And I’ll say it again:

The US has run the table on the world’s economy for 60 years and that train has run off the rails. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution we had the lowest working industrial population in the world, and we made up for it with huge advances and sheer wastefulness in power generation (both steam, electricity, and oil) and mechanization.

We were able to become the worlds leading industrial and economic power because we were the only ones really left capable after WWII. Most of Europe would feel the fallout from WWII until the mid-eighties when they started to recover. Africa remains dark for the most part. Japan took the worst beating but has come back as an economic super power and now owns a significant portion of our national debt. The rest of Asia was busy dragging itself out of the rice patties and into its own Industrial Age, allowing THEM to take on all the benefits we Americans had, without any of the overhead of actually having to create any of the Industry. It was already done, the trial-and-error was mostly over. They just had to build factories and staff them and we had a cheap source for manufactured goods. Now THOSE countries are starting to evolve beyond their industrial ages whereas we hit the technology age and turned into Jeff Spicoli. We have progressively gotten more ignorant and apathetic about our place in the world’s economy. Our manufacturing base has moved overseas to escape the overhead of labor unions. Why pay healthcare benefits and have employees who pay income tax? Get mexicans or asians to do the work, and charge the same money, that way you can pocket the difference and buy a 3rd private jet or a 4th yacht. *See below

After the depression and WWII, we decided we had to bury the communists, so we spent BILLIONS on national defense, creating the largest debt of any country in the world. All the while we spent paltry amounts of money on stupid things like infrastructure, education, social security, healthcare, non-defense-related-science research, genomics, etc.

Until we re-sort ourselves life is going to suck here for a while. We’re going to be pinched economically, everybody’s at fault and no one is to blame. Well, not quite. One percent of the country owns 38% of the wealth. Ten percent owns 71% (inclusive). Those are Wikipedia’s numbers from 2001, so the numbers are most likely different, but i can’t see them being any better (from my point of view as a resident of the middle class). I blame them.

Addendum:

And oh yes, I’m envious of the rich. I covet things that I cannot afford, fancy cars, computers, houses, etc. But when I look at some of these guys, who own multiple houses, private aircraft (and can afford to pay a pilot a decent wage to fly them around at a whim, and pay rent on a hanger or tarmac space at an airport), multiple exotic cars and boats, $400 pants, $500 shirts, the ears of congressmen, senators, presidents, etc., it really pisses me off.

I’m all for a capitalist society, where good ideas and hard work are rewarded. But when i hear talk about the “fairness” of Unions, or the “fairness” of an economic stimulus package, I can’t help but be appalled at the things that we choose to care about, while we sit by and let rampant greed and corruption corrode this country from the top down. The odds are no longer in the favor of hard work and good ideas being enough for somebody to make something out of themselves. The fact that you can still cheat, lie, and steal your way to the top should say something to everyone about the state of the country.

Finally! 2008 is about over…what a hellacious year it has been. There have definitely been several high points, including getting engaged, getting a kitten, getting a Mac Pro, and getting a job!

Yes, you read correctly, I am now employed! On Monday I received an offer at ITaP (Purdue’s IT Conglomerate) for a full-time position within Teaching and Learning Technologies, who I worked with as an undergrad. I will be helping maintain ~2500 Lab Machines, TIC sites, and some of the infrastructure behind them, among other things. I start January 5th and am about as excited as I can be. I’ll have an office, healthcare, sane hours, the whole nine yards; why didn’t I think of doing this 11 months ago?!

Lets go over 2008′s employment history for me:

• January – December: Independent Technical Consultant — Small Consulting Jobs
• January – April: Lab Coordinator — Cyber Forensics Lab (Purdue)
• January – May: Web Application Dev — AgCommunications (Purdue)
• May – June: Web Application Dev — (ETC)
• June – December: Technical Consultant — (FindRefs)
• June – July: Technical Consultant — (InfoComm)
• June – August: Network Software Tech — (Purdue)
• August – December: Teaching Assistant — (Purdue)

Now lets look at 2009′s tentative schedule:

• January – December: Lab/Sys Administrator — ITaP/TLT
• January – December: Ind. Technical Consultant — As Needed

I, personally, can definitely see the upside to this…

So to tie in the post’s title, 2009 should be the revolution I was looking for in that last post. With a stable, long-term, and somewhat generous income, and a plan-able schedule, I’ll hopefully have time to turn my attention to things I’ve been forced to neglect: my fiancé, my Home Theater (I need a new couch, receiver and Mac Mini, the former is dying and the latter has been dead over a month now), my servers (possibly either doing away with VMWare and going back to an all-in-wonder box or getting a decent Dell PowerEdge and running ESXi (or some combination of the two)), and with any luck several other yet-to-be-defined projects.

And Lastly, a quick announcement:

• I’m now a Twitterfiend. You can catch my feed at http://www.twitter.com/peelman

For the ten people who read this, and for both of you who haven’t heard about it through other means:

I have decided to not return in January to continue my Master’s degree. The experience this semester was not as rewarding as I had hoped it to be, ending with me giving up completely on Statistics nine weeks into class, and my ability to care and focus on coursework becoming less and less as the semester went on. I have always had a drive to learn and excel in coursework, though towards the end of my undergraduate degree that was starting to wane, but Graduate School didn’t provide the same feelings I got with any other coursework to date. My ‘A’ that I was carrying in Statistics may as well been an ‘F’ (and ended up being that way), I could not have cared less. I didn’t feel any satisfaction from getting As on homework, or doing well on the first exam. I tried to be excited about doing so well in a graduate-level course, it just never happened. My forensics research class was interesting, but research isn’t really something that lights a fire under me. Perhaps under different circumstances, or with a true into-the-workforce break instead of the 8-jobs-in-12-months scramble that 2008 turned into, I would have been better prepared and more distanced from Undergrad to make the adaption easier. As it is, I was just too burned out from my extended stay in the Undergraduate program to jump feet-first into Grad school.

My uneasiness with classwork, coupled with the odd hours I was keeping (a function of how my days were scheduled) has made this the roughest semester for me in my seemingly endless time here at Purdue. That said, I have really enjoyed my TA position, it has ended up being one of my more rewarding experiences at Purdue. I will admit that parts of it have been a mixed bag: the hours and lack of sleep have contributed to much of my…well, misery is too strong of a word, but general unhappiness with my situation isn’t too much of a stretch. I have met a lot of very intelligent students, and admittedly I was surprised and pleased with the knowledge and competence many of them displayed throughout the semester. To any of those guys (and gal) reading this: I hope you will continue to flourish throughout your stay in NET and that you get out in a shorter timeframe than I was able to manage! I also encourage you guys to contact me if you have questions or need help with anything in the future. One thing you guys will come to realize as you progress through the program is that your professional contact list can never be too long. I am always happy to shed some light on a problem or offer a fresh pair of eyes or advice on something. You can look me up on Facebook or LinkedIn for contact info.

So what now?

At the moment I’m looking for jobs. I’m trying to stay in and/or around Lafayette/West Lafayette to stay close to Kelly while she finishes up her DVM. However, given the current economic climate, I might not have that luxury. Hopefully things will work out for the better and I can get out of this professional slump that 2008 seems to have been for me. Here’s hoping 2009 is more rewarding and satisfying.