I watched the series finale of ER last night and realized that the show had been on for 15 years. That’s a long time. I remember watching the premiere. It doesn’t seem that long but man time does pass by. When I woke up this morning, I had this idea of writing down things I could remember for every year I have been alive. Of course the early years are obviously something I don’t remember but I thought I’d make up a list anyway. This is by no means a complete list, just the things that happen to stick out in my mind today.
1973 – Born in Edmonton, Alberta. Lived not too far from the Commonwealth Stadium
1974 – Turned one year old
1975 – Turned two years old
1976 – Turned three years old.
1977 – Turned four years old. Moved to Beverly near Rundle Park
1978 – First year of school. Kindergarten started two weeks late because of a teacher’s strike
1979 – First grade was different than kindergarten. Used the picture on the wall to know the differences between left and right for years and years to come.
1980 – Grade two was coming along fine. Got my first Gretzky rookie card. Myself and a bunch of other kids worked really hard on a Christmas candle art piece. Whoever guessed the number the teacher put on the back of the paper got to take it home. I cheated. Saw the number written so there was no guess.
1981 – Moved from Beverly to Hermitage Park where I started a new school, Overlander’s. Grade 3. Placed in a special reader group for advanced students. Couldn’t stop laughing at the word wigwam. Grandfather introduced me to computers. Played a lot of computer games at his house.
1982 – Start of grade 4. Hated Mrs Ullman. Made me stay after school for DOING my homework. First computers were introduced to our class. Learned what the GOTO command did. Mom and dad split up.
1983 – End of grade 4 start of grade 5. Mr. Schlotter was my teacher. Best teacher ever. We had a split grade 5/6 class. Made a good friend with a guy named Darren who also loved playing Atari games. Played a ton of floor hockey, street hockey, and benchball. Mom started noticing that I was very small, pale, and dry skinned. Doctor said I was fine.
1984 – Played a lot of Atari. Mom tried to enroll me in baseball. Got hit in the kneecap at my first at-bat. Quit baseball and never joined another team again. Sold 113 pairs of shoelaces for a school fundraiser (mom really did the selling) and won a portable 5″ black and white TV set. Secretary drove me home so I wouldn’t get beaten up and have it stolen from me.
1985 – Finished grade 6 top of my class. Won a sort of student of the year award. Was diagnosed with a thyroid condition. Spent 3 weeks in the hospital. My good friend David brought me a signed card from all of the students in my class. Mom decides to move us to Moncton, NB away from dad. Wants to be closer to her mom and dad. Start junior high school in a new city. First day of class the teacher tells me I’m in the wrong classroom. Grade 1’s are downstairs.
1986 – Feeling the sting of being so small. Getting picked on a lot. Made some new friends.
1987 – Grade 8 was a hard year. Got beat up a lot. LOT of name calling and just being treated like crap. Despite all that, I fell in love for the first time. She never knew a thing. Started grade 9. The teasing started to wear off.
1988 – Finished junior high school. Met who would become a long time friend when he followed me home from school. I miss you J.C. Had my heart broken at junior prom. Drowned my sorrows in Burger King. J.C. was there to talk me through it. Started high school and met another good friend through J.C., Jason Hyslop. Was introduced to Maclean & Maclean.
1989 – Was sad to see Jason move away to BC. Met Tamara & Valerie in Alexander Park near my place. They would become good friends of mine. Who knew that 14 years later I’d be marrying Tamara.
1990 – The four horsemen (Me, Jason, J.C., and Ben) were born. Snuck into Total Recall by buying tickets to see Ghost Dad instead. Also met Roy, Shawna, & Chris that year. The “crew” was born shortly thereafter.
1991 – Graduated high school with my mom. Had no idea what I wanted to do so I signed up for another year of high school.
1992 – Took Computer Ed at HTHS again because I wanted a better mark than 89. Decided to go to EBCI in the fall to take computer programming. VAJ Magazine was born. Spent a lot of time at The Shipyard.
1993 – A year in Saint John. Went to school at EBCI and had a blast. Did well but didn’t get much out of the education. Great people, horrible city. Never drank, but walked pretty much everywhere in my moose slippers. Dumped a girl over the phone. Moved back home when school was done.
1994 – Worked a little bit for Agriculture Canada but mostly sat around doing nothing. Went to visit my dad in April. Had not seen him in 9 years. Didn’t recognize him at the airport and was very sad to see the life he was living. Visited my old stomping grounds and realized that Edmonton was not my home anymore. Kurt Cobain died that year. Started working at Greco that fall. Needed cash.
1995 – Me and Chris drove to Toronto to see Faith No More in concert. Met the drummer and keyboard player. AWESOME trip.
1996 – Me and Cheez drove to New York City to see David Letterman. Had two front row seats in front of his desk. Had my moose slippers with me but chickened out and couldn’t wear them in front of Dave.
1997 – Drove by myself to Los Angeles and back to Moncton. 15,000 km’s. Saw a lot of cool and weird things. Quit Greco that fall and went back to school to take network engineering. VAJ magazine published it’s last issue.
1998 – Got enagaged. Graduated top of my class and went to work for the school district. Worst job I ever had.
1999 – Got canned from district 2 and was so happy about it. A month later I moved to Poughkeepsie, NY where I went to work for IBM. Some things are meant to be. Got married in May of that year.
2000 – Chose to quit IBM and return to Moncton to teach at EBCI. I know, sounds dumb now doesn’t it? Lasted 6 months before getting a job at Norampac as their IT guy.
2001 – Worked at Norampac as their IT guy. Blogged a LOT of days since there was not a hell of a lot to do there. My grandfather died and the 9/11 attacks happened. All within a week of each other.
2002 – Bad year. Split up with my wife, took a month of work for stress leave, attempted suicide shortly after my birthday, had a miserable Christmas. 2003 couldn’t come fast enough.
2003 – Sort of a rebirth. Took the necessary steps to rid myself of the things that were hurting me. Helped Tormented put on their reunion gig and had the best time ever. Went back to Edmonton to visit my dad and had a much better trip. Went to visit my old teach Mr. Schlotter. Time was ironic. I was taller than him now. Reconnected with Tamara and we started seeing each other. Felt right.
2004 – Bought a house with Tamara and never questioned it. Still working at Norampac and not happy about it. Finally got the chance to get out of there and left to teach at Compucollege.
2005 – Taught at Compucollege where I learned the perils of working for a private college. Didn’t see it before when I worked at EBCI. Great students and great staff. Had a lot of fun. Got married to the best woman in the world. Had an awesome wedding and reception. Life had truly hit a stride that I liked. Took Tamara to NYC where she got the biggest blister of her life from walking so much.
2006 – Got hired at Whitehill and truly started to see my career move in a direction that would be long term. Had a blast working with the folks in my department and in the building. Started travelling to the US for work a lot.
2007 – Watched my son being born as he shot out of my wife’s uterus like a football being fired from a cannon. Doctor almost dropped him. Had no idea being a dad could be this awesome.
2008 – Found out I was going to have another child. A daughter this time. Got to go visit my dad again through a work trip. He’s trying to get things in order so he can move to Moncton. I wonder if it will ever happen.
2009 – Waiting for the birth of my daughter, and 6 months of not having to worry about work. 🙂
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