Happy New Year!

I spent four weeks in Germany with my wife and some of my children. Part of the time, I had some PTO and was able to meet with friends and family. The remaining time I was either working or renovating the new place for my wife. Usually working at my desk using my brain, it was a welcome change of pace to work with my hands and do more manual labor tasks. After seven consecutive days of manual work stripping carpet, removing wallpaper, painting, removing old furniture and crazy wood ceiling…

I get it. We are all waiting for the pandemic to be over. Everybody wants their normal pre-pandemic life back. But will this be possible? What exactly do we mean by saying that? What do we consider normal life? Meeting with friends in person? Meeting anybody in person? Being able to leave your face mask at home? Getting rid of all the restrictions is probably the most important thing for many of us (it’s only a guess).

I got up this morning by 6 am, jumped into my running gear, and headed outside by 6:30 am for a short 2 miles run. It was exhausting, and I was slow. But what’s more important: I did it anyway! It took me 24m and 28s. Slow as hell, but I need to start somewhere to get better. This is a start.

Unbelievable, but it’s already May of 2021! Time flies like crazy, and we are in month 15 of the pandemic. It looks like the US is speeding up things a lot, and people get vaccinated in large quantities. I got my vaccine three weeks ago. This upcoming Thursday, I’ll receive my 2nd shot, and then I should be fully vaccinated two weeks later. The situation is not so great in Germany. Everything goes so slowly, and they are technically still in lockdown. This lockdown started beginning…