 🤣

Oahu travelog #21
Back home - Tue, 28 Dec 2021, 11pm

What started as a seemingly normal, on time flight home today turned late and worry-making. Yes, while we were in the air it looked like we'd be landing at least 15 minutes early. In fact we did land 15 minutes early. But the sad fact the past few years in US aviation is that any early arrival is negated by having to wait for a gate to open.

"Our gate will open in about 5 minutes," the pilot said. 15 minutes later he said, "It'll be another 4-5 minutes." 15 minutes after that we started rolling toward the gate.



"I'll bet there are a lot of delays tonight," I said to no one in particular. Once in the terminal a quick glance at the arrivals & departures board confirmed I was right. Nearly every flight into & out of OAK was delayed.

As if it weren't bad enough our 15 minute early arrival was dashed and replaced with an 18 minute late arrival, baggage then took a long time to be delivered. From the pacing of how fast bags appeared it seemed there was only one baggage crew working the ramp. I suspect that's part of why there were such widespread flight delays— crews weren't able to unload & reload aircraft fast enough. It's another example of the Shutdowns, Planned or Not situation I wrote about yesterday.

Our bags ultimately appeared on the carousel 57 minutes after the flight arrived. "Big deal," you might think, "Luggage is always slow." Yeah, but here's the thing. Nearly an hour is really slow. You might think you've waited an hour multiple times before, but have you actually timed it? I've had 20-25 minute waits that sure felt like an hour. This one was more than twice that.

The upshot of these delays was, after running an errand on the way home, we didn't get home until after 10. With another flight to catch tomorrow morning at 6:30, that hurts. But here's the other thing: we're not going to go. 😨

Tomorrow's Trip: CANCELED

Tonight's flight helped us decide to cancel our New Year's trip. Traveling on the plane for 5 hours with people coughing and hacking around us, many of them not wearing masks properly or leaving them off when they thought nobody was looking, coupled with the Omicron surge of the past few weeks that's only gotten worse since I wrote about it a few days ago, has led us to decide this isn't the time to take another trip.

Specifically, it's the risks of exposure while flying. Sharing a house with a dozen other people whom we know and know are vaccinated, we're fine with. Making occasional trips outside the house to shop for groceries and supplies, while wearing masks, we're fine with. But flying with the Covidiot wing of the American public, no. Not until the risk level drops back below this surge.

Update: More about our thought process in my next blog.

Every year around the New Year I reflect upon the past 12 months. This year it's challenging to write about. I could just observe, for about the billionth time, that 2020 was a total dumpster fire and be done with it....



But to stop there would be taking the easy way out. Over the years I've found retrospective writing is helpful both to strengthen my own recollection years later as well as to structure and sharpen my thoughts in the present. Thus even though 2020 was a year almost anyone would be glad not just to close the book on but slam it shut, I'll write about it for better understanding.

A Singular Story Defines 2020

It turns out to have been ironic that the dumpster fire meme originated in 2016. The events of 2016 we all thought were so horrible were dwarfed by what would come four years later.

In the past I'd wondered if something could happen that's so overwhelming it's headline news in every category simultaneously— politics, money, health, life, entertainment, sports, etc. In 2020 exactly that happened.

I'm talking, of course, about Coronavirus. It's affected literally every aspect of human existence in 2020. And generally not for the better. 85 million people have been sickened worldwide and nearly 2 million have died (source: worldometer Covid-19 pandemic, retrieved 3 Jan 2021). Those figures are widely considered an undercount, BTW, especially the deaths figure. Billions of people have been under varying degrees of stay-home orders for the past 10 months, disrupting education and many sectors of the economy. Businesses are failing for lack of revenue and unemployment is markedly higher.

While it can be tempting to say, "2020 sucked because of Coronavirus" and leave it at that, that's oversimplifying it. When I write these year-end retrospectives I like to examine the year through different lenses. ...Even if, for 2020, all of those lenses have been tinted by this one story.

Personal

For myself and for my immediate family the story of 2020 can be summarized by three terms: Adapting, Making Do, and On Hold. We've adapted fairly well to the changes required by the global pandemic. My job was already largely work-from-home; now it's 100% WFH. Our habits of eating out frequently were surprisingly easy to change to cooking at home 90%+. We're traveling way less, which is a disappointment. Health-wise we've avoided Coronavirus.

Jobs

My job situation has been "meh" overall. In April I had a 10% involuntary pay cut that was restored in August. But hey, at least I've had a job consistently. That's more than I can say for some people. Too bad my job's still pretty much a dead-end job. But hey, at least it's a fairly well paying job.

Hawk's job situation is going better than mine. She had no pay cut or furlough this year. A promotion she was angling for a year ago didn't materialize, but she may have another chance this coming year. At least her executives support the idea that she's on a growth path.

Family

I was about to write, "At least in 2020 nobody in our family died," but that's not true. One of Hawk's aunts died in January. She had been ill with inoperable cancer and was age 97, so her passing wasn't a surprise. Other than that, nobody has died. In fact, some people are doing better than before. Hawk's dad, who almost died in 2019, has been getting better. My mom finally got effective treatment for illness she's tolerated for at least several months if not over a year already. There is Covid in the family, though nobody's died from that. An elderly aunt of mine got Covid but recovered pretty well. A college-age niece has struggled with Covid for over 4 weeks now but seems to be on the mend, slowly.

Money

You would think a story about money in 2020 would be negative. With widespread closures, loss of business, job loss, etc., there has been plenty of bad news on the money front in 2020. But by late in the year things turned positive, at least for investors.



The chart above shows the S&P 500 Index, an amalgamation of the stock prices of the 500 largest US companies, from 1 January to 31 December 2020. As you can see in the shape of the curve, there was quite a drop— a market panic— in late March. I remember the broad markets dropping 10% in a single day— at least twice. But after a few weeks of bloodletting the recovery began. By August the index was back to even with where it started the year. By the end of the year, after a few smaller ups and downs, it finished up 16%. (You can see the actual numbers in the small print in the pic. The index began the year at 3234.85 and ended at 3756.07.)

Now, I've written before that The Market Is Not The Economy. Well, the Index is not the Market, either. Because of the way the S&P 500 index is weighted most of the apparent gains it shows are from the 10 or so hugest companies at the top. For those "mega-caps", heavily weighted toward the modern tech sector, 2020 has been a banner year. For the other 99.8% of the market it hasn't been so sweet. But even so, most market sectors are up for the year. My portfolios, which in the depths of March were down over 20% from January, finished the year up about 10%. That, surprisingly and pleasingly, keeps me on track with my long term financial goals.

The Year Ahead

As we close the book on 2020— or slam it shut— it's tempting to think how much better 2021 will be. And probably it will be better. Coronavirus vaccines were developed in record time (not actually surprising in light of the science behind the development but still historically fast) and are now available. As they roll out across 2021 we may not vanquish Coronavirus but should at least beat it down that life can largely resume pre-2020 normality.

But there's no guarantee! If there's anything 2020 has taught us it's how thin the ice beneath us is. For example, what if there's a serious stumble with the distribution or efficacy of the vaccines? What if the virus mutates? What if there's another Black Swan crisis entirely unrelated to Coronavirus? At any moment, in any place or fashion, the ice beneath us could crack and plunge us into catastrophe.

Thus I count my good fortune where I can, give thanks for what I have, and stay careful about how precarious the good life is.

Today is December 31. Tonight is New Year's Eve. And I... don't care. I will not be "ringing in the new year" tonight. Partly that's because social gatherings are on hiatus, as they have been for now 290 days. And partly that's because there's nothing new after tonight other than a new page in the calendar.

"But 2021 will bring political change!" some people gush. Maybe. We'll have a new president in the US on January 20, but the administration of President Joe Biden will be hamstrung for at least 2 years by the proven intransigence of the likely Republican majority in the Senate. And even if laws promoting equity in society do get past "Moscow Mitch" they might be shut down by the Supreme Court's 6-3 conservative majority anchored by conspiracy-theory-peddling party loyalists who value corporate profit over human rights and members of the religious majority over everyone else.

"2021 will be when we defeat Coronavirus!" some argue. I sure hope it is. I would like nothing more than to get to The After Times, similar to The Before Times, aka The Long-Long Ago. But January 1 is no red-letter today. Distribution of the vaccine began 3½ weeks ago. While that might have been a red-letter day my enthusiasm for it has been tempered by the US's utterly fumbled rollout of vaccine distribution. Seriously, news today is that we have 40 million doses, which were targeted to be distributed to 20 million people by 12/31, yet only 2 million people have gotten doses so far. Nobody in a position of leadership is able to articulate a clear, credible statement for where, how, and to whom the other 90% of the currently available vaccine is supposed to be distributed. I'm optimistic we'll get there eventually, but right now is no time for celebration.