Oh, boy.  Where do I even begin? 

“Unprecedented” is starting to lose its novelty. The past few years have given us new climate records, a bull run with no signs of stopping, and a polarized Internet.  It’s as if things are getting lower and soaring at the same time. 
Saying that the world is changing is already a misnomer. The human race has gone through a lot. It’s getting harder and harder to keep up. 

2020 will go down in history as one of “those” years. It was a year marked by disruption and tragedy. As with any situation, something good should (at least) come out of it. It makes you wonder though, at what point do we tell the world to pause and think things through? 

And we haven’t talked about this once-in-a-lifetime pandemic yet. 

The Pandemic 

March. Rumors of an imminent lockdown announcement by the government. Upon confirmation, I attended an emergency meeting at work to discuss next steps. We packed our bags and headed home to our families. 

It was a pretty uncertain time. Reliable, practical information was scarce.  We didn’t know how to react to a situation that was unraveling in real-time. We decided to move in with my in-laws in the suburbs and ride things out there. We bought as much food as we could. Grocery shelves ran out of bread. Everyone downloaded Zoom and MS teams. N95 masks left over from January’s volcanic eruption were ready to be worn again. 

Needless to say, the initial lockdown wasn’t enough. It kept getting extended in two-week increments. Things eased up a bit when the effect on the economy was too hard to ignore. Still, things were far from normal. We accepted our fate, our way of life altered by this event. This is the “new normal.” 

We’ve been fortunate to remain untouched by the virus. But it’s definitely out there, affecting friends and family, leading to death for some. Super spreader events are common, brought about by family reunions and parties. The virus still looms. It threatens our fragility and if we drop our guard, everything can fall apart pretty fast. 

And then there’s fear and anxiety. I tested positive on a routine rapid test at work, inducing panic at home. I ended up taking a confirmatory PCR-test and got a negative result. The anxiety it caused was as real as it gets. 

Living in the new normal 

On some days, it feels like we’re living in a submarine. We’ve spent a big chunk of the quarantine (which is still in effect) inside our apartment. In this submarine, the living rooms serves as the main deck with direct access to our battle stations. My son goes to his desk to attend class in the morning, while Rica and I report to ours. The rest of the crew works in the kitchen and does the laundry. My youngest turns the whole apartment into a playroom. 

Having worked for a couple of startups in a past life, I’ve had my share of working from home. But this is not your usual work from home experience. Your entire household are your de facto classmates and coworkers. You have to mark and optimize your space at home. At any given point, someone is shouting at their computer. Madness. 

We had the foresight to build a proper work area when we renovated our apartment. My wife and I have a table that that we’ve repurposed for work – we get to enjoy lots of natural light during the day too. We’ve invested in a proper printer as well, and it serves most of our needs, my sons’ coloring pages included.  I also invested in an entry-level Herman Miller chair, knowing I’d be on it for a big chunk of my day. It was well worth it.  

We’re lucky to have enough space to assign for work and non-work matters. The living room serves as the main convergence point for us (as it should be) as we observe communal lunch breaks. It’s easy to fall into a bottomless pit of work during the day. You have to draw the line between being “on” and going on a break. 

It’s hard. I can only imagine how hard it must be for other families without the means to carry on with their (now) digital lives. We’ve been lucky and are privileged. Either way, this whole pandemic has upended our lives in big and small ways. The new normal is here to stay. 

A lookback 

As I look back on the past few months, I’m relieved to have survived this pandemic. The time we spend with our children is priceless. Working parents should welcome this as a gift. Our family has gotten closer. I guess one can make lemonade after all. 

I must admit, the first months gave us a bit of a shock. It made me ask hard questions about how I’ve lived my life. Now that vaccination’s underway, things could be back to normal soon. 

It’s going to be weird to pretend that this never happened. 

Running 

I wanted 2020 to be a great running year.  I had my eyes set on the Berlin Marathon, scheduled two weeks after my birthday. I could’ve welcomed my 40th with a full marathon, in a great city and add one more star in my quest to complete the majors. Speaking of which, I do have this goal of running five out of six majors. Boston is out of the question, I don’t have it in me to train for that. 

It was a great plan. My backup, The Marathon du Medoc, was actually closer to my birthday. But it’s a fun race, with wine and foie gras along the course. I can do that that in my 50s. 

You sign up for these major marathons via lottery. I actually signed up back in 2019 but wasn’t lucky enough to get in. Since it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, I went with a tour operator instead. The operator took care of the hotel, race-day logistics and a guaranteed entry to the event itself. I was all set. Training was supposed to start in June. I was also in great condition, still fresh from last year’s Osaka Marathon. 

As soon as the pandemic hit, all the major races started dropping like flies. Runners, already anxious over the pandemic, had to worry about their plans for the year. I can’t imagine how London Marathon runners felt when it was canceled in April. It was a tough year for avid runners. We had no choice but to write it off. 2020 was a bust. 

Running in a lockdown

As I mentioned, we moved to the suburbs and stayed with my in-laws. Good, I thought, at least I could put in some outdoor runs. At the start of the pandemic, everyone had questions about safety: Do we have to wear a mask? Can we still go out to exercise and pretend that the pandemic doesn’t exist? 

It was a little bit of this and a little bit of that at the start. For one, we weren’t allowed to leave the house except for trips to the grocery. As soon as the government realized the value of exercise, they started easing some of the rules. But the damage had been done. I couldn’t believe I lost so much fitness after four weeks of inactivity. I had a hard time running a 5K. 

Gyms were also closed. I had a gym membership for the sole purpose of running on treadmills. Now that I have to run outdoors, I’ve had to experiment with different kinds of masks. I ended up with gaiter but even that was uncomfortable. It’s all fun and games until your mask gets wet, forming a weird moist barrier between you and oxygen. 

By April, I’d had enough and bought myself a neat little folding treadmill. The treadmill, bought online, felt like a blind date. Malls were still closed, so there was no way for you to test them. The seller came through, delivering a huge treadmill at home. I was ready to log some miles again. 

I love treadmills. I’ve trained for marathons on treadmills. It’s also the best way (for me) to do speedwork. I can even go long distances with a treadmill (I managed to run half marathons on one). But it’s not for everyone. 

But wow, I was so out of shape. Even indoors. I tried to run at an easy 10:30/mile pace and still I struggled. I ended up with a slow 11:45/mile pace. It was heartbreaking and frustrating. I used to run at least 25 miles a week. At some point I was happy to complete a 5K. 

Consistency was the answer. It took me roughly 4 months to get into proper shape. But even that was still a far cry from February. It was quite a humbling experience. 

I’m still not at my pre-pandemic fitness level. The prospect of running an “easy” 15K long run sounds daunting. 
I guess I’ll do a 42KM when I turn 42. It was quite a frustrating running year for me. I had to look for another activity, something complementary and fun. 

Cycling 

In 2020, we stumbled upon a lot of things by sheer circumstance (or desperation). After the initial shock, we explore possible solutions around new normal problems. In my case, I needed a sense of normalcy in my running. Sure, I addressed this with a treadmill, but I needed something more. 

Throughout my cardio journey, I never fancied myself as a cyclist. I used to have a folding bike in New York and I used it for sporadic trips around the city, for a few hundred miles over the years. At one point, I sold my bike and settled on a Citibike, which actually did the job pretty well. It was a novelty, going out on bike rides on my way to work for some fresh air and a great view of the Hudson.  

I take pride in the sheer simplicity of running. All you need is a pair of proper running shoes (I go through two pairs a year on average). It’s portable, and a great way to exercise when traveling. It’s also cheap. I’ve had my running watch with me since 2016, a refurbished Garmin Forerunner 235 that I got for less than $200 on Amazon. 

Cycling is quite the opposite. First you have to get a bike. Then you have to get proper kit. You need padded shorts. You need a helmet. Gloves also help. Get a bidon. There’s way too much gear. 

As the pandemic raged on, cycling emerged as a compelling alternative for mobility. Cities started allocating space for cyclists on the road. Healthcare workers received bikes from donors. Meanwhile, people were getting restless, looking for ways to get out of the house and exercise. These were perfect conditions for the great bike boom of 2020. 

My friends took up biking sometime in June and July. I was jealous of friends who were already Zwifting back in March. At this point, I was still on the fence with this whole shtick. I wasn’t sure if the sport was for me. 

All it took was my brother. My nephew was into his mountain bike until he discovered the joys of motocross racing. As a result, he had a full-suspension mountain bike gathering dust at home. My brother asked if I was interested. Since we were staying in the burbs with access to open roads, I figured why the hell not. It was worth a shot. All I had to do was buy a pair of biking shorts. 

My nephew’s bike looked pretty complicated. It was a Merida 7.600 Full-suspension bike which had shock absorbers both in front and at the back. The shifters also looked kinda weird to me. How do you shift up and down? Why is the seat post dropping? What was this thing?!

The term “like riding a bike” held true though. Soon I was taking the first few miles around the village, trying to see if things clicked. Shifting felt weird, only because it was unfamiliar. But the bike felt different. This might actually work. And I could breathe better with my gaiter.

The village was having a little cycling revolution as well. Volunteers converted empty lots and shared space into singletrack courses. Road cyclists, long a fixture in the community, came out in droves. 
It was fun. Open roads, better breathing, this could actually work! 

A few hundred miles later, I more or less realized what I want from cycling. Come September, I was already building a bike I could call my own. 

I don’t quite understand gravel bikes, which was and still is the bike du jour. You take the speed and lightness of road cycling but give it the ability to go off-road. Gravel bikes, in theory, can handle all road conditions. Coming from mountain biking, this made perfect sense to me. I wanted one bike to rule them all. Especially Philippine roads. 

My bike hunt started with the Specialized Diverge. It was a popular and reliable brand with good price points for their entry level bikes. But this was already August, all the value bikes were long gone. My “hunt” led me into an internet rabbit hole, which in turn showed me this cool video: 

Sold. Do they even sell it here? They sure do! And the bike shop is quite close to my apartment. Do they have it in stock? Yes! And in my size too. After a few days of mulling it over, I secured the frame. Things were starting to feel exciting! 

I completed my All-City Space Horse a month after buying the frame. It only took a while because I wanted to space out my expenses. I’m still not used to splurging on exercise-related activity. Again, this was me coming from the world of $100 running shoes. The bike was finally complete, and it did cost me a relative fortune. I got the GRX610 drivetrain alongside other components suggested to me by the shop. I still don’t understand bikes. I had to trust everyone’s recommendations while keeping to a certain budget. 

My bike looks and feels good on the road. I started cold, then increased my mileage while maintaining my running regime. It was pure joy. I made my first brave outing by riding from Makati to BGC via McKinley. This was soon followed by a 40KM ride on my birthday too. Everything took off from there. 

Since then, it’s been cycling milestone after cycling milestone. First it was a tour of Manila, climbing up Antipolo then a fun group ride towards the end of the year. 

I also reconnected with old friends whom I haven’t seen in awhile, even pre-pandemic. I met a lot of new people too, the same people who took up cycling in 2020. They’re all thriving and getting stronger at this newfound hobby. 

I’ve also learned so much about the bike and cycling in general, with a newfound appreciation for all the parts, even geometry, the culture and these nuances. The hobby remains to be expensive, but wow all this freedom is worth it. 
I also wear Lycra now. There’s no turning back. Cycling also made me hungrier. 

Eats

We limited our dining out since the lockdown happened. With a snap of a finger, restaurants we used to frequent closed, some for good. Food delivery apps served as our main conduit to the outside world. 

Pre-pandemic dining 2020 was good though. I discovered the joys of Maggi Masala paired with Samosas in Ricksha Streetside Tandoor in Kapitolyo. I’ve missed it since. I only started eating out in December and we were paranoid about taking our masks off in public. 

I have long lamented how I seemed to have lost my place in the kitchen since we moved back to Manila. We had someone preparing our dinner while we were away at work. This convenience made our lives easier so I’m not complaining. Cooking had to take a backseat. 

Still, we had to find food for the family. We started out a bit cold,  heating stuff ordered from all these sellers we found online. The early days of the pandemic felt weird, we were dining on survival mode. Even food sold at the drugstore was worth hoarding. The same applied for these online food sellers we’d find on Facebook Groups and messaging apps. We went through all the quarantine food fads during the pandemic: ube pan de sal, sourdough bread and sushi bake. There were some favorites too: Cheese Pimiento pan de sal and cookies from Sugarshack in Alabang, a lot of Shakey’s and lots of fried chicken. 

These food groups served as a vibrant lifeline for all things foodie. It was actually pretty great. We tried so many things. Aside from the usual fads, we discovered great home-cooked dishes. We ordered a lot of cheese pimiento pan de sal, fishballs from Tondo, ham from Binondo, and dishes from restaurants long known to be extinct. It was a smorgasbord of pandemic proportions. 

Once we got over the shock of the lockdown, I found my way back into the kitchen. I finally found time to make the things I’d been meaning to cook. My home cooking repertoire got interesting and at times, ambitious. Here are some dishes that I enjoyed, iterating until I got them right (and in some cases, wrong again). 

I’m a huge fan of Siu Mei and I love Char Siu the best. Char Siu, also known as asado in the Philippines, is pretty easy to make. Most of the ingredients are available, some exotic ones in Chinese groceries that have sprung up in Makati. The choice of meat does matter and after many attempts, I’ve decided that fatty pork shoulder is the best.  A thin layer of fat works well with a savory sweet glaze (like ham). I also learned that Maltose is kind hard to handle. It can get sticky! 

I also found time to make Chkmeruli, a Georgian Chicken dish I discovered in New York. Oda House was a restaurant in the East Village that served traditional Georgian fare. I went there for the Khachapuri but stayed for the chicken. I found a pretty simple recipe online and have made it many times. It’s now my favorite way to prepare roast chicken. It’s also simple. Mince criminal amounts of garlic, spatchcock your bird, then pour some milk on top. There’s not much to it. Everybody loves it. The Japanese also discovered the joys of Chkmeruli and are well on their way to make it their own. 

We also made a decent vodka pasta sauce that goes well with fresh pasta.  New York Times’ oven-roasted chicken shawarma found its way back to Manila. Our go-to stir-fried eggs and tomato made a huge comeback as well. We sure could use some comfort food these days. 

Music

What is the role of music in a pandemic year? While anxious over what was happening outside, music, like food, provided comfort. There are a lot of vivid memories attached to my 2020 soundtrack. I remember listening to TOPS’ “I Feel Alive” in an empty Skyway on a drive from Alabang to Makati. This song stuck with me, only because everything felt post-apocalyptic. I needed to contextualize the weirdness. Magdalena Bay’s “Story” made for good background music as I ate by myself in the apartment. Music added a layer of normalcy. 

My top tracks in 2020 were all over the place. Kacy Hill’s “I Believe In You” was calming. Jessy Lanza’s recent album was a lot of fun. Andy Shauf’s “The Neon Skyline” album introduced storytelling in music again. But there was no relative coherence in this. Not that I needed any. At this point in history, you go with what you like, what makes you feel better. 

And then you run with the tried and tested. Scandinavian pop is always good. The ones I’ve been following, Dagny, Marlene and Astrid S, all came out with catchy tracks. Disclosure’s “Who Knew” gave us some good ol’ garage. I listened to some French touch too and I like Latroit/Fred Falke’s “Hungover” the best. I liked some songs by Little Mix (“Holiday”), Cardi B (“WAP”) and Maggie Rogers (“Celadon & Gold”). 

Then you revisit the old. Sonic Youth’s “Jams Runs Free” was essential cycling music and so was Jenny and Johnny’s “Big Wave”. I put Bonnie Raitt’s “Nick of Time” on repeat, figuring out the meaning behind the lyrics. I also went through a weird Kate Bush phase, because I needed “Wuthering Heights” in my life. I don’t know how this happened, but I also revisited Mark Morrison’s “Return of the Mack”. Again, it was a strange year in music. 
It wasn’t boring. Sometimes, you get into things you thought you’d never actually like. 

K-Pop 

We’ve had brief encounters with K-Pop in the past. It was either Blackpink’s “DDU-DU DDU-DU” or BTS’ “Boy With Luv” which we passed off as novelties. Like a toy. Besides, the kids love them.  

Then things lit up like dynamite. It was a normal September evening for us, in front of the TV, looking for random stuff to watch. We noticed a trending video from BTS. We watched it as a family and thought it was pretty good. Little did I know that this was the kindle igniting a fire in Rica. I guess her inner 15-year old woke up, ready for Army enlistment.

It’s not a story about me. It’s about how Rica developed an obsession with BTS. It started out with an appreciation for idol culture, then came biases, and comebacks. She ended up ordering two dolls of her favorite BTS member, V. Then she went deep in their discography. She found her fan community through her friends and some online groups. It was all amusing to watch from a distance. 

There are tales of K-pop widowers – men who have lost their wives to the allure of these gentlemen. I don’t mind this at all. It’s so nice to see people go deep into something they like. It results in a lot of nerds. And that’s a good thing. 
I’ve grown to like K-Pop too. It’s pretty good pop. There’s also an interesting connection between idol groups and Scandinavian producers and songwriters. I ended up listening to a lot of TWICE because I’ve long preferred girl groups. Their songs are a lot of fun and they’re cute. I find TXT’s “Blue Hour” very catchy. There’s a huge chance that I’ll go through the same path as my wife, age-appropriateness be damned. I guess we’re all 15-year olds inside. 
Then there’s the K-Pop machinery itself. They found a way to scale it. As a new fan, you gotta give it to them. Kudos to them for gifting humanity with a little bit of hope. 

Technology 

Society went through a collective digital transformation because of the pandemic. Everyone realized that a lot of things can actually function in a remote world. In the blink of an eye, humanity remapped their workflows to adapt to this new way of living. 

Teleconferencing apps like Zoom, MS Teams and even Google Hangouts had their moment. Zoom came out on top, thanks to relative ease of use and video quality. Even my 5-year old found his way around the service, attending his class through an iPad. Now everyone’s shouting at their computers. I’m actually surprised that it was Zoom and not Hangouts that took charge of the whole situation. I guess people wanted more features, or they liked the novelty of a new app for the new normal. Meanwhile, Skype’s still scratching their head, wondering where their market share went. 

I wouldn’t say it was game changing though. Nothing beats the serendipity and ambient collaboration in the workplace. But we made it this far, and I’d like to think people are as productive as ever. I can also see how this is a bad thing, with people getting Zoom fatigue. It’s a mixed bag, but as long as work hasn’t stopped, then I guess it’s a good thing for everyone’s sake. You just have to draw the line between work and personal time at home. 

All in all, I’ve spent a total of 162 hours for both Zoom and MS Teams, plus 15 for Google Meet. That’s 177 hours worth of video conferencing. My most used app remains to be my email client of choice, Airmail, at 127 hours. 

I logged over 98 hours journalling on Day One compared to 53 hours the year before that. I increased my daily word count from 400 words to 700. I guess I had more to say about the events of 2020. Well, there was a lot to share, so much stuff to process and so much to document. My journaling streak remains unbroken as of this writing. I haven’t missed a day since February 2016. That’s a lot of content people will never see.  Which is the whole point. 

Speaking of streaks, my MyFitnessPal log has gone beyond 1500 days. I thought it was going to be a fleeting thing but I kept at it.  MyFitnessPal is another way to further reinforce my external “memory”. You can tell so much about the food you eat on a certain day and I’ve got a lot of those days to remind me. I’m big on this whole second brain business, allowing me to vividly recreate some days. Down to the most minute details. 

It was also a huge year for Notion, with me setting up dashboards that are actually fun to use. It’s the swiss-army knife of personal databases and notetaking. I’ve built distinct habits incorporated all throughout the week. I use it now to track online purchases, my annual personal KPI dashboard and meal plans. I played around with verticalized DB apps like Paprika, but I still go back to Notion. Things are more accessible this way. While Notion is not a 100% replacement for unitasking apps, it can bring you 80% of the way. And that’s a pretty compelling reason to commit to it. 

Notion is far from perfect. They still haven’t resolved painful performance problems (it’s slow as molasses). There’s still no support for offline mode. It’s not much a dealbreaker yet. But enough of a concern to make me consider switching if a faster, comparable app comes along. This whole notes space might still be volatile. 

The Notion community’s also great. I’ve followed Notion experts and ambassadors, sharing best practices, template and formulas. It can be everything to everyone. I have no regrets moving my notes from Evernote to Notion. 

I still use Airtable for my personal and work database projects. It’s like a garden that you have water and tend from time to time. I’ve stuck to my inventory system – built in 2019 and now I log my grocery receipts for fun. It feels right to store all this data, knowing that one day, I’ll find use for it.  Absolutely nothing wrong with hoarding and codifying information.

Reads 

I made good use of my subscriptions to the Times and the Post, especially in the months leading up the US election. 2020 made me more connected to the news, I needed to make sense of everything. I did struggle a bit with my reading in 2020. My connection to literature was strained at one point, only because fact became stranger than fiction. Still, there were a couple of good reads in 2020 which provided a much-needed dose of escapism. 

My reading portfolio is pretty standard. A mix of popular psychology titles, some memoirs and a dash of culinary writing. Then the usual productivity, entrepreneurship and sporting books. It’s been this way the past five years. 
Then there’s grift lit. A strange non-fiction subgenre featuring tales of disproportionate success and the corresponding fall. This year, I added Reeves Wiedeman’s “Billion Dollar Loser” to my collection. A riveting read, it tells the story of Adam Neumann and WeWork from 2010 to 2019. 

The story struck close to home, I was actually there, in New York City, while this was all happening. It was 2011, seed funding was abundant and startups needed space. Office space was cheap too, thanks to a city still recovering from the financial crisis. Coworking connected these two together, creating an ecosystem that worked pretty well. These were pretty cool places too, they had spa water, and opportunities to network. 

I remember meeting up with new friends in the first WeWork along Grand Street. I met them through New Work City – my first coworking space when I moved to NY in 2011. WeWork knew that startups needed space. They also saw an opportunity to establish a monoculture of sorts. Everyone started talking about pivoting and the hustle. We all read Eric Ries’ “Lean Startup” and treated it like canon. They were at the forefront of the whole silicon anywhere movement. 

It was a time of venture-fueled growth. It also proved to be one hell of a drug for WeWork. Adam Neumann utilized his larger than life personality well enough to be a unicorn. But it also broke the company he built. The book itself wasn’t intended to be a warning, but a parable about unchecked capitalism. The incentive to do crazy big things will never go away. And some people do get away with it. 

Speaking of the New York startup scene, I’ve long been a fan of Prehype’s work so I bought a copy of their book “The Acorn Method”.  They do a lot of things, from working on their startup portfolio to corporate innovation. The book focuses on “Revenue Exploration Studios” – a model for building new scalable busines for large organizations. The same method worked so well for them, resulting in many exits and profitable businesses. I agree with their concept of creating a separate innovation organization in general. This new company should be free from the shackles of enterprise, whether it be IT or Finance. 

Of course, you’d still need support from the mother organization. The book has pointers on how to manage this symbiotic relationship, which can be quite tricky. As someone currently running an innovation unit in a big company, this was quite helpful.   There’s also a lot of expectation management involved in corporate innovation and the book provides a lot of help here. 

Building companies in a startup setting will always be appealing. But the prospect of building something in a bigger organization is much more complex. That makes it challenging and exciting. 

My activities influence my choice of reading. As expected, I gravitated towards cycling literature. Not only did it provide a healthy dose of escapism, but a lot of education on its nuances as well. Cycling is both simple and complicated. Chris Pountney, who circumnavigated the world by bike, came up with two good books. I enjoyed his books, “No Wrong Turns” and “Into the Sunrise”. Pountney is a gifted writer, his narration makes the whole journey quite entertaining. And his books were long! 

I also learned about the colorful life of Lin and Larry Pardey through the book “As Long as It’s Fun”. I’ve long been a fan of cruising books and I was so happy to have stumbled upon this. 

Other notable books in 2020 include “Make Time” by the “Sprint” guys Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, “Ametora” by W. David Marx, which explores the history of American menswear in Japan, and “Lifespan” by David Sinclair, an eye-opener for me. Metformin is apparently the anti-aging pill we never knew we needed (up until we got Type 2 Diabetes). 

I also kept things fresh by reading a few unconventional books. I enjoyed Craig Mod’s “Kissa by Kissa”, a chronicle of the author’s epic walk across the Nakasendo road, sampling tons of Pizza Toast along the way. I’d love to do that one of these days. 

Gaming 

I haven’t had this much fun playing games since 2018 . My gaming device of choice remains to be the Switch. I’m so glad I have one of these things. 

I started the year with a hard commitment to finally finish Pokemon Sword. Thanks to the pandemic, I finished the main storyline in 45 hours. This was my first “real” Pokemon game and I realized how deep this thing can get. I was never much of a Pokemon fan, as I find the gameplay a bit repetitive. The collecting bit was kinda fun, but I didn’t really make a connection with the game in general. 

After Pokemon Sword it was a struggle to find my next game. I tried buying a game here and there, even tried to give Skyrim another shot. I felt lost, opting to think about other things I’d rather do with my time. Except for exercise, I let my mood dictate the type of media I consume at the moment. It can be a movie on Netflix, Reddit, reading a book, or playing a game. 

I bought games like Just Dance, and Jackbox titles to keep us entertained. I bought a copy of Duke Nukem 3D for the nostalgia factor as well. Things weren’t clicking. 

Animal Crossing: New Horizons broke this dry spell.  The game fulfilled its promise of providing a calm and fun experience, which is what we needed back in March. The last time I played an Animal Crossing title was back in 2007, with my Nintendo DS Lite. I enjoyed it then and I still enjoy the franchise now. It’s cute and you get to build and make stuff. It’s no surprise that it thrived in a pandemic. 

But the novelty does wear off. And yes, it does feel like work on some days. Once you’ve expanded your house, you’re pretty much done. Still, it did its job well. I had to look for another game after a few weeks of playing. 

It all changed when I bought Hades back in September.  I didn’t know what to expect save for the fact that it was a well -reviewed roguelike. I flirted with the genre with Faster Than Light (FTL) a few years back and enjoyed it. Little did I know that I would end up having one of the best gaming experiences of my life (at par with Breath of the Wild). It was one of those rare gaming opportunities that happen every three years. I was playing a masterpiece. 

A lot of critics would agree too, with major gaming websites declaring the same. But I’m not here for validation. Hades showed us what a roguelike game could be. They made good use of the core roguelike experience and added deep storytelling in the mix. It made me look at the big picture, ignoring frustrating runs in the process. The deep storytelling served as a solid backbone to the mechanic.  Zagreus leaving the underworld to see his estranged mother was so compelling. 

The game has everything. Rich voice acting, fantastic mechanics and a story worth following. The art direction was also superb too. It was a lot of gaming for $19.99, putting a lot of Triple A games to shame. 

It took me a few attempts to finish the game. After playing it for almost 200 hours, I still feel that there’s so much to experiment on and figure out. I’ll never forget my time in this world they created. 

I guess this also serves as a reminder that good, passionate people build quality games. All those freemium, pay to win games left a bad taste in my mouth.

This makes you nostalgic for a past where games were bought and finished. I am by no means a Triple-A gamer. Heck, I only have a Switch as my gaming device. This didn’t stop me from having such a great gaming year, thanks to studios like Supergiant. No gimmick, just great experiences. 

Election Year 

By November, I was bracing myself as a first-time voter in the US election. It’s been a crazy year for Donald Trump’s politics, and I felt that this was an opportunity to rise against it. 

I’ve lived through the chill Obama years and saw the rise of populism in 2016.  Since Trump’s election, we’ve never seen American exceptionalism at its worst. It didn’t help that social media further fueled polarization in society. I, for one, swung hard left at certain points, only because of what I read online.  We’ve also seen America make terrible decisions on climate change, social justice and immigration. It was the great undoing of Obama’s progressive vision, and it was frustrating to watch. 

We left America, two years into Trump’s term, fearing for its future. 

I would define my politics as center left, with a particular emphasis on the center bit of all things. I’m a sucker for systems, which some people call the “establishment”. No system is perfect, of course. But it does have the ability to optimize. I’m opposed to radical revolution. I’d rather focus on incremental gains. Policy wise, I’d rather things to be on the “just enough” side of things. 

I’ve applied this kind of philosophy in all aspects of my life. I’ll take 10% better than a risky 50% bet. Aggressive political treatments can backfire pretty fast. We’ve seen this happen throughout history in the form of fascism and populism. Look at what’s happened in the past four years. Where did this bring us? 

I do recognize that I’m privileged enough to tell people to wait, rather that demand change now. So there’s that bit too. 

But there is a need for urgent change. Actually, urgent action is more appropriate, because true change itself takes years. We need a leader who can steer the ship straight once again. We have to act on climate change, racial inequality and the wealth gap. 

This is why I aligned myself with Elizabeth Warren’s politics at the start of the election cycle. Ms. Warren has a proven track record, a great work ethic and a great framework on where to take America next. 

I was receptive to Joe Biden when he won the nomination. At this point, I just wanted a sense of normalcy in politics. I’m tired of checking Twitter for crazy presidential antics. I want things to be boring again. Joe Biden was the candidate for me. He seems nice, his policies aligned with what I thought constituted progress. I was happy when he named Kamala Harris as his running mate. I once considered her as my candidate too. 

Election day. I feared the prospect of having another 2016 shocker. It was a pretty anxious day too. I doubted myself and the polls. Maybe Trump’s America is the real America. Early in the night, it showed Trump leading Biden by a few points. My anxiety eased once mail-in ballots started coming in. It was all smooth sailing from there. 

I’m proud to have voted for the Democrats. I felt validated by the whole thing, it was time to move on from crazy politics. I look forward to visiting my adopted country post-pandemic. It may not have the same excitement of the Obama years, but I know things can only get better. America has this amazing ability to self-heal. 

Family 

Now this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience I can get behind. As mentioned above, I’m thankful that I managed to spend enough time with my kids at home during this pandemic. Pre-pandemic, my kids’ days were generally a mystery.  

Working from home gave me a glimpse of their lives. Sure, it’s a disrupted version of it but I’d still take this version over not seeing them at all on a normal weekday. 

I’ll remember all these memories we made at home. It’s the simple things. From assisting Max in his remote class, to making sure Oz’s stimulation levels are in check. It’s sad that they have to spend a big chunk of their toddler years indoors, but there’s nothing much we can do. We took the sensible (but painful) route in this case. On the flipside, our kids haven’t been to the mall in more than a year. This could also be a good thing. 

There’s still a lot of room for improvement. The pandemic found us turning to electronics as pacifying devices. Experts warn of an “epic” withdrawal period once things go back to normal. But screens have become a lifeline, a way for you to get a few minutes to yourself. It does come at a cost. 

Max became a gamer in 2020. So much so that he managed to finish Lego City Undercover in a few weeks without any help. Oz is still into animals (buses are so 2019). 

They’re definitely growing up. Max is turning into a chatty, sassy young kid. He can express his thoughts better. Meanwhile Oz is starting to get a bit naughty as well, but it’s generally funny and in good jest. They get on each others nerves too. But we’re talking about brothers here, with a two-year age gap. It’s bound to happen. 

I never thought I’d share the same office with Rica. It was weird at first but you get used to it. We’ve learned to build new routines to have some semblance of work/life balance at home. Just like my kids, I have a newfound appreciation and admiration for her work. Advertising is hard. Again, the pandemic made the invisible appear. 
It’s good to know that  our marriage can survive a pandemic. We took a lot of things in stride. 2020 was a team effort. 

The pandemic made me more empathetic to my family’s struggles in other aspects of our lives. If there’s one thing we learned from this, it takes a village, in a lockdown, to raise kids (and work on your marriage). 

Turning 40

I also turned 40 this year. This means I have 31 statistical years left in this planet. 25 of those years go to my productive working years, should I decide not to retire early. I’m not even sure if this is midlife or beyond it already.  As I hit this age milestone in life, I still have a lot of unfinished business. There’s still stuff to try and experience, risks I have to take, a nest egg to build and more to see and understand. It feels as if I’m still getting there. 
I’ve lived a colorful life. I graduated from college, got a job, moved to another country, got married, had kids, moved back. You can find the color between those milestones. Somewhere along the way, I ran (and now biked) thousands of miles, ate well and listened to great music. I also forged lasting relationships, pruning others along the way. I learned and unlearned a lot of things too. I fell in love with my craft. 

I couldn’t ask for more. I’ve been lucky.  

I was fortunate enough to celebrate my birthday with family in 2020. Hopefully, I get to celebrate more of these in the future. 

I now have 40 years of memories, with a big chunk of it well-documented. I’ve worked on my tech-enabled second brain for years and I’m reaping the benefits. I can relive the years for a few minutes a day. Of course, living in the present should always be the default. But a healthy amount of retrospection can put a lot of things in perspective. 
Digital memory is a hill I’m willing to die on. I’ve done a pretty decent job of extracting them, from diary entries, photos, foursquare checkins and the food I ate. I know this is a weird thing to be thankful for when I turned 40, but I wouldn’t be here if not for all things I did in the past. Life looks pretty sweet from my rearview mirror. 

Looking Ahead 

As I write this in 2021, one can’t help but feel an overwhelming sense of despair over the state of the world. The pandemic continues to ravage the world with the third wave unleashing its fury. 

I’ve been assigning “themes” at the start of the year. Back in January of 2020, I declared it as the year of adventure. It turned out to be an adventure, just not in the way we expected. 

2021 is going to be a year of renewal. It’s recommitting not only to life pre-pandemic, but to this new person I’ve become after the events of 2020. We have a unique opportunity to release a better version of ourselves. We have a chance to commit to better relationships, to others and ourselves. 

Everyone’s betting on a dramatic comeback, but I’m not seeing it now. The effects might last for a few more years. To be honest, it’s hard to plan ahead when things are volatile. We have to live life by the day. And that’s what people meant by the new normal. 

Hardcore incrementality is where it’s at. As mentioned above, modest growth is better in the long term. As a matter of fact, I reached my personal growth targets last year, despite everything. I should stay the course. I’m not anticipating any major life changes in the next few months. I guess that’s for the better. 

We just have to show up everyday. This means showing up at the kitchen, to your zoom call and in your home gym. Attend to your family, assist your son, be a good husband. These are all good things. 

Things will get more interesting. We’ll find ourselves on a plane, traveling to some place exciting. But even if things aren’t quite back to normal, we still have to commit to better versions of ourselves. 

META 

I thought I’d be able to finish this quick, under the assumption that I would have more free time to write. But it was quite the opposite. 

I’ve spent enough time in front of my screen during this pandemic that working on personal things felt like a chore. I thought the words would also come easily. But here I am, still struggling to put everything into writing. Suffice to say that this isn’t a comprehensive snapshot of my year. 2020 was both interesting, if not historic, and slow at the same time. 

I started writing this back in December 30, 2020. The writing process was more unstructured compared to previous years. I created a recurring task that kept nagging me at work. I wrote around 200 words on a typical day, some going beyond a thousand. I guess writing more on Day One (where I wrote 700 words on average) took away some of my writing juju. 

A lot of work goes into this thing and I have so much respect for people who do this for a living. I finally finished my shitty first draft on April 13, 2021. I ran everything through Hemingway, unsurprised at how bad it was. 
I still compose this essay in Dropbox paper. It’s easier that way.  

Repatriation can be a pretty daunting experience. In the past few months, I tried a couple of things just to see if something would click. While I originally thought I would need a year to transition to life back in Manila, it took me twice the amount of time to fully settle.

On the first day of 2020, I changed my units of measurement from miles to kilometers and my personal accounting currency from US Dollars to Philippine Pesos. I guess you  could say I’m finally home.

Overall, 2019 was a pretty great year. I joined a great organization that allowed me to continue my product work, we moved in to a new apartment, I ran a lot, ate a ton of food, visited Japan for the first time (and enjoyed it) and watched my kids grow and thrive. It was actually a bit of the same, but in a different city with different ways of doing things. Sure, I had to unlearn a lot of things, but I managed to pick up pretty fast.

A new cycle begins. Pretty apt considering I’m turning 40 in a few months.

Travel

It’s great being based in Asia. 2019 travel  was a mix of the familiar and the new. It’s been months since I’ve been on a long haul flight and I don’t miss it at all.

I visited Hong Kong way too many times (in a holiday sense) for it to count as international travel. To us Manila-folk, Hong Kong will always be a convenient travel option. It makes perfect sense— you get there in a little under two hours and upon arrival you immediately enjoy world-class public transportation, eat amazing food and have access to pretty good retailers. Flights can be quite reasonable too, and so are the hotels. A 3-day trip is more than enough to scratch my itch. What’s not to love about this city?

When violent protests broke out in the streets of Mong Kok, I was attending a conference a few blocks away. Curiously, there was a “business-as-usual” air  all throughout the event,  with only a few people worrying as their return flights were canceled. But it was clear, Hong Kong society is entering a transformative era. Things might never be the same again.

Towards the summer months, I joined my wife and her friends for a short weekend in Bali. A big group of us stayed in a villa where we were attended to by a staff of three. The villa had great rooms, a nice pool and a common area. We dined on home-cooked meals and relaxed amidst the view of adjacent rice paddies. It was an honest-to-goodness vacation, I  hadn’t felt  that relaxed in a while.

We did check out the party scene in Bali. We felt our age, kept it real and realized that we’d rather be back in our villa not doing anything.

Japan

We visited three key cities in Japan over two trips, one in May and another in December. This country has everything, tasty food, great people, green parks, fast trains, rich culture, heated toilets and quite possibly the best convenience stores on the planet. What took me so long to go ?

Japan is the current destination du jour for Filipinos. Flights have become cheaper and visa issuance isn’t much of a pain anymore. This meant getting a lot of recommendations prior to our trip. It also helped that my father-in-law is a huge Japanophile, with a particular interest in Japanese trains that made it really convenient for us to get around the city.

Tokyo

We began our journey in Tokyo, where my family traveled with the rest of my in-laws. We were a big group, with two toddlers in tow. That didn’t stop us from doing a lot of things in Tokyo. I took my son to Hakuhinkan, a building filled with tons of Japanese toys, perfect for a kid who’s into Tomica and Plarail sets. We checked out the teamLab: Borderless exhibit and treated ourselves to a pretty trippy light show. We bought gashapons at every opportunity (those things do add up), sampled a lot of food from those Konbinis, bought knickknacks from Tokyo Hands and walked a lot.

For a big city, Tokyo works really well. The public transportation system is great, its neighborhoods bring a lot of vibrance and personality (just like New York) and people are polite. I’d love to see more of Tokyo in the future. I feel we barely scratched the surface.

Kyoto

We hopped  on a shinkansen and made our way to Kyoto, the second leg of our May trip. we settled in a smaller hotel and experienced a city sans the overwhelming urbanity of Tokyo. We had a more relaxed pace during our time there, we opted to just randomly discover stores and restaurants in our immediate neighborhood. The kids even managed to play in a tiny city playground with locals.

We used Kyoto as a jump-off point for a series of day trips to the Osaka Aquarium and the Arashiyama Bamboo forest. We mostly did touristy stuff but even those things were fun enough, after all, we were there for the kids.

Kyoto is probably more representative of Japan. It’s quieter, full of people just minding their own business.

Osaka

I had a different reason for visiting Osaka in December so it was just me and my wife this time around. Osaka is still distinctly Japanese, maybe with a little bit more liveliness in the air. It feels different from Tokyo, it’s just a bit hard to pin down why . Still, we enjoyed the sheer density of the place . The food scene is definitely more vibrant and our appetites pretty much guided us around the city.

Running

It may not have been as great as the previous year but I was still obsessively consistent. In 2019, I ran a total of 2,309 kilometers spread over 224 runs. I ran more indoors, on a treadmill, thanks to a lack of proper outdoor running options in Makati (good thing I can run down south on weekends). Burned through a lot of shoes as well, retiring my trusty long run Mizunos for a new pair (that turned out  better), cursed Nike for making narrower shoes, resulting in a nasty callus that requires a pedicure every six weeks, and rekindled my relationship with Asics.

I’m slower now. I would say by a lot. Easy runs in New York meant running an 8:45 minute mile, now it’s more of a 10:15. But that’s okay. I’m not too bothered.

Coming from the running wanderlust I gained from Chicago in 2018, I ran the China Coast Half Marathon in January and it proved to be one of the toughest 21Ks I’ve ever encountered. As someone used to running flat indoors, the course’s 418m elevation defeated me towards the end.

It was a fun race though. The view from the top was great. Dodging taxi cabs from time to time was weird but kinda added some quirk to the race. It also marked my second half marathon in Hong Kong (the first one was way back in 2010 and  gave me a pretty solid reason to train early in the year.

My official time was 2:00:14. I was happy with it, given the elevation.

After a strong-ish start to the year, I settled into my running routine—- typically 4-5 runs a week, covering 40-42kilometers. I’ve run under the scorching heat frequently enough to know this is not for me. This also meant sacrificing a big chunk of my sleep to wake up between 4-5AM just to avoid 8AM scorchers. Same yearly mileage goal, different ways of tackling it.

Going for a quick run during a holiday has its perks. Not only do you get to see more of the city, you get to offset excess calories from all that eating. I ran in parks, on hotel treadmills (they count), around castles and palace grounds.

I was still yearning to run a marathon. I felt I was in good running shape after the 2018 season. I originally signed up for the Porto Marathon in November but skipped that in favor of something else. Osaka was the more attractive option for me, given its proximity. Also, I didn’t get in any majors in 2019, thanks to my luck with lotteries.

I’m so glad I chose Osaka though. I was already smitten with Japan after our trip last May and  I wanted to see more of the country.

The 12-week training period is the marathon itself. It was a pretty difficult training session for me. Opting to do my speed runs on the treadmill. I trained with the standard McMillan Running program made available to Strava Summit subscribers. Since it worked so well for me in Chicago, I didn’t see any reason why it wouldn’t a second time.

I started my training in September. I jumped at the chance of joining some Berlin and Chicago-bound runners during their taper runs which would help me get over the mental hurdles associated with a grueling 12-week training plan. It was a considerably late fall marathon, which tends to cluster around the late September to early November. At one point, I knew I was going to train by my lonesome. Fortunately, I managed to reconnect with people from my past, and also meet new friends. I joined a training group for Osaka led by Coach Ige Lopez. It was great meeting all of these people. They’re a great bunch.

So yes, I did my usual mix of intervals (doing Yassos again), tempos and long runs. It was hard at times, I remember cramping on one long run in Alabang. I rarely cramp. I knew I wouldn’t be as fast coming into the race. And I was totally okay with that. There was just so much happening in my world, I’d be lucky to do a sub-5. I tried to follow the plan to a T, but life happened so I missed a couple of key workouts. But I had to finish what I started. So I just showed up.

The race itself was wonderful. The weather was perfect, a bit chilly but perfect for running. It was well organized too, with a pretty fun expo experience and great communications with its participants. It’s really something deserving of its status within the running community. In fact, it felt just like a major. With 32,000 runners, it’s not too far off.

And wow Osaka. What a great city. Great food, nice people and culture to boot. Rica and I got there three days before the race so I had ample time to soak it all in and have some glorious local food. We started the race at around 7AM so I was all relaxed and ready by then. It was also a big plus that our hotel was just two blocks away from the start line. I was ready, powered by one egg sando and a couple of carby treats I brought from Manila. They even had this jelly drink that has the same energy content of one cup of rice. It was pretty good. I hoarded carbs minutes before the race.

I needed all of it. The course had a lot of “false flats” – those things that sucker you into running the same pace only to leave you more tired than usual. It was quite scenic though– things you tend to forget once you’re there and focused on the next aid station. So yeah, I remember it as scenic. At the halfway point, clocking in at 2:04, I thought I was doing pretty well, the prospect of a hitting a new PR even possible.

As I ran through the next half of the marathon, my legs started to feel tired (rightfully so). I almost hit the wall in the 30s, if not for the food distributed throughout the course. Osaka is known for all the available treats along the course and it did not disappoint. I was actually full towards the end! It also helped that there were a ton of people – most of them elderly – cheering you on AND ready to give you a hit of their muscle spray which was quite endearing.

I finished the marathon with an official time of 4:13:02. 5 minutes longer than my personal best but 5 minutes less than my projected finish time. I was quite happy with the result. I think I’m going to do more of these in the next few years. Berlin is next.

Eats

No surprise that I sampled a lot of new food with all that travel. It was mostly Asian fare ranging from classics to new, interesting restaurants in the region.

Hong Kong is a great restaurant city, filling that void created when I said goodbye to New York. We had a chance to check out two of chef May Chow’s restaurants, the Little Bao Diner in Causeway Bar and Second Draft in the Tai Hang area. The specialty buns were good, huge and tasty, but I’m now a fan of her LB Caesar and Brussel Sprouts. Naturally grammable sans the stunt food appeal, Second Draft was fun, serving great gastropub fare. We enjoyed her fried chicken that went really well with beer.

Then  we had Cantonese siu mei staples like Yung Kee (we didn’t have the patience to line up at Yat Lok). You’ll always have a good time there. If you feel like splurging some more, there’s Mott 32 for their decadent char siu. Despite all this , I fondly remember those cheap, take-out char siu/siew yoke combo meals from the neighborhood siu mei place in residential Kennedy Town. I’d eat those in my airbnb and be full at probably a tenth of the price of Mott 32.

 We didn’t really eat out in Bali. For the most part we had our villa staff prepare our meals. While their nasi goreng and satay was tasty, it was actually the Gado-gado that stood out. We enjoyed it so much we asked them to make it twice. It was delicious. Otherwise, the restaurant scene, based on our limited experience, was okay. I had an okay burger from an okay Aussie brunch joint, and the food in Mexicola was just plain instagram bait. I’ve had better tacos elsewhere in Asia (read: Lagrima).

Then there was Japan, full of restaurants that get a lot of things right. It was love at first bite with the tamago sando .I ended  up running an ad-hoc taste test across all the konbinis just to figure out which had the best (Answer: Lawson’s). Some of our memorable meals included ramen with a nice seafood base, steak prepared two-ways (grilled and teppanyaki-style), both of which were good. The sushi place we went to, unfortunately, was a tourist trap and was kind of a letdown considering the rest of the restaurants we’d been to . And it’s Japan!

Have you had Tempura so good you completely ignored the shrimp and went crazy for sweet potato (custardy, rich) and baby corn (snappy, fresh)? We chanced upon an unassuming Tempura restaurant in Kyoto, filled with locals, and tucked into one of those side streets. It was magical. Right across it was a karaage specialty restaurant that was also good. We had biru with everything.

Speaking of alcohol, I also drank way too much chuhai in Japan, something my Fukuoka-based friend described as a typical gaijin behavior. I tried as many variants as I could while I was there, from the ubiquitous Strong Zero series to the canned highballs carrying the Suntory and Jim Beam brand. It was cheap, and delivered a nice kick at 9%. You can just imagine my joy when I saw them stocked in some Manila groceries.

I also ate a lot of street meat. From braised intestines in the streets of Hong Kong, to yakitori and kushikatsu in Japan. I should turn this into an instagram project.

Manila remains to be quite a vibrant city for dining. Standouts this year include The Ricksha Street Tandoor restaurant in Kapitolyo where I enjoyed their Tandoori Chicken Salad & Dum Biryani. I also enjoyed Siam Thai BBQ in the same area, proving that you have way better alternatives to those ubiquitous Samgyupsal-esque places all over the city. Elbert’s Pizzeria in Salcedo Village adds further fuel to a growing pizza scene in the city. Metronome was also good.

I’d like to go deep into certain genres of food at this point. I’d like to understand Japanese Curry some more, maybe experiment and find some East Asian food as well.

I’m resigned to the fact that I can’t do as much cooking as I want to. But our household help has proved to be quite a stellar proxy for all the things I’d like to try. Our cook previously worked in the Middle East and brought with her great recipes like Chicken Kabsa (a.k.a. Majboos), Biryani and Cabbage Rolls, all of which were really good. I’m a sucker for mixed rice dishes. I think we should have more of it at home. I also attempted to make kebabs with the wide grilling sticks I ordered from Lazada but can’t seem to get it right. Maybe it’s the lack of a proper charcoal grill. I have to tweak this further.

Music

I wanted to like my Spotify annual review a lot but Something about it was a bit off. All in all, I listened to 2,719 unique tracks from 1,449 artists.

My top 10 tracks for the year were all women-led. Leading the pack was Charli XCX’s single “Gone” from her latest album with me listening to it 253 times. I’ve followed Charli’s work for years now, even before her collaboration with PC Music’s A.G. Cook, and she continues to create the music of the future. Then more of the same from the past years, mostly Scandinavian pop, most of them danceable (I don’t dance). Scandinavian pop dominated my Top 100 list all in all. I listened to a lot of Tilda Austen, Sigrid, Eva, Noonie Bao, Lisa Ajax.

My commute was dominated by podcasts and audiobooks. I’ve narrowed down my Podcast listening to a pretty simple routine. There’s “The Daily” by the New York Times, “Track Changes” by Postlight and the occasional “Splendid Table” by American Public Media and of course “Planet Money” by the NPR guys. Otherwise, audiobooks (more on this later).

This leaves me with room to listen to music during my runs, which kinda explains why this year’s list is poppier than usual. In fact, I listened to music less than the previous year, mostly concentrated -in the months of June and July (at the height of marathon training). I also listened to music at work,  stuff from jazz guy Mathias Algotsson (whose album was aptly titled “Home at Work” followed by the inspired “Home at Work Again”). I also listened to a bit of Lonely Island just for laughs. “Jack Sparrow” remains to be one of the best comedic works in recent history.

As I built my running playlists, I’d often revisit old favorites so it was a big year for that too. In fact, I’ve iterated on my running playlist many times and it’s finally in a good, unstoppable state. As part of my marathon music prep, I come up with two playlists of equal length— a steady first half playlist with lots of pop, R&B and Electro then shift gears with my “And Off We Go” playlist with music from Sonic Youth, The Dambuilders, Com Truise and a whole slew of music you would categorize as “vaguely danceable rock music”. It’s a lot of fun. If there’s one thing to take away from this, just add Sonic Youth’s “Incinerate” and you’ll run faster by at least 20%. The same can be said about Mr Little Jean’s “Good Mistake”. These are timeless power songs. Then there’s “Pogo” by Digitalism. Of course!

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1yZNTmwcVleYB2NK0yOMDe?si=HlsA0TNqSM-LRQk6qvn-YA

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0WA7DQULin7dbTAQrnBLSX?si=tIpU3DkAReGJMtzPW89DPA

As for albums of note, I liked Shura’s “forevher” while Lil Nas X’s EP was an unexpected surprise (I’m partial to his track “C7osure”). I’m also honest enough that “Charli” by Charli XCX was a bit of a disappointment, especially after releasing a lot of bangers in the lead up to the actual release of the album.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1w4oUkhsk2hf4C9r5PxQKZ?si=vSqhl3JsRfe8R2_mVKF7bQ

I continue to “stan” (obligatory “is that what kids listen to nowadays” bit) PC Music only because they’re the best. Like really crazy good. Get on this train. 

Speaking of stanning, I sampled some Kpop, but nothing major. It’s actually pretty good. I respect the scene. It’s just that I’ve reached that point in my life where an album like “Home at Work” is my idea of a good time. I look forward to more music like that in my life. I’m getting old.

Technology

Software done right, is a beautiful, living thing. I love it so much that I practically earn a living from it as a product person. But sometimes these things wilt, either from bad decisions or an emergent alternative that’s good enough to replace the incumbent. As I begin a new decade of computing I said goodbye to software I’ve used for years (some going all the way back to 2004) and said hello to more progressive, hungrier products. It was a bit difficult to mechanically say goodbye, yet I emerged triumphant. I was ready to move forward. Farewell, Evernote and Flickr.

Then there’s social media. Things are generally more inward-looking for me right now. I only published one post on Facebook (only to thank people who greeted me on my birthday – I’m no barbarian) and shared two photos on Instagram in 2019. I still tweeted a lot though, probably more than the usual but then again, Twitter is a weird place. This sense of inwardness led me to finally cut off Flickr, whose community, much to my disappointment, died a long time ago. Couple that with a pretty stagnant and dated product experience, I just knew I had to let it go.

This was also the year of realized disillusion with some hardware brands I’ve grown loyal to. I think Apple has  become too complacent (save for the Airpods, now on my second pair). I was really taken aback by Apple’s response to this whole keyboard fiasco (yet, I got one of those newer Macbook Pros for work) and the lack of any substantial updates on the iOS and iPhone front. It just wasn’t something I wanted anymore. That Apple magic has somewhat dimmed.

I had the option to get a new phone at work so I jumped at the chance and immediately got a Huawei Mate 20 Pro. True confession: I used to view Android fanboys (disparagingly) as the same guys who used to overclock their PCs in the 90s. People who saw complexity and pointless performance as a plus rather than a liability. Let’s just say I ate my words. I love how I can actually customize a lot of things with my phone right now, from custom launchers to widgets.

But the big revelation here was the maturity of the Google ecosystem, which brings me back to my timely farewell to Flickr. Google Photos is what a modern photo management site should aspire to be. Not only  does it offer a better way to view and catalog your photos, it’s great at repurposing your photos. Your photo library becomes this highly personalized source of entertainment, from resurfacing and remixing existing photos to surfacing old photos from the past (in the form of stories). I love how I can autogenerate albums and I actually use its people feature. While there’s valid concern for privacy, given that Google is essentially an advertising business, I’ve more or less adapted a pro-data sharing stance. It’s always a two-way relationship with these platforms.

In a way, my shift to Google could be one of circumstance. Asia is more conducive to an open Internet where sticking to your typical Apple stack  can be limiting (but amazing in the US). Google offers more flexibility. To illustrate, my TV runs on Android TV. Equipped with the Google Assistant, I can now control my Xiaomi air purifier and electric fans through my TV(!) and phone. Of course you can do this with Apple, but your options are more limited.

I still got an Apple Card though. That thing is pretty.

On the note-taking front, I’ve successfully migrated my Evernote content to Notion, where it’s more organized and frankly, prettier. I like the flexibility provided by notion blocks. The ability to have multi-column layouts did it for me. It’s just a superior product experience. It also helps that there are a lot of users out there openly sharing their workflows. Evernote’s community, on the other hand, is dead. And these things do matter. As for notion, it has become a reliable note taking, lightweight project management, trip-planning app for me. Evernote’s old job, which- was to serve as a vault for important, scanned documents has been relegated to Google Drive and iCloud (just for redundancy), I don’t need a notes app for that. Still, there’s so much to improve on the Notion side of things, maybe better search and speed.

I love these morphable apps. Airtable is quite the workhorse– I’m using it as a CMS for some of the sites I manage, a home inventory (inspired by a paid option I found in the wild), planned our move to the new apartment – basically anything that requires a pretty rich database. It sucks as a spreadsheet and should never be considered as one – that’s what Google Sheets are for.

As for other apps, I still use Dropbox paper for general writing, especially product specs and longform content. I’ve tried my hand at Figma and see why it’s better than Sketch but I still find myself using Sketch as my core design tool because I’m just too lazy to learn a new design tool. I never missed a day in my Day One diary and look forward to writing  init every day. The whole Google Suite is just better, even after my exposure to Office 365 at work (is this even a valid argument?).

Slack remains to be my core chat tool, begging everyone at work (who’s used to Viber – the corporate messenger of choice in this market) to sign up. So far, it’s been good. The ones I have to interact with everyday are online so that works out . All I’m saying is, we should compartmentalize. You should separate work chat from the personal. That way you can mute it outside of work. Isn’t that better? Interestingly, Slack usage dropped for a total of 35 hours in 2019, a far cry from my News Deeply days.

Airmail remains to be my go-to mail client, having spent a total of 96 hours on it last year. This was followed by me spending 69 hours on my to-do list. Managing your tasks can have such a huge overhead.

I’ve tried a couple of duds too. Coda.io is pretty interesting but not good enough to make me choose it over Notion. Plus a whole slew of apps I completely forgot about (and there are lots of them).

I had a little bit of fun with hardware this year and it pretty much covers a lot of things. I suddenly had to upgrade my Fitbit Flex, which I loved, after losing it in Osaka in December. It was the third model I used (starting with the Zip, then the One). I needed something  I could put on a clip so ended up getting a Fitbit Inspire right away. I’m quite happy with it and I consider it a huge upgrade from the hyper minimalist Inspire tracker. And I have a better chance of not losing it.

I stand by my policy of having an almost ambient tracker. I don’t need another thing to put on my strap, that’s what my refurbished Garmin Forerunner 235 tracker is for. If you want to maintain a step habit, which I have since 2012, you want something that’s out of the way. I’ve seen way too many people get a Fitbit for Christmas, only to drop it after a few years (you should see my Fitbit friends list).

I also acquired a couple of neat toys that, in a way,  are a reflection of my new life here in Manila. We had to get Air Purifiers for our apartment, one Coway and another Xiaomi to make sure that the kids are breathing cleaner air in the city. I also got one of those Mi Walking Pads, which is a delight to use. I paired it with a cheap standing desk setup and now I have a walking treadmill I use at work. I have no excuse now not to hit my daily 10,000 step quota on days where I don’t run.

 As part of my whole Google ecosystem, I have a Sony Android TV that could be a bit better on the user interface side of things, and a Google WIFI setup that came with my home fiber connection.

I’m currently using a 2019 Macbook Pro (sans Touchbar) for work and I’m quite happy with it (I know I’m seriously contradicting myself here). I upgraded to the newer Airpods after my first generation Airpods died. I do most of my charging with Qi Wireless chargers.

 I’ve more or less kept the rest. My personal Macbook Pro from 2015 is still running pretty well despite showing some physical signs of age and my refurbished Garmin Forerunner 235 is still a workhorse. My phone doesn’t really matter much since they’ve all felt the same, performance-wise since 2017. Only the software has changed.

 The Southeast Asian Internet (in 2019)

It’s been more than a year since I last set foot in North America. I still think about the overall Internet experience a lot but I don’t necessarily miss it. More often than not, it’s really the external factors that irk me from time to time. Case in point, waiting times for Grab during peak hours. It’s really more symptomatic of the market rather than the technology itself, which is considerably more sophisticated than Uber. Lalamove remains to be indispensable for personal errands (without the complicated add-on fees and taxes of American startups). As for services I have yet to try, there are transport services like Angkas and MetroMart for online groceries since Honest Bee had to shut down. There’s a beepbeep.ph, as a service for motorists with their on-demand services. I love it. Klook is also pretty great for traveling, something North America badly needs. Our move to the new apartment was also aided by Transportify, though I had a pretty sad experience with Gawin. There are hits and misses.

I totally dig this whole superapp scene made popular by the likes of Grab and Gojek (which isn’t available in the Philippines yet). To a certain degree, Lazada is also a superapp (I guess in the same vein as Indonesia’s Tokopedia). They all seem to have a core wallet strategy, then offering a whole slew of adjacent services on top of their core offering. Grab can do logistics, food delivery, bills payment and  airtime while Lazada does the same too with airtime. I haven’t completely utilized these apps, going more with Paymaya – a true wallet app with really generous rebates when you pay your bills and groceries. In this superapp world, the incentives are financial for me.

After a period of disappointment, I’ve been happy with our online banking options as well. BPI does it pretty well, followed by Security Bank. I’d love to try Unionbank one of these days. I think they’re well on the right path to make things better.

The Southeast Asian Internet is far from perfect. I’d love to see online pharmacies giving the incumbent Mercury Drug a run for its money. Here in the Philippines, you have an overabundance of lending apps, a classic case of the lechon manok phenomenon. Maybe it’s also time for us to have a good regional ebook and audiobook retailer, although I can see how they’ll have a hard time competing with a juggernaut like Amazon when it arrives on our shores.

Gaming

I went on semi-hiatus this year. I did buy a lot of games though, mostly out of peer pressure and serious FOMO. I wish I had more time to play. I really do. There was an attempt to relive my Zelda experience (by proxy) with Skyrim and although I see and actually appreciate the appeal, the realization that it was going to be yet another 200 (or more) hour game just made it hard for me sustain. It’s great though. It feels as if you can do so much more in that universe. There was also an attempt to play Super Smash Bros Ultimate, but that didn’t work out so well. I’m just not good at playing Smash and I’m totally fine with that.

Tetris 99 was a pretty good distraction and West of Loathing was a throwback to those days we played Kingdom of Loathing at work more than a decade ago. Untitled Goose Game and its novelty wore off after a few attempts. Maybe I’m better off playing “big” games on the Switch. The last game I played, Pokemon Sword was fun. But again, you really have to put in the work here.

I sometimes wish I could find more time to play. After all, I’ve got a TV set in a living room with a Switch. Kids, especially toddlers can be a blocker too. And I’m usually tired by the time I get home. I’m not good at this whole gamer dad business.

But yes, I’d love to play the latest Borderlands game and I still have to check out Subset Games’ Into the Breach.

Reads

I’ve completed Goodreads’ Reading Challenge for the seventh straight year, going all the way back to 2013 – where I set a yearly reading quota of 20. It has since normalized to 30 books a year and I’ve been setting this target since 2015. While it’s good to read all of these books, I’m now starting to feel less attached to what I read. I feel I haven’t been retaining as much, a lot of ideas have been falling through the cracks.

As an aside, I live by very simple rules in my life. Run 1200 miles a year, read 30 books, set aside a certain amount of money for savings and if possible, run a marathon. I noticed everything flows from there. You can see where this is going. I’ve become an achievement junkie and it has somehow led to this state of subpar retention when it comes to books. Maybe I’m measuring progress with the wrong metrics.

I discovered the utility of audiobooks last year, again more as an adjustment to my relocation to the Philippines. It just makes more sense for me to listen to audiobooks while sitting in Manila traffic. It’s essentially the same pattern of media consumption I had in New York, where I would catch up on my ebook reading during my commute. The intent remains the same, the medium just adapted  to its environment. I should note, however, that I tend to retain more information with audiobooks. And this was an unexpected benefit.

I listened to a total of 19 audiobooks last year, translating to a lot of listening hours (considering that an average audiobook is 8 hours long). I guess you could say I listened my way through my reading quota. I’m currently subscribed to Audible, with the occasional purchase of credit bundles. It’s been such a great experience. And they have Android Auto/Apple Carplay capabilities too.

I gained additional credits in my personal MBA in 2019, reading a lot of books about Management and Leadership. I’ve been an individual contributor in the past decade and with my new role in Cignal, so I had to reacquaint myself with these unsharpened skills. I started with the basics, going with “The First 90 Days” by Michael D. Watkins then progressed to Julie Zhuo’s “Making of a Manager”, “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott, “Measure What Matters” by John Doerr and Ben Horowitz’s “What You Do is Who You Are” and “Trillion Dollar Coach” towards the end of the year. This set of books gave me a general toolkit to draw from. And this was something I really needed in 2019. Of the lot, I found “Measure What Matters” to be really inspiring, “Making of a Manager” on the other hand, was quite a good listen, allowing to me to get a refresher course on the basics.

Then there were books that were so below the radar, only the dedicated and curious are rewarded with a find so good that you’re just surprised by its unseen value. I was thinking about Nokia one day and wondered if there was a good case study out there about the company’s history, notably what caused the company to lose so much market share to Apple and Google (by way of Microsoft). In my search, I stumbled upon a pretty boring looking book called “Transforming Nokia” written by its current chairman Risto Siilasma. And here I was thinking, “what? they’re still around?”. This book is a great modern fable of too much success, a company’s decline and its eventual redemption. The prose isn’t entertaining, oftentimes, robotic but the message is clear – with great management – and a great board of directors in this case you can pretty much steer a company to a dramatic turnaround. You won’t hear stories like this nowadays. I have so much respect now for Nokia and its leadership team. They should also write a book on Foursquare and maybe even Vonage.

I remember kidding to someone about completing my “modern grifter” trilogy years a few years back, right after reading “Billion Dollar Whale” and “Bad Blood”. The joke was finally complete when I read “My Friend Anna”, the story of New York City grifter Anna Delvey. It was generally entertaining, as is always the case with high profile scams. As a bonus, and not necessarily part of my imaginary grifter trilogy was Evan Ratliff’s “The Mastermind” – the story of a hacker turned kingpin who somehow built his empire from the Philippines. In Makati no less.

I’m a nonfiction reader by default. I do, however, read at least one fiction book to keep things fresh. In 2019, I read Ling Ma’s “Severance”, a post-apocalyptic zombie novel with a deadpan narrator. I liked the book a lot, it was quite an easy read(listen) and goes to show how boring life can still get when society breaks down.

Other notable books of the year include John Hodgman’s “Medallion Status” and “Vacationland“. I didn’t know he was such a gifted writer, in the same vein as David Sedaris. I also liked the bittersweet saga of Serious Eats, through the almost eponymous book “Serious Eater” by Ed Levine. I also enjoyed Russ Parsons “How to Read a French Fry” as well as Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics”. I wanted to really get into James Clear’s “Atomic Habits” book, maybe I’ll have a chance to read this again. There’s just so much to digest in that book.

There’s still a ton of stuff to read (more of listen) out there. But I have to somewhat tweak my accidental solution to information retention with audiobooks. Goodreads recently clarified that rereads actually count against your reading challenge targets. I think it’s time to revisit some old friends.

Family

My wife chides me for not talking about our family too much. Well, it’s really more of a privacy concern more than anything. But hey, a big bulk of the “action” came from this part of my life. It’s the most important part!

Rica has pretty much transitioned to Manila-life, way earlier than I did. She’s still in advertising, enjoying a leisurely stroll to work (occasionally hailing a Grab) and has taken up spin classes in the neighborhood. The kids on the other hand have been busy during the day with school. It’s funny how 2 year olds like Oz have the option to attend special classes where they learn their ABCs. Max, on the other hand is doing great in a Montessori setting. I’ve taken particular interest in their toys as well, with both kids into cars, the Tomica kind in general. Max has graduated to legos with Oz taking over Duplo duties. I think these toys are great for creating new neural links in their developing brains.

It’s good to be surrounded by family. Again this is one of the major reasons why we decided to move back to Asia. Everything just seems tighter and stronger at this point. We are blessed to raise our family around a community. We wouldn’t  have it any other way.

Looking Ahead

I’d like to have the mental capacity to “create” and “share” again so this means increasing my output. I see a lot of great opportunities towards building datasets and turning it into real products. I love how Airtable has made this whole thing fun and I’m trying to come up with ways on how to do more with it.

On a related note, I’m also loving the growing NoCode movement. While some of us have great memories of visual software development with dreamweaver in the late 90s, I started playing with modern versions like Squarespace and a whole slew of visual page building plugins in WordPress like Visual Composer a few years ago. I think this will result in a new “adept” class of professionals, people who understand how the web should look like without the need for sophisticated engineering. Being tool adept is a great modern, professional skill. You’ll go places with this mindset.

These things are by no means revolutionary. The time is just ripe for greater adoption of these tools. And that’s pretty exciting.

I’d love to go deep with a couple of things in 2020 as well. Maybe I can spend more time in the kitchen, improving my skill. I’m curious about working with flour, water, salt, yeast and all that good stuff. Maybe I can practice again with Jim Lahey’s no-knead bread since I don’t have a stand mixer (nor do I plan to get one, those things occupy so much space). I’d like to learn more about Mexican cuisine. Fermentation is also interesting.

I don’t really have any bold, new initiatives this year. I believe in the power of incremental growth. Small tweaks can really go a long way. I started the year resetting my tools and dropping some. But the core framework (see aside above) remains the same only because it has worked so well for me in the past.

I’m turning 40 this year. I’ve gone through enough cycles already and it’s nice to approach this age in a time of relative stability. I’m happy to be where I am. There’s no place I’d rather be. Not even New York City.

META

This marks my fifth year of writing this yearly essay, but also a reminder that I’ve only been doing this one post a year schtick this whole period. I keep telling myself that I should write more. Some people have told me that they checked out my “blog” and I find myself really embarrassed for subjecting them to this exercise in navel gazing.

But this is such a great exercise in reflecting on the year that was. There’s a tiny part of me that does write this for third-party consumption, only to give some people I’ve lost touch with a sense of catching up (if they can power through all 7,500 words of it). This year was particularly long. I’ve become more verbose in my writing thanks to my daily journaling routine which has progressed from 200 words to a day to more than double. Life remains more or less the same, I’m just getting more comfortable putting it in writing.

I do believe that people will start embracing inwardness soon though and entries like these – putting yourself out there, is going to be a thing of the past. Maybe we’re all tired of keeping tabs. I am.

I started writing this essay on the 23rd of December. Then I started writing a section a day on weekdays. I had to rewrite a lot of sections in the process. It’ll never be perfect. I still see typos and regrettable prose from the previous years. I’ve kept at it on a daily basis, setting up a recurring task for January and February. I finished the first round of copyedits on February 9. It all came together towards the end of February, thanks to my wife! You should marry someone willing to edit this. Photos were added in March. Links came last. I should be more efficient next year. Or reduce the length by half!

Thanks for reading. Whoever you are!