Subject to change

2008 has been a pretty big year for me. It started off the same way most of them have lately: I was single, working at a job I really didn't like and with a deepseated sense that I'd let another year slip by without doing all that I could have with it.

I would never have guessed what was coming.

It started in January when I got my Zune. I know I know, not really something you'd consider noteworthy but it mattered. For over eight years I had the same CD player and that was how I listened to my music when not in my car. When I worked at Best Buy back in '04, one of the employees harshly chastised me (he called me a f---ing idiot actually) for not having an MP3 player yet. Thinking back I'm glad that I hadn't made the investment. I think the biggest storage available back then was around 16 GB and it cost like $300-400 for one that size.

Why would I need one anyway. I'd gotten by just fine with my CD player since high school and was it really that much of a hassle to switch out a CD when I needed to? Well, eventually my beloved player started to malfunction. It wouldn't start playing unless on a completely flat surface and even then it wouldn't play certain CD's. The list of those 'certain CD's' began to grow and I knew it was time. So I bought a first generation 30GB Zune for $125 (with the help of a few discounts).

Now I can't imagine having to deal with CD's whenever I want to listen to my music. I accept this ritual when I'm driving simply for the fact that it's tradition more than anything.

I was also fired from my job at Amazon for missing too many days and while it was devastating, I'd become so terrified of going to work that I was actually relieved to some degree. I usually managed to find a new job within a month anyway so I'd be fine.

Now it's become a sort of tradition to spend a couple days at my sister Heidi's house in Spokane for my birthday. Since I would probably have a job by the time my birthday rolled around it was decided that I'd come up early. It was a lot of fun while I was there but the trip back... not so much.

Thinking I'd missed my exit back home I got myself turned around at the nearest overpass. Now it had been snowing a whole hell of a lot up there and the roads weren't in the best condition. The car in front of me was driving erratically so once I got the chance I tried to get around him. After a few seconds of driving I felt my car going to the left. Y'know, where the divide was? The jerk I was trying to pass was keeping pace with me so I couldn't really pull myself out of the slush dragging me off of the road.

Which is exactly what happened all too fast but in such a mind bogglingly slow motion.

There I was, middle of nowhere with my car stuck in at last two and half feet of compacted snow. It was a couple hours until the sun went down so I found my windshield scraper and began to dig myself out. I'd have made it too if it weren't for the meddling state patrolman a caring citizen called. Frustratingly long (and freezingly soggy by that point) story short: I got a $175 ticket for going too fast for conditions. I tried explaining that the only reason I was even going 50 mph was to pass a potentially dangerous driver.

I was so crushed by that point. Alone, unemployed, car potentially wrecked, and now a ticket I couldn't pay. Sitting in the patrol car cold and wet I was so tempted to open the door and walk into traffic.

'She would never forgive you. You know that right?'
"i know..."
'Just keep your hands on the ticket. You don't want to drop it.'
"okay..."
'It'll get better. You'll see.'
"'k..."

I don't think I've told anybody about that or the conversation I had with myself. It all happened, but it's all in the past and I'm glad I listened to myself.

I wasn't out of the woods quite yet. A couple months later, under the pressure of still not having a job and other things, I 'locked' myself in my room. What started out as just wanting to be alone for a few hours turned into almost 2 days of complete isolation. I shouldn't joke about it as I really did scare my family, but can't a guy get some frikkin' privacy?

After that everything began to turn around for the better. I went up to Spokane again to help my sister with some painting around the house and when I got back I found that my current employer had been trying to get a hold of me. I interviewed to be a night janitor at first but passed. Then I was interviewed to be a dishwasher. Happy for a job that didn't include the public, and was something I already did in the first place, I nailed the interview and was happily employed once again.

I'm gonna go ahead and pause here for a while. I wasn't expecting to include all that sad stuff in there but it was all a big part of the year for me. But don't worry, there will be a part two and the part two will be much happier. You'll see.