Sitting here, on the eve of Inauguration Day, it strikes me how different things were eight long years ago. Most of the stuff that affects us all, we already know about. 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, economic collapse, blah blah blah. Still – some things seem like they were SO far away.

In 2001, I’d buy a house, Ei-Nyung and I would move in together. I was working for my dad, in Livermore. I had a Mitsubishi 3000 GT. No Mobius yet. Heck, Mobius wasn’t even alive yet! Didn’t get along all that well with my mom. Was just about the time I started hanging out with Klay and Lindsi – strangely, it took a while after I stopped working at Sega to actually hang out with some of the peeps from the company. Joe T. had moved in. Maybe Brandon in 2001, as well? Renovations on the house started late in 2001, if I recall correctly. We had different neighbors to our right. The neighbors to our left were in better health. The neighbors behind us have switched twice since then. Sonja (my family’s first dog) was still alive, and in Canada. It’d been a really long time since I’d seen any of the Canadian peeps, and would be another year or two since I would.

I wasn’t particularly politically aware/active then. I could see, clearly, that Bush was a buffoon, and I was tremendously disappointed when Gore didn’t fight for the win he deserved. But I would never, ever have guessed how badly things would go off the rails – how disastrous a period in American history this would be, and how much it’s likely to affect my life for decades to come.

Good riddance to bad rubbish! Finally, it’s over. May we, as a country, hold him and his ilk accountable for their actions, and may we move forward, on to a better future!