Resolved: I Will Not Create Any "My Favorite _______'s of the Decade" Lists.

It is nearly impossible to avoid the myriad lists generated at the end of any year. Magazines, radio shows, and "news" programs spend much of late December tricking us into consuming more advertising by summarizing the year between 30 second pleas to add gold to our portfolio.

Is there a better way to catalog the events of a year than with a Top 10 List? Not in the modern age, apparently. When, for an entire decade, world events are distilled and fed to us in sound bites and bottom-screen tickers, a Top 10 list does seem an appropriate way to "reflect" on things of significance. Things like the adultery of a man who plays golf well and the invention of a fancy music box...

While I will resist the urge to list and rank the few dozen books and albums that I have consumed in the last decade of my life, I believe that it befits a believer to frequently recall and meditate on what the Lord has done for him/her.

In retracing the days ordained for me since we learned that Y2K wasn't ordained to usher in the apocalypse, methinks that there will probably not be a decade of my life that will contain as many significant life events (especially of the "first" variety) as did this one.

The Scott Pearce Greatest Hits 2000-2009:
(in roughly chronological order)

I graduated from Hackettstown High School.

I began life as a college student.

I served as a counselor at Camp Susque (fulfilling a simple but significant boyhood dream).

I met the girl that I would marry.

I received a B.S. in Engineering from Geneva College.

I took on almost $20,000 in debt to accomplish the preceding, my first foray into the world of indebted servitude.

I became certified as an Engineering In Training (E.I.T.).

I began a career as a civil engineer.

I bought my first (and to date only) truck, my second foray into the world of indebted servitude (although this knife was only over my head for two years).

I proposed to the girl that I would marry. She said yes.

I married the girl who said yes.

We rented our first apartment.

I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time.

We bought our first house, by far my farthest foray into indebted servitude.

I became certified as a Grade I Field Technician Concrete Inspector, a Structural Masonry Special Inspector, and a Reinforced Concrete Special Inspector.

We became parents for the first time.

I put 200,000 miles on my truck.



Psalm 90
1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God...

4 ...For a thousand years in your sight
are but as yesterday when it is past,
or as a watch in the night...

12 ...So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom...