A lot's gone on since the time I was that pre-pubescent young man. I've grown tremendously both physically (yep, diet time again, but this time I'm working out) and emotionally. I've been weathered and seasoned. I've pretty much grown up.

The thing is, as a grown up, my life's a much different picture than I expected, which makes sense. I didn't know what to expect then. I certainly didn't expect the changes in family structures that have swept through our culture (and I wouldn't have understood them as an eight year old, anyway). I didn't expect to run a company. I didn't expect the incredibly cool wonder that's the Internet.

I think I expected there to be cool toys (and I'm so glad, as an adult, that that one turned out right). I don't have a flying car (well, except for that one night in my twenties when I reached almost 100 mph… But that's another story). On the other hand, I do have a phone I can carry everywhere. I have a highly programmable computer that fits in my pocket. And, thanks to the wireless technology, that computer fits in my pocket and accesses the World Wide Web from my backyard, the top of a mountain, or inside a restaurant.

The thing is, now I know. It's weird. I know. All my life, I've wondered,"What will I be like when it turns 2K?" And now I know.

I feel like I'm on the top of the world, looking down on creation. It's the only explanation I can find.

With credit to Karen Carpenter for great lyrics, I really do feel this way. I've got this wonderful audience, all of you, and I feel as though I'm able to look all the way back, not just a hundred years, but a thousand years. And even better, I feel like we can look all the way forward, too.

What will the next thousand years be like?

We've been taking the easy way out, wondering whether cars will fly, whether we'll have bases on Mars, whether Bill Clinton will ever grow up.

But what will it really be like?

It seems like such an amazingly long period of time that we might even evolve into beings of pure energy or some other concept from a bad episode of "The Original Series." But it's not that long a time, really. It's not that long at all.

A thousand years ago, it was the time of the Early Middle Ages, a time just after Charlemagne, a time of horse-mounted, armor-clad soldiers, the Royal Court, and counts and dukes. It was about 200 hundred years before the official Holy Roman Empire was created.

Yet, even in that time, the people in the pre-Renaissance Middle Ages of 1000 Anno Domini were still pretty much people. Our culture has changed. Our technology has changed. And, most certainly, our lifestyles have changed. But we're still people, with all the amazing wonders and incredible weaknesses that come with being human.

So, presuming we don't blow ourselves up, write buggy code that knocks us back into the stone age, or get invaded by Vulcans or the Centauri Republic, we'll still be people in 3000 A.D.

And we'll probably still have many of the same challenges.