canyonwalker | Entries tagged with retrospective

Phoenix Getaway Travelog #12
Retrospective

Whew, it's been a week since we returned from Phoenix. I only finished catching up on my blog backlog from it Friday night. I've got this one last blog to write about it, a retrospective addressing some of the dangling questions. Here are Five Things:

1) 3 days was a good amount of time. I wondered in the lead-up to the trip if we were making it too short. 3 days turned out to be a fine amount of time. Critical to that was that it's wasn't Friday late night through Sunday; instead we left home early Saturday morning and stayed through Monday. That gave us an adequate amount of time to enjoy a weekend getaway.

2) 80° was fine pool weather. Phoenix had several weeks of cool weather leading up to our trip. A week out I seriously considered canceling because the weather forecast, only warming up to 80~81° as daytime highs, seemed like it would be too cool to enjoy splashing around in the resort's pools— which was one of the primary reasons we booked the trip. I decided to stick with the trip, largely for lack of a reasonable last-minute alternative, and it turned out fine. No, the weather didn't suddenly get warmer; but the pools were heated higher than I expected so they were plenty of fun to spend hours in each day. Of course, two days after we left, Phoenix was back to highs in mid 90s.

3) Packing light worked out fine. We made a command decision Friday night while packing our bags to travel light. Instead of taking a large piece of checked luggage to carry all our usual hiking equipment, we would instead leave much of that equipment behind. We both took hiking sandals instead of big, heavy boots; and Hawk took lightweight slings for water bottles instead of her full day-pack. I still took my day-pack. These changes allowed us to skip the checked bag, taking only carry-on bags. That simplified and accelerated the airport shuffle. And we didn't miss the extra gear on the hiking trail. ...Well for this trail our hiking sandals with good treads were enough. Knowing the territory was important to this decision.

4) Cooler weather was good for hiking. I wasn't thinking so much about it when I fretted it would be too cool for the pool, but the cooler weather was awesome for the strenuous hike we did up Camelback Peak. The first time we tried it years ago, it was already over 90° at dawn when we started. We were exhausted after the first few steep stretches. Doing the first part of the ascent in 70° weather made the whole thing more feasible. We got to the summit!

5) Aches and pains. I wrenched my shoulder on the hike coming down one of the steep parts near the end. I worried at the time, on Sunday afternoon, that injury would be with me for a while. Good news: my shoulder ache pretty much disappeared by Tuesday morning with the help of topical anesthetic. Bad news: aches in my legs stuck around longer. By Monday evening I could tell I had way overdone it with my quadriceps. It hurt walking down stairs or down ramps. On Tuesday I was weeble-wobbling around the house. My quads felt like rubber. Unhappy rubber. I was wobbly and in pain through Wednesday. By Thursday both the pain and wobbliness reduced but didn't disappear. Thankfully by Saturday morning I was back to about 90%, just in time for another weekend of hiking!

In the various retrospectives I wrote a month ago at the start of the year one I overlooked was my stash of booze.

Recall that years ago I diagnosed myself with a drinking problem— though not the one you may think. The problem is I don't drink enough! ...Well actually I do drink enough. The problem is really that while I enjoy drinking booze in moderate amounts I enjoy buying it in heavier amounts. If I don't carefully control my purchases my stashes of wine, beer, and liquor are prone to grow overfull, to the point that bottles and cans end up lined up on counters, and some older beverages go stale or spoil before I get around to enjoying them.

"Really what you have is a shopping problem, not a drinking problem," one of my friends assured me several years ago. Indeed, it's been by buying less more than drinking more that I've brought the two into balance. Though as anyone with a problem can tell you, maintaining balance takes constant effort.

So, how am I doing with my ~~drinking~~ shopping problem?

Wine: 70 Bottles ± 5

Wine is the biggest part of my alcohol collection. Several years back I set a target on its size. 75 bottles ± 5, I decided. While that may seem to the uninitiated like a lot of bottles, it was a calculation to give me enough to keep many varieties on hand and age them appropriately. It was a big step down from the 125 bottles I used to have. And even that isn't big for wine aficionados. Friends of mine who drink wine faster than I do have collections of 300+ bottles.

Across 2022 I actually held below my target of 75 as a midpoint. After maintain 75 ± 5 for a few years I actually did 70 ± 5 last year. I feel like I've still got a reasonable library with that slightly lower count so I'll look to continue at that level in 2023. As a data point I'm at 70 bottles right now (it was 71 until I opened a 2017 zinfandel with dinner 😋) and I'm not feeling the itch to buy more until I polish off a few more.

Beer: Reasonably in Check

When I did a check-in like this two years ago my beer stash was sprawling out across the kitchen counter. It wasn't a good look for someone who wants to have his ~~drinking~~ shopping problem under control. This past year I kept a reasonable lid on the total number of beers in my stash, even as I bought a lot of different beers for my Beer Tasting 2022 project. I kept the size of the collection in check by buying only a few varieties at a time. And I kept them from sprawling across the kitchen counter by storing them in the finished crawl space downstairs. 😅

Hard Liquor: A Little Overgrown

Hard liquor is the one part of my booze collection that has gotten away from me over the past year. My standard for hard liquor is that it's got to fit in the two shelves of cabinet space reserved for it, with an allowance for really tall bottles that I have to put on the counter below because they don't fit above. I mostly stuck to that plan during 2022, but then right at the end of the year I bought a few more bottles than I really should have. Now I have several on the counter.

How will I trim the hard liquor down to size? Well, first, I'll drink it! And I won't let myself go shopping for more until I drink a bunch first. 🥃🍸🍹

Second, I should just throw some out. ...Wait, what?! 🤯

I have at least 3 bottles of liquor I simply don't enjoy. Some of them were gifts that aren't my thing, some are things I decided to try and discovered I don't like. Most of them are cheap liquor so it doesn't hurt to throw them out— or at least it shouldn't. The problem there is I wrestle with the habit of frugality ingrained in me when I was young. I struggle with throwing stuff out, thinking, "Well, maaaybe I could enjoy it, sometime." At some point, though, I'm just going to say "Fuck it!" and pour it down the drain. ...And yes, I have done that before! See "Why is All the Rum Gone?"

January has felt like a busy month on my blog. I've published 63 entries, averaging just over 2 a day. While that's not even in my top 5 busiest months it is close. What kept me busy this month? Here are my thoughts, organized as Five Things:

Did I know it was going to be a bloggy month at the start of January? Kind of. I knew I had a backlog of things I wanted to write about, in addition to whatever new stuff came along. I even wrote a blog about my blog backlog. It was a manifesto to myself about what I wanted to accomplish for the month. I updated it with annotations as the month progressed. Today on Jan. 31 I'm satisfied I've finished most of it.

There was no one main thing my blogs were about. Some months when my post rate is high, there's one topic driving 1/3 or more of my blogs. This month it was, "A bit of this, a bit of that....'

The thing I blogged about most this month was the HBO series Band of Brothers. It's from all the way back in 2001. I watched it in December 2022. While I ended up bingeing the 10 episodes in 3-4 days during the holiday break it took me the full month of January to get my thoughts into blogs. I ended up writing 15 blogs about it, not counting this mention here. That's quite a lot, especially considering before I started I thought I might wrap it up in just 2 or 3 blogs!

The second biggest topic in my blog this month (as measured by tag usage) was politics. I go back and forth on blogging about politics. There were lots of happenings I had opinions about, so that drove some of my political blogging. At the same time, writing about politics is an exercise in frustration because one of the two major US political parties has enshired rampant lying as one of its core values. That makes me want to stop after a while. I hate lies— and the lying liars who tell them.

Do I expect February to be as bloggy? At the moment, no. That backlog manifesto I wrote early in the month declared more than half the posts I'd ultimately write this month. I have a vastly shorter backlog going into February.

So, what's on tap for February? Like I said, not much. I've largely cleared out my backlog. I'll take it as it comes. And I may not exceed 1.5 posts per day, let alone surpass 2/day again as I've done in January.

Today's the 3rd anniversary of Coronavirus. Well, not the anniversary but an anniversary. It's been 3 years since I first wrote about Coronavirus in my blog on January 30, 2020. (For those who are wondering, the 3 year anniversary of the first human case came in December, and the 3 year anniversary of the first "lockdown" arrives in a few weeks.)

How do things look now vs. then? The most striking difference comparing the blog I wrote 3 years ago to today is how back then it wasn't clear that Covid-19, as we'd come to know it— that name wasn't coined yet!— would become a global pandemic. Previous outbreaks of Coronavirus-family diseases, SARS and MERS, in the 00s and 10s caused fewer than 10,000 cases each. Today, after 3 years, Covid-19 has caused an estimated 753,000,000 cases! (Source: WHO Coronavirus Dashboard, retrieved 30 Jan 2023.)

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.

Every year around the start of the year I take stock of my balances in various frequent traveler points programs, both to see how we'll I've done in accumulating & using miles as well as to set goals for the coming 12 months. Earlier today I posted a wrap-up of my airline miles and status for 2022. Now it's time for the same with hotel points and status.

As with flying, hotel stays have been on a comeback this year as Coronavirus fades into a new normal. In 2022 I logged 68 hotel nights. That's not back to the level of 2019 when I had 93 hotel nights, but it's 70% more than in 2021.

⬇️ Marriott: Bonvoy(age), Points

Marriott returned to being my #1 hotel program in 2022, at least in terms of nights stayed. I stayed 19 nights with them. The count rises to 22 if we include nights Hawk paid for with points or certs from her account.

Speaking of points and certs, almost all of my nights with Marriott were award nights. Only 5 nights were cash. Three of those were for business, two were for leisure when the points rate was ridiculous. Through all those award stays I reduced my mountain of Marriott's too-preciously named Bonvoy Points from 567k to 400k.

I hold Lifetime Titanium status in Bonvoy, the second highest of five elite levels. It's a benefit of my past years of much heavier travel. If I had to qualify from scratch this year, my 19 nights would get me Silver status— three levels lower. And I'd only get that high because Marriott changed the program to count awards nights toward elite status. Prior to that my 5 paid nights would've earned me "dirt" status— i.e., none. ...Not that my significantly higher status was particularly valuable. There aren't a lot of upgrades and other benefits to be had at the basic suburban hotels where I spent most of these 19 nights. Though I did enjoy an attractive little upgrade to a balcony room and a delicious breakfast at the Orlando World Center Marriott where I stayed just 1 night before bailing out for a hurricane.

For 2023 my goal remains the same as the past several years: Spend down that mountain of points. The mountain is smaller now than a year ago but 400k is still way more than I want to carry. Hotel and airline points only ever lose value over time, so it doesn't pay to save them too long hoping to use them later.

⬇️ Hilton: Diamond Starting to Shine

Hilton was my #2 hotel chain with 18 nights stayed this year, very close behind Marriott, though it's #1 by revenue as 11 of those nights were on cash. Of the 7 nights on points, two were really nice ones when we stayed at the Hilton Sedona resort. The other 5 were 5 nights in Barstow at a Hampton Inn.

Together these redemptions used 280,000 points from my Hilton Honors balance. That's a great spend of points! I did earn piles of points of points from the 11 paid nights, though, so year-over-year my Hilton Honors balance decreased from 482,000 to only 365,000. Thus my goal for 2023 with Hilton Honors is the same as it was 12 months ago: Find a good, big redemption opportunity to spend those points on. Or lots of little ones. Or both!

Status-wise I remain Diamond elite (top tier) with Hilton because of a credit card. That sure as heck beats having to earn it the old fashioned way with 28 trips or 50 nights of "butt-in-bed" like I used to back in the day.

The value of Diamond status is mixed. At limited service hotels, such as Hampton Inns, I often get a small but appreciated room upgrade. At full service hotels there's often a minor upgrade, too, plus credits on food & beverage purchased at the in-house restaurants. On the one hand, a free $25/day doesn't suck. On the other hand, the restaurants are overpriced so $25 doesn't go as far as you'd think. But still, it's a worthwhile benefit that helps offset the $450 annual fee of the credit card.

⬇️ IHG: Burn, baby. Burn!

Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), whose portfolio includes Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, was my #1 hotel program in 2021 based on number of nights stayed. For 2022 it dropped to third place. I still managed 13 nights with them, though. And they were all free!

Five of those free nights were on free-night certificates from carrying an IHG credit card. Two I used in combination with 2 that Hawk had, putting them together for a free 4-night stay in Waikiki, Hawaii. Ironically that wasn't the highest redemption value this year.... The Waikiki hotel's cash rate was only about $150/night. A roadside Holiday Inn Express we stayed at in nowheresville, WA, in August would've been almost $300 if I hadn't used a cert for it!

With all the redemptions this past year I spent about 120k IHG points. I earned a few, too; so I landed at a balance of 179k. On the whole this is a reasonable place to be. I'm glad to have spent this 120k (plus several certs) on a bunch of award stays. That's exactly what I earned them for! I'm looking forward to doing it again in 2023.

Status-wise I remain Platinum with IHG, a benefit of owning their affiliated credit card. Platinum is their second highest tier. In the past I've groused it's not worth much because there really aren't elite benefits to be had at the limited-service properties I make most of my stays at. In 2022 I did get a few suite upgrades that were... well, amusing if not also a nice touch. Those include the suite with a "view" of the Strip in Las Vegas, a suite on our stay in Palmdale, CA in April, and our July stay in Montrose, CO where I made a video walkthrough of our suite upgrade.

↔️ Hyatt: A Great Use of Chase Points!

It's been years since I earned a point with Hyatt but this year I transferred 78,000 to them and used nearly all of them. The transfers were from my Chase Sapphire Preferred card. I got great value for those points: 4 nights at a resort in Florida for our anniversary, plus a random night on the road during another trip.

This continued the pattern of how Hawk and I used Hyatt points in 2021. We barely spent a penny at their hotels— well, okay, we spent a few hundred on food and a corner room upgrade when we stayed 4 nights at a resort in Florida in September. But we haven't paid for a night with them in years.

I canceled my transfers credit card earlier this year, so no more Hyatt transfers for me. Hawk still has her card, though, and is thinking about getting a Hyatt credit card, too. So maybe we'll have more nice stays on her dime!

🔄 Choice, Wyndham, Best Western, Etc.: Whatever

I have memberships in several other hotel rewards programs, with points balances remaining in at least a few of them. (Others are zeroed out due to expiry.) Choice and Best Western I know I have small balances in but don't care; they're not enough points to redeem for award nights, and I didn't stay at any of their hotels to think about earning points this year.

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. When I did this review 12 months ago there wasn't a lot of change to report. I'd only flown 21,000 miles in 2021. Air travel continued to be fitful this year as we stayed home the first few months during the (first) Omicron surge and were cautious about traveling later. I logged only 32,000 miles in 2022— more than last year but down from the 50k-ish I flew annually for a few years before Coronavirus, and way down from the 150k annually I flew 10-15 years ago.

That said, it's time to review where I landed in the various programs at the end of 2022.

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

Despite seemingly not flying very much this year I earned a lot of points on Southwest. Between flights and credit cards and partner bonuses I earned 215,000 Rapid Rewards (RR) points. To some people that would be good news. To me, not so much because I wanted to spend, aka burn, more points than I earned. I burned 145k points this year. The balance of points in my account swelled to 379k.

A lot of people would celebrate, "Woohoo! I have nearly 400,000 points!" I don't celebrate it because 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 2022 my goal was to burn faster than I earn. It's my goal again for 2023.

Elite status-wise, I managed to renew both Southwest's Companion Pass and A-List Preferred status— the latter by a whisker in December. Cinching these took some deft play to capture special bonus offers from Southwest. Southwest is the one airline for which I both want to & can earn meaningful status, so now the status chase starts over for 2023.

⬆️ United Airlines: Credit Card Boost— Twice!

For years United was my airline of choice. Back in my travel heyday I flew them over 100,000 miles a year for several years, reaching Million Miler lifetime status in 2013. In 2021 flew them not at all. Not a single flight. In 2022 I did better than that but only by a little. I flew UA on 3 one-way trips.

One of those flights was on points, consuming 31k of my points balance. I would've called this section "Chipping Away at the Pile" except the pile (of miles) actually got bigger this year. It got bigger because I opened not one but two UA credit cards with juicy signup bonuses. I finished the year at 450,000 points.

The downside of carrying such a large points balance is the same as in other programs, though it's not as theoretical with United. United has clearly devalued its points over the past several years. Years ago I valued them at 1.8 cents per point (cpp). Today they're only worth 1.1 cpp.

Status-wise I maintain Premier Gold with United, a benefit of reaching Million Miler years ago. What's the value of that status? Well, on those few flights I flew I was able to reserve a room seat in Economy Plus. Those seats with extra legroom are a valuable perk that make flying more comfortable. What's it worth, though? Certainly it's more than zero but really not the $60-80 per flight it would cost to buy ad hoc if I were not an elite status member.

↔️ American Airlines: Sitting on Three-Quarters of a Million

You might wonder about the arrow icons I'm using here. I've marked AA with a sideways arrow. It's not an opinion of the airline but an indication that my points balance barely moved this year. That's because I haven't flown AA in 18 months. I did book a flight though, planned for September 2023, using points which dropped my balance to 730,000.

Still, 730,000 remains a huge balance— and that's a problem, because of the constant threat of devaluation. Indeed AA has announced sweeping changes to its frequent flyer program for 2023. Among the changes are new award charts. I haven't spent time digging into the new charts to gauge how bad it is, but I know it's bad. It's never good.

There's another risk, too, besides devaluation in letting points sit too long. That's expiration. While a number of airlines adopted a "Points never expire" policy during the pandemic AA is one that's kept with the old way of zeroing out your account after 24 months of inactivity. Since I haven't flown AA in 18 months my huge pile of points were in jeopardy of expiring in a few months. Fortunately any activity resets the clock on the whole balance. Before I found that opportunity to book a flight in November I turned to hooking up with Aadvantage Dining during the year to keep my miles alive. That gave me about 2,000 points and— more importantly— renewed the other three-quarters of a million until late 2024.

↔️ Delta: Also Sitting, But Only on 15k

Another sideways arrow, another airline I didn't fly at all in 2022. Unlike my massive points balance with American Airlines, though, my points balance of Delta Skymiles is a mere 15,000.

With Delta, at least, miles never expire. But since my balance is just 15k I don't really care. Once upon a time 12,500 miles was enough for a one-way domestic ticket. Delta led the way with devaluations years ago. Its Skymiles were dubbed Skypesos by frustrated frequent flyers. Well, the unlimited expiry gives me more time to figure out how to make such a now-small quantity worth anything.

5 Days in the Desert travelog #26
Back home - Wed, 28 Dec 2022, 11pm

We arrived home from our 5 Days in the Desert trip this evening at 10pm. It's been a long day. Though we took it a bit easy this morning, not checking out from the hotel until 9am, we then drove to Trona, hiked around at Trona Pinnacles, and completed the rest of the drive home after a late lunch in Ridgecrest, CA. We drove nearly 500 miles today in addition to the few hours we spent hiking.

Here are Five Things in retrospect about the trip:

1) Lots of driving. I knew at the outset we'd tally a lot of miles going back and forth between staying at a hotel in Barstow and driving out to the desert every day for hiking, but I hadn't thought hard about what it'd total up to. The answer is 1,784 miles. In 6 days.

2) Better driving than flying this week. Driving such long distances is tiring, even though I do handle it better than most people. "Why not fly so you can just sit back and relax?" some ask. This past week... Ha! Commercial aviation has been a trainwreck. Weather woes are tying up more than half the country, and the airline I fly most often, Southwest, has suffered an operation meltdown. They canceled 15,000 flights around Christmas, leaving hundreds of thousands of passengers stranded.

3) Last-minute buys at REI were useful. I was frustrated on Friday morning as we were packing to leave home that I would need to buy a couple of things: another pair of long-leg hiking pants (I had only one set) and a good flashlight (mine was dead with the battery compartment jammed shut). I was even more frustrated when lines at our local REI store moved so slowly. Oh, and the items were expensive: $80 for the pants, $25 for the flashlight, plus tax. Batteries were included, at least. Fortunately both turned out to be good buys. I needed the second pair of hiking trousers, and they worked better than their seemingly cheap material suggested. (Maybe the material only feels thin. I'll know their durability after another few months.) And the flashlight worked well in exploring caves.

4) We overpacked a little— but the preparation was good. In these trip retrospectives I always consider how close to optimal our packing was. Failing to bring things we need is a mistake, of course, but so is way overpacking. It takes up space and slows a traveler down. This trip I packed a few shirts and a pair of trousers I didn't need. They were street clothes. I packed them because I thought we might do non-hike-y stuff, but it turns out all we did was hiking, driving to & from hiking, getting meals after hiking when we didn't care about being dusty, and resting in the privacy of our hotel room. We also packed a bag of games we didn't play. Those were primarily a rainy day strategy (literally!). We thankfully didn't have too much in the way of rainy days to deal with; just a half day or so.

5) Unplugging from work. It's not really a vacation if you're still thinking about work... or worse, if you're still checking in on things/logging in to help out because you really can't unplug from the job. I succeeded in this regard. I not only stayed unplugged from work the whole time, I forgot about it. Seriously, I don't remember what I need to do first when I go back. That'll be my first order of business next Tuesday morning. 🤣 But between us we're 1-1 in this regard. While I unplugged from work on this trip, Hawk put in almost a full day worth of work spread across Mon-Wed this week.

Every year around the new year I do a variety of retrospectives about the year just finished. Several of those are about travel, as that's the main theme of this blog. My travel is complete for the year— I returned from Five Days in the Desert Wednesday night even though I still have a few more blogs to push out from the trip— so I can tally up my 2022 travel statistics even though there's still just over half a day to go in 2022.

Here are Five Things:

Coronavirus remained part of the story in 2022. You would think that 2-3 years on from the emergence of Coronavirus, and 12-24 months past the availability of vaccines, we'd be past it by now. You'd think. But the Omicron surge in late 2021 led us to cancel a planned New Year's Eve trip a year ago and stay home for the first few months of 2022. Coronavirus remained a concern throughout the year. We took precautions on every trip— including wearing masks in all airports and aboard aircraft and other mass transit— and tested ourselves whenever we experienced symptoms that might be Covid.

I flew 32,000 miles in 2022. I track this via flightmemory.com, where you can input your flights and it computes the distance via Great Circle routes. Technically the actual distance I flew with my butt in a seat is greater, as flight plans deviate from Great Circle routes to take advantage of winds and avoid bad weather, but this is the statistic I go with because it's easy to compute. After a few years of very little flying (11k miles in 2020, all in Jan-Feb, and 21k in 2021) this is a partial return to my recent average of 50k/year. Of course it's nothing like the 150k+/year I flew back in the late 00s/early 10s when I was a globe-trotting business traveler.

Speaking of business travel, it's only starting to come back. Trade shows resumed running in-person this year, but meeting clients in person isn't yet a thing again. Partly that's because lots of people in IT haven't returned to offices after Coronavirus. And even where people are back in offices now, company policies and cultures largely haven't reopened to permitting visitors onsite.

I traveled 79 days and 72 nights in 2022. As with flight miles this is up from the past two years though not quite back to my pre-Coronavirus average of around 100/year. The difference is that while business travel remains slower than before Coronavirus I've partly made up for it in my schedule by traveling more frequently for leisure. Almost 80% of my travel in 2022 was leisure. Yay, lots of long weekend trips!

Bucket List items checked off: 0. It was a poor year for crossing travel things off my bucket list. I visited no new US states (I'm still at 49/51), no new foreign countries, and no new US national parks (still at 51/63). I already have trips booked to make progress on 2 of these in 2023. Planning for the third is in the works.

More 2022 retrospectives to come.

Something that's bugged me across the arc of Game of Thrones season 7 on TV is the series's reliance on unearned plot points. The writers have written a number of results into the season's plot that are unsupported by... well... the previous 60+ episodes.

This happens a number of times in season 7. Armies loyal to the queen score major victories... how, exactly? We're told they're depleted of soldiers and money from years of war. Meanwhile their enemy is numerically superior and wealthy. And in one case is holding a defensive position worth a significant force multiplier. Yet the queen's side wins.

The ridiculous victories happen off camera, of course. Some might point out that many great battles in the previous 6 seasons were fought off camera, too. How is this different? It's different because those previous fights were plotted out carefully. George RR Martin wrote painfully long books full of way too much detail about battles. (It's a failing of certain fantasy authors, I've noticed, to be battle obsessed.) Now that the showrunners are firmly beyond everything written in the books published so far, they're totally on their own and they're winging it.... Badly.

It's not just battle results that are unearned. The heroic rescue at the end of S7E6 was unearned. Writers flouted rules of time and space to accommodate lazy writing, then the director sneered at fans for calling shenanigans. The surprise with Petyr Baelish in S7E7 was mostly unearned, too. The writers included major characters suddenly having key bits of knowledge and, more importantly, tight coordination on how to act, without showing how either was accomplished. We can guess where the knowledge came from, but the coordination is hard to believe.

Do other shows take cheap shortcuts in writing to support desired plot outcomes? Of course they do. And I call them out when they happen in those shows, too. But the TV writing for Game of Thrones has been fairly tight in that regard, at least up through season 6. That makes the suddenly amateurish writing more appalling.

I've been meaning to write a summary of my experience driving & riding in an electric vehicle (EV) for 500 miles earlier this month. My self imposed deadline is end of month... and here at 9-ish pm on the 31st I'm just going to make it. 😅

What did we Drive?

Two of my friends bought a Hyundai Ioniq 5.

David and his new Hyundai Ioniq 5 (Aug 2022)

Theirs is the SEL trim level with AWD. That's probably a bit more than they wanted, but new car inventory is so tight right now they had to take what they could find. And just finding this one was hard. They searched in widening circles from home, ultimately finding this one at a dealership in Henderson, Nevada— over 500 miles away!

I joined my friend, David, to drive it home from Las Vegas over a weekend earlier this month. BTW, yes, their decision to look that far away instead of giving up was inspired by the decision my wife and I made when we bought a new used car last summer from San Diego. So after an early-morning flight to Vegas one Saturday I met up with David, went to the dealer with him, picked up the new car, and started the 500+ mile drive home.

Five Things

1) "It drives like a real car". That was a joke the car salesman made as he was driving us over to the dealership to complete paperwork. He gets a lot of customers curious about the car, and he knows it well from driving one himself for a year. Some people think EVs are weird. Some have definitely looked weird. But in 2022 they're becoming mainstream in how they look— and how they handle. The Hyundai Ioniq 5 looks, handles, accelerates, and brakes so much like a conventional car— and a nice conventional car, at that—a casual passenger might not notice it's an EV. That's a big part of why Car and Driver magazine named it their EV of the Year a few weeks ago. It beat out Teslas, the Ford Mustang Mach-E, the Rivian R1t, and the Lucid Air (to name just a few) in their comparison.

2) It really is comfortable. This may seem like a repeat of the point above, but it's worth emphasizing. The Ioniq 5 is simply a nice car. It looks modern but not too outré. Inside it's very comfortable, with quality gear. There's definitely no sense of, "You've chosen an EV so you must want to sit in an economical penalty box." The car accelerates well with its two motors and AWD. (The non-AWD version is slower.) Handling is sharp. Although the car has plenty of height on the inside, being designed like a crossover SUV, the lack of a conventional powertrain underneath means the body can sit lower to the ground. The result is interior space without a high step-in height or exposure to crosswinds that taller SUVs suffer.

3) Trips take planning. Alas, this is the Achilles' heel of EVs right now. The infrastructure for electrical recharging is nowhere near as built out as the gasoline infrastructure. In a town of any size, or at an oasis along the highway, you can expect to find a gas station that will sell gas that works in any gas vehicle to anyone with cash or a credit card, and fill up in minutes. With an EV, charger stations are fewer and far between. And you've got to find one with the right plugs. And you've got to find one with fast charging capability or it might take hours to recharge. And you've got to pick one that's in the network you've subscribed to, or you'll be paying a non-member price that makes your recharge no cheaper that refilling a comparable gas car. Thus we had to plan our trip around availability of charging stations and the time it takes to recharge. In particular, that meant a long drive I would've made in one day had to be split across two days.

4) Range anxiety. Although the Ioniq 5 has a stated range of 256 miles on a full charge in practice it can be a lot shorter than that. For one, charging above 80% is slow— so often you'll choose to roll on less than a full charge. Second, and even more crucially, we saw the car's range depleted fast on superhighways in the hot desert. We rolled into Barstow on electron fumes when we should've had 60 miles of stated range left. A similar thing happened on our next tank of electrons, too.

5) Will charger networks get worse before they get better? Two or three companies are already building out charger networks across the country. Right now they're not interoperable. You pay for a membership with one. It's not like gas, where you just pay the pump price at whichever brand station you stop at. And how fast will they grow? In particular, will they grow faster— or slower— than EV adoption? Even in just 4 fillups I saw how recharging could go bad. Right now it works okay, but only because demand is below supply. If a lot more people start driving EVs before networks expand enough, recharging will turn into a time-sink clusterfuck.

EVs aren't for Me— Yet

It was a fun experience driving an EV for a weekend and 500+ miles. Definitely more revealing an experience than test-driving one for a few miles near a dealership. Sadly my conclusion is that EVs are not for me. Yet. The driving experience was fine; but it's all the concerns about the refueling experience that I deem unacceptable. It's kind of a mess now, and it's not clear that it won't get worse before it gets better. And even "better" might not yield a car it's practical to drive ±500 miles in day. That's not something I do often, but it's something I do.

The use case an EV is practical for is the in-town runabout. Especially if you have access to free charging, like at a school or place of work. Hey, if I could buy a special model of gas car that my employer would let me fill up for free, that'd totally change the analysis, too!

Pacific Northwest August Travelog #6
Retrospective

When we travel "Planes, Trains, and Automobiles" we usually pay for some of the trip with points and some with cash. The three-day trip we took to Washington last week was a bit different from most in that we paid for most of it with points. The flights were all on points, the 3 hotel nights were all on points (and a free-night certificate). The only cash cost was the rental car. Here are Five Things about paying for the trip:

Hotels were expensive. Even with staying in small towns and far flung suburbs we were facing prices of $250-300/night. Blame inflation, blame Covid revenge travel (which is part of what's driving inflation), blame having to make last minute plans. It's hard to swallow these prices as I know that 5 years ago I'd have looked to pay half as much.

Points are not free. It's a mistake many travelers new to rewards programs make to think that using points = "Free Trip!" Points have value. At a minimum it costs something to earn them. When I write about earning points with credit cards I always note the opportunity cost of using that card. See, for example, my analysis of the Hilton Aspire American Express two months ago.

It's helpful instead of thinking about points as freebies to think about them as an alternate currency. I could pay for a hotel room with $270 in cash or with, say, 30,000 points. Using points doesn't mean I get $270 for free; it means I made some of my points worth 0.9 cents each. Is $0.009 a good exchange rate? For Marriott points, sure. That's why I used them. Ditto the free night cert I used at a Holiday Inn Express. I look to make those certs worth $150. Using a cert for a room night that otherwise would cost $300 is a great redemption value.

The rental car was expensive, too. That's no surprise as rental prices have been crazy for at least a year now. It's a combination of travel bouncing back (not just "revenge" travel) after car rental agencies had gutted their fleets during Covid. We paid $400 for 3 days. And even that was with a corporate discount rate.

Years ago I stopped pursuing rewards with rental car agencies. I felt it took too long to earn a free day and was too hard to redeem relative to the value. Instead I let them credit me several hundred frequent flyer miles in my choice of airline program each time I rent. Now that cars are way more expensive to rent than several years ago I will reevaluate whether it makes sense to accumulate rental points.

Pacific Northwest August Travelog #5
Retrospective

Often as I wrap up trips I check on how much stuff I packed that I didn't use. Unnecessary stuff is wasted space and weight, and some magazine articles I've read estimate that the average traveler packs as many as 7 pieces of clothes they never wear each trip. But there's also a flip side to packing mistakes: forgetting something you actually do need!

I've often joked that "Every trip I forget one thing" when it comes to packing. Of course that's not a hard-and-fast rule. There are trips where I miss packing nothing. But if nothing else, "Every trip I forget one thing" is a fun rule of thumb. I even test myself as I'm leaving, "Okay, what did I forget this time?"

Again, the answer is often nothing. And sometimes I do forget to pack one thing but it's minor and turns out to be unnecessary anyway. For example, when I traveled for a trade show a few weeks ago I nominally forgot my swim trunks. I remembered that when I arrived at the hotel and rode the elevator up to the 17th floor; there was a poster in the elevator of their pool. I didn't have time to use the pool that trip, anyway, so it seems like a technicality. But I wish I'd gone through the conscious thought during packing: "Should I pack swim trunks? No, I'm not going to have time for the pool."

What I forgot this trip, though, was a doozy. I forgot to pack underwear! I realized it Friday morning in the hotel as I got dressed for the day. Not having time to go shopping that morning I put on the previous day's pair. I was just going to get sweaty with a full day of hiking anyway.

Friday night, before checking in at our next hotel, I stopped by WalMart to buy underwear. It wasn't out of our way as a) the store was literally right on our route, and b) we were buying a few groceries there anyway. But I sure felt chagrined for forgetting to pack something so basic.

In my previous blog I wrote about chain restaurants. We visit them sparingly, prefering local restaurants which are often way better— especially in our area. But sometimes we have a taste for chain food, and when traveling we're more likely to opt for chain food because it's a known quantity in an unfamiliar place. When we were traveling around Colorado a few weeks ago we visited more than our usual share of chain restaurants. Here's a rundown of what we visited during the week & what we thought:

Qdoba: Our first chain food was lunch on Saturday. We picked Qdoba, which is in the same niche as better known competitors Baja Fresh and Chipotle, because we wanted Mexican food. Also, neither of us had been to a Qdoba in at least 10 years, so it was kind of like trying something new. How was it? Meh. The quesadillas we bought came heavy on cheese and light on meat/veg. The cheese seemed to be low quality with a weird aftertaste. We won't go back to one for at least another 10 years.

Pizza Hut: "The 'Hut" is a guilty pleasure for me. I think their pizza is actually good. Well, not good-good, but the one near my home is reliably 3.5/5 stars, occasionally reaching 4/5. I ordered pizza from one in a small town on Saturday night not because it was my first choice but because it was my thirteenth. How was it? Not as good as the one near home, but it got the job done. One of the things I like about Pizza Hut is that, with their online deals, I can virtually always get an excellent amount of food for a very reasonable price. On this Pizza Hut delivered. Well, not delivered, because I went to pick it up, but figuratively delivered. 😅 Also, as an example of why I don't blanket-dismiss chain food, when I bought pizza at two different local restaurants later this trip, one of them was clearly better than Pizza Hut but one was not quite as good— despite positive Yelp reviews.

Dairy Queen: This ice cream chain is a guilty pleasure for both of us, and the guilt here is mostly the "OMG how many calories did I just ingest?" kind. I know from visiting a number of them that DQs vary in selection and quality, though at worst the quality is still at least barely acceptable. How was it? This trip we visited three DQs, using Yelp to avoid a few of the not-so-good ones. As with past experience, the worst we visited was still okay. The other two were like, "OMG that was delicious... but how many hundred calories?"

Famous Dave's: We ate at one of these chain barbecue restaurants Monday night when I was ready for some "red meat therapy", as I like to call it. It was either Dave's or Outback; we picked Dave's because, like Qdoba, we hadn't been to one in about 10 years, so it was kinda like trying something new. How was it? I shared a photo a few thoughts already. Basically, it got the job done. Not great, not quite good, but definitely okay to okay-plus. I could see going back to a Famous Dave's in less than 10 years.

Del Taco: Del Taco is one of those chains we'd eat at more if there were any near us. Instead we look for them when we're on the road in the southwest US. "What's a Del Taco?" you might ask if you're not from this region? Imagine it being like a Taco Bell but with way better food. ...Yeah, I know that's damning it with faint praise. It's still fast food, but we like it. How was it? The store we visited had marginal reviews on Yelp but we found it was exactly what we expected, no more, no less. The negative reviews were likely from people who either don't grasp the decidedly Mexican-American style cuisine they offer (e.g., meals come with fries on the side, not beans and rice) or don't grasp the idea of fast food vs. full service.

Village Inn: This diner we ate at on Friday was actually my first experience with the chain. Inside, the restaurant is decorated in a motif of pale orange and teal, seemingly an homage to the popular Howard Johnson's restaurants of 40+ years ago. I figure that's deliberate as this kind of restaurant caters to people who remember fondly the restaurant scene of 40+ years ago. How was it? I found the menu uninteresting... unless you want breakfast all day or a burger. I'm not much of a breakfast person, especially at 1pm, so I ordered a burger. It was okay. I have no interest in returning. Hawk wanted to go again a day later; I insisted we choose a local diner, specifically one with a broader menu, instead.

One of the things I take pride in, as a frequent traveler, is the ability to pack well. That means not just packing quickly but also, more importantly, packing optimally. Take too little, often because you forget something, and you're without something possibly important and may have to spend time and money buying it while on travel. Take too much and you're slowed down the whole trip with excess baggage. That's particularly important in travel like our Colorado earlier this month where we drove hundreds of miles and changed hotels most days.

I've read that the average traveler on a week-long trip packs 3 entire outfits they never wear. By that standard I've always done well. This trip I packed zero outfits I never wore.

There were a few other items I packed but didn't use, including a sweater and a pair of sandals. I packed both a light jacket and a sweater, prepared for the chance of more cooler weather, especially high in the mountains and/or at night. It turned out even the cooler weather was warmer than I expected. Something about record-breaking heat across much of the Western US. And that pair of sandals.... It was actually a second pair of sandals, a backup in case my main pair finally called it quits mid-trip.

On the flip side of the coin, one item I didn't pack but wish I had was my lightweight rain jacket. It turned out I didn't need it; although we did get rain, my light jacket was enough for the light rain that fell on us while we were hiking. When pouring rain fell, which did happen one afternoon on our trip, we were already indoors. Though if that storm had arrived an hour earlier, or we had been hiking an hour later, I would have gotten soaked.

"Why not just pack everything you might need?" some people ask. Rookie question. Dragging around larger bags, or additional bags, to hold lots of "Just in case" stuff slows you down.

What if you take so much stuff it doesn't fit in the taxi to the airport or your rental car one you arrive? These might seem like extreme hypotheticals, but I've seen them both happen... including on this trip! We threw out one of our suitcases on Day Two because it was in poor condition and wasn't fitting well in our rental car. And I have been past trips where passengers had to sit bunched up because bags were on seats, or had to sit with bags on their laps, because the rental car wasn't big enough to hold everything brought. On a trip like this one, that would've been catastrophic.

Our week-long trip to Colorado earlier this month was paid for, as we do with most of our trips, with a combination of points and cash. Five Things:

The flights, I purchased using points in one direction and cash the other. I decided that based on a complicated calculus I use for valuing when to spend points vs. earn points on Southwest Airlines.

The reason we flew Southwest, aside from its schedule convenience on routes such as SJC-DEN, is the Companion Pass elite benefit I've attained for the past several years. It's basically a 2-for-1 sale whenever Hawk flies with me.

Most of our stays were paid for with points and free-night certs. We only spent cash for two nights. Those were the two we were in an AirBnB.

Some of the hotel nights/certs were mine, some were Hawk's. Often we focus on using mine as I pursue earning them more, but she has a lot piled up with Marriott and IHG that we want to ensure we get value from, too.

Gas was a cash expense. In the past I've rarely included gas in my calculation of travel expenses, but since it's gotten so expensive lately it's become a drag on the fun of road-tripping. On this trip we drove our rental truck 1,340 miles. At an average fuel economy of 24mpg (impressive for a pickup truck!) and an average gas price of $5/gallon, that works out to $279. ...Which, okay, that's less than any one of several of our hotel nights were. Though we paid those on points.

Now that I've caught up on blogging about our trip to Hawaii this month— I posted the final entry earlier today— it's time for a retrospective about the trip. Yes, I'm had plenty of time to reflect on the trip already. Even though I just finished blogging about it, we finished the actual trip six days ago. (This kind of backlog is typical. 😅) Here are Five Things:

1) We packed accurately. I've written before about the pitfalls of overpacking. Travel magazines say that the average vacationer overpacks by 5 changes of clothes. Times even just 2 people that's like an extra suitcase, yikes! I wore every shirt and pair of shorts I packed, nothing wasted nothing wanting. We probably could have saved carrying several articles of clothing each if I'd remembered our timeshare in Waikoloa had a washing machine in the apartment. I don't think that would've made the difference of carrying one less suitcase, but we sure could have downsized one of our medium bags to a small bag.

2) We planned the right amount of time. This trip we spent 4 nights on Oahu, 5 on the big island of Hawaii. While hopping around does tend to be our style, the downside to it can be not spending enough time in any one place to see enough of the great things it has to offer. These were the right amounts of time... because we've visited both islands before. We had 5 nights on Oahu back in December, and we had a short visit to Hawaii a few years ago. If we hadn't been there before, a solid week on one island would've been the right amount of time.

3) Fine-tuning what to look for in a hotel. There are certain things we routinely look for in a hotel. We always scrutinize location, of course. We look for a decent hot tub because we enjoy soaking in hot tubs to relax. We check for whether a refrigerator and microwave are standard in the room. These all checked out fine when we chose the Holiday Inn Express in Waikiki.... But one thing we really missed was a balcony. For most trips a balcony is purely a nice-to-have. For resort-y vacation trips it's a lot more important.

4) Having a one-bedroom apartment rocked. In the past I've been take-it-or-leave-it about having the greater space that (usually) comes with a vacation rental vs. a typical hotel room. This trip, the one-bedroom apartment we had in a timeshare in Waikoloa was awesome. The full kitchen with full-size fridge made it easy to shop for and prepare meals in the room; the breakfast table was both a comfortable place to eat and a comfortable place to use our computers; and the sofa in the living room was great to stretch out on, with or without something playing on the big TV. The location a mile from the beach was still a major disappointment, but the suite was nice. And it had a balcony we used every day.

5) Taking the earlier flight home was right. I mentioned in the last few blogs that our flight home on Sunday required getting up at 6am to dress, eat breakfast, drive to the airport, etc. We seriously considered taking a flight 3 hours later; it would have let us take it easier our last day in Hawaii. But leaving 3 hours earlier left us 3 hours more to take it easy once we got home. We ate dinner in our own dining room, unpacked our suitcases, started a load of laundry, unwound from 9 days of travel, and got to bed at a reasonable hour. That helped us beat the 3 hour time zone change to get up early Monday morning ready for a full workweek. When we've rocketed home late at night on other trips we've been left feeling we're behind the next several days. I remember at least one time we got home late on a Sunday night and didn't unpack our suitcases until Thursday!

The success with coming home earlier this time validates the plan I have for a week-long trip in July to come home a full day early. We'll rocket home with a late night flight; but it will be Saturday night. We'll have all day Sunday to relax, unpack, clean up, and get back into the groove for work the following week.

Among the many things I take stock of around the New Year is my blogging. I set a goal a few years back to average 1.5 posts per day to my blog. Here's a chart of my daily average over the past 2 years:

My Blogging Stats, 2020-2021

A Multiplicity of Goals

When I set goals I don't just set a goal; I set a multiplicity of goals. One approach I often take is bracketing a goal with low, medium, and high marks. Here 1.5 is my target, the "medium" goal, 1.0 is my baseline (low), and 2.0 is my stretch goal (high).

Overall for 2021 I posted 579 entries, an average of 1.58/day. So I comfortably hit my target goal.

On a monthly basis there were hits and misses. You can see that February came in right at 1.0 and April fell short of even that. A few other months came near to 1.5 but didn't quite hit it. They were balanced out by months when I exceeded 1.5, including three months in 2021 when I exceeded my stretch goal of 2 per day. In December I averaged 2.13/day, my second highest month ever.

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.

Fowl Language comic "Life" by Brian Gordon

Fowl Language comic "Life" by Brian Gordon

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.

The Standard & Poors 500 Index in 2021 (Dec 2021)

The Standard & Poors 500 Index in 2021 (Dec 2021)

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.

Fowl Language comic "Life" bonus panel by Brian Gordon

Fowl Language comic "Life" bonus panel by Brian Gordon

"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!

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1041743.html

Every year around the start of the year I take stock of my balances in various frequent traveler points programs, both to see how we'll I've done in accumulating & using miles as well as to set goals for the coming 12 months. Earlier today I posted a wrap-up of my airline miles and status for 2021. Now it's time for the same with hotel points and status.

As with flying, hotel stays have been fewer this year than most— but still more than in 2020— because of Coronavirus. We didn't travel at all in January or February, traveled only once in March, then stayed home again in April. Since May we've only taken 10 trips.

⬇️ IHG: A Surprise Leader

I'm listing Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG), whose portfolio includes Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, first because this year they became my main go-to hotel chain. We stayed 14 nights with their brands.

You might wonder why, if IHG was my go-to chain in 2021, I marked them with a down arrow. That's because I spent more points with them than I earned— and that's a good thing! I started the year with over 431k IHG points, spent a whopping 178k, earned back 18k, and landed with a balance of 272k.

An interesting thing about IHG being my #1 chain for the year is that I didn't spend a single dollar at their hotels. All 14 nights were paid for with points or free-night certificates from our IHG credit cards. Yet despite not spending a single dollar at their hotels I maintain Platinum (mid-tier) elite status with them, also as a benefit of carrying the right credit card.

...Not that Platinum got me much. There aren't a lot of elite benefits to be had at lower properties like Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, where I made all my stays. At those an upgrade is just a slightly larger room with a sofa. And many properties don't like to offer even these modest upgrades on awards stays. IHG's program is best played not for the elite status but as "earn and burn"— rack up the points from stays and promotions, and spend them for free nights.

My plan for the IHG program in 2022 is "earn and burn". On the earning side I expect to net well over 150k by signing up for another of their credit cards. Will I be able to burn more than that, like I did this year with so many awards nights? That's going to take some effort. But, oh the places I could go!

↔️ Hilton: Diamond in the Rough

I finished the year nearly flat with Hilton Honors; my points balance nudged down from 492k to 482k. Along the way I stayed 4 nights at Hilton portfolio hotels, making it my #2 hotel program by activity. As with IHG all 4 of those nights were on points and free-night certificates.

My goal for 2022 with Hilton Honors is the same as it was 12 months ago: Find a good, big redemption opportunity to spend those points on. Or lots of little ones. Or both! A balance of nearly 500k is too much to carry for long as the value of points only ever drops.

Status-wise I remain Diamond elite (top tier) with Hilton because of a credit card. That sure as heck beats having to earn it the old fashioned way with 28 trips or 50 nights of "butt-in-bed" like I used to back in the day. But as with IHG's program, this status didn't actually give me much this year.

↔️ Marriott: Titanium or Unobtainium?

Ah, Marriott. For years they were my #1 hotel choice. For 2021 they slipped to #3 as I stayed only 2 nights, on one trip, in a Marriott hotel. It was a Courtyard next to an interstate.

I hold Titanium status in Marriott's too preciously named Bonvoy program. It's the second highest of five elite levels; the top level requires something like $20,000 annual expenditure. I've got Lifetime Titanium as a result of accumulating 800 qualifying nights and 2 million qualifying points, largely from my years of heavy travel. That status got me very little this year, though.

Points-wise I whittled my huge Bonvoy points balance down from 584k to 567k. That was from spending 20k on an award night and earning a few thousand from a paid night. My goal 12 months ago, and 24 months ago, was to spend down this huge balance with major redemptions. Marriott has made that hard by offering poor redemption rates most of the time. For 2022 I may have to lower my standards for what constitutes a fair value use of points before Marriott lowers it even further on me.

🔄 Hyatt, Choice, Best Western, Etc.: Whatever

Hyatt is a special case. My balance with them was zero for several years but in September I transferred 24k points over from my Chase Sapphire Preferred credit card, promptly redeeming them for 2 award nights in Los Angeles. It was a good value— for the Chase Ultimate Rewards points, about 1.5 cents per point (cpp). Hawk transferred UR points to Hyatt, too; 100k of them to get us 5 nights in Hawaii in December. She got even better value, over 2cpp.

On the one hand I'm inclined to say, "Woohoo, Hyatt!" but really it's "Woohoo, a good use of Chase Ultimate Rewards points!" There aren't enough properties in the Hyatt portfolio for me to want to focus on earning points & status by staying with them. We'll just keep using them as a transfer target for Chase points when opportunities arise.

Crossposts: https://canyonwalker.livejournal.com/1041658.html

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canyonwalker

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Page generated Jul. 9th, 2025 11:44 pm

Entries tagged with retrospective

Wine: 70 Bottles ± 5

Beer: Reasonably in Check

Hard Liquor: A Little Overgrown

Coronavirus: The New Normal

Health

Friends & Family

Career

Finances

The Year Ahead: More Holding Pattern?

⬇️ Marriott: Bonvoy(age), Points

⬇️ Hilton: Diamond Starting to Shine

⬇️ IHG: Burn, baby. Burn!

↔️ Hyatt: A Great Use of Chase Points!

🔄 Choice, Wyndham, Best Western, Etc.: Whatever

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

⬆️ United Airlines: Credit Card Boost— Twice!

↔️ American Airlines: Sitting on Three-Quarters of a Million

↔️ Delta: Also Sitting, But Only on 15k

What did we Drive?

Five Things

EVs aren't for Me— Yet

A Multiplicity of Goals

Top Topics

A Singular Story Continued to Define 2021

Jobs

Family & Friends

Finances

The Year Ahead

⬇️ IHG: A Surprise Leader

↔️ Hilton: Diamond in the Rough

↔️ Marriott: Titanium or Unobtainium?

🔄 Hyatt, Choice, Best Western, Etc.: Whatever

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