Looking Back on a Decade

The first decade of the new millennium reads like the opening lines of a Charles Dickens Novel: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..." Sound familiar?

The whole idea of passing over to the New Millennium was daunting even before anything bad happened. Remember everyone freaking out about the clock striking midnight and all the computer systems were going to shut down? Black outs? Chaos? Well, it didn't happen that way, but it didn't take long for things to turn ugly.

The photo above was taken about a month before 9/11 rocked us to the core. Soon afterwards we found ourselves in the middle of two wars, then Hurricane Katrina paid a visit, then the Stock Market tanked. Wow, these are the "Good ole days", huh? Newsweek Put together a nice slideshow of the past 120 months.

I can always depend on Jimmy Buffett to pen the perfect song "We Got A Lot To Drink About".

It wasn't all bad though. While all this Rockin' & Rollin' was happening on a world scale, I had a few changes in store for me as well. For the most part, this was the decade of my 30's. I ran off to the Caribbean, got married on a sailboat at sunset, became a father, learned to fly, found a new style of martial arts to be obsessed with, and watched my photography business do barrel rolls, loops and stalls. I won some awards, shot my last roll of film and transitioned to the digital darkroom (I mean LightRoom) and went through enough Apples to make a fruit basket. Switched from Nikon to Canon and back to Nikon again. This last one is expensive and not recommended.

As 2009 came to a close, I was thinking of all the 9's in history that have a name associated with them. There's the Gold rush of 49, the Great Crash of 29, the Summer of 69, for me The Class of 89, we're gonna party like it's 1999. I think 2009 will mostly just be remembered as a recovery year, or as Buffett says we "hit the re-boot key". Other big events happened like that amazing landing on the Hudson River, and a historical Presidential Inauguration. Michael Jackson,Ted Kennedy, Patrick Swayze and Farrah Fawcett among those who departed.

So what does the dawn of a new decade have in store for us? Your crystal ball is as good as mine, but I feel like things are starting to change for the better. I've got several projects planned for this year, many trips to take and pictures to make! I hope you do to!

Happy New Year everyone!!!