 Hey everybody, this is Brian and happy New Year's 2023. It's actually not New Year's yet. It's not even Christmas yet. Recording this a bit early because I'm probably going to have family over the holidays. Once a year, I try to record like a year in review video and that's what this is. And at the very end, I talk about what my plans are for next year. So if you're here for a video tutorial or magic eight ball or anything like that, sorry, this is just a video diary is just me posting this. So later on in life, I can go back and kind of reflect on the year and see what happened. All right. So 2022 I am not going to miss this year at all. This has been just a horrible year. COVID-19 is still a thing. It's raging across the country still. Everybody just kind of acts like it disappeared and it really didn't. Businesses and companies, they expect everybody to go back to work like nothing happened, but infection rates are at an all time high. And now we've got this thing called RSV, which is a respiratory virus basically. It's up cold flues infections RSV. It's up 300% right now. It's ridiculous. I've literally spent, I want to say the last three months of my life having some sort of weird cold flu thing. And it's like every time I think it goes away, either I get a different one or it just comes back. So I haven't really been recording a whole lot. My health just has not been holding up and that's kind of the story everywhere. I went to my wife is actually sick. So I went to go get her cold medicine and like the cold medicine. I was just wrecked. I mean, there was just nothing there. I had to just get her whatever was left on the shelf. And part of that is due to supply chain issues from COVID-19 and just the state of affairs. It's ridiculous right now. And of course, boosters. Everybody's getting boosters now. I'm not, I'm not going to lie. I don't like the boosters. I take them. I have to for work and I don't like them at all. My body doesn't like them either. And I suspect that may have caused some of my health issues. Speaking of health issues in July, I almost died like no joke. I was in the hospital for four days. What had happened was I was going to an allergist for my asthma. It's where they give you injections for immunotherapy to try to boost your immune system. So your asthma is not as bad. And my blood pressure was already crazy high going in there. And I had been on medication for blood pressure and I kept telling the doctor, Hey, look, my blood pressure is high. Should I be doing this? And he said, Oh yeah, no problem. Here's your shot. And the first shot, I wasn't feeling good. And I went back, you know, a week later and told him, Hey, that kind of messed me up. He saw it's not a big deal. Give me another shot. Boom. Instantly in the hospital. Long story short, my blood pressure shot through the roof. So in case you don't really understand blood pressure, normal blood pressure is about 120. I tend to range around 120 to 139. And right around when let me back up here. When COVID hit the scene right around that time, my blood pressure just shot up and I couldn't figure out why. I mean, it was up in the 170s and 180s. So I was already at high blood pressure stage two. Could have been diet, lifestyle, COVID, all these things. It was just weird that it just for no reason just shot up. But they didn't do anything. But when I was in the hospital for four days, my blood pressure was 250 over, I forget it was like 120. I actually noticed about 150. And my pulse was at about 150 and it stayed that way for four days. The nurses were looking pretty concerned. The doctor was looking pretty concerned and they couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. I mean, one doctor literally walks into the room and says, Well, I think your kidneys are failing, but don't panic. And then he walks in the room an hour later goes, Well, I don't think it's your kidneys. I'm concerned you're having a stroke, but don't panic. And then he walks in while you're not having a stroke, but and it just went on from there. It was ridiculous. I mean, he walked in the room one time and I just looked at him and said, If you don't have solid answers, get the hell out of the room. I'm done talking to you. I was just mad at him. He was just doing his job. I'm sure. But so blood pressure just shot up and would not come back down and man. I don't know if you can hear it in my voice, but I'm actually struggling just to record this video, which is why I have not been recording a whole lot. I get it's hard to describe. I get this winded feeling. I'm actually doing much better. I'll go into that, but it just still, I don't feel like I've fully recovered. And that stupid cold thing. I think I'd get another one again. The problem is I really like steak and whiskey and my body really likes vegetables. So me and my body need to sit down and have some sort of conversation. Find like a healthy balance here. I am still married to this lovely woman Tammy. And she gets more beautiful every day how she has not left me or stabbed me in the face repeatedly while I sleep. I have no idea, but we're still together. And you can see in this image, I'm getting kind of hefty there. I was into weightlifting and powerlifting and eating a little too much snacks. I'm getting a little portly and there's me now. That's actually me two nights ago. I slim down a lot. That's my granddaughter, Harmony. And we took them to see the Christmas lights. She was actually very well behaved. And there's Jaconte, the little man. He's super hyper, got ADD, but just try to give these kids a little bit of joy with all the craziness that's going on in the world. And there's the whole troop right there, Harmony, Jaconte, Adriana with the glasses on the right. And then Brittany, who's recently moved down here to town. So she was previously like an hour and a half away. And now her and the grandkids are like literally 10, 15 minutes away. So they've been over a lot more. So just doing the whole family thing. And actually that's me right there with my stepdaughter, Brittany. You can see I've dropped just a lot of weight. I'm actually wearing pants that are smaller than when I was in high school. So I've dropped just a crazy amount of weight. And you can kind of see it in my face. I'm just feeling kind of cruddy and tired. My health is improving. I want to just stress that I'm just not 100% yet. All right, Kay. And this gentleman, we're married. They are not married anymore. I won't go into the details. It just got ugly fast. And Brittany, of course, the other stepdaughter, she's divorcing and moving here to town. See my daughter whenever I can. It just, life's been crazy. Our schedules don't match. I got promoted again recently. That chews up a lot of time. And my health hasn't been the greatest. And she's been sick as well with this stupid RSV crap. And speaking of, let's just offend everybody all at once. So long story short, when I was in that hospital for four days thinking I was going to die, I actually put it out on Facebook and said, hey, I'm in the hospital and isn't looking good. None of my friends, I shouldn't say none. Most of my friends really didn't even reach out. And I'll today bump into people that I haven't seen due to COVID in like a year, year and a half. And they're like, oh, hey, man, how's it going? Like they have no clue what was going on in my life. So I pretty much just disassociated with a lot of people. I just don't care anymore. It's like if they don't want to be bothered with, you know, me almost dying, then I don't really want to be bothered with whatever drama they got. So it's been kind of like a hobby of mine to see how many times I can get banned off Facebook. I think I've got the high score at this point. And I'm not saying that every single one of my friends has betrayed me or anything like that. I'm just people that I thought were friends just really checked out and just didn't give a shit part of my language. I think part of that is they legalized marijuana in Michigan. And a lot of people are getting into the drugs a little bit more than they should. So watching my health as this graphic really shows just trying to slim down and heal up because I really want to spend more time with family here. I miss my daughter. I see her whenever I can. Kay's always there and then Brittany's closer to town with the grandkids. So just, you know, want to really annoy the hell out of this woman for a long, long time. Hopefully she doesn't kill me. She probably will. And friends, you know, a bunch of old friends that I haven't talked to in literally years. We're talking three years, five years, 10, 15 years have reached out. It's ironic the people that I've talked to almost, you know, daily, weekly, monthly just didn't seem to care. And then people I haven't talked to in decades plus are suddenly coming out going, bro, are you okay? Unfortunately, some of those friends really are not friends and they've been asking for money. I had one gal. She popped out of nowhere. Like, I haven't talked to her since almost high school pops out and goes, oh, hey, this is crazy, man. She like, like mad and I saw that like you almost died. Can I borrow $10,000? I just was like, I had no idea what to say. I was like, no, I'm good. Then she got mad and blocked me and then she unblocked me and asked for $15,000. And I'm like, clearly you've made some choices in life that have been bad and just blocked her and moved on. So not all friends popping back into my life are actually a good thing. Did reconnect with a few folks that I miss and when my health gets a little better, I do want to take a couple of road trips just not yet. Oh, politics. I always have to cover politics. The country is hurting pretty bad right now. I have no idea how he got elected. I don't like diving into politics. It was just funny because everybody thought that Donald Trump was going to destroy the country and that Joe Biden was going to be this pillar of light. And it's actually quite the opposite since Joe Biden got into office. This country has just gone, I mean, express elevator to hell going down. I mean, it's just getting bad fast. It's likely not all his fault. But yeah, he's probably not one of the most popular presidents we've ever had. I think a lot of it is the state of affairs. We're coming off of a global pandemic and it's not even over. And of course, now inflation is at a massive all-time high. It's ridiculous. I mean, just going to the grocery store, something that used to cost $2 now cost $10. And of course, you know, I feel fortunate to have gotten a raise. Not many folks have, but you know, we're at like 12% inflation and I got like a 2.5% raise. It's like, what am I going to do with that? I mean, at least toilet paper is back in stock in like 2020. And this guy, Zelinsky, he's been in the news almost all year long. So Russia decided to go in and invade Ukraine. President Zelinsky, he's over Ukraine. He's actually a former comedian, believe it or not, a stand-up comedian. And he is just beating the snot out of Russia. It's just Russia is not as strong as they used to be and they're getting their butts kicked by a comedian. It's kind of funny to watch. I hope that the people of Ukraine are safe. And I hope they join NATO. I really do. I hope that this event with Russia really makes people realize the whole purpose of NATO. And I'm not a huge fan of NATO. We as a country, the United States pour a lot of money into NATO and we get very little in return, but it's for this very reason that NATO exists. I mean, if you don't understand NATO, I beg you, please go to Google and research why NATO was even formed. I think all real civilized countries should be a part of NATO. And my spare time, losing my voice again, apologize, like I said, my health's just not holding up. I've been reading a lot of books. I miss books. They're my old friends. So I'm kind of going back to what I love is just reading a lot of books. And unfortunately, part of what I love is writing programs too and playing video games. I'm really trying to, you know, split my time up and find the best use to my time. So what's in the future? Again, losing my voice. Apologize. That's a good question. Sitting in that hospital bed for four days really made me reassess what's important to me in life. As I'm sure that happens with everybody, it's just part of the human experience. So listening to music in the background. I've had a lot of people come out and go, bro, you are not recording as much as you used to. Are you done? And it's funny when people don't see me active. They think I'm just done. I'm just, I'm slowing down. I'm getting older. My health hasn't been holding up. Trying to heal from my hospital visit. Just a long road to recovery. I recorded this video magic eight ball. It's like an hour plus long video and it took me like 12 hours to record one hour worth of footage. Excuse me. My voice is going out again. And you can kind of tell with my voice cracking and going in and out that it's just, you know, one hour of footage taking 12 hours to record. It wouldn't take me forever to make another course. So I'm just, I'm trying to make shorter videos like these magic eight ball videos are only like 13 minutes long. And even these 13 minute long ones take me a few hours. Unless I do them all in one take. And then I got to like hit my health when it's at like the right spot, like the moon, the stars and the planets all aligned and boom, I'm definitely feeling better for a day. So yeah, magic eight ball. It's takes a little bit of explaining here, but basically during the global pandemic, 2020, I started researching options trading as I think a lot of other people did. And I joined a few groups and I really started developing this thing called magic eight ball and it's a stock market prediction engine. You've probably seen some of my videos out there, but this thing is getting just crazy accurate. This is a chart from yesterday for SPX and I was saying all day long, I shouldn't say I was my program was saying all day long was going to be around 3,800. I think it closed right at this blue line. That's where I'm predicting the closes that green is the history. And it did close right around there. I mean just ridiculously getting accurate. So it's not perfect. It does have some flaws. I've actually started an entire discord channel of it and there are about 100 plus members in here. So it's growing and this is only a few weeks old. So it's just exploding. It's helpful for me because I love programming. So I'm just kind of going back to what I know and what I love. And I'm learning something new with options trading. And along the way, I've met a lot of really great people. Like I joined this group called axe options and it's kind of funny because when I was sitting in that hospital bed, I was reaching out to people that I actually know in real life saying, hey, I'm in the hospital and it's not looking good and they're like, oh, okay. And then these folks, complete strangers on the internet were like, oh my God, I hope you're okay. It was like they were more friendly to me than some of the friends I had, which of course makes you reassess who you should actually be friends with. So again, it's just kind of was one of those shocking events, but I've actually made some friends now in the axe group and these are really great folks. And I'm learning a lot in this group. I mean, just it's like every day I'm learning something new. Keeping up with it is kind of a chore because I have work and family and life and all that. And of course, my videos on Udemy and this number is actually very misleading. It says total students 200,000. It's actually way, way higher than that. And most of these students have actually enrolled in multiple courses. So I do, of course, I get it. I do, of course, want to make more courses. But they're just going to be slow going. Like I said, recording has been slow. Healing has been slow. I just haven't been 100%. So I'm not done. I'm not quitting. I haven't stopped. I'm just slowing down and taking a pause. I want to be around for a really long time. I just got to get all this stuff sorted out. And this cold flu thing, man, I'm telling you this RSV just never seems to go away. So I think I've tried just about every cold remedy out there. Anyways, this is Brian. I want to wish you guys a happy New Year's, happy holidays. And I hope to see you all in 2023. Talk to you later.