I aught not talk.

With everyone panning the Aughts as a horrible decade, I probably shouldn't say, it was a good decade for me. Horrible things happened nationally, Bend got caught up in a bubble, but Pegasus Books had a good decade, and Linda and I started the Bookmark, which has done well. I started to relax a little, enjoy life a bit more. It worked the way it aught to work. (O.K. no more horrible aught puns.)

On the other hand, more importantly, I lost some family this decade. I'm a fatalist about this; it's part of life. The decade more or less took up 12% of my life, so things are going to happen. This was the worst part of the Aught's. But the bad things that come from bad decisions didn't happen as much in the 00's.

I couldn't stop thinking about it, last night.

O.K. The 50's and 60's were my formative years -- life was affecting me, more than I was affecting life. But toward the end of the 60's, I was almost an adult -- I would've been an adult in many cultures -- and I made some very bad decisions.

The 70's in a sense were a lost decade. Depression, and it's aftermath. I muddled through, finished college in about twice the time it should've taken, spent much of my time reading and introspective. I finally started writing my first book in the last year of the decade.

The 80's were great years -- got my books published, came back to Bend, started working at Pegasus Books, married Linda, had two stepsons, bought Pegasus, rode the roller coaster of business.

The 90's sucked, deep in debt most of the decade. I got pretty introspective about business, this time. Trying to figure it out.

The 00's, as I said, were great. Finally got the debt paid, started making Pegasus a paying concern, bought our house -- luckily, just before the bubble -- I've enjoyed it.

So good decade, bad decade, good decade, bad decade, good decade.....

Oh, oh.

I think I need to stay humble and careful. The 70's sucked, because as a teenager I thought I could do drugs and not suffer consequences -- that I could lie about it, and still have my family support me. Much of what happened was genetic, probably, but I didn't help things.

The 90's were tough because I bought into a bubble -- a couple of bubbles, actually -- and expanded beyond my abilities, and just generally made some bad decisions that could be traced back to hubris.

So....I'm going to try to avoid letting my ego get the better of me, this time. Stay on course, make good decisions, appreciate the things I've got.

Steady as she goes.

That aught to do it.