Reflections - 2020

[Cudajason]

Hey Folks!

We did this the last couple of years and I really enjoyed reading everyone's.

What are you best worst moments or just reflections on 2019.  Automotive related or otherwise.

I know this year has brought many ups and downs and not everyone will look back on it with fond memories.

For me, this year will always be the year that I got to spend more time then ever with my family, we were able to eat lunch and dinner together most days. I learned that I did not need to be in the office everyday to be productive. I found time almost every evening to walk the dog, and enjoyed it.

In spite of the uncertaintly at the start of the pandemic, I manged to get the biggest promotion of my career and grow my little piece of the business.

Sure I missed out on lots of things, I did not get to see family and friends. Our celebrations at New years will be different. At the end of the day I choose to focus on the positives, and look towards the future.

For all of those reasons and more I will look back on this year with a smile.

So as we charge into the next year, I am hopeful that this year will be even better!

Jason

[Cuda Cody]

 

[YellowThumper]

No words necessary with that pic @Cuda Cody

[YellowThumper]

Congrats @Cudajason.
Have to say this last year was similar.
Spent a significant amount of time (still am) working from home. Work life is busier than ever. Yet because of not sitting in traffic for multiple hours every day. Many more hours spent with family have been great. Side note to that is more project progress as well.
I work in manufacturing for the medical industry. And their products are front line helping thru this.
Have always loved what I do (plastic injection tooling). However for the first time in my 37 year career. I enjoy and appreciate the company I work for.
Wife's work has struggled badly yet they appear to be turning around again.
Finally, my daughter (only kid) has turned the corner for recovery on blown out knee. Both ACL and meniscus torn. 2 surgeries, 2 rehabs and within weeks of full release.  College has already extended her scholarship to cover missed year.
Feeling thoroughly blessed in spite of what this year has thrown at us.
Sadly I have lost several long term and close friends to Covid-19.
So proper perspective remains deep.

[Chryco Psycho]

Well I was planning to be at Carlisle for the 50 th anniversary of the 70 Challengers & Cudas no matter what but it was not to be .
However the best part is that even though I was locked down as much as 168 hrs / week this year , God has provided enough income to cover my bills all the way through .
I am Happy & Healthy thankfully & I am so glad I am in Panama as this is where I am supposed to be , I could not have survived this in Canada & I have helped so many people here with my skills that no one else could have this year .

[cuda hunter]

I happened to take down a respectable deer while archery hunting on the last day of 2019.  So I spent the first week of 2020 carving a deer.  I went to 5 different concerts in January.  Had a great time!  Lots of moshing and crowd surfing!  Then the last week of january and first week of February I sailed on the "shiprocked" cruise.  20 plus rock bands that all play at least twice.  Went to several Mexico stops.  Hung out with many big named bands while on the boat and ended up with a few of those big names coming out to my little town of Salida to hang out with us and do some recreational activities.  I'm pretty sure I got the covid from the cruise ship as many of the people did.  No one died from the boat.  We just shrugged off the covid.  As far as I'm concerned we had the covid here in Colorado in the beginning of October as I had some hunting partners that had it and the doctors didn't know what they had.  Who knows, I may have had the covid back then as I was literally sitting shoulder to shoulder while we hunted in a single cab pick up truck.  No biggie. 
  In the first month of the year I finished up working on my friend from here that I met, BlueSpruce, who passed away and left a widow with a half finished house.  She was able to live in it for the first part of this year and then I helped her sell it and she has returned to New York with her family.  So, Steve's life has come full circle and I'm glad I was able to donate months and months of my time to help him and his widow out.   Good deed for the year. 
  On 2/20/2020 I went to the trump rally in Colorado Springs.  Snuck in through and past about 11000 people in the parking lot in lines to jostle my way to the front middle of the rally.  I was probably 25' from President Trump.  It was a great rally! He's so much more like us than any politician I have ever seen or heard in my life.  Great rally!! 
  After the cruise, my next big trip was Arizona.  The country was on this ridiculous lock down that is causing major issues with small business's.  I went to the desert valley junk yards and walked 4 of their yards out and looked at a ton of parts and parts cars while down there.  Stayed at a vrbo and hung out in Phoenix for a while. 
  Next I went to Pennsylvania.  For Carlisle.  27 hour drive.  Hung out the entire time.  Had a great time, with no mask.  PIcked up a 67 barracuda body on the way home from Carlisle.  Also got some great parts from Carlisle. 
  Then, I packed up my Harley and rode it out to Sturgis.  Rode all around the area.  Saw the presidents at rushmore.  Drove the needles.  Had a great time partying at Sturgis for about a week.  Rode the bike home and put about 8000 miles on the 07 Fat Boy STFX.  Just a total pleasure to hang out with some of those bikers.  To my surprise there was a Shiprocked group at sturgis that I didn't know about.
  Funny thing is that the shiprocked groups are everywhere.  No matter what I go and do there seems to be some shiprockers around.   
  Then after I returned from Sturgis, there was a private concert in Las Vegas that I was invited to through the shiprocked cruise groups.  The cruise and ask4 entertainment is not involved.  Just put together from different people like me that happen to do the cruise ship and like to have activities so shiprockers can hang out.  Otherwise was the band that played.  Sweet little concert.  Had a blast.  Again a little moshing and partying.  Stayed at the trump tower in Vegas.  Great time!
  Then as soon as I got back, hunting season had started.  I coulda shot a 5 point elk on opening day elk season but I chose not to.  I archeried my first Antelope this year.  Tasty guy really.  Then elk hunting again and now I'm deer hunting.  Mountain lion hunting has been slow this year as there is very little snow.  Probably pick up the lion tracks in the new year.
  I sold a speculation home earlier this year.  Hard thing to sell during the pandemic as my agent wasn't even able to show the home, but eventually it sold. 
  I"m building a custom home on the side of a mountain now so I've got plenty of work.  People in California are moving here in droves so I should have work from California money for several years.   Every perspective building client I have talked to from California is absolutely sick of the politics that the state throws at them and they are moving due to this.  Hopefully they don't come here and  mess up this state.  OH, wait!  They already have in the  last ten years.   
I"ve been gathering/;purchasing parts for a 70 V code challenger and just recently I have a guy that has committed to selling me an M46 barracuda that is a driver and set up for a race track.
  I also went fishing for two weeks this year.  Once in the spring and once in the fall.  Caught the largest Wiper i've ever caught.  21" long!  It was great to hang out with my buddies on the lake and camp fires at night. 
  Last winter I got about 8 days of snowmobile riding in. 
  Over the summer time I put about 1000 miles on the dirt bike with my friend that I do shiprocked with.  This year we drove all over the state and did trails that we had not done before.  Since all the sheeple were in their homes and not out on the trails it was a great year for trail riding.  We did two trails that were expert trails.  Very very difficult trails with 4' drops and rises on a single track trail.  No way around, just have to go over.  Definitely the hardest I've ever worked on the bike.

  I know, that's a lot of reading.  I've had a great year!
Sure there were things that interrupted the fun, but all in all it wasn't that bad.   
 

[Brads70]

Wow Josh, looks like you had a fantastic year! I'm envious   

Positives for me were my business has had the best year ever. Covid had very little to do with it, just more people moved in the area and word of mouth. A few were snowbirds not going south.
God looked after my family and I pretty well! We were blessed! We are all healthy and all working and living life as normal as best we can, in spite of covid/government. .
I too suspect my oldest son and I had covid last year between Christmas and new years. I was sick for almost a week and my son a little longer . Its rare for me to get anything more than a mild cold now and then , but that was not fun. In bed for 4 days. Never went to a doctor, not much point, just tough it out. I get some are not so fortunate though. 
Yup there were negatives, but I'm not going to dwell on them.  I will say, I am getting pretty impatient with the border being closed though, Carlisle and missing my family in NC/SC 
I'm really hoping I get the Javelin on the road this summer!   

[cuda hunter]

Gonna have to move down here Brad!

[blown motor]

We, my SO and I, did a three week trip to Florida in February and came back through Rhode Island to visit her daughter. Then Covid hit which really messed up her and I getting together because the border closed. We went nearly three months without seeing each other. That sucked. We found out in June that I could fly to the US so I went June 20 and came back Aug 30. Being away all summer I didn't put many miles on the cars but choosing between her or them is a no brainer. Her and her sister own a camp in the foothills of the Adirondacks and we spent a bunch of time up there, just beautiful. Mid August her back started really hurting her and she found out she had a blown disc between L4 and L5. She had surgery to fix that but before she did her foot started swelling. Her daughter is an OT and was massaging her lymph nodes to get the fluid moving and found a lump under her arm. Turned out to be cancer. So about a month after her back surgery she had a bunch of lymph nodes removed. I was back there again from Oct 13 until Dec 9 and was there for her second surgery and the beginning of her cancer treatments. A week and a half after I got there in Oct she became my fiancee on the shore of a small lake in the Adirondacks. Highlight of the year right there! We're looking forward to better health and freedom to travel in 2021.

[Dakota]

The big plus for us this past year was the wedding of my oldest son.   He and his wife are, by any measure, meant to be together.   I've said multiple times that I've never seen him so happy.   They had to jump through multiple hoops because of Covid, including delaying the wedding by several months, but it finally happened.   It turns out that EVERYONE in my daughter-in-law's family are singers (including several that do it professionally), so the reception was like something that might have happened in a "Sound of Music" sequel.

My son's wedding was in a "Covid Hot Spot" according to the New York state travel guidelines in force at the time, so we had to self-quarantine for 2 weeks upon returning home.   With my wife's endorsement, I spent almost all of that time in the garage working on my Challenger.   It took me another couple of weeks after the self-quarantine expired to actually get it running and on the road for the first time in 8 years.   I don't think I'll ever forget the joy and relief I felt when the engine started on the first try.

A few weeks after our son's wedding, my wife and I reached our 35th anniversary.  How she's put up with me this long, I'll never know, but I'm glad she has.

We count ourselves blessed by not having been financially or physically impacted by Covid, so we try to help where we can with those that have. 

On balance, there's nothing significant for me to complain about and plenty to be thankful for.

[dodj]

I t was a good year for us, if not all that eventful.
We had a Caribbean all inclusive trip booked for the end of March that was cancelled. A trip to the Twin Cities for Mopars in the Park that was cancelled. Both due to Covid.
After that we camping in the bush of north western Ontario. Sat around a lot of campfires. Caught lots of Lake trout and walleye. Shot partridge. Basically ate really well.
Due to my wife and I both working in essential businesses, financially we have been fine for $$. So covid has had minimal impact on us.
My personal opinion is I'm against lockdowns, but in favour of restrictions based on relevant data. Wear a mask people. It's a small inconvenience, easy to do, and you may save someones life. 

[torredcuda]

Overall been a rough year but has ended up not so bad. I`ve been fighting a back injury since May 2019 and finally had to go stop working, luckily we have long term disabilty so bills are getting paid for now. We had three mini vacations planned in 2020 - a long weekend in the spring to check out Virginia for a possible future move, Carlisle and a Disney trip in the fall but all were cancelled due to covid so that was a bummer. The car show season was pretty much a bust but we did buy a camper and at least got to go on a few local camping weekends. Otherwise other than the normal colds and such ( covid -who knows? ) we`ve been healthy and our 6 yr old Ryan has been able to go to school other than a couple weeks of remote. Looking forward to 2021  - Barracuda is getting rebuilt and will be ready for spring, Disney was rescheduled to April and hopefully can go to Virginia and of course Carlisle later in the year.

[FF376]

Like most here this year has been a bust for car events in my area as far as organized events. Looking on the positive side , admittedly not my default setting, we have seen some more social media driven cruise events pop up around here so that's cool. Immediate family healthy and safe, son just got accepted to VCU's School of Engineering and I've been exploring social media more , like this site, and enjoying it. All good stuff.

Professionally it's been interesting. Wife works for the local school system which is still on a virtual schedule so she's at home but that been helpful to our youngest. I'm in the emergency services business and there has not been a quiet moment this year.....

Got some good plans for 2021. Working with my son on his ram resto , some garage rehab work and driving the Challenger more. Maybe even a back to Carlisle trip!

Torredcuda, what part of Virginia are you interested in? Lived my whole life here in the Old Dominion...

[HP2]

The year started out well enough.  My oldest daughter was in her senior year of high school. Her volleyball squad finished 3rd in the state finals, which was exciting to watch. She also qualified for several state level events in swim where she placed respectably. My son was a team lead in robotics and was planning on several trips to competitions in the spring. When covid hit, it derailed all activities but they did have a virtual graduation as well as an in person, outdoor graduation later in early summer.

Since the wife and I are in essential businesses, so we have been busy all year. She is in  tele-conferencing so her business is actually up 400% this year. I continued to go in every day but since I'm in facilities, had to constantly review and update our safety protocols and cleaning efforts in order to reduce the chance of becoming an infection point for our 100 person staff.  This has been the most tiring point of it all is the constant changes and revision we have to look at weekly.

Did manage to get in a couple of camping trips over the summer. Felt great being outdoors and feeling normal for those weekends.

On the car front, finally got all the assembly necessary to fire up the old Dodge. Really wanted to get it running and driving before my daughter left for college. Didn't happen as among everything else, it had a fuel delivery problem it took me several months to isolate and then correct. Once I got that cleared up, it fired right up and I ran in the cam. Sounded great and it was awesome to hear it run again. Unfortunately, by the end of the 30 minute run in it was making something that sounded suspiciously like a rod knock. Shut it down and let it sit until the following weekend. Figured I'd fire it up and start dialing in the carb, yup, sure as snot, it has a rod knock. So now it all has to come out and go through a tear down. This work will probably take me all spring to complete. Figure I'll repaint the engine bay while its out.

On the daily driver side of thing, my other daughter helped me swap engines in a Grand Cherokee we picked up at a massive discount. I've been searching for Jeeps needing repairs and flipping them for mad money. The last couple I've found have been pretty nice and we decided to keep them for kid's transportation so I was impressed that she wanted to help out with it.

The holidays have been okay, but certainly more low key than usual. 

[Burdar]

With the exception of Mopars in the Park and the Mopar Nats being canceled, the year was alright I guess.  The wife got covid in September and was off work for 10 days.  She lost her taste and smell but never had a temp or other symptoms.  She still doesn't have her taste and smell back which she is pissed about.  Hopefully they will come back at some point.  I worked from home for 3 weeks after she tested positive but never got it.  I generally like to stick to myself so all this social distancing didn't bother me a bit.