What has happened to you in your time as a Doper?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I joined the SDMB in September of 2000. At that time, I was newly-married, and living in a small Ontario town. My wife and I owned three cats (San Francisco, Denver, and Annie who was just a tiny kitten at the time), and she drove a Chevy Blazer while I drove a Jeep YJ. I was a freelance technical writer. Since that time:

– San Francisco suffered a heart attack and had to be put to sleep.

– I sold my Jeep and used the Blazer.

– We moved from smalltown Ontario to Calgary, Alberta.

– I gave up technical writing and went to law school, which entailed maintaining a pied a terre in Edmonton (where the law school was) while continuing to own our house in Calgary.

– We acquired more cats: Fiona, Hope, Tigger, and Stripe.

– We moved to Lethbridge, Alberta, for my job after I graduated.

– My wife left me and returned to Ontario. The divorce will be finalized soon. As part of the settlement, I got title to the Chevy Blazer she bought ten years ago, which is still going strong (as long as I maintain it). I also got all the cats.

– Most recently, our cat Annie (who we got as a kitten in September of 2000; at the same time I signed onto the SDMB) developed a saddle thrombosis, and had to be humanely euthanized.

Perhaps due to Annie’s recent passing, I’ve been searching my past posts for mention of her in all the cat threads. Of course, I found many more threads than those in which I participated. Anyway, it got me to thinking how things in my life have changed over the past ten years. Much of it is documented, one way or another, on the SDMB. Some of the above, I have very obviously shared, some I’ve been more oblique on. Regardless, it was an interesting look at ten years of my life, and I realize that I have changed a great deal since the day I signed up.

How about you? What has happened since you signed onto the SDMB?

2

My life is pretty much the same as it was when I joined in 2005.

I bought a small yacht in August of 2007 that I kept in dry-dock this past Summer because I had too many extended work trips planned and knew I wouldn’t have time for it this year.

I make more money now and have more stuff, but live in the same house I had built in 1999.

My hair’s a little thinner.

My wife and I had our 20th anniversary last year.

I guess that’s about it.

3

I joined in 2000.

All the big things that have happened since then have been in my personal life:

I started a relationship which ended after three years.

I got engaged and then married (to someone else).

I had (or rather, my wife had) a baby.

My grandmother died at the age of 100.

Professionally and financially not much has changed:

I’m still working for the same company as I was then, although it has been taken over several times since then, and I’ve got some promotions and raises.

I paid off the mortgage on my townhouse.

4

Survived a couple rounds of layoffs, until I didn’t. Got a couple more jobs, the current of which I really, really like.

Renewed my passport.

Gained weight.

Lost weight.

Bought a house.

Moved to Washington.

Worked on a movie that was never finished.

Got engaged.

Got un-engaged.

Lost my mom’s husband.

Lost my mom.

Renovated one room of the house.

Bought a friend’s Prius.

Built a Telecaster.

And I’m two weeks away from getting a roommate and her cat.

5

Since July 2007:

My SO of eight years died
I spent ~10 months dealing with MRSA and the after effects
I’ve changed shifts once (and will be again in two weeks)
I’ve accepted two promotions (see above)
I’ve begun online classes toward my degree in accounting
I’ve begun the process of relearning to navigate the dating world
I’ve done volunteer work for two elections

Some good, some bad, some ugly, some mundane.

6

Joined October, 2000. Since then, I have:

  • met my husband
  • married my husband
  • been married for over eight years
  • got a second cat (she came with my husband)
  • moved in to a rented house with my then-boyfriend
  • bought a house with my husband
  • fixed up that house
  • sold that house
  • bought a different house
  • lost my estranged father
  • became estranged from my brother-in-law and sister (due to the sale of the house)
  • bought a 2005 Corolla - paid it off (basically) this summer
  • tried to develop a new career in landscape design that didn’t work out
  • recovered from an anxiety disorder
  • lost 26 pounds (so far)
  • went on five driving vacations around North America (Las Vegas twice, Seattle and BC, Chicago, and Northwest Territories)
  • met about 30 various Dopers in various places :slight_smile:
7

Father died. Since my mom had already died, it suddenly struck me that I was an orphan, which is a term I never would have expected applied to someone in their 40s.

Bought a car.

Bought a condo.

Got a new job, got laid off.

Went so blind I could no linger drive due to sudden onset cataracts.

Had 3 cataract surgeries, now I see better than I ever have before.

Stopped smoking.

Got an iPod.

Got my first laptop computer and home wifi.

8

I joined in March of 2001. You’d think a lot of things would have happened to me in that time, but I was married, had all three kids, and even bought the house I live in now all before 2001. I even had the same job back then.

So basically I’ve gotten older. That’s it.

9

In the last ten years,

lost three cats and gained three cats

lost my car in a crash and bought a new one

quit a job that was wrecking me mentally and took one that is wrecking me physically

fell into and out of touch with some long lost relatives

lost a bunch of weight

lost my mom

gained a bunch of weight

learned to like myself more than I ever have before

and gained a whole heap of gray hair.

10

Since 1997? A lot.

11

Well, good job on that. :slight_smile:

12

I joined 23 months ago. In that time:

[ul]
[li] I got promoted twice[/li][li]I quit my job when my employer hushed up a major fraud case in my division and managed to destroy large swaths of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem (yeah, them)[/li][li]Decided to go back to finish my degree after 20 years and officially re-enrolled in college[/li][li]Was officially diagnosed with three separate illnesses, one simply quite painful, one very painful and degenerative but not fatal and one that won’t kill me but conspires with things that can[/li][li]Fell in love with a man who was charming and good to me, ignoring the mounting signs that he was and is a total user and creep[/li][li]Was officially diagnosed with PTSD[/li][li]Began considering myself a “person with disabilities” and “queer” as political identities as well as personal ones, and that consideration helped me plot the course of my future career as well as my social activism[/li][li]Ended my relationship with the charming creep, with a pretty broken heart[/li][li]Cut ties with my “best” friend of 23 years due to her unwillingness to do her part (any part, actually) in keeping the relationship going[/li][li]Started dating an amazing woman who seems to really care about me and is not charming, but isn’t a user or a creep or anything else in that general category[/li][li]Inherited a house, which will provide me with some financial security, finally[/li][li]Worked on campaigns for two Democrats, something I’d never done before[/li][li]Cut off all my hair, the first “more than a trim” cut in more than 15 years[/li][li]Had sex (see above mentioned amazing woman) for the first time in 20 years[/li][/ul]

13

I joined in 2001. Since then:[ul][li]Got married[]Honeymooned in the Caribbean[]Bought my first house[]Sold the house for a profit[]Used some of that profit to fund a trip round the world[]Travelled in China and Tibet[]Got involved in a life-changing tsunami reconstruction project on an island in Thailand[]Lost my grandfather[]Visited Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, the US[]Moved back to the UK[]Got a high-powered but underpaid job[]Went back to visit the island in Thailand[]Bought another house[]Got a well paid but deeply frustrating job[]Went back to the island in Thailand - again[]Separated from my wife[]Moved out of the house to a gorgeous village in the Cotswolds[]Lost my heart to a beautiful younger woman[]Lost my aunt[]Had my heart broken utterly and unexpectedly by said younger woman[]Entered a six month major depressive episode[]Had to spend four months watching the younger woman continue the new relationship she’d started before we broke up[]Started therapy[]Lost my other grandfather[]Got divorced[]How strange the change from major to minor (depression)[]Rebounded on a girl, broke her heart[]Did my first paid singing gigs[]Commenced an 18-month, frustrating on-again-off-again ‘friendship’ with extras, with another younger woman[]Went trekking in Nepal[]Started a long-distance relationship[]Got dumped[]Lost my grandmother, my last grandparent[]Walked home three miles in the rain after a gig as Christmas Eve became Christmas Day, to an empty house, and thought I would die of loneliness - this was, I think, my life’s nadir[]Went on the best vacation of my life to Hong Kong and Thailand with ex-volunteers from the tsunami project[]Got bitten by a spider[]Lost my great auntStarted dating another girl, who’s upstairs asleep in my bed right now[/ul]Not quite what I expected, any of it. [/li]
“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

14

Since 2002

[ul]
[li]I’ve had a lot of jobs (message board mod, chat transcription, credit manager, worker’s comp underwriter, administration manager, project manager)[/li]
[li]Watched my kid become a teenager[/li]
[li]Got divorced[/li]
[li]Met a guy on the internet[/li]
[li]Moved my self and my kid to Australia[/li]
[li]Got remarried[/li]
[li]Bought a house[/li]
[li]Got a cat[/li]
[li]Got another cat[/li]
[li]Got a third cat[/li]
[li]Got a dog[/li]
[li]Got another dog[/li]
[li]Not getting a third dog :D[/li]
[li]Started law at uni[/li]
[li]Stopped smoking[/li]
[li]Lost a heap of weight (92lbs)[/li]
[li]Left all my stuff in the US[/li]
[li]Lived a few years with no car, by choice[/li]
[li]Been married nearly 8 years[/li]
[li]Became an Australian citizen (as did my son)[/li][/ul]
Um…not all in that order? So lots of stuff

15

Wow. Compared to some of you, my life has pretty much been the definition of staid.

I forgot to add in my post (#2) above that I took and passed the national JLPT in November of 2009.

My sincerest sympathies to those of you who’ve lost loved ones. These events are in my future, and I’ve become increasingly concerned about how I will deal with them when the time comes.

16

Compared to some of the responses thus far, my life’s been pretty mundane. Then again, I’ve long since learned not to compete against you folks directly, so what the hell. Since my join date, I have:

[ul][li]Gotten promoted from waiter to manager[]Gotten promoted from manager to GM[]Gotten the fuck out of restaurants[]Joined the Air Force[]Busted my knees to the point of walking with a cane[]Got unceremoniously dumped back to my hometown by the Air Force since apparently Chinese linguists need good knees[]Got hired to do computer-y stuff at the bank[]Quit the bank[]Gotten a job as code monkey at a non-profit[]Gotten promoted to database admin[]Rested my knees 'til I could play football again[]…or so I thought[]Busted my knees, but not as bad as the first time[]Moved from apartment to house[]Gotten promoted to head developer/backup sysadmin[]Rested my knees to the point where I think I could play football again but have learned enough not to[]Had my pants forcibly removed behind the co-op by a girl I was flirting with(That last was tonight, so, yeah, good night)[/ul][/li]
So, all in all, things are looking up…almost to the point where I probably ought to be worried. :eek:

17

Uh, went off of a drug.
Became agoraphobic.
Learned I was a liberal.

That’s about it.

18

Joined March 2001

[ul]
[li]Finished private pilot’s license[/li][li]Bought a Toyota Echo[/li][li]Had terrible bought of Norovirus[/li][li]Paid off Echo[/li][li]Laid off[/li][li]Became officially poor[/li][li]Earthquake (minor)[/li][li]Tornado[/li][li]Floods[/li][li]Mom died[/li][/ul]

Was actually doing pretty well until 2007. Since then interesting in all the wrong ways. Still live in the same place through all that.

Oh - birds lost: Junior (lovebird), Rocky (Cockatiel), Scooter (Sun conure).
Birds acquired: Sydney and Sunny (Cockatiels), Griffin (Green cheek conure)

19

When I joined in Aug of 2000, I had just returned to a job I’d left 3 years before, same boss, same coworkers, same building, but with brand new cubicles… Some of the highlights since then:

[ul]
[li]Helped my parents celebrate their 50th anniversary in Aug 2002, then lost my dad in Oct 2002.[/li][li]Changed jobs and returned to previous organization in Virginia, living in Maryland this time. I work for the Dept of the Navy, and I transferred between 2 positions so that I held each twice. I’m staying put till I retire… soon, I hope.[/li][li]Got my daughter thru high school, thru college, married, on to her first job, and now, almost divorced.[/li][li]Had one dog run away, never to be seen again, had one put down (last week) due to extreme old age, and took in one literally off the street - she’s next to me right now.[/li][li]Had one cat die, had one euthanized due to paralysis, and now have 2 more wandering about, ruling the household.[/li][li]Sold our 37’ motorsailer, then bought a 36’ sloop a few months later.[/li][li]Cars - let’s see: Aerostar (which I just sold with 231K miles), Scion xA, which I’m driving now, Mazda 626, which was traded in on a PT cruiser, which was traded in on a Jetta diesel, which was traded in on a Chrysler Crossfire, which was just traded in on a Chevy pickup (my husband is a bit unstable about his vehicle choices… :wink: )[/li][li]Bought and totally remodeled a 1975 ranch-style house which we now absolutely love.[/li][li]Took a schooner cruise in Maine - hated the schooner, loved Maine![/li][li]Husband has had 6 jobs - 4 of the companies he worked for are out of business, but I’m pretty sure it’s not because of him… all failed after he’d left.[/li][li]Took up pottery. I really need to get back into it.[/li][/ul]
Yeah, it’s been an interesting decade.

20
  • 9/11
  • Got dream job
  • Moved across country
  • Got divorced
  • Eventually nearly doubled my salary
  • Bought more or less my dream house