Some moments from my highlight reel

Well it’s 2010, so happy new year to everyone.

I’m always amazed how quickly the end of the year seems to get here. I swear time is moving faster. Where’s Al Gore when you need him? We need to get him on this. I swear the world is broken and is spinning faster on it’s axis. Pretty soon we’re all just going to flying off as it explodes.

OK, I’m being silly.

So it’s a new decade and everyone is making lists. There’s the top ten most important events, the top ten best movies, television shows, songs, the historical moments, lap dogs, candy bars and lets not forget the Web sites. Does anyone use MySpace anymore?

I’m a sentimental guy, so I thought I’d come up with a list, but I don’t like saying these are my top five or even my top ten, because there are some things in this past decade I don’t want to remember, let alone tell all of the readers, but here is some of my personal highlight reel.

• I remember standing in front of a television in 2000 as the television announcers gave Florida to Vice President Gore and then took it away. It was the first time I saw an election so close people still felt President George W. Bush didn’t win it years after it finished.

Now, I’m not going to say how I voted, or how I felt about the election, but I will say the moment helped defined the decade for me.

• I remember waking up in my dorm room on 9/11, walking down the hallway to have a cigarette when someone told me a plane flew into the World Trade Center in New York City. I remember the disbelief, shock, anger and fear I felt that day.

I also remember being the news editor at my college paper and reading seven stories about the effect it was having at Washington State University and going home tired.

• On a more personal note, I remember moving from Pullman to Maryland in 2005. I’m not a fan of big moves, but I wanted something different and my parents had moved there in 2004, so I gave it a shot. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t great, but it was something.

More importantly, I lost the romantic notions I had about the east coast. Baltimore is old in the way an abandoned house is old. The paint is chipped. The siding is falling off and a family of squatters have been using it as a toilet for a few years.

• Then in 2008, I got offered a job at the Columbia Basin Herald, which led to a trip across the country. I’ve written about it enough, but I do have to include it.

I ended the decade close to where I started it — in a newsroom in Eastern Washington. I can’t pick out one moment to write about because every week there’s something new. I’ve covered trials, city council meetings, commissioner meetings, community festivals and theater shows. I’ve heard about tragedy and I’ve heard about success and I couldn’t think of anything I’d rather do.

So here’s to 2010. I hope everyone has a decade.

Cameron Probert is the Columbia Basin Herald county reporter. We think he should have included the tragic (not really) demise of his 24-year-old Chevrolet Cavalier.