Year in Review - 2022

Since I'm trying to blog more, I'm going to post another stats from the previous year. I used to do them every year but I didn't last year.

2013  *  2014  *  2016  *  2017  *  2018  *  2019   *   2020

Here we go!

We eat out, probably more than most but not as much as many. We are real close to being emptynesters so a lot of the time, Cheri doesn't want to cook just for the both of us.

• 1 Time - Applebee's, Baker Youth Club, Bourbon Street Pizza, Callahan's, Fazoli's, Gerace's Pizza, the Hatchery, Heinnies, the Hilltop Resteraunt, Hopcat, IHOP, Little Caesar's, Mandarin Kitchen, Nelson's, Olive Garden, Party on the Patio, Pizza Hut, Popeyes, Raising Cain's, Rico Suave, Sailor's Pizza, Schoops, Simonton Lake Drive-In, Texas Roadhouse and Tradewinds.
• 2 Times - 7-Eleven, Chick-Fil-A, Cracker Barrel, Dunkin, Flippin' Cow, Long John Silvers, Macadoo's, Red Lobster, Smith's Food Mart and Steak 'n Shake.
• 3 Times - Bravo Cafe, Domino's Pizza and Hacienda. 
• 4 Times - Chili's and Copper Creek Cafe.
• 5 Times - Jimmy John's. 
• 6 Times - Bruno's Pizza and Trinity UM. 
• 7 Times - Five Guys, Arby's, Mandarin House and Martin's Deli. 
• 8 Times - KFC.
• 9 Times - Dairy Queen and Firehouse Subs.

• 11 Times - Sonic Drive-In (5 times last year)

My wife loves Sonic. It's alright, I do like the chili cheese tator tots but as far as the burger's go, I don't feel like they are anything special.

• 15 Times - Wendy's (2 times last year)

We got a new one a little closer to us so we went there a few more times than we used to. I like the Baconator Fries but other than that, nothing special.

• 21 Times - Barnaby's (never been there before this year)

My wife got addicted to this place, the pizza is pretty good but she's usually the one who wants to go here.

• 22 Times - Culver's (14 times last year)

We both like Culver's and now my daughter works there so we visit her some. The burger's are alright but we go for the fries with cheese and the cheese curds.

• 25 Times - Burger King (28 times last year)

This is usually our go to when we are craving a burger. Not that theirs are fabulous but they are better than most other fast food. Plus I have breakfast here twice a month for a lot of the year.

• 26 Times - McDonalds (28 times last year)

I go out for breakfast twice a month at work because I have to go to another plant. Taco Bell no longer is open until later and Burger King was under reconstruction for awhile, that left McDonalds. Otherwise, this might even be less than double digits.

• 50 Times - Taco Bell (48 times last year)

This is an easy number 1 because they are our go to when we aren't really craving anything. I do love their breakfast but rarely get to get any anymore. It's also the closest fast food place from home so a lot of times we just grab it rather than driving further. We didn't eat there much at the beginning of the year but it picked up when they brought some of the good stuff back.

As you can see, we've been eating out more. Like I said, almost emptynesters. Between work, school and his girlfriend, we don't see my son much and next year he'll be off to college.

This past year in books has gone done. I generally only read on my breaks at work and with my break schedule lately, I haven't been getting much reading done.

Next up is movies. I track what I watch here, but I also track the numbers on a spreadsheet.

Our movie viewership is down a bit, you'll notice I don't hardly ever go to the theaters anymore.

My sports viewership was down as well.

I didn't even watch any hockey or softball this year. Football was up 3 games but everything else was down. I don't really have a reason why the basketball is down, baseball is down because the Sox sucked last year and I got frustrated towards the end of the season and wasn't hardly watching any.

I track my music on Last.FM so you can go back and look at anything for the last few years. I like my playlists large and on random, I hate hearing the same songs over and over again. Here are my top 10 artists for last year.

The majority of my listening to music is at work and my work playlist consists of mainly rock and country which is pretty much everything you see up there. My main playlist consists of almost 5,900 songs coming into this year 5,884 to be exact.

I started tracking my sleep as well this previous year but because of my personal blog where I track everything, I was able to get most of the last few years numbers. 

As you can see, I tend to not sleep a ton. The majority of my work days fall in the 6 hrs and under while most of my non-work days are 6 hrs and up. I do get over 6 hrs on some work days but not often. Probably about once a week or so when my lack of sleep catches up with me.

I keep a lot more stats on myself but nothing nobody else will be interested in. Not sure anyone is interested in all of this either but it's out there now.

2019 Stats

Woo Hoo, my favorite post of the year. I realize most of you could care less about this one, but I love stats, I love the end of the year because it brings all my stats to a close as well as starts a new year of them.

Firsts things first, here's the previous years post, minus 2015 because we just moved into our house and I was a little busy.

2013 - 2014-1 - 2014-2 - 2016 - 2017 - 2018

We'll start off with restaurants I've eaten at this year.

• 1 Time - 5 Guys Burger & Fries, 7-11, Cracker Barrel, Domino's Pizza, Dutch Essenhaus, Gerace's Pizza, Hotbox Pizza, IHOP, Johnny Carino's, Kobe's, Mango Mango's, Meehan's Irish Pub, Mojo's BBQ, O'malleys, Pizza Hut, Rise 'n Roll, Simonton Lake Drive-In, Smith's Food Mart, Sonny's BBQ.

I love 5 Guys and this is the 2nd year in a row that I only went there once, I need to remedy that. The majority of those are from Florida and Virginia while I traveled.

• 2 Times - Between the Buns, Bojangles, Buffalo Wild Wings, Culver's, Fazoli's, Flippin' Cow, Little Ceaser's Pizza, Long John Silvers, Nedderman's Steak Place, Rally's, Red Lobster, Volcanos Pizza, Waffle House.

A couple more pizza places in there. Flippin' Cow needs to be way more, that place is the bomb.

• 3 Times - Dunkin' Donuts, Hardee's, Walmart Deli, Wendy's

Dunkin' Donuts gets brought into work occasionally, Hardee's was traveling as we just recently got a local one. Walmart Deli is also brought into work. We have Wendy's around here, but the closest one was tore down and is being rebuilt.

• 4 Times - Chick-Fil-A, Pal's, Sonic Drive In, Steak 'n Shake

We love Chick-Fil-A as well but none are all that close so we hit it when we are in the area. Pal's is a place where my wife lived for 20 years so we go there when we are in town. We've been hitting Sonic more lately and while we love Steak 'n Shake, the insides are filthy and the service sucks so we hit the drive-thru occasionally.

• 5 Times - Ben's Pretzels, Dairy Queen, Jade Garden, KFC, Martin's Deli, Subway

Jade Garden is the local chinese place we get take out from and Martin's Deli is the local grocery store but they have the best fried chicken.

• 6 Times - Mancino's

They have the best grinders and garlic bread.

Next up is my top 6, all of these made double digits.

• 10 Times - Jimmy John's

We still love their sandwich's but the number of times we eat here has declined the last 3 years but it's still in the same spot on the countdown as last year, 6th place.

     

• 11 Times - Arby's & Burger King

Arby's is one of the closest fast food places and I love their mozzarella sticks, also the greek gyro. Burger King is up here because if we are getting fast food burgers, this is where we go. Both are also down from last years numbers. Burger King was 3rd most last year and Arby's was 4th.

• 17 Times - Bruno's Pizza

This is still our go to Pizza place, especially since they deliver. Last year it was tied with Arby's for 4th most so it's moved up to 3rd most and we ate there 3 more times this year.

• 42 Times - McDonalds

Finally got knocked out of being where I go to most. It annoys me that it stays up this high because I really can't stand most of McDonalds food. The only things I eat there are McMuffin's, Filet-O-Fish and McRibs. I stop here twice a month when I have to go to the other plant for work and I get some quick breakfast. Then twice a year, they have McRib's for a month at a time and I stop a bunch. The fish I get when we stop because there are no other options to stop.

• 46 Times - Taco Bell

Finally, my favorite fast food overthrows freaking McDonalds. It is also the closest fast food place to us so that helps as well. Although they just shrunk down their menu and took a few things off that I liked.

Those are our totals from eating out the last 7 years, I didn't mean to screen cap 2020 in there. Those 3 are all from coming home from Florida yesterday. We brought it down some from the previous year but we still do eat out more than we should. My daughter is usually working and if my son isn't home, it ends up being the 2 of us and it's just easier to get something.

Next up, my reading. I had scheduled myself to read 25 books in the Goodreads challenge. I failed as I only read 21. I only read on my breaks at work so about 40 minutes a work day.

I did read more books this year than last so at least it went up. You can follow the books I read on Goodreads.

The following is how many movies I've watched and how I watch it. This includes movies I've already seen.

After 2 years of not renting any DVD's, we broke out the DVD player and started watching them again. The DVD player is still out, but we haven't rented any in awhile. Streaming is done on Netflix, Prime and Hulu. The theater movies were Captain Marvel, Pet Sematary, Avenger's Endgame, Spiderman: Far From Home and Zombieland: Double Tap. You can follow along with the movies I watch on Letterbox.

I watched 145 sporting events this year. Either live or on TV.

Baseball was higher this year because with Michigan making the college World Series, they put a lot more of their games on TV. Hopefully they'll carry over that this year and play more on TV. The rest of the baseball were White Sox games. The basketball is a combination of the women and men Michigan games. Football is Michigan as well as the hockey and softball.

Last year I used my phone to track my steps but this past Christmas, I got a newer fitbit so I'll be using it from here on out.

I didn't track my steps for the first 3 years, then I got a Fitbit in 2016. I've steadily increased each year. This past year, while I didn't walk a whole lot more, I had a lot more days over 10,000 steps. The majority of those were probably work days.

I used to keep track of my miles, but now I track the miles of all 3 vehicles in the household. It's relatively easy to do because my insurance company does it for me, all I have to do is transfer the amount over to my spreadsheet.

I didn't keep stats the first 3 years listed and I didn't buy the Equinox until 2018 and the Impala for my daughter last year. The Gallant was my car until I bought the Equinox, then I gave it to my daughter who was starting to drive. It broke down and she shared my wife's Outlander until I bought her the Impala.

I never realize how little variety I had in the drinks I drink until I started logging it.

In the 3 years that I've kept track of this, I've only had 15 different drinks. Only 5 or 6 of those I drink with consistency, all the other are occasional, some as little as once in the 3 years. I drink a Coke with supper at home as well as most restaurants. The Gatorade/Powerade I drink to and from work. Mountain Dew for lunch at work. Orange Juice during 1st break at work and water most every other time. I drink it at work and at home.

I also keep track of the music I listen to. I used to do it manually but now I have a website that tracks it and it is so much easier. I just wish I could plug in everything that I tracked manually because I just joined the site this past October so that's all I have on there. I will show you my top 10 artists and how many songs I listen to this past year.

Taylor Swift is number one because I get stuck listening to her when my wife is in the car. I do like her stuff and have a ton of tracks on my playlist but she isn't the top artist I would listen to. I could probably name 20 or so artists I like before her, if not more. Petra, DC Talk and Michael W. Smith are all Christian artists and I have a ton of their songs on my playlists so it's more a matter of how many songs I have.

You can check out my playlists on Spotify or follow exactly what I am listening to on Last.FM.

I guess that's about all I got for you. I loved this post, I'm sure most of you don't. I should be back to regularly scheduled stuff now that I'm back from Florida.

2018 Stats

Are we ready for another year of stats? Are you excited to know what I've been up to? I know, you don't care, but I do so let's get to it.

First off, let's give some links to previous years. I didn't post in 2015, which was when we moved in our house (the first of January) so I probably forgot all about it.

2017   -   2016   -   2014, part 1   -   2014, part 2   -   2013

As per the usual, let's start with where I've been eating. In the () is how many times the previous year.

• 1 Time - 5 Guys (4), Angler's (0), Bonnie Doon's (0), Buffalo Wild Wings (2), Calihan's (0), Chili's (0), Cock-A-Doodle Cafe (0), Cracker Barrel (1), Domino's (0), Fazoli's (2), Fudpucker's (0), Hardee's (0), Huddle House (0), IHOP (0), Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville (0), Joe's Crab Shack (0), Kilwin's (0), Panda Express (0), Schoops (0), Volcano's (1), Whataburger (0), Wings Ect (2)

5 Guys really surprises me, I love that place. You can see a lot of those I haven't eaten at before or at least in awhile. 10 of those places up there came the last week of December when I traveled to and from and spent 5 days in Florida.

• 2 Times - 7-Eleven (2), Between the Buns (2), Bravo Cafe (5), Dunkin Donuts (0), Pals (0), Pizza Hut (4), Rally's (3), Simonton Lake Drive In (0), Taqueria Tijuana II (0)

7-Eleven is a convenient store but I love their hot dogs. Bravo Cafe is down because they have new owners and we're not fans of some of the changes. Dunkin Donuts is brought into work because I couldn't tell you the last time I ate there. Same with the Taqueria Tijuana II, we order taco's from there at work.

• 3 Times - Bojangles (0), Chick-Fil-A (3), Gerace's Pizza (0), Hacienda Mexican Restaurant (2), Lux Cafe (1), Rise 'n Roll (2), Smith's Food Mart (3)

Bojangles is in Virginia and my wife eats there practically every day when we are there. Gerace's Pizza is the pizza work has brought in when they are really treating us. Lux Cafe is also a work related place we get for breakfast occasionally.

• 4 Times - Long John Silvers (5), Martin's Deli (2)

Martin's Deli is the local supermarket deli, they have the best fried chicken in the area.

• 5 Times - Dairy Queen (4), Flippin' Cow (4)

Flippin' Cow has the best burgers in town.

• 6 Times - Culver's (0), Little Caeser's Pizza (5), Steak 'n Shake (1)

Culver's is up last year because I grab lunch there at work occasionally.

• 7 Times - Mancino's (1), Subway (1)

Both of those places we just didn't eat there much the previous year but for different reasons. We love Mancino's grinders but we kind of forgot about it until late last year. Subway, I'm just now a huge fan of but my daughter started working there so we picked it up more often.

Up next are my top 7, all are in double digits for the year.

• 10 Times (10)

Last year was the same 10 times but if was in 5th place, this year they dropped to 7th.

• 13 Times (19)

Down a little bit from the previous year but we still love their sandwiches. If they delivered to us, it would probably be a lot more.

 

• 14 Times (Brunos 17, Arbys 7)

Bruno's is our go to pizza, they are the best around, and they deliver. A lot of the Arby's was a snack, they have the best Mozzarella sticks and they are next to Walgreens where my wife gets her meds.

• 19 Times (9)

Burger King was way up this year because they had a limited time burger that I loved and I was picking it up more often. While they have good burgers and they are fast food, our BK is very slow and they are more expensive than most fast food so we don't generally go there a lot.

The final 2 should be no surprise as they have been 1 and 2, in the same position, every time I've done this stats page.

• 24 Times (28)

Even though this is 2nd place, it is my favorite fast food restaurant. It used to be my wife's as well but they changed their chicken and now my wife doesn't want it as often so it has fallen off the last few years. From 2013-2015, this was in the 40's and 50's.

• 49 Times (32)

Oddly enough, this is probably our least favorite fast food, for anything other than breakfast. The exception of that rule is the 2 months of the year that the McRib is back. So take away breakfast and McRib and McDonalds would probably be less than 5, and those 5 would all be someone else's choice but we were hanging with them.

We were gradually getting our eating out down until the last couple of years now we're going up. There are probably 2 reasons for that. 1, my wife's pain leads to less time in the kitchen and she's had more pain this year and 2, we are able to afford it more than in the past which leads me to picking up snacks here and there after work.

Next up we'll check out my books. It was way down this year compared to the past. I only read on my breaks at work which is the reason it's way down. I only get a half hour worth of breaks all day.

I only read 18 books this past year. That may be a lot for some of you but like I said, it's down for me.

Ever since I kept track of my books, I've only read at work. 2013 was slow at my job, as you can tell. 2018 is the first full year at my new job so there you go.

You can follow the books I'm reading on Goodreads.

Once again, in the movies section, you won't see DVD's listed because we didn't watch any. They will be back on next years list because I've been getting behind on my movies and it's a lot cheaper to rent them than pay to stream them.

I watched 7 movies in the theaters this year. A Quiet Place, Avengers: Infinity War, Deadpool 2, Tag, It, Ant-Man and the Wasp and Aquaman.

I watched 14 movies on TV, which means either on a network or on demand. I could list them all as well but I won't.

I also streamed 12 movies, which means online or a streaming service (Netflix, Hulu or Amazon).

I watched 34 total movies on the year. The ones listed above are only the ones that I had seen for the first time.

You can follow the movies I watch on LetterBox.

I watched 111 sporting events (games) this past year, either live or on TV.

I watched 22 football games.

I watched 35 basketball games.

I watched 54 baseball games.

I generally watch "my" teams. I don't really watch a ton of sports like some people do. I watch Michigan games in all 3 sports and the White Sox in baseball. There might be a few games here or there that weren't my normal teams but for the most part, that's what they are.

I need to change my header now that I don't use Fitbit. I'd prefer to use it but I can't wear it around my wrist at work and that's where I get more of my exercise/steps. So I've been using the Samsung app on my phone to keep it.

There, that's more accurate.

Top row is steps, bottom row is mileage. As you can see, I put a little bit more than the previous year. We'll see if I can keep that trend going up next year.

I only hit 10,000 steps or more 45 times this past year. I hit that mark 59 times last year and since I have more steps this year, that says that I'm getting more steps on the weekends then I used to so that's good as well.

You can follow my Samsung Health account here.

I did change my header photo for my drive section. It's the photo that Davco took when I purchased my new car. This year, I only kept track of the miles I put on in my car as opposed to any car that I drove. A little less stressful on keeping the stats. 

As you can tell, the difference in my jobs is making a huge difference in my mileage. 

My beverage consumption has increased as well this year. I'd say that's probably better except my water consumption went down and that's probably the only healthy thing I drink.

The Coke has gone up since I tend to drink one at home with most of my suppers now. The Gatorade/Powerade has gone up because I've been drinking it more on my way to and from work. Mountain Dew ICE, my brother wanted me to try it. It wasn't bad but I prefer regular Dew. I have OJ for my first break at work.

Last but not least, my music. Yep, I've been keeping track of that as well this past year.

I listened to 15,848 tracks last year.

My top 15 artists (because they are all in the triple digits) listened to.

• DC Talk (241)
• Petra (195)
• Michael W. Smith (180)
• Taylor Swift (152)
• Ed Sheeran (145)
• Keith Urban (142)
• Halestorm (121)
• Michael Jackson (118)
• Blake Shelton (117)
• the Beatles (110)
• Carrie Underwood (109)
• Russ Taff (107)
• Billy Joel (104)
• Pink (102)
• Eminem (100)

Those top 3 (Christian) artists are probably mainly because I have a ton of their songs on my playlist but that's because I really liked them back in the day. You can tell by the list that I listen to a lot of different stuff. You can check those out on Last Song of the Day or you can follow my playlist on Spotify.