State of the Ramblings

My blog officially turned 16 years old. It can now drive, or at least go and take the driver's test depending on the state. Or in my case, maybe my blog will be given the school bus driver's permit test at the age of 16 even though I did not go to the DMV to take the school bus driver test. Amazingly, I don't think I ever shared this story in the 16 years of Sean's Ramblings. I mean, there's not much more to the story than that. My mom was really disappointed that I failed the permit test, and I tried to explain that some of the questions weren't in the book. When I mentioned to my driver's ed teacher about the questions, he told me that I was given the bus driver exam. I just thought the DMV had some type of theme to the test. When I went back to the DMV to retake the test, I asked several times to make sure that I didn't get the bus driver test again, and they didn't believe me when I said that I got the wrong test the first time.

Okay, I'm getting way off topic here. The last 12 months have certainly been awful. Well, at least the last 10 months. My dad passed away in March, and the funeral took place right before things shut down due to COVID-19. I've spent nearly all of my time at home or on my street since I returned home from the funeral. Between the pandemic, the state of the country with protests and the election, and The O closing, my blog has covered a lot of heavy topics over the last year. That makes sense when I can't write about going on vacation or attending concerts or sporting events. 

There were some fun posts though. My favorite posts are usually collaborations like when I got predictions from cool people about the 2020s decade and the 2020 election. I also wrote about Cameo, answered 45 questions about turning 45 (though I only answered 33 questions), shared my life in pictures, and really enjoyed reliving the songs of 2000. Oh, I also went viral after last year's Super Bowl halftime show.

While I know that I complained about my kids in posts (and definitely more not in posts), I'm sure that I'll look back one day and be grateful for the amount of time I spent with them over the last year. Before it started getting cold, we played outside nearly everyday. We went on hikes and played football, baseball, or soccer constantly. Inside, there are regular games of Yahtzee and other board games. 

So what's next for Sean's Ramblings? Well, the next 12 months have to be better than the last 12 months. I have friends in the medical community who have started getting vaccines as have some older relatives. (I'm not writing that they're old. They are just eligible to receive the vaccine.) Eventually, I'll get the vaccine too and hopefully there will be some sense of normalcy again. I miss writing about concerts and trips and various activities with my kids. I want to write about more fun things. After a year of many heavy posts, I want to be more positive. For example, maybe I can write about Pittsburgh sports teams doing well. Okay, I don't want to get too crazy here.

As always, thanks to all of you for reading this post and any other posts I've written over the last 12 months or 16 years. I've written before that this is like a journal for me, but I still like when people read it and provide their thoughts and opinions on posts.

Oh, I've also done these state of the ramblings posts for years. Please check out those from, say 2008, to see what I wrote and if it holds up.