Exactly 365 days ago I started Pure Gonzo Engineering.

As I said in my very first post, I always though blogs were stupid, and I was just doing it to pass the time at work and so I would have a place to vent my frustrations with this life.

Thus far almost 6,000 people have visited my blog from all corners of the world. I always find it strange when I look at my site meter and it says that someone from England or Sweden or somewhere in Africa has been on my blog. How did they manage to get here? What do they think of me after reading a few posts?

It’s amazing how many big things happened in the past year. I bought a house, had a child, went back to therapy, got some new tattoos, and so on and so on.

Fear and Loathing… those two words definitely sum up how I feel about Opposite of Dog after this year. This company is so atavistic that a person like me just doesn’t fit in quite right. Hopefully in another year or two, I can get the hell out of here. Maybe get a job with a company that’s a bit cooler (Harley in Milwaukee?).

Then again, why worry? In the end we’re all dead men, and what we do in life really doesn’t matter. Life’s just that walking shadow in an infinite universe that, due to entropy, is constantly degrading its energy until one day all that will be left is cold darkness. Hell, our sun will eventually supernova engulfing earth in super heated plasma, and then will collapse into a black-hole which will suck all our remains into a singularity. I guess all you can do is try to laugh at all the funny things that happen on the way to the grave. Huh, I guess the medicine is working cause I’m not getting that overwhelming fear of dread.

It’s amazing how small decisions and events shape how your life will be entirely. I would never have met my wife for the first time had my computer not locked up on me when my friend asked me to go to a party with him. We may have never gotten together and Carter may have never existed if that computer didn’t lock up when it did.

If I hadn’t signed up on the waiting list for an on campus interview with Opposite of Dog, I never would have gotten this job and never would have moved to Peoria. Maybe that little decision was the wrong one.

I also could have never existed. My dad was engaged to a woman, not my mom, and then broke it off. I don’t know the whole story, but there was the possibility that he would have stayed with her (maybe not, I don’t know), but then I would have never existed and neither would Carter. Crazy shit.