2020™

As is the case for pretty much everybody, 2020 has been a wild year with a bunch of ups and downs (mostly downs) for me.

It started off great with yet another great time at AGDQ. I got to meet several people for the first time and caught up with a bunch of old friends. I also had 2 runs in the event, both of which went extremely well. It seems like such a long time ago that the event took place, but it is always one of the highlights of my year (and in the case of 2020, really the only highlight).

Shortly after AGDQ, the 'rona hit big-time and locked us all in. Lockdown wasn't all that bad at first for me - I had a job that fortunately allowed me to work from home, so I was still able to carry on with most of my day-to-day activities. My mom is a nurse who was treating COVID patients, though, so nobody in my house really felt safe going anywhere for some time.

In April, amidst everything going on in the world, my grandfather unfortunately passed away on his 78th birthday. I had been extremely fortunate to get to the age I am and still have all 4 grandparents alive and doing well, but sadly that is no longer the case. He had had numerous health problems over the years, including multiple heart attacks and a recent hospitalization, so I knew he was on borrowed time (and had been for decades) but the loss still hit us all very hard. Throughout the last 8 months, my family and I have been working on a rotation to (safely) visit my grandma and keep her company since she now lives alone. With the vaccines now rolling out (my mom and sister have both already received the 1st dose), I'm hopeful that we can all get inoculated and finally hug out the last 8 months of stress and pain.

Just one month later in May, I lost my job as a result of the pandemic. With no new business rolling in and none on the horizon, I was an unfortunate casualty of some business decisions. In all honesty, this didn't come as a complete surprise to me given recent happenings at the company (a merger with a larger company in Europe had taken place over the past year or so), so I was sure my days were already numbered. Speaking with some former colleagues months later, it seems like this ended up being somewhat of a blessing in disguise, as most of the work process that I used to be responsible for had migrated overseas.

With no job and with everything essentially shut down over the entire summer, I got back into an old habit - running. I sometimes talk about running on stream and on Twitter, but for those unaware, I used to be a pretty good mid-distance runner in high school and early on in college (2014-2015) but I fell out of it due to the demands of school and trying to graduate without flunking any classes. Since there was basically nothing for me to do all summer except send out tons of resumes and wait for responses, I started running again every day - some days I even went for multiple runs just out of sheer boredom. I ended up getting back into decent shape and actually lost around 15 pounds as a result of the additional exercise. As the weather has started to turn bad, I've slipped back out of it again, but I'm planning on getting back on the grind once the snow melts and it's not dark at 4 pm. :)

Towards the end of August, I finally got a new job and have been there since then. It is a much smaller company than the previous one I worked for, but the work is interesting and the people are cool so I'm happy. The Bills are also having their best season since the early '90s (before I was even alive) so I've been parked in front of the TV all day Sunday since early September and have some folding tables in wait in case something crazy happens. #BillsMafia

On the speedrunning side, I've learned a bunch of hot new PS1 games this year and have spent a decent amount of time on a number of other games I've learned in the past, particularly Crash Twinsanity. I managed to improve the record by quite a bit early this year and came close to beating it several more times throughout the year but was unable to close the deal. We'll see what 2021 holds on this front. I haven't been streaming much at all lately because of the football season (see above, Bills rule), but that will be coming to an end soon, although hockey season will be starting in a few weeks and I'm itching to see how the Sabres will disappoint yet again.

I don't really have any sort of plans for 2021 - I have a large backlog of PS1 hotness I would like to learn, but I haven't had the motivation recently. I expect this to change, though, so be on the lookout for the next B- PS1 game that you've never heard of. :)

All in all, I'm just hoping for a return to normalcy this year, or at least as close as we can get to it. It's been a particularly political and emotional year for everyone, and I hope we can use a number of the things we have learned over the past 9+ months to make general improvements to everyday life and make the world a better place to be. In the meantime, stay safe, mask up, and make sure to get in line for the vaccine. God knows we could all use a shot in the arm to jumpstart life again, and in 2021, we mean that quite literally.

Thanks for reading and Go Bills

PacAttack

Joe