The other day, I was talking to an associate who works in public relations. She asked how long I’d been in radio. I said I’d started in 2004. Then I realized I had started my first job right after Labor Day.

“Hey, I’ve been doing this almost exactly ten years!” I said. And then I started wondering where the hell the last ten years had gone.

I didn’t really have a plan after I graduated college, except that ten years in the future, I thought I’d be riding around in a fusion-powered jetpack operated by a super-intelligent monkey.

So, I did what anyone would do when he doesn’t have a career plan: I moved to Oregon.

I moved around quite a bit during the first five years. When I got to WBAP in 2009, I was thankful for the stability. Lately, though, I’ve been feeling like I had fallen into a bit of a professional rut.

I was going to the same places and talking to the same people and feeling a little too comfortable.

The same day I realized I’d been in journalism for ten years, I attended a luncheon with Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley. I sat there, worrying that I’d pissed away six years in Texas [counting a hilariously unfortunate year in Houston] with no real professional growth. That’s when Whitley said something that made me feel a bit better.

The county had hoped to launch light rail service in 2012. In the next couple of weeks, Whitley said the T hopes to clear an administrative hurdle that’ll put the system on track to open in 2018.

“They’re running six years behind. That’s great!” I thought to myself. “We’re all pissing away six years!”

I’ve been taking other steps to break out of the routine. I volunteered to do some work on the morning shift for our sister station. That turned out to be a great break from the monotony. I learned quite a bit that week:

1.) My colleague likes to take his shoes off when he reads the news.

2.) When you get off work at 11 a.m. on a weekday, you’re left with an entire afternoon to tackle some of the home improvement projects you’ve been putting off.

3.) The batting cages you go to when you decide to keep putting off those home improvement projects really aren’t that busy at 11 a.m. on a weekday.

Then I started thinking about how dramatically my life had changed. I’ve moved from Ohio to Oregon to Texas. More than that, I just recently figured out that Dr. Pepper has caffeine in it. That finally explains why every time I stop at a gas station while I’m working and buy a Dr. Pepper, I wind up feeling fantastic.

What other cartoonishly simple pieces of information am I blissfully unaware of? Will all of my co-workers ever manage to get some shoes? Will my hometown ever stop appearing in the national news for something hilarious?

Those are all questions I eagerly wait to answer between now and 2024. I still don’t have a plan, except that by then, I’m pretty sure I’ll get that jetpack.