Tag Archives: Retirement

Photos on My Office Wall

Posted on May 28, 2017 | Leave a comment

Some of the items that I will need to take home when I retire are these 11 framed photos hanging on my office wall. I cannot even begin to fathom how long they have hung on my wall, but I know they have moved from one office to another each time my office changed. Considering that I have worked at the same site and in the same building for over 30 years, they are probably quite old.

A close up inspection reveals that these are really cheap, 8” X 10” metal frames with a “faux-wood” finish. I think I probably bought them at Target years ago. At least once when I moved into a larger office, which had a larger wall, I had to search for additional frames of the same design to expand my gallery.

Over the years, I would occasionally change out a photo for a newer one but with one exception, the photos were always either of my family (wife and kids), travel, or my cars. And the reason I know this is because each time I added a new photo, I simply put it on top of the photo previously displayed.

I recently took down each frame and took off the back just to see what treasures were hiding inside the frames.

In some, I found just a few photos but in others, the frame contained four or five photos. As I looked through the photos “archived” in each frame, I saw some of these images for the first time in many, many years.

Harahan Bridge over Mississippi River

The earliest of these photos were black and whites. Prior to getting married, I had bought all the equipment necessary to develop and print my own black and white photos from black and white film. But some of the ones in the frames I realized I had printed from color 35 mm negatives as I recognized the image as a familiar color snapshot from my first year of marriage (back in my “artsy” pre-digital camera age when the only way I could make a black and white photo was to either print it this way or to use black and white film).

Based on finding just four black and white photos, my earliest wall gallery must have only included four frames.

Once I started traveling internationally, I began to add pictures from my travels, replacing all of my black and white photos with color photos.

Aquaduct of Caesarea (Israel)

And as my travels increased, I needed to add additional frames to accommodate photos from all my trips.

Lisbon Oceanarium (Aquarium, Lisbon, Portugal)

When family members traveled with me on these international trips, they appeared in my displayed photos as well.

Sometime in the early 2000s, I began to display photos of my cars (at first two and then three cars in 2006) and then in 2011, I added photos from my two oldest children’s weddings.

As my travels continued, I began to replace old travel photos with newer ones.

In May of 2016 when I bought my latest car, I planned on replacing the picture of my Mini, which we no longer owned, with my new WRX.

But then just days later, I got word that my work site was closing.

So rather than adding to my collection, I began to think about what I was going to do with my photo gallery when I left. Since the frames are so cheap, I wouldn’t want to display them inside our house unless I invested in much nicer frames.

And then I came upon the idea of hanging them all in our garage over my workbench. After all, once I retire, I will be spending a lot more time at my workbench doing one of the things I love doing, working with my hands.

I’ve wanted to take down these shelves for quite some time since they just end up becoming a storage space for old paints and chemicals that are not even good anymore. Now I have a good reason to.

So rather than boxing up these old frames and sticking them in the attic or worse yet, throwing them away, they will simply relocate to one of my “new” office walls. Because after all, every time my office moved these gems moved with me. And so they will!

Unquenchable Thirst for Reading

Posted on April 30, 2017 | 4 comments

I can’t get enough of reading. For someone who read very little for pleasure up until about the age of 25, I’ve sadly missed a lot of years that I could have been reading. But a reader I have turned in to! These are some of the bookcases filled with books I’ve read over the years.

Once I started this blog several years ago, I began to keep a digital list of all the books I read in a calendar year. And for several years, I’ve been keeping an Amazon “wish list” of all the books I wanted to read. I’ve written before about all of the books I have in waiting on that list, but unfortunately that list is growing faster than I can read.

Not long ago, my sister-in-law introduced me to BookBub, a service you can sign up for in which you pre-select the types of books you would be interested in reading (I signed up for both fiction novels and non-fiction history books.). Once activated, you then get a daily e-mail message that lists digital books that are on sale—just for that one day—priced from “Free” to $3.99. Who can pass up these kinds of prices? So far this year, I’ve purchased eight BookBub books, each for $2.99 or less. Even with the current price of gas, I can’t drive to the public library and check out a book for much less than that.

My problem is, as always, I am a slow reader. I marvel at my wife for how fast she can read.

My Wife’s Bookcase

Often when our evening is almost over, we will each get up on our bed and read a digital book on our iPad. It is amazing how quickly she is touching her iPad to move to the next page. Sadly for me, I often end up falling asleep while reading being so worn out by the end of the day.

One of the best times for me to get to read is when I am traveling by air. I honestly don’t mind sitting in the airport waiting to board when I have a good book to read. And once on the plane, I often put ear buds in to discourage any conversation from fellow travellers so I can have hours of uninterrupted reading pleasure. Thank goodness we can now use our e-readers below 10,000 feet and while waiting to depart.

My favorite flight is on my return trip from Amsterdam each year when I typically have a seven to eight hour flight during day light hours when, despite the 7-hour time difference, is still when I would normally be awake (The flight to Amsterdam is overnight so I usually try to sleep as much as I can rather than read to better acclimate to the 7-hour time loss).

Another favorite time of mine is on vacation when I can also spend many hours reading non-stop.

Having turned 60, an age I’ve always thought of as “old” (although less so now that I am actually 60), I’ve had the sad thought of wondering just how many more years of reading I have left.

One of the items on my “to do” list once I retire is to read more. So even though knowing each of us has a limited number of years to live, I plan to accelerate my reading. Not that I will necessarily become a speed-reader to rival my wife. But with more hours available to read, I’ll be able to read even more books. But I suspect that even with that change, I’ll still have trouble keeping up with all the books I want to read. Because there are just so many great books out there, and the universe of books continues to expand ever larger.

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Posted in Entropy

Tagged books, Reading, Retirement

Old Files

Posted on April 23, 2017 | 2 comments

Even though my retirement is still months away, I have already begun to clean out some old files as the archiving staff will be leaving before my last day. I have been the head of Stability for over 25 years so some of my files go back that far. On the first day of our site-wide clean up, I began to go through some of these quarter century old files.

It was really interesting looking back at some of the reports I approved in 1991. Even more interesting was seeing the names of fellow workers from that period that I had not even thought of in probably almost that long. Sadly, a few of them are not still alive so as I ran across their names, it was with a touch of sorrow.

But as I thumbed through documents from some of the other companies we worked with in the past, it was joyous to see names of people I know now that back then were just another name on a report. It is truly amazing how small the pharmaceutical industry really is.

That first day, I only managed to clean out one 5-drawer lateral file cabinet so I have a number of other files still to go through before I’m done. I fortunately didn’t come across any original documents that would have to go through the lengthy archival process. I did, however, generate a lot of recyclable waste. I can’t image how many trips I made to the recycle bin but I know I met my Fitbit 10,000-step goal that day (I even had to search for additional bins as along with fellow employees, we filled up all the ones close by.).

In advance of this clean-up day, I actually started going through some even older files that dated back to when I first started working.

I ran across this photo of me that I think must have been taken for the company newspaper (remember those?).

When I pulled out this file labeled “Programs”, I didn’t quite know what would be hidden inside. I was floored when I opened it.

Inside was a Basic computer program I had written to crunch method validation data. My boss, when I first started, was very much into computerization (this was 1982) and challenged me as one of my first special projects to come up with a program to perform these method validation calculations.

When I was in college in the mid 1970s, I had studied Basic programming in a calculus lab course I had to take. Back then, the computer we had was a mainframe the size of two deep freezers end to end. We hand wrote out our program (there were no word-processors) and then typed each line of code onto a punch card (e.g., 100 cards for a 100 line program). Our task was to write a program to take multiple inputs of student’s individual test scores, generate a semester average for each student, assign a letter grade, and then rank order the students from highest to lowest average. I had had no exposure to computer programming in high school so this first semester freshman class proved to be a challenging assignment that I ultimately was not able to finish.

Imagine my chagrin when my boss assigned this project to me, a task far more challenging than my college assignment. Maybe it was the motivation of wanting to impress my boss (or the fact that I was being paid to do this rather than just earning a grade) but I remember taking home books on programming in Basic and hand writing my program at the kitchen table. Fortunately less than a decade after college, we were working on a “mini-computer” using a text processor that could take our lines of code and compile them into machine language—no more punch cards—so once my program was complete, I typed it into the text processor.

Turns out writing it was a blast! I had to write several subroutines to perform the actual linear regression and to output the data in a table. I even figured out how to sort the data with a single pass through the calculated results, a functionality that had eluded me in college.

In the same folder, I also found that I had started writing a computer program to manage our family budget. Only problem was this predated the invention of personal computers and so I had no computer of my own on which to run this program. But for a more “legitimate” business use, I did find that I had written a program to track our golf league participant’s scores and total them up to determine the season’s winners. It was almost like that student’s test score program I never was able to write correctly in college, only with golf scores rather than test scores.

As I looked over these 34 year-old documents, I recalled the fun I had had writing these and the sense of pride that on my own, I had taught myself how to successfully program in Basic. It seemed that once I had slayed that old nemesis from college, I was bubbling with confidence to try even more.

I wonder on our next clean-up day what other treasures like these I may uncover that bring back such fond memories. I guess only time will tell.

2 Comments

Posted in Memories

Tagged Basic Programs, Memories, nostalgia, Retirement

Retirement Dreaming?

Posted on April 2, 2017 | 6 comments

A few months before my planned retirement date, I had an unusual dream. I know we do not fully understand how our minds process data while we sleep but when we can recall a dream; it is often interesting and sometimes even enlightening how different events at the time get woven into our dream. In case you have not followed my posts previously, a little background information may be helpful.

Credit: Saveup.com

After almost 35 years working at the same location, I am retiring. But the cause of my retirement is not necessarily a planned event; it is the result of our work site closure and relocation out of state. I was one of the employees designated to work until the site closure actually occurred to ensure a smooth transition of functions to the new site. And since I was planning on retiring in 2018 anyway, it did not make sense for me to relocate to a new site for what would likely be less than a year of additional employment.

Prior to my dream, several related events occurred.

First, for some time, I had been thinking about the fact that when I left, there would be no retirement party. Not that my vanity caused me to wish for the recognition in such an event but just the acknowledgement that there would be no happy celebration of one of the most significant milestones anyone can achieve in their professional career. Over my years at this location, I had been to numerous joyous occasions when others retired. It seemed almost as if rather than me leaving the company, it was leaving me.

Then a few days before I had the dream, my boss told me that rather than executing the previous plan of consolidating the last few remaining employees onto the first floor of our multi-floor building, that we had had an offer on the entire site and may have to actually vacate the site before our planned closing date.

With that as background, in my dream, I was going to a surgery center to have some procedure performed, for what I do not know. When I entered the center, there was a vast number of beds sunken into the ground so that the bed surface was level with the floor. The room was divided into plots with four beds to a plot, each surrounded by a walkway. The beds were of different sizes and styles (I tried to draw this image for you but alas, I am not a very good free-hand artist).

I don’t know if I arrived late but there was no more room for me on that floor so I had to go down a long walking escalator to the lower level. When they took me to my bed, rather than a bed level with the floor, it was a coffin. I remember sensing it was going to feel claustrophobic and uncomfortable and I was not going to be able to move around.

I told the attendant I did not want to be in that coffin and so was shown to another bed much like the others in the room.

The next thing I remember, much like when we are sedated for a medical procedure, was afterwards. I never understand what procedure was performed on me. But my next image was of me standing at a loading dock. Backed up to the building were the open doors of an 18-wheeler trailer. Inside were rows and rows of identical wedge shaped containers, almost like roller luggage bags. I must have been told the trailer was loaded with biological tissues from other patients who’d had procedures, the contents of which were being taken offsite for sanitary incineration.

My bag was not on the truck and then the doors were closed and the truck left. After the truck was out of sight, my bag arrived at the dock all by itself.

Somehow I knew that my red and black work backpack, which contained my work computer and my personal iPad was also in the roller bag. But when I looked closely at the bag, thinking I needed to take out my backpack before it went off to the incinerator, I could see that there was something beating inside the bag like a human heart.

I knew I couldn’t open it for fear of what I might see inside and then all of a sudden the beating heart stopped.

My next thought was, wait I am not dead. Even though the heart in there has stopped beating, I am still alive. I then wheeled my bag into a secluded alcove where I planned to take out my backpack without anyone seeing me. Then I woke up.

I shared this dream with my wife over dinner that night and she thought it was quite revealing. She coaxed me through interpreting what it might mean.

The work life that I had known for so many years was dead but I was not. Something was taken from my body but I had survived. Going to the lower surgery center level was probably me having to relocate at work. Being lead to the coffin were the months of anticipation knowing our site was closing, in a sense dying. And the 18-wheeler was filled with human losses from all of the other employees impacted by this site closure reminiscent of how all our lab samples had actually been loaded onto an 18-wheeler months before and relocated to a new lab.

While this may sound like a bit of a morbid dream, I think it will help me bring closure to my working full time. I am actually very much looking forward to “retiring” although I must say that with air quotes as I plan to continue to teach and potentially consult. I know it will mean change for the life my family and I have known for so long. But I expect it to be a joyous change with more time for travel, more time with my family, and more time for other fun activities. SO close that casket and let the fun begin!

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Posted in Entropy

Tagged Dreaming, Retirement

Will I Miss My Morning Commute?

Posted on November 27, 2016 | 2 comments

Now that my retirement is less than a year away, this is a question that has been rolling around in my head for the last several months. It probably started one day when I noticed a bumper sticker that read: “Work for me is just a detour on my way to happy hour.” Obviously for this person, their daily commute was just a passage to a more pleasurable, possibly numbing experience. As for me, the answer whether or not I will miss my commute is: yes and no. An explanation is probably in order for my indecisiveness.

I have written numerous times that I love cars and I love to drive. And for 34 years, a big part of my driving has been my daily commute to the same work location. Although I have lived in three different houses in different parts of the city/county during that time, for more than the last 15 years, my daily transit has been about 30 miles, round trip. This is the bulk of my total weekly mileage so my back and forth drive to work represents the majority of the time I spend behind the wheel of my car.

For almost 20 years of that daily commute, I have had access to either a Miata or a Mini Cooper, both cars that are very fun to drive. When we first moved out to the county over 15 years ago, I intentionally took back roads in the morning zipping around some of the curvy county roads. Even taking back roads, my commute time was often just a little over 20 minutes. As more and more people moved out to the county, I would notice a bit more traffic each year when school started but by leaving just a little earlier, I could avoid a lot of this additional traffic and still have a blast on my drive in.

In warmer weather, I particularly had a good time when I could drive to work with the top down. But each fall, I would notice a bit more traffic than I remembered when school was still in session. But then all that changed in the fall of 2013 when construction started on a new flyover at the busiest interstate exchange in the city.

Memphis is unfortunately cursed with very few continuous East-West streets. So when one of them is under construction, traffic backs up and many motorists hop over to one of the other East-West routes increasing their traffic significantly.

That construction is still going on and so for almost three years, one or more lanes of that main East-West Interstate have been closed. This is the same route also used by the majority of Interstate through-traffic so at certain times traffic crawls and when there is an accident, it literally becomes a parking lot. When that happens, even drivers normally willing to crawl on their commute seek an alternate route, which just increases traffic flow on these other routes even further. And construction is projected to continue until mid-year 2017, just a few months before I actually retire.

So my ambivalence about answering my original question is driven by this predicament. I would love to drive like I used to without having to fight so much traffic. At times now, my old 20-minute commute can turn into over an hour. People that love to drive love to do just that, drive, not sit in traffic.

This past August when school started back, traffic was absolutely the worst it has ever been. Construction at another interstate interchange that started over the summer has even taken away a roundabout way for me to get work that distance-wise was even further but actually took less time. Certain sections of my drive today would actually take less time if I were walking. And on mornings before work when I exercise by running, traffic is even worse because I am heading out the door sometimes an hour later.

As a result, I have started spending more nights during the week at our mid-town condo from where my commute time is 10 minutes or less. It is really too short for a fun drive but it is a much better alternative than dealing with the frustration of excessive traffic. I also recently came to the realization that rather than spending the night at the condo, I could actually drive from home to the condo early in the morning and either run in that neighborhood or simply get ready for work there. The first time I tried this, I had a 25 minute commute to the condo (with very little traffic and even fewer stops at traffic lights) and then once I had gotten ready for work, had an 8-minute commute to work for a total commute time of 33 minutes. Rare during the school year is my morning commute from home ever this short.

This new approach will help me avoid hour-long commutes to work until May when school gets out. And then next August when school starts back, it will be the first school year in five years that morning traffic hasn’t been negatively impacted by construction.

Will my commute return to what it was like 15 years ago? Probably not since during that time, more population has moved to the county resulting in even more cars than before. But at least a more rapid commute on the Interstate should funnel off some of the cars from the back roads I prefer to use.

So at least for those last few months, my commute will be better than it’s been in five years. And once I actually retire and am no longer driving to work each weekday, I know I will likely think of numerous errands I need to run to get in some fun drives—just not during rush hour. Who knows, maybe some of those drives will be just to enjoy the road with no other purpose in mind. Because for someone who loves cars, a commute is all about the drive, not necessarily the destination.

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Posted in Entropy

Tagged cars, Commute to Work, Memories, Retirement

Golf?

Posted on November 20, 2016 | 3 comments

Recently, when I started my list of activities to do once I retire, golf was on that list. Interestingly, golf really hasn’t been on my mind in quite some time. But a recent conversation with a friend, who retired this year, brought it back to the fore front of my thoughts.

The conversation we were having over dinner was some of his ideas for what he would do now that he was retired. Golf was not a sport he participated in over his entire professional career, but now that he had the time, it was a game he was interested in learning to play. Since then, he and I have had an additional discussion about what he would need to get started. And the conversation got me thinking back over my own, somewhat limited golf game.

I was actually in high school when I first took up the game. After we moved to Memphis, my dad suggested that my brother and I should learn to play golf. To my knowledge, my dad had never played either so it would be a learning experience for all three of us. My mother found a set of used, rather old “Ben Hogan” golf clubs in the East Memphis Shoppers News for us to buy and the only other items we bought were golf balls and tees.

One summer day, we headed over to Fox Meadows golf course to play our first round (I think it was a day set aside for beginners to avoid frustrating regulars with the slow play of someone learning). The three of us teed up our balls and each hit our drive. With my dad carrying the bag, we made our way off the tee walking towards our balls. Suddenly, we started hearing the starter announce over the loud speaker that each player needed his own bag. We didn’t know what he meant or whom he was even talking to but since no one came running after us, we kept walking (Not long after that, we learned that each of us needed our own bag and clubs and so my brother and I each bought a starter set.). My only other memory from this less than auspicious start was that I don’t think we were even able to finish that first round of nine holes as we lost so many balls; we had none left to play the last hole.

During high school, my brother and I would golf with some friends from our church. Many Saturdays, we would go to Overton Park to play their short nine-hole course—a great place for beginners like us. This whole time, I never had any golf lessons, learning on my own without guidance or correction of my bad habits. I played some in college with one of my chemistry professors but this didn’t occur very frequently.

It wasn’t until I started my second job that I really began to play golf on a more regular basis. This was prompted by the fact that the company had a golf league. Each summer, they would sponsor three tournaments and then every two weeks, there would be competition on individual play. In these two-week rounds, you could turn in your best 18-hole game and compete with others in your flight for free golf balls, based on your handicap (I was obviously in the lowest flight). At the end of the summer, the year-end tournament would then pair the top finishers from these two-week rounds.

One year I actually competed in my flight at the year-end tournament. The person I was competing against was a much better player than me and so he had to give me about eight strokes to even our game. I think I gave up all eight strokes on the first two holes. After that he, clobbered me. I don’t remember by how many strokes he beat me but because there were just two of us, I got the 3rd place trophy (the first place finisher had already been decided).

One of the nice things about these two-week rounds was that you didn’t have to play 18 holes at one time. They just had to be 18 consecutive holes on the same course. This meant with summer’s longer days, we could play after work, playing the front nine one week and the back nine the second week. It avoided me trying to find the time on a Saturday to play 18 holes, which was getting more difficult as our kids got older.

Then one time, it came down to the last day, a Sunday before the round closed and I still needed my second nine to be able to turn in my 18-hole card. That day was hot as Hades but I called a co-worker and asked if he would join me. He agreed and so we met at Galloway golf course. I needed to play the front nine and so we able to get off from the number 1 tee. On the 5th hole, a par 3, I made a hole-in-one. It was not the beautiful shot you would see a pro make on television. It was a terrible shot with the ball first hitting in the fairway, a second bounce on the green and the third bounce hitting the stick and wedging between the stick and cup. I joked later that had it not gone in, I probably never would have been able to find my ball as it was traveling so fast when it hit the stick.

For my ace, I got my name in the newspaper and I still have the ball. Around that time, my father-in-law also made a hole-in-one and he got his ball nicely mounted on a wooden plaque along with his scorecard. I didn’t feel right doing that as the “1” on my scorecard was sandwiched between a triple bogey “7” and a double bogey “6”.

Not long after that, I took a role on the golf committee. Wouldn’t you know it would be the year we decided to play Fox Meadows, where my golfing all got started? Usually, we play our end of the year tournament at a course where we could reserve tee times weeks in advance. But since Fox Meadows was a public course, it was first come, first served on the day of play. Each golfer could reserve two tee times so we had to get a number of us to camp out in the parking lot of Fox Meadows all night to get the 10 to 12 tee times we wanted when the starter showed up at dawn. Needless to so, none of us played very well in the tournament that year.

As our kids got older and took on numerous after school activities, it became impossible for me to play after work and even weekends were typically tied up with things to do. So at some point, I had to give up playing altogether. Once our kids were older, I could have taken it back up but unfortunately I developed sciatica and had to have back surgery. After that, I was concerned that playing would cause my sciatica to return and so I just gave up any hope of ever playing again.

I missed getting to play in Hawaii because of my sciatica

At least until just recently when I had that conversation with my friend. I recalled how much I used to enjoy being out on the course, taking in all of the beautiful greenery and the immaculately manicured fairways and greens. It is exciting to think about playing again.

My first step will be to go to a driving range and see how much I have forgotten. Or how much of my bad habits I have still retained. By definition, I am not a senior citizen yet so maybe in the years I have until then, I can get a good game back and be able to compete with some old men like I used to see playing when I was young, especially since I will be a senior citizen by that time.

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Posted in Memories

Tagged Golf, Memories, nostalgia, Retirement

I’m Retiring!

Posted on October 30, 2016 | 4 comments

If all goes according to plan, in just about a year, I will be retired. However, as I heard someone say recently in a webinar I was listening to, I say “Retired” with air quotes because for me, retiring will just mean no longer working full time. I still plan on teaching the analytical course I have taught for almost 20 years as well as teaching the new stability course I started in 2015. And as the opportunity presents itself, I will also do some consulting work.

The reason I plan to “retire” in this manner is because I have been blessed throughout my career to enjoy my work. And early in my career when I was still working in the laboratory, I absolutely loved my job and looked forward to going to work every day. This was when work was play for me. I was doing hands-on HPLC work and considered myself a “micro plumber.”

But even when I moved into management, I still enjoyed many aspects of my job. Often there would be problems to solve that required creative analytical thinking. Or I would have to develop a detailed plan to accomplish some task and being a detail-oriented person, this was right up my alley. Over my career, governmental regulations continued to change and in my position, I was the one responsible for developing and implementing policy to meet the changing regulatory environment. In this regard, I was often my own boss in defining what had to be done and when.

It wasn’t until later in my career that I began to have to perform certain tasks that I absolutely loathed, performance management, annual goal setting, and employee ratings distribution being at the top of that list. Fortunately, these were only once or twice a year activities rather than daily tasks. These last tasks I will definitely not miss when I retire.

So overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my 30+ year career in the pharmaceutical industry and plan to stay active in it since I really enjoy the teaching aspect and working to help others to solve problems.

So beyond my teaching and possible consulting, what will I do when I retire?

Well I know the first morning I wake up and do not drive to work will likely just seem like a weekend day no matter what day of the week it is since while working full time, the weekend was always the time when I had a number of things on my To Do list that I had to accomplish. After three or four days of this, it may begin to seem like a “staycation” but once I am into my second week without going to work, then I think it will really hit me that “I am retired.”

So being a habitual list maker, here is the start of my retirement activity list. I suspect I will add even more ideas as time goes on. But this is at least a start.

Travel – Not since I was a preschooler have I had unlimited vacation time. Admittedly being able to travel is not just about having the time, there is the money required as well. But working full time for over 35 years, there have been numerous times when I could not travel because I simply did not have the vacation time to take off. With extra tine, at least half of that travel equation will be resolved.

So where will my wife and I go first? Well we have almost a year to figure that out. But I suspect it will be someplace we have never been before. Because in spite of all our past travels, there is still a world of places out there we can explore that will be new to us.

Spend Time with Kids/Grandkids – No doubt some of that travel will be to visit our kids and grandchildren. Two of our kids and grandchildren live a long way away and so we don’t get to visit with them as much as our in-town son and granddaughter. Our trips out west in the past have some times been limited by the cost of airfare. But with unlimited vacation time (at least for me), we could drive if we wanted to. On the way, this would also give us a chance to visit some places we have never been before.

Road Trips – Driving out west might seem like a road trip but for me, a road trip is when I drive by car specifically to experience a fun road, The Tale of the Dragon (US 129) is at the top of that list and I have driven it multiple times.

Another fun road that I have driven just for the experience of driving it was the Blue Ridge Parkway.

When I retire, I want to find some other fun roads in the US that I can drive to and experience.

Reading – Reading more is definitely a high priority on my list. I look forward to seeing how many books I can put on my year’s reading list when I have all the time I want to read.

Outdoor Projects – Projects that would normally take multiple weekends to complete oftentimes went undone while I was working full time. Rebuilding the garbage blind is one of those that I have written about before that is still waiting for me.

Even the steps I built from a walkway to our deck fell into disrepair this year and are in need of a rebuild.

Photography – With extra time available, I plan to pursue taking more photos. I have a very nice digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera that I haven’t used in many years because it has been easier to use my iPhone or my point and shoot camera. Using the manual mode on my DSLR, hopefully I will be able to create some stunning photos.

Golf – It’s also been over 20 years since I played golf. I played a lot when I was growing up and even early in my marriage (when I still had the time) I would play. I was never very good with my best handicap probably being 20+ but I always enjoyed getting out to play. In my teens, I remember seeing a number of old men playing the game. Now I am one.

So this is a start of my list; I’ll have a year to add more items to that list. And when that day comes about a year from now, I suspect I may be perplexed at what to do first. But I know that no matter what it is, it will be the beginning of a fun retirement.

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Posted in Entropy

Tagged Retirement, travel, Vacations

Tag Archives: Retirement

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