What happened in 2008? Let’s get the big stuff out of the way: 1) Got married, 2) Moved out, 3) Went to France, Japan and California, 4) posted 222 blogs (60% of the days), 5) bought 45 CDs for $184.86, 6) went to TSO 6 times, and 7) only bought 1 camera and 1 lens (which was for my new camera so it doesn’t really count). Well that part was easy; the remaining small and subtle details are hard to summarize. If you’ve been reading my blog over the last year you’ll know what I’m up to! Here are some random moments and thoughts that serves as my attempt to phone in the yearly recap.

This was the year that environmentalism became the cause célèbre (and no, it’s not because I counted 170 Priuses while in California). Perhaps it was the gas prices that sky rocketed up to $1.30/L, or maybe enough people saw An Inconvenient Truth (I finally saw a bit of it on TV). This was the year that stores started selling (reusable) plastic bags for 5¢ or reusable cloth bags for $10. Companies started advertising their environmental goodwill so you can dispose your income on their excess.

A second year has passed working day in and day out at the same job. Those jokes of a four-month switch are long gone, yet it’s quite easy to fall into the rhythm of working. A couple of more blinks and 40 years will have passed by. Which is good and bad, because when things are uneventful, that means not a lot of (career) progress is happening.

This was the year that the first half-black American was voted in as President. Obama will have a lot to work through and I’m interested to see whether he will introduce real reforms into the financial industry. When I took Econ a few years ago, I was disappointed that I missed a chance of a lifetime to make millions in the stock market tech bubble. Little did I know that I would see another bubble where I could have made several magnitudes of fake money less than 10 years later. I missed my chance again. Will another opportunity appear in the next 5 years?

Half of the year was busy, with wedding planning on my mind during the day and occupying the weekend. A big, looming deadline which you cannot work towards was unhealthy as it kept occupying my time but I couldn’t execute on it. But once the wedding was done, I’m in the opposite state, without having to worry about kids running around or crisis situations at work.

My gaming platform of choice moved on from the Nintendo DS to the Xbox360. I don’t bring my DS out much anymore, unless I know for sure that I have to wait 30 minutes or more. One reason is because my friends don’t play as much, but it’s also because my narrow tastes have gone through the DS back catalog and played everything worth playing. I’m still working through the 360 back catalog, but all good things come to an end. Such as Warcraft, I finally stopped playing that after what 5 years?

Posted by Kevin in Blogs Tags: CDs, games, working, worldissues, yearinreview