Another decade

It seems appropriate that today I reflect on the past 3652 days. Its hard to believe, but when my parents were my age they had a saying, don't trust anyone over 30.

Well lets see, 1997, that was the year Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister of England, for the first time, the country had not been run by Labour for almost 20 years previously. Jean Chretien had just been re-elected, Bill Clinton was inaugurated for a second time, the economy of East Asia made a massive swan dive into the toilet. In the developed World things were really doing well, George Walker Bush was busy mismanaging Texas and had yet to get a chance to screw the entire country over. Donald Rumsfield and Dick Cheney were both working in the private sector when they were not busy starting the Project for the New American Century.

The Internet was starting to make serious inroads into daily life. If you had a PC, in 1997 it was almost certainly running Windows 95, I was triple-booting 95, NT 4.0 and Linux, I think Kernel 2.0.something. The web browser of choice for me in early 97 was almost certainly Netscape, but by the end of 97 it was probably IE 3 or 4. Remember Justice Thomas Penfield Jackson? The Microsoft Antitrust trial wouldn't start for another year.

I was an avid cyclist in those days, I had a brief foray into inlines several years earlier but decided that it was too dangerous a method to get to school. State of the art inline speed skates back in those days had five 84mm wheels, or were they 80mm? On ice the clap skate was around for a while but it wasn't until 1996 or 1997 that it really started to get noticed.

Personally, 1997 was the year I went from Grade 13 to first year Math at Waterloo.

Since then, lets see, well I've got a Bachelors in Math (Honours) Co-op, major in Computer Science from Waterloo. I've also got a Masters Computer Engineering, Ryerson. I went from earning about $10/hour as a swim instructor lifeguard to... well I won't say what I earn today, but an awful lot more than I was making in 97. I've got a wife, two cats, house and mortgage.

The Son-of-a-Bush, massively overreacted to the attacks of September 11 and persuaded the entire country to involve itself in an entirely foolish and senseless war. (Question, what war truly is anything other than foolish and senseless? And no, World War II should never have happened, the French could have stopped Hitler in 1936, but that's a rant for another day.)

It became apparent sometime between 1997 and now that Democrats have no balls and Republicans have no heart. In Canada it was revealed that Reformers have no more integrity than any other political party and the Liberals are, I think, the best of a really bad multiple choice quiz.

My inlines have 110mm wheels, I think 120mm are a hoax but I've already written about that. I've pretty much given up on cycling, its too simple, I need something more mentally stimulating, hence the skating.

Finally as we all know, history has not ended, despite claims to the contrary.