Defenestration Station

Rowdy has indirectly asked me to complete a survey that he answered on his blog. Here is the first part, I'll do the rest later:

10 Years Ago: Just finished with fall quarter finals, Thanksgiving in Columbus at my parents' new house. Chloe the dog was with us, but slowing down a bit with age. I spent December of 1995 temping at the Dublin, OH office of a company called Enron -- you may have heard of them, they have popped up in the news in subsequent years.

A funny incident occurred at Enron while I was temping there; they had an office Christmas party toward the end of my tenure, and they held it in a glass-walled conference room that was right across from the cube where I worked on my filing. They didn't invite me, since I was only a temp. So I sat there, head hanging low, filing document after document while a few feet away, in full view behind the glass, the entire office was chatting happliy and opening gifts and eating goodies. I felt like some sort of Dickensian wretch, shivering out in the snow, looking through the window at the happy people celebrating Christmas. Was the karmic retaliation to this snub the cause of Enron's downfall? Perhaps.

5 Years Ago: Thanksgiving 2000, this was the fall when I met my future wife, Denise. I spent Thanksgiving in Columbus with my parents and brother. The following few months would be some of the most important in my life as Denise and I started spending lots of time together.

1 Year Ago: Thanksgiving 2004 was in Clinton, Iowa, at my sister-in-law Carolyn's house. I remember Creighton, aged 7 1/2 months, doing pushups on the floor with his cousin Mark. Mark would lay on his stomach head-to-head with Creighton and push himself up with his arms, and Creighton would copy him and do the same thing, and he was laughing the whole time. I believe it was the first time Creighton ever copied someone else's actions. The dinner was great too.