{"id":2876,"date":"2009-12-31T13:26:32","date_gmt":"2009-12-31T17:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=2876"},"modified":"2009-12-31T13:26:32","modified_gmt":"2009-12-31T17:26:32","slug":"my-life-2000-2009-what-a-crazy-trip","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/12\/31\/my-life-2000-2009-what-a-crazy-trip\/","title":{"rendered":"My Life, 2000 &#8211; 2009: What a Crazy Trip!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m going to do 2 little retrospectives this year, but I&#8217;m going to start with a personal one first, so if this isn&#8217;t your cup of tea, just move on to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2009\/12\/31\/looking-back-2000-2009\/\">the 2nd article<\/a> (which is more about the world at large) and read that instead.<\/p>\n<p>The last 10 years (10 years!?!) have been quite interesting for me, now that I really sit down and think about it. Of course, a lot has happened (which I&#8217;ve written about in more detail elsewhere in my blog), so I won&#8217;t go into details here &#8211; but I will summarize, because summarizing and making &#8220;top X&#8221; lists is what the New Year is all about!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I leave college after 4 years and start my own company (though not by myself).<\/li>\n<li>I got my first apartment in Fitchburg and lived officially &#8220;on my own&#8221; for the first time (the time I spent at college &#8211; even when I lived there over the summer &#8211; only half counts).<\/li>\n<li>Amanda, my long-distance girlfriend from Australia, packs her backs and moves to America to live with me!<\/li>\n<li>Amanda and I get married! Who-hoo!<\/li>\n<li>After a lot of prodding, I finally go back and finish the 2 classes I needed to graduate from college!<\/li>\n<li>Through a very bizzare series of events, I end up with 2 pet rabbits!<\/li>\n<li>I buy a new car (my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/keithius\/2605679901\/in\/set-72157604542127959\/\">beloved Mitsubishi Outlander<\/a>) and end up getting screwed by a corrupt car dealership.<\/li>\n<li>I travel back and forth to Australia more than a few times, and see some really neat stuff while I&#8217;m there!<\/li>\n<li>I learn to cook more than just the meat &amp; potato casseroles I used to eat in college.<\/li>\n<li>I move to New Jersey! (And I get to work from home!)<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;ve gotten better at acting &#8220;grown-up&#8221; (though it&#8217;s still an act, because I&#8217;m still a kid at heart)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And that just about brings us up-to-date with the crazy journey that has been my life thus far. It&#8217;s been a wild ride, to be sure &#8211; there were ups, and there were definitely downs as well. But lately there seem to be more ups than downs, which is good, because now that I&#8217;m in my 30&#8217;s I&#8217;m getting too old for the drama of youth. But life is good these days, and fate has been relatively good to me lately, so I have no complaints. And of course I&#8217;m looking forward to the next 10 years of crazy adventures as well!<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sorry if this post has sounded a little sappy, or even self-serving in some ways. However, around this time of year I always like to look back fondly, rather than look back and see all the negatives. I know they happened (I can never forget them), but I&#8217;ve moved past them. I prefer to face the new year optimistically &#8211; that&#8217;s just the way I am.<\/p>\n<p>So, if you&#8217;re looking back at your own life, hopefully you&#8217;ll look more at the positive things rather than the negative things, and see the possibilities of a brighter future ahead. I know I am!<\/p>\n<p>Happy New Year, everyone! See you in 2010!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Looking back at the last 10 years in my life &#8211; what a journey! (And what a handy summary of my life, in case you don&#8217;t want to read the rest of my blog!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[200,3],"tags":[167,240,239,241],"class_list":["post-2876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life","category-personal","tag-life","tag-new-years","tag-retrospective","tag-summary","entry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-Ko","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":708,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2006\/02\/11\/the-progression-of-my-computers\/","url_meta":{"origin":2876,"position":0},"title":"The Progression of My Computers","author":"Keith Survell","date":"February 11, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Just for fun, here's the progression of my computer(s) through the years.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3509,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2011\/09\/12\/the-evolution-of-starkeith-net\/","url_meta":{"origin":2876,"position":1},"title":"The Evolution of StarKeith.net","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 12, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Looking back at the history of StarKeith.net.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Internet&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Internet","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/technology\/internet-technology\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/2011\/09\/starkeith.net-november-2001-300x166.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":884,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/05\/20\/graduating-college\/","url_meta":{"origin":2876,"position":2},"title":"Graduating College","author":"Keith Survell","date":"May 20, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I finally went back and finished the last 2 courses keeping me from my college degree - and in return, I got a new digital camera! Yay!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":615,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/09\/04\/tower-of-power-revised\/","url_meta":{"origin":2876,"position":3},"title":"Tower of Power Revised","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 4, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"The \"Tower of Power,\" as we used to call our entertainment center back in college, has been re-born.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":948,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/10\/26\/amusing-pictures\/","url_meta":{"origin":2876,"position":4},"title":"Amusing Pictures","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 26, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Some gems I found while browsing through my archives. Enjoy.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Pictures&quot;","block_context":{"text":"Pictures","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/pictures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6438,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2025\/07\/14\/most-difficult-decade\/","url_meta":{"origin":2876,"position":5},"title":"Most Difficult Decade","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 14, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The last 10 years (2015-2025) has been the most difficult and stressful decade of my life.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;personal&quot;","block_context":{"text":"personal","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}