December Check-In
December was a rough month.
Mr. Otto
Despite the good start for December, the month was a rough one. A week before Christmas, Otto had a relapse. The fluid had built up around his heart again and his vitals took a pretty bad turn. They could've drained the fluid again, but it would have been hard on Otto and was only a band-aid for the larger issue of the (now certain) tumor on his heart. There wasn't much more we could do for him and still give him a good quality of life, so Lauren and I made the incredibly difficult decision to say goodbye to him. Needless to say, it put a huge damper on the holidays. Even now after 3 weeks the house still feels empty. It still hurts and it fucking sucks.
Busy with Work
The project I was working on since I started my job at Webstaurant a year ago went live the week leading up to Christmas. Needless to say it was all hands on deck to work out the various kinks and bugs that we weren't able to catch in QA or didn't have the right data to find in QA. There were a bunch of late evenings working, but things are going well with it now. Despite the seemingly weird time to do a product launch, there were good reasons to do it then and things ended up working out.
The Holidays
With Otto weighing heavily on our minds, we did our best to still celebrate the holidays. Lauren and I were able to do our Christmas Eve Seafood Dinner this year and hosted her side of the family Christmas Day. We were able to enjoy ourselves which a week earlier I wouldn't have thought as possible.
We were supposed to go up to see my family Sunday, but unfortunately my brother tested positive for COVID, so we opted to stay home instead. We're hoping to see them this weekend.
Starting Over with Halo
Halo Infinite came out December 8th, but instead of jumping right in, I've opted to re-play through the series in story order. I'm currently on Halo 2 after playing through Reach and Combat Evolved. I'm planning on playing right through until I get to Infinite while trying to avoid spoilers.
Summary
Staying Active: Had plenty of hockey this month, one team made it to the finals and lost in the shootout. Lifting, I set a new PR on deadlifts at 360 lbs. I also ran more miles this month than I had in any month this year and was able to break my goal of 300 miles for 2021!
Development: Have made some progress in the next phase of my fitness tracker project. Also spent some time laying out a .NET Core re-write of Digital Family Cookbook.
Reading:
- Finished The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt*.* It was a dense read, but was interesting.
Write More: Other than my November Recap, nada.