I finish my waltz down nostalgia boulevard by rating each year.
10. 2005 – With so little photographic evidence, I must assume that this was not a terribly productive year. And there was the little thing about quitting my Team in Training triathlon attempt. I’m still waiting for my wet suit.
9. 2006 – Like 2005, not a whole lot went on this year. It rates ahead of 2005 due to frequent visits to Austin and a trip to New Orleans and Vegas. Otherwise, it’s pretty much a generic year slaving away at Nortel.
8. 2001 – When I was first putting this list together, I had few memories of 2001. So I figured it must have been a shitty year. But looking back at the pictures I guess it wasn’t that bad. It was the year of our first Limo Birthday party that started a tradition still practiced by us early Feb birthday peeps. It was the year I got Alex and the year of my proto-Walkabout through upstate NY. I guess not a shitty year after all. Well, there was that 9/11 thing. But really, how did that effect me??
7. 2000 – These early years are probably getting short shrift (and if you’re anything like me, you don’t like to be reminded how short your shrift is). So, while not a bad year, I can’t rank it above any of the years that are above it. Which makes sense since that’s general how things are ranked. 2000 was the year of my first trip to San Francisco and Toronto.
6. 2004 – This is the year I finally woke up and moved to the Lower Greenville area. And for that alone it gets ranked highly. Although there’s not much photographic evidence of much going on in my life that year.
5. 2008 – This decade finished strong, but I have to rank 2008 lower due mostly to having a Walkabout that ranks third out of three (still a good time though). The first half of the year was pretty shitty. I’m not really sure why, but much of the first half of this year I was in a fog. But it did pick up with trips to Minneapolis and Southern California for work and the previously mentioned Walkabout to the North East.
4. 2003 – The highs were high this year and the lows pretty low (bye Musso). But as long as there are great moments in a year, it’s going to be rated highly despite the bad times. This year had great trips to New Orleans, Vegas and Colorado, the best Winter League Ever and the year I started becoming a beer snob.
3. 2009 – This has been a really good year. My European Walkabout alone makes it a great year. Plus I got to go to DC and Vermont. And I finally got a job with a pretty good company in the year’s last quarter. But there was those six months of unemployment weigh down this year a bit in the standings.
2. 2007 – The year of my Nortel layoff and subsequent western US Walkabout. If I could chose a year in which I closed the first half of my life and started the second half, this would be the year. The Nortel layoff gave me the opportunity to find the things that are going to be important in the second half of my life. It’s the year I took up brewing and stepped up my commitment to cooking. And, of course, it’s the year I got to see how beautiful the western part of this country is.
1. 2002 – Easily my favorite year of the Oughts. Anchored weekly by Thursday Night Liver Practice at The Blarney Stone (when we would regularly get at least a dozen people, and often many more, each and every week) 2002 was a near non-stop party. From Mardi Gras to Calgary Stamped to 20th Anniversary Hat Games to Blarney Stone’s Birthday Party to Jingle Bell Hell to the start of the Best Winter League Ever. This was a very good year.
Overall, a pretty good decade. So very much better than those fucking 1990s.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!