This Week - Journal

 

Monday (January 2nd)

My mom and stepdad came by and picked me up for breakfast. We went to Copper Creek again. We met my aunt, uncle, cousin and his wife there. Food was great, as always. Love the Greek Skillet. I will miss these breakfast get together's on Monday when I go back to work. Only issue I had was I had slept in my contacts and my eye was bugging the crap out of me. I took them out once I got home.

I worked on My Sports Obsession's year in review and posted it. I need to work on the one for this blog. Maybe tonight.

Pretty much hung out and watched TV until this evening. Cheri and I ran some stuff to Whole Foods to use the Amazon Drop Off and grabbed some Sonic for supper. We came home and I went looking for something to watch so we're trying Three Pines on Prime.

We didn't stick with Three Pines, Cheri thought it was too boring so I'll add it to the long list of shows that I'll watch when I'm alone. We're watching Black Adam now, she won't like it, it's not her type of movie but I've been wanting to see it so here we are.

Black Adam wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. I felt like those DC characters were generic Marvel characters. We also watched Blacklight with Liam Neeson. Again, not bad but not great.

Tuesday (January 3rd)

Woke up a couple of minutes before my alarm because work called. I wasn't too pissed since I was getting up in 2 minutes anyways, other than they woke up my wife.

My cousin picked me up and we headed to the local card show and spent about 6 hours there sorting cards. I did baseball and sorted them by players. I ended up filling up a 5 row box of all the cards I sorted.

Came home and ran to Taco Bell for supper. Now just trying to find something to watch. Tried Kaleidoscope but the wife wasn't into it. She doesn't pay enough attention to anything so it has to be really good for her to stay with it. I'll add it to my list of shows to watch when she's not around. We ended up looking for a movie on the Fire Stick, picked one and as always, it wasn't what we picked but it had Owen Wilson so we watched it anyways. It was called Secret Headquarters. It was alright, had it's funny parts but some of the action was pretty cheesy.

Wednesday (January 4th)

Woke up earlier to take Duke to the vet, he's getting a tooth extracted today. Cheri's really worried because they have to put him to sleep but she's not too bad since he's been put to sleep a couple of times without issues. Hit Taco Bell for my breakfast and then McDonalds for hers then headed home.

Been down in my card room scanning and logging some cards that I brought home yesterday and then worked on some spreadsheets.

The vet called and said Duke did well and we can pick him up at 4. I'm sure Cheri is relieved.

Duke is home now and Cheri will baby him back to health. We'll probably watch TV the rest of the evening but I'm not sure what we're doing for supper. I'll probably end up running out and getting something since she won't want to leave Duke even though he's just laying around.

I was right, I ran down to Subway (blah!) which I'm not a big fan of but that's what Cheri wanted. I was right, neither of us were all that happy with the food. There's a reason I've only eaten there one other time since 2020.

Thursday (January 5th)

Not too much happening today. I was going to go to breakfast with my uncles and cousin if I woke up before 9 but I ended up sleeping until almost 9:30. My cousin and I were going to go card shopping but we both decided we weren't in the mood and then I sat around for an hour playing on my phone while Cheri watched TV. I couldn't decide if I wanted to go work in my card room.

Work called me to do their Thursday check in and informed me that I will go back on Monday at my usual time so we'll see how that goes. My Plant Manager is supposed to call me today to let me know but I wouldn't be surprised if I don't hear from him. Not long after, my 3rd shift operator called me to bitch about maintenance not listening to him. I told him now you understand why I can't get anything done on 1st when it comes to dealing with them. They always think they know better. I tend to pace when talking on the phone for awhile so once I hung up with him, I decided to head downstairs. I don't really have much card stuff to do so I'll probably work on blogs and spreadsheets while I decide if I want to do anything else.

All the TV shows are coming back so we'll be sticking with the DVR for the most part for awhile in the evenings.

Friday (January 6th)

I ran over to Sluggos after I got up and we headed to Schererville to the Baseball Card Exchange. We hung out for a couple of hours between shopping and Sluggo talking. I picked up a couple cards for me and a couple for a guy I trade with Ann Arbor.

Just got teared up at the ending of Call Me Kat. Such a touching ending about the loss of Leslie Jordan. He was one of my wife's favorite people, and I like him as well so that news hit us a little bit.

We've been screwing around and looking more into the streaming in order to drop cable. I'm not sure what we're going to do. Essentially, the only reason we have cable which cost just over $100/month is so I can watch Michigan and White Sox games. Most everything else can be streamed and watched elsewhere. We've spent most of the evening working on it.

Saturday (January 7th)

I slept in way too long. I didn't wake up until 10 am which is going to make it really tough to get back into the routine work schedule of waking up at 3:45 am.

I got up and unhooked the cable box and DVR and put them in a bag and the wife and I headed out to pick up groceries and drop off the boxes to Xfinity. We got there and they told us we couldn't cancel the cable because we just signed a contract. Apparently when I talked to them last week, he signed us up for a whole new contract without even telling us. So now I have to call and get them to cancel the contract that I never signed up for. I tried calling outside the Xfinity store but after half an hour, I gave up so we could go get lunch. I even left it on the phone call the whole time we drove to Copper Creek before hanging up. 

We came home after lunch and I hooked up the cable box (since I couldn't cancel it) to watch the Michigan/Michigan State basketball game and neither one of the boxes would work so I ended up streaming the game. They wonder why I want to cancel it. I'll call them tomorrow and drop everything off after work on Monday.

Went looking for something to watch this evening and settles on the Rig on Netflix. Only a couple episodes in and it's alright, intriguing enough to keep my interest. I'm not sure my wife likes it though.

Sunday (January 8th)

Set my alarm for 8 am. Still didn't get up until after 9. I didn't sleep the whole time between 8 and 9 but enough. Although it's after noon now and I still feel tired. I hate feeling tired, it's how I feel on work days but it needs to be done so I can get some sleep tonight. I can't be up until 2:30 in the morning again and plan on getting up at 3:45, that won't work, at all.

It's been a very blah day, I haven't really been into doing anything. I sat at my desk downstairs for awhile just scrolled through Reddit. I don't know if it's because I have to go back to work or other personal issues but I'm just very down today.

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.

A Week in the Life of

I'm still finding my way around these posts. They are essentially what happened in the last week. I haven't really had an order to them yet. I just went through my "A Day in the Life" posts to see if I had anything to talk about this week. I'm not going to rehash my Instagram posts, you can follow me on there if you want to see my post a day.

Monday night we didn't have much to walk so I searched for a movie. If I don't already know of a movie, I just pick one of the streaming services or on demand and go through it until we find one. We ended up watching Unknown, I believe it was on Netflix. It stars Liam Neeson and we hadn't seen it so we figured why not. It wasn't anything special but it was a decent movie. Enough to entertain us for just under 2 hours.

Had Taco Bell this week. If you don't know my history with Taco Bell, here's a quick reference. Used to love it, had it all the time (see my stats post). Last year they took a bunch of stuff off their menu, including most of my usual order. Haven't been going there nearly as much but my wife likes the Queserito so I would just grab some chili cheese burritos. The problem with that is her order can only be ordered through the app, not a problem, use it anyways, but the chili cheese burritos aren't on the app, no idea why. So basically I get annoyed every time I go there because I have to do an online order as well as one at the drive-thru. When I get to the last window, they'll hand me one order and I always have to explain that the next one is mine as well. Like I said, it was just annoying.

Well this week when we grabbed it, I noticed a Club Chalupa and tried it. It was pretty good so I can order that now instead of having 2 orders. They also announced that they were bringing back their Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes which is one of the items they took away that I liked. So my Taco Bell intake is looking up. I just hope the Club Chalupa isn't a promotional, it wasn't listed there on the app so I think it might be a regular menu item.

I pass a mall on the way home from work and it's a dead mall (see above). A really dead mall. There are only a few stores left in it besides the anchors (JC Penny and Hobby Lobby). There are supposed to be 4 anchor stores and even 2 of those are empty. Basically, it makes it nice to walk, not many people and warmer than walking outside right now. I see more mall walkers than customers. I ended up walking 3 days last week. I started Tuesday, went back on Wednesday. Thursday my sister-in-law and niece were visiting my wife so I came straight home after work to see them. My wife tends to visit all of her family in the middle of the week while I'm at work so I don't see them often. My mom ended up meeting me out there and we walked on Friday. I went over 2 miles each day which is my goal, for now. 

Part of the problem I have with walking at home (other than it's winter right now) is by the time I get home, I just want to shower and relax so I talk myself out of walking. That's the main thing on why this mall walking might be good for me. We'll see how long I sustain it though, because to be honest, I really don't enjoy walking.

We had to work yesterday (Saturday) and I might have stopped there on the way home but I had made plans to have lunch with my youngest daughter. Her girlfriend and my wife, neither care for Hacienda and we both like it so we tend to go there. It's the second time we've done it, I'm going to try to make it a regular thing. Every month or two or something. Otherwise, I don't see her much as she doesn't visit us much more. Even though she is in the area all the time. Damn kids!

I ended up walking 7.75 miles at the mall this week. Hopefully I can make it a regular thing since last time I went to the doc, for the first time I was over 300 lbs. Being 6'3" helps we wear it better than most but I would like to get rid of some of my gut. I've been pretty steady in the 290's for a long time so it's not like I put on a ton of weight but there's something about that number, 300 pounds just seems like a lot.

Not to much going on at work. The city surprised us with an inspection on Wednesday. During our Q&A, he mentioned that he only schedules us for an hour because he knows the walk through never takes long because we are always on point. He said some places he goes he has to schedule 4 hours. Everything went well, he even contacted our EHS coordinator and told her that he was impressed with our staff (which is me and our EHS person) so that's always good to hear.

The wife and I went out Friday night, it seems to be becoming a regular thing where we drop my son off at work and than go to 5-Guys burger and fries (they have curb side pick-up) and than we just sit in the parking lot in our car and have supper. Afterwards we run down to Steak 'N Shake and grab a couple of shakes, and again, sit in the parking lot and have our dessert. It really is the perfect date night for us. We enjoy the food and I would rather sit in the car, listen to our tunes and enjoy a meal than be stuck in a restaurant where people are annoying and it's usually loud so you can't really talk that well. My wife has issues with a lot of noise, it makes it hard to focus when there is a lot going on so it's a nice date night for us. We can even stay in our PJ's which is what we tend to do. Don't worry, our PJ shirts are regular shirts so you won't notice unless you see our PJ bottoms.

Not sure how much this will continue though because my son is taking his driver's test on Tuesday. Hopefully, he'll pass it so we don't have to drive him anymore. The taking him isn't a big deal. The picking him up between 10 and 11 pm is because on work nights, I'm in bed around 10 and my wife has trouble driving at night. She goes and gets him, luckily traffic isn't really bad and it's not real far. Her eyes have issues with the lights coming at her as they don't dilate very quick so she can't go from darkness and than a light in her face.

I guess that's all for last week. No real plans as of this week other than my son's driving test. Hopefully see you all back here next week.

Nothing this week

Not much going on here. We survived Christmas. Now I'm just enjoying my time off until January 4th when it all comes to an end.

With the lack of new shows on right now, we're struggling to find stuff to watch. I have all kinds of stuff to watch, but it's mostly science fiction and my wife hates scifi and she's always home. She'd let me watch them, but than I feel bad because she's bored because she's not really watching.

We watched Limestone over the weekend, it was okay but nothing exciting. We've been watching mostly movies since.

As you can see by the last 3 days of my timeline on Letterboxd. I don't like to watch movies that I have already seen so it makes it difficult to find stuff. Sure I can watch stuff I've seen but I would much rather watch something new. It's pathetic that I struggle to find movies to watch when I have access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Peacock, Disney+ and Xfinity On Demand.

No real plans this week off either, just chilling at the homestead. I'll probably hang out in my card room most days just so I don't annoy the wife too much. Maybe I'll post more here, probably not. I've done good with a post a week for the last few, I don't want to push it.

I laugh every time I see this commercial. That doesn't happen too often with commercials.

Covid update and more

Not to much going on around here. I'm trying to getting in the habit of posting more often, even if it's just everyday stuff. I've told you before (probably awhile ago) that I have a blog (not public) where I list everything in a daily format. For example, if you go to today's page, it starts with 2009 and lists a Facebook post that I did. In 2012, I posted a tweet and an Instagram photo along with 4 blog posts. I also went to work that day. I've gone back through my social media and Google maps and listed everything for each year that I have listed. I started this a couple of years ago and it's taking me that long to compile all the info. I've also added newer stuff like what TV shows I've watched, how many songs I've listened to, what I've eaten that day as well as when I woke up and went to bed. I also add any photos which some even predate social media as I have scanned older stuff and added them. I also have 2 quick journal spots. One is sports related, the other personal but I tend to just put quick bullet point type entries. So I want to start using this blog to get in more depth of what's going on in my life, even if it isn't much.

TV

I've been wanting to watch Star Trek: Discovery but I wasn't going to pay for CBS All Access. I just found out that they are playing it on CBS every week now so I'm finally watching it. I watched the first 2 episodes On Demand Friday night and the 3rd recorded on the DVR so I'll get to continue that week by week. I may be a couple years behind but at least I'm able to watch it now.

With the holidays and lack of stuff on TV, we're back to watching stuff off the streaming services or On Demand. Yesterday we watched Welcome to Plathville. My wife has seen previews and wanted to start watching it so we went back and watched season 1 and what's played of season 2 so far. Wow! I'm all for protecting my children because the world sucks but you also have to prepare them that it does suck. They aren't going to live in a bubble for the rest of their lives.

Last night we watched a couple Christmas movies on Netflix. We don't generally watch a lot of those but we liked the Christmas Chronicles with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn and they just released the 2nd one. After it was over, they advertised another one called the Christmas Drop. It wasn't bad either and in the end we found out it was based on a true story and my wife likes those.

I also found out last night that HBO is free On Demand until the end of the month. Which is tomorrow. Would have been nice to know that sooner. I'm trying to catch up on some shows off of it that we like, or I should say, that I like. I watched an episode of Westworld last night and am watching more today. I had watched season 1 back when we watched Game of Thrones and I would use my daughter's boyfriends HBO Now account but I haven't had access to the channel since then. They cancelled it when Game of Thrones ended. I'll probably watch that most of today. At least until the Michigan basketball game comes on tonight.

I wanted to start Lovecraft Country but I'm not sure I'll have time before the free time ends.

You can track what movies I watch here.

Music

I mentioned that I'm pretty big into music now. I listen to around 120-150 songs a day when I work and sometimes when I don't, I can still get around 100 or so. Pretty much anytime I don't have a TV on, I have music on. My playlist has almost 4000 songs on it. I was content just adding songs here and there while building the playlist but now, I'm broadening my playlist by listening to stuff I've never heard before and adding stuff here or there. I use the discovery weekly playlist on Spotify to listen to stuff I haven't heard, plus I'm doing a random artists post once a week on my music blog and have added songs from artists that I already listen to.

You can track what music I'm listening to here.

Covid

I told you all my aunt, uncle and grandmother had Covid. Last I've heard, they are all improving or at least, not getting worse but I got a text from my mom, apparently my sort of nephew (my cousin's kid) is in the hospital with it and not doing well. He's only in his early 20's so it is pretty scary right now. He's not responding to treatment and is getting help breathing.

I'll be honest, when I got the text a day or two ago, even though he was in the hospital, my thought was he was young, no biggie, he'll get better. I got the text today about him worsening and it really kind of hit home. I'm truly worried about him and it's scary that we may lose him. I can't imagine being his parents and not even being able to see him.

I'm pretty safe as in I don't really go anywhere so I'm not in the public much. We do most of our shopping online or do curbside pick up. I could be safer at work, for the most part I'm by myself but I do have to sit in on meetings and such and am not always as safe as I should be. With the recent events, I plan on changing that. There are things I could do better.

That's all for today. I'm getting sleepy just sitting here and I have to work tomorrow so I need to avoid taking a nap so I can go to bed at a decent time. Until next time.

Sunday Stealing #8

I ran across another one of these that I liked the questions, so here goes.

Funny the World

1. Last movie you watched.  Don't know if it's considered a movie or not but we watched Hamilton on Disney+ last weekend. I hate musicals but actually enjoyed this one.

2. Last movie you watched in a theater.  Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker on January 10th.

I could answer the above 2 question because I track my movies on Letterbox.

3. A film you’ve always wanted to watch, but haven’t.  The new Invisible Man. This was going to be a recent movie because if I want to see something, I see it but we haven't watched much recently.

4. Favorite movie soundtrack.  Tin Cup.

5. Your favorite movie duo. James T. Kirk and Spock. Only reason I thought of them was because I watched a little of Star Trek the other night.

6. Movie you like because of its story.  Dragonfly

7. A film that disappointed you. Avengers: Endgame. Part 1 was pretty good, the finale didn't impress me as much as I thought it would.

8. Favorite scene from a movie. Wow, this ones tough. I think the first time I watched the Shawshank Redemption, when they lead you to believe that Andy hung himself and you know they are going to find him hanging in his cell but he's just gone. When the warden throws the chess piece through the poster. I was shocked!

9. Your guilty pleasure movie.  See above, love the Shawshank Redemption. Doesn't hurt that it's based off a Stephen King story.

10. A movie you keep going back to.  Captain America: the Winter Soldier

11. A quote you admire from your favorite movie. I have no idea. Favorite quote I could probably think of something. One I admire, nope.

12. A movie based on a true story. Eight Men Out

13. Your favorite actor/actress. There is so many to name.

14. A sequel you’re not a fan of. How about prequels, the Star Wars ones to be exact.

15. A film you know by heart.  the Shawshank Redemption

16. Your favorite opening scene.  Guardians of the Galaxy 2

17. A film that was based on a book and was executed well. This is tough because movies are never as good as the books. I'm going to go with the Shawshank Redemption (again) just because it was a short story so the movie was actually more detailed than the book.

18. A comedy film. This is 40

19. TV series you’re binging on now.  We just started season 5 of Homeland on Hulu when the wife is around. Right now I'm watching season 2 of Hanna when she's not.

20. A TV series you think is underrated. Yellowstone. It's not underrated but I don't think a lot of people watch it.

TV Thursdays #3

Between the wife and I, we watch a ton of TV. We both record our own shows as well as stuff we watch together. She generally watches her shows while I'm at work and after I go to bed. When I'm home, we watch our shows and when we run out of those, she has to watch my shows. Here's everything we watched this week.

• 20/20
• 60 Days In
• All Rise
• Almost Home
• Blackish
• Blind Date
• Bob Hearts Abishola
• Body Cam
• Bull
• Deputy
• Emergence
• Family Guy
• FBI
• FBI: Most Wanted
• God Friended Me
• Hawaii Five-0
• Kevin Hart: Don't Fuck This Up x 6
• Last Man Standing x 2
• Live PD x 2
• Live Rescue
• Lost in Space x 6
• Magnum PI
• Manifest
• Messiah
• Mixedish
• Nightly Pop x 3
• Shameless x 13
• Single Parents
• the Carbonaro Effect
• the Circle
• the Mandalorian
• the Neighborhood
• You x 10
• Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist

20/20, Blind Date and Nightly Pop are my wife's but I have to admit, Nightly Pop is pretty hilarious so I don't mind watching that. We watched the whole season of the Kevin Hart show on Netflix, it was ok, nothing outstanding. We tried the Circle and Messiah, also on Netflix but neither one of us were into that. I may watch Messiah on my own but the Circle was just stupid. I finished Lost in Space and we watched the 2nd season of You, also on Netflix. Our go to when we are out of shows is Shameless (yep, Netflix) as you can tell by the 13 episodes we watched this week.

• Into the Dark: Midnight Kiss

As I stated before, Into the Dark is technically a show as a new one comes out every month but they are all different and an hour and a half so I count them as movies. Plus, they are listed on Letterboxd so they have to be a movie, right? Guess what forum these are on, nope, Hulu. You thought I was going to say Netflix again, didn't you?

• Michigan Wolverines at Maryland Terrapins
• Michigan Wolverines vs Alabama Crimson Tide.
• Michigan Wolverines at Michigan State Spartans
• Michigan State Spartans at Michigan Wolverines

The first and the last games listed above are women's basketball. The Alabama game was football and the 3rd one was men's basketball. I'm pretty sure they lost 3 of those games so it obviously wasn't a good week for me in sports. The women beat State at home so there was that at least.

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.