A life less ordered

Meh. The snow can wait.

 I'm happily retired. That should be clearly understood. Still, there are times that I notice how the lack of order in my life is something to be overcome. I am generally self motivated, but now that there is always free time in the schedule, it becomes easy to delay the hard stuff, or at least the stuff that I enjoy less. For example, when I was working, clearing the snow after a storm was something I scheduled. Now it's much easier to throw another log on the fire, or have another coffee. 

I also find it more difficult to keep track of appointments and other scheduled items. I wake up every day thinking my day is up to me, and it often is not. It's so strange that I assume that now, and even putting most every thing in my phone calendar doesn't always work. 

I wonder if my less ordered life has completely affected the way I think, and the way I approach life in general. The freedom is amazing, and I'd never go back, but there is something to be said about having a general life plan for 30 years. 

We always had a vacation schedule, generally knowing where we were going and when, months in advance. Now, we happily plug along at life, always thinking that we'll get to planning a trip at some point. We haven't travelled much yet, but we have been on vacation since September of  2020.

The weather has been steadily improving as the days are noticeably longer. Another thing I have noticed is that I enjoy the cold less and less each year. I had thought that retirement would allow me to more embrace the seasons, since I was not forced to go out in it, but in reality there are plenty of times I need to go out and deal with the cold and snow. 

Ouch!

On the repair and restore front, someone decided to hit our Toyota, and of course, not leave a note. Luckily, it was mainly scratches, with one small dent. I was not inclined to contact the insurance company, and file a police report, so I decided to see what I could do with a quality scratch remover. I was pleased with the product and after a bit of work, it looked pretty good. There is a minor dent that is hard to see. I may call the ding and dent remover company, but I suspect it is not one they can fix.

Better

The irony of the situation is that I purchased an insurance policy with he pervious car, that covered this type of damage with little or no deductible. I never used it. Despite that I was interested in getting the same policy, but it was no longer offered. Oof. Bad timing.

It's becoming time to start planning spring projects. I think a permanent fence and perhaps a storage shed may be in order. I'm at my limit for things I can store in the garage, and a boy needs room for his toys.

Retirement Update

Most days start like this.

 Literally almost everyone has asked me how it feels to be retired. The short answer is pretty good. The longer answers follows. The thing I notice most is the lack of stress. I never realized how much I thought about work, even on my days off, until I didn't have to. While I was working, I would think about the next shift, what would the weather be like, with whom I was working, and what the potential workload would be. That I am not doing that nearly 24/7 is quite the relief.

I was also checking my work email a lot, along with the schedule spreadsheet and my shared documents. That stuff dominated an entire browser on my phone. All that is gone.

Our lifestyle has already changed significantly. With both of us retired, the urgency for the more mundane tasks of life is gone. We now feel more free to enjoy our morning coffee, rather than jumping up and racing around the house in an effort to complete everything before the next set of shifts arrive. Suddenly, we are not doing anything tomorrow either. 

A cheap door in it's day, but still 
beautiful.

Obviously planning appointments and getaways is so easy now. No need to plan around the work schedule, and really the only thing in the schedule is other appointments. I do need to start blocking potential vacation and get-away weeks so we can take a trip if this virus thing ever goes away.

The culprit

I have been doing some work on the house. Current project continues to be the door from the kitchen into the pantry. With the colder weather approaching, that job has taken on more urgency since the pantry is unheated. I've got most of the layers of paint, stain, and varnish off. Just need now to clean it up and rub it with some mineral oil. 

Adventures in plumbing continues as the sink drain in the half bath has started to leak again. I cannot believe what trouble that has been. Of course, it is the most inaccessible sink drain I have ever seen, and I am not looking forward to wedging myself in there again.

I've got a full cord of firewood coming later this month. I have about a half cord stacked and ready to go in the garage, but with being home this winter I expect to burn more wood. I really look forward to watching the bad weather from my couch, and not driving through it to work at 11 PM.

P.S. Google has "updated' their blogging app and I don't like it. I'm really struggling to get the blog to look the way I want it to look. Sorry about the weird picture placement and random gaps in the texts. I'm still trying to get it figured out. 

All Alarms Are Off

My workstation in 2020. 

 Wow. What happened? I entered into the National Weather Service in the age of noisy teletypes and huge facsimile machines that smelled vaguely of ozone. I leave in a time multiple flat screens, virtual briefings, and COVID-19. Deadly viruses aside, I could not have imagined where the job would go after I joined in 1986. The job is better, of course. We are smarter, vastly better trained, and much more accurate. We are also more needed in today's high tech and densely populated world. More people live on the coast than ever, more flood plains have been paved over, more wild areas encroached by development. Add climate change to the mix and you have millions and millions living in at risk areas with a strong need to know. 

It's an exciting time to be a meteorologist, but for me, time to hand off the baton. When you consider where I started and the tools I was given, to where we are now, I think I have handled the changes well, kind of like teaching a caveman Calculus. Still, it's time to go. For starters, It's not just the changes but the rate of change that is difficult. About the time I master one thing, there's three other things that are awaiting my attention. My 60 year old brain has had enough.

But it's not just that. Like I posted in an earlier blog, the life I wish to live out, awaits me. I don't see it as being an exotic, thrill a minute adventure, more of a spontaneous, do it when I want to life without alarm clocks and the dull hangover of shift work. Cindy and I can travel on a whim (2021AC - After Corona), relax on a whim, and start a project on a whim. We will not be bored. Our old fixer upper awaits some more spit and polish. 

Alarms turned off for
the last time

I will miss my co-workers the most. Fantastic people, every one of them, and my closest friends. Shift work, working weekends, and working holidays, tears you away from your outside friends, and relationships shrivel from the lack of attention. On the other hand, working all hours of the day, night, and week builds a closer relationship with your co-workers. The office almost becomes a club house. 

So like I wrote, it will become a time for travel, spontaneity, and rebuilding friendships. I hope to become more active in the fire department, more active at the gym, more active in the family, and maybe finish another room in the old barn on Park Street. Perhaps volunteer where I am needed. 

Who knows? Maybe I'll finish that damn novel in the next couple years, revealing what really goes on inside this over sized pumpkin. Other dreams include trying my hand at stand up comedy at an open mike night, rebuilding a car, and finding gold at the beach. 

I could just sit on my porch and watch the world go by. This seems least likely though since just watching means everyone and everything is passing you by. There's still time to make more memories. 

I will continue this blog. It's popularity is hard to gauge but I do enjoy writing it. I may begin to record some Video Blogs as well (Vlogs to us insiders). What could be more entertaining than actually watching me attempt these jobs that I write about? Kind of like a mash up of Fixer Upper and Emergency 911. 

Like Calvin told Hobbes in their final comic strip, "It's a magical world, Hobbes ol' buddy. Let's go exploring". Good advice.  

So it's 2020...reflections on turning 60.

It's pretty easy to remember how old I am. I was born in 1960 so the math is simple. The thing is, I don't feel like I've been around for 60 years, but then I reflect back and I remember quite a bit of history. I was born only 15 years after the end of WWII, but we're already 18 years after the 9/11 attacks, which seem very recent. Young people graduating college this year will have only vague memories of that day, if at all. I remember when Binghamton still had passenger trains, and remember Walter Cronkite's vivid reports on the Vietnam War with the daily body count.

At a wedding a couple years ago. Advantage of being
bald is that it hides the gray hair. 

I remember when we lived in the "Valley of Opportunity", when Endicott Johnson was still chugging out shoes, and IBM employed thousands and thousands.  I went to see President Reagan speak at the Union Endicott football stadium to tout the area's economic stability.

My own career began in 1986 and was at the end of the era of teletype machines and facsimile maps. I was there when the first computer was delivered (an IBM PC with an 8088 processor) to the office and have worked into the era of full automation of products with the leverage of social media as a communication tool.

It's interesting to me how we do indeed tend to dwell more in the past as we age. I recall old timers always saying things like "back in my day..." and I fight the urge now to say that almost anytime any subject comes up. It's nice to fondly remember those days, and I suppose I'm lucky not to have a past contaminated with bad memories.

The present is good as well. We have our house, we have our health, and retirement is likely sooner rather than later. When I retire, I will miss the job, and especially my co-workers, but I will not miss the midnight shifts and the nasty trolls that understand nothing about weather but still feel qualified to criticize every forecast.

So what does the future hold? For starters, I am fully aware that the clock is ticking, and will take better care of my wife, myself, and my house, in that order, when the built in excuse of the drudgery of shift work is gone. I want to travel, and would like to show Cindy some of the amazing places I visited as an Incident Meteorologist.

Dad's passing was really a reality check for me. He retired shorty after Cindy and I got married, and had a solid two decades of decent health to enjoy life. He taught me one final lesson, and it's time to take that lesson to heart. It's time to go exploring.