Why am I here, revisited (6/20/2023)

This past week or so I had a relatively large number of hits on my blog. While this is of course very pleasing, I also wonder what folks are reading and one of the posts that received a lot of the attention was titled: “Why are you here? … On Training and Teaching (Part IIX).” The post was from July 2017.

The post starts out by describing my honest request for critique for a new course I started to teach, and ended in my musing on why I do what I do. I never received much of a review from my students, but that seems par for the course. I used to be an assistant manager and acting manager of a public radio station, and we always reminded ourselves that if we did not get anyone complaining, no one was listening. In other words, maybe my classes put them all to sleep.

In the same blog, I also introduced you all to my favorite saying that I like to pay back (or maybe award) the community willing to put up with me. I have always wanted to volunteer and contribute to the society or even the group (my work place) that I am involved with.

Rereading the blog made me think about my current stage in life, almost exactly six years later. I started my retirement life less than a month ago. Where am I now in this big picture of life? The republican elected officials in our county successfully got rid of me from the committees that I volunteered on and replaced me with their conservative cronies, so my payback stopped. I could of course join other not for profit groups or volunteer more for my church. But let’s take a step back.

I described in my 2017 post that a questionnaire that I answered which asked me what was important in my job? I could now twist that a little and ask what I would think would be important in my retirement life, or better the rest of my life, whatever there is left? Was it:

• Money
• Benefits
• Freedom
• Research
• Teaching, or
• Perceived contribution to society?

Yes, money is important; however, we get our social security, pension and whatever we eventually dare to pull out of our savings or investments. Am I going to try to make a few extra bucks? Yes. This week I am doing a little extra teaching for some beer money, and a friend has asked for my resume for some extra consulting work. A headhunter was looking to get me a fulltime job for double the salary that I had been making, but I am just not sure if I want to keep working in a stressful job. Altogether, while money helps, it does not seem to be the direct route to happiness or better contentment or fulfillment.

In a previous post I already complained about the tardiness in getting my medical insurance squared away. But yes, health insurance is very important especially when you get older. So, continued benefits are important, especially when you get older and your health might start failing. Thank goodness, I feel great.

Ah, freedom. I addressed some of that in my previous post. No more alarm clocks, and we now have a clock that tells us what day it is, not what time it is.

The next three points somehow blend together. I am no academic, and since I graduated with my doctorate at an advanced age, I was 37, I was never able to get an academic position. In other words, research is what I make it to be. Most of the stuff I look up is for personal interest (which you all should be familiar by now) or related to my work (teaching, past and future). I am also researching some future road trips. Some of the research has been successful, and I have been on the winning side of lawsuits as expert witness. Most of these wins were the result of my research and a very skilled lawyer. Obviously, those days are over, but I still research items for my writings and for some of the teaching that I will continue doing during retirement. I already had a teaching gig the first 15 days into my retirement.

This teaching (and this blog, I hope) assist me in what I perceive is and can be my contribution to society. Giving you all a look at the inner workings of my brain as well as maybe teach you a little, convey a little of what I learned over the years. Hopefully this can be my legacy to society at large. Something to be remembered by, like my past students who during my retirement tour told me that they always learned something from me and my lectures. I have no large sums of money to start endowments or foundations, so this will have to do!

Now you know, why I think I am here, in life and on this blog. Again, if you are a regular reader, by now you know me and my interests. If there is an item you like me to research, discuss; let me know in the comment section of my posts and I will entertain it. Otherwise, I will just keep writing and updating you a few times per month.

Our friend Mason took this photo of me as part of a birthday celebration for a friend and me last week.

Our new (retirement) clock

Welcome to Mars (6/13/2023)

Welcome to Mars, at least that is what photographs from New York City look like. Here in coastal Virginia, I am not so sure what the sky equates to. A combination or hybrid between Mars and the old Los Angeles? These is just a grey haze outside, like it is supposed to be very humid. However, it is slightly orangey or pinkish. Moreover, it is not warm, as in warm and humid. On top of that, the air smells.

You must be living under a rock if you do not know what this is all about, the Canadian wildfires. Although, on our neighborhood’s Facebook page, one lady actually asked the question what was wrong with our air. The other day we received the wrong newspaper and the Wall Street Journal, which we normally don’t read, had an editorial in which they blamed poor forest management for the fires. It is like a country that has 40% of its landmass covered by forest and has roughly 38 million people can manage all those forests. Moreover, all those forests are usually covered by snow for a couple of months a year and therefore inaccessible. The truth is that there is a heat dome parked over Canada, this early in the year. Couple a very (record) warm May with an extensive (record) drought and you create a tinder box. Nothing or very little to do with poor forest management. But it is easy for the right wing to blame everything on poor forest(environmental) management and absolutely ignore any sign of climate change or global warming. Moreover, they are convinced it is cyclical.

Heat and drought in Canada? How come? Well, I have written a lot about climate change, and guess what? Voilà, more evidence. With climate change or global warming, it seems that the northern latitudes warm up faster than us in the lower ones. This is the phenomenon we are experiencing. Hopefully this past week’s experience will wake up a few, although it seems we have a lot of political distractions lately.

I downloaded this photograph from MSN news who got it from Reuters News..  If this is copyrighted, I am sure they will let me know.  However, to me this shows me and the world what it was like in New York City this past week as a result of the Canadian wildfires.  It also shows you why I titled my post "Welcome to Mars."

Free at last? (6/4/2023)

The first few days of retirement are completed. We both retired on Wednesday; I attended my wife’s retirement lunch on Tuesday and she came to mine on Wednesday. We were both introduced to colleagues and supervisors (at the last minute of our employment). The only thing we often could say was “I heard so much about you.” In one instance at my wife’s luncheon one of her colleagues whispered in my ear: “and it is all true.” This was when I said that to her boss.

I can only tell you that it is true what people tell you, retirement is not for the weary. Time to relax, hell no! I already had two inquiries about jobs and if I would be so nice to apply for them or at least send in my resume. These past two days were used to unpack what we brought home from the office and to organize our new lives at home. My wife already had lunch with a very good (retired) friend, who can’t wait for more companionship. I had dinner with her husband, also one of my best friends. Saturday and Sunday were not different, we were constantly on the go. No rest and relaxation here, yet.

Of course, in addition to all this, the past few days have been filled with discussions about our finances. Will we have enough money to maintain our now past lifestyle? On top of that it seems that my health insurance is screwed up. This ranges from Medicare part B to the supplemental part. It is a complete mess. Hopefully everything will work out; however, I better do not get sick in June. Folks at Social Security appear to be so inept, you tell them that you are retiring on June 1 and apply for Medicare at the same time and then did not put anything in the remarks section about wanting Medicare to start on June 1 which I assumed would be self-evident, but no! Moreover, there are no instructions that you had to fill out a starting date. Whomever entered the data did not bother to ask or question things. I learned assume consists of three words: ass, u and me. In other words, I should have known better, and it really made an ass out of me and guess what I think of you (u) right now, social safety net? Oh well, this will come to pass, if I get sick, I might need to start a go-fund-me page to pay for my medical bills this month.

A quick report on last week’s travel. My last trip for the state was to Abingdon. It was an emotional trip for me at times. I greatly enjoy the Southwest, or better the southwestern part of the state. While they are more conservative, I can somehow understand why and accept it. They feel left behind as I think I outline in a previous post. The two days teaching was good, I met with a lot of folks that I have taught over my 14-year career as an instructor for the state. Moreover, I got to eat and drink in places I visited before. It was a fun trip. All I can say is that I will return to the area, but now socially and to explore. This was not my last visit.

Since we are now the proud owners of a camping van (I mentioned this for the first time here), my wife and I are talking about maybe producing a more detailed travel blog, or maybe even starting a YouTube channel for me, where I can talk more about nature, bonsai, stormwater, and our travels. We will see what is going to happen in the future. Stay tuned folks, but as I promised, this blog will go on! By the way, our first trip was to Belle Isle State Park, a place we visited before for some day hikes. It was recommended to me by one of my students in Lynchburg as a great site to go camping, and I dare say it was great. The fun part there was that during our trip we ran into a past student of mine from Staunton (2-hour drive from Belle Isle). He works for VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) and was on visiting the area as well. Crazy when you know so many folks around the state. It somehow amazed my wife how well known I am. Retirement is a double edged sword; I have to behave myself. Well, not really.

Our setup at Belle Isle, we had fun.

My wife and Radar enjoying the outside and waiting for that beer.

On the Creeper Trail in Abingdon

A selfie in my last class in Abingdon