What in the hell just happened...?

...to the past decade?

As is expected during this time of year, my co-workers and I engaged in a discussion of opinions on how we should consider the past decade. Coworkers in their 50s and 60s pretty much concluded that this has been the worst decade they've lived through. From a political and cultural standpoint, I'm inclined to agree.

Were I to characterize it further (and I did at the time), I'd call it the "absurdist decade." We have people who are famous for.. being famous. Reality TV aside, the shows that most reflect us are comedies like The Office, because it's absolutely insane yet is a decent impression of what working life is like these days. The popular (emphasis) music industry is dead, and what's left is essentially one long advertisement to 13 year old girls.

Don't get me started on the politics or the economics. Let's just say "absurdist" applies there, too.

With this in mind, I engaged in my yearly office ritual of cleaning up my files. 6 gigs of e-mail, a couple thousand pages of recycling, and a full drawer in my file cabinet (4 hours) later, and it was complete. There's a Keane song on the new album that talks about being slaves to our e-mail, so it's good to liberate some of that backup to a flash drive and start anew in the year.

Further to the theme, a purge of the 00's. From my recollection:

December 31, 1999: I was sitting in my Institute-owned apartment (former Olympic housing). I recall having a sinus infection or something, but I got to spend the evening with my girlfriend watching the festivities on TV. Bonus points for the 00's: said girlfriend is now my lovely wife.

January 1, 2000: The world does not end.

2001: We (the future lovely wife and I) graduate college and decide to move to New Orleans to pursue graduate school. The initial attempt at moving becomes one of my lesser moments and somehow results in living in Birmingham for four months to save up some cash and actually get the move done. Wedged in there somewhere was 9/11. I mention it because I recall thinking "perhaps we'll pull together as a country now." Sadly, that looks retarded when I type it.

2003: I crash out of grad school when I realize I don't want to be a professor of mechanical engineering, let alone a professor of mechanical engineering from a university full of dickheads. My first real job is with the City of New Orleans working for the department that is responsible for, among other things, the pumps that drain the city.

December 24, 2004: After a brief telephone affair with the UPS lady at the local office, I propose (not to the UPS lady, to the aforementioned lovely wife). She asks to see the ring first because I forgot to open the jewelry box.

2005: This hurricane thing happens. This is significant for a number of reasons, which I will randomly list: I set the record for earliest bourbon consumption in my lifetime. It is the only time I've cut my way out of a bed and breakfast with a chainsaw. It is the only time I have driven the wrong way on the interstate (it was government - sanctioned). It is the most shameful thing I have ever seen our federal government, construction contractors, and poor excuses for engineers ever do, and it is when I figured out that "political engineering" is unfortunately the most important part of what I do for a living. It is the earliest I have ever changed a cabin air filter after purchasing a car. It is the only time I've been in a bar with no one else except people in fatigues carrying M-16s. It was the second time that I have had a project completely destroyed.

February 17, 2006: As alluded to above, I got married. It is still the single smartest thing I've ever done for more reasons than I can name.

December 31, 2009: I tired of this process, because my attention span has negatively been affected by absurdist humor (gotta blame it on something - joking) and the time-shift disorientation of losing two months of my life in 2005 (not so joking). Suffice to say we fell in love with New Orleans again, fell out of love, moved to our nation's neighbour to the north, hated it, moved to our own little section of Lower Alabama, bought an old house, and... here we are.

In summary: in a single decade I went from clueless college student to... clueless adult. (Just kidding, I think.)

So, what did I learn, kids?

Most of what occurred leading up to me being in an Institute-owned apartment on December 31, 1999 seems like it was handed to me - I was raised on the notion that I was somehow crazy special, and that anything less than a Nobel Prize or millions of dollars by the time I was 30 would be an underachievement. The 00's threw that notion in the trash. That, strangely, is the second best thing that's ever happened to me.

Let's go, 10's.