Changing decades...GET OFF MY LAWN!

This is the last night of my "roaring" 20's. I'm not so freaked out about turning 30, but it certainly begs for a blog post reflecting on the last 10 years or so at the very least, don't you think? Join me on a contrived, overwritten journey down memory lane as I write about the last 10 years and show you exactly why the next 10 years are going to be SO MUCH COOLER.

Let's see, in 2001 I had just finished my first semester of college at Southwest Texas State University. I recently realized that the moment I burned out on majoring in music was when Dr. Jack Somethingorother told me I would need orthodontic work to play the trumpet well enough to pass my juries. There wasn't money or time for that, and I really didn't like my roommate or living in the dorms, so it was back to San Antonio to figure things out. I enrolled at the community college, changed majors a few times, and finally settled on History because I seemed to like it and do well in the classes. I also started taking German and got to a pretty decent speaking and reading comprehension level before graduating 3 hours shy of finishing my minor.

After graduation it was on to USAA and the realization that I was slowly dying as my soul was sucked through a telephone and sent to the wolves known as "members" every day. Some back-to-school plans evaporated and I ended up doing a little vocational school and becoming a scuba instructor. A move to Florida taught me I could live on my own, far away from family. A lay off taught me I could make a big move on limited funds, and I moved to Hawaii where I got a good job at a good dive shop that I had always wanted to work at. Living in Hawaii I somehow figured out how to go it alone pretty well, but was happy to move back to the mainland when I got offered a job managing a dive shop in Florida that some friends were starting. The dive shop job was a total bust. Promises went unfulfilled, the owner had a problem telling the truth, and some of the friends I started the job with backed down on their commitment to the shop, often leaving me as the only decision maker in a game where the choices were often predicated on which choice was least likely to put us out of business rather than what was good for the company.

So I had left paradise, moved back to Florida, had a miserable job, but at least it was a job during the worst recession since the great depression, and something good happened. The other dive shop in town closed down and we hired a couple of their employees. The best hire was a little blonde cutie who had been through worse and had a good attitude that really caught my attention. I went back to school, got out of managing, and started dating the cute girl, named Carolyn. Then she moved in. We adopted a beagle together, and it got serious. The decade takes a strong uptick here. I finished grad school, took a job teaching at a university, and she was looking for a way out of the dive shop quagmire, but we weren't having much luck. One day she saw a job post on careerbuilder.com for couples to teach in Korea, and a year later we've been living abroad for six months. We've been to Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia all in a short 6 months and we're living a comfortable lifestyle away from the job-search-hell of the United States. We don't have a whole lot of extra money, but enough to be able to see a movie here and there. Did I mention we just got engaged? Yeah. Life is great now!

I've spent some time lamenting the fact that the last 10 years weren't all as good as the last two have been, but it gives me a lot of confidence that the richness and quality of life will continue on its current trajectory for a while and that the next 10 years and beyond will be amazing. Which leads to some goals to reach before 31.

1) Get the German back up to snuff. I've been working on this quietly for a while, and I think it's way doable.

2) Start learning French. It would have been useful in Bali, but it'll definitely be useful on our honeymoon in Europe.

3) Go to Thailand. With a new DSLR to share with Carolyn.

4) Save some money towards the big honeymoon in Europe.

5) Start figuring out what I want to do when we move back to the U.S., but not worry about it too much for the time being.

There's the obligatory "another 10 years have passed" post. Contrived, overwritten, and full of weak self-realizations. It had to be done.