Retirement

I reached a few milestones recently. The first was to have completed 25 years with the state of California. After which, I retired from it. The date on the plaque isn’t correct, but that’s government for you. I began retirement unofficially in early October when I began using up vacation time. Officially, my last day was December 14th, the day before I turned 55.

As I am sure anyone who spends that much time somewhere can attest to, it is a little difficult saying goodbye. I have gotten to know many great people at CalPERS. I met my wife there. I have worked on many projects that have affected many people there. I have spent years on some projects that I have contributed so much to and that I am really proud of. Throughout my career, not just at CalPERS, I have mentored people to become better programmers and it prides me to know that I have helped them in their careers, too. So many people, so many projects, so many hours (sometimes at all hours) spent in those buildings. It has been a large part of my life that I have now turned away from. But it is time to start doing other things.

Everyone asks what I am going to do when I am retired and if I will be bored. I always thought that was amusing. How could I be bored? There is so much to do! I have had projects lined up for years that I haven’t had time to get to because of work. Thanks to my wonderful wife who is out there taking on the world and saving it from the likes of COVID (not literally, she is grounded like the rest of us right now and working from home), I really don’t have to work again. Not saying that I won’t, but I don’t have to. So, for now, I work on hobbies and home projects that are making the house more organized, less cluttered, and smarter (yes, I have even allowed Alexa into my house). And obviously, one project is to work on this website. I have started with this blog. I have a few years of pictures to update. That will come. Seriously, I have so many projects going on right now, I don’t know how I ever had time for work.

Social Media

I removed myself from Facebook somewhere near March of 2020. It’s not that I didn’t like being able to see friends and family on the platform. I just couldn’t stand most of what was being said.

When Facebook first came about, I thought it was just such a wonderful idea. It was a place where all those lost friends and acquaintances could meet up again and see what was up in their lives. Even those that hadn’t been lost but were difficult to communicate with lest you dedicated time communicating frequently asking if there was anything new going on. Such one on one interaction hasn’t really been my kind of thing. I liked the way you could casually browse through their musings about their family and daily activities and comment if you so desired. It wasn’t a forced conversation just to find out how things have been. People were documenting it and you could easily find out by reading about it. Or even viewing photos that they put up (worth a thousand words each).

However, like all good things, people find ways to ruin it.

In Facebook, and all social media platforms (and really in life in general) people just can’t help telling you about things that they feel you must know about and why you should care the way that they do. I can live with that to a degree but it isn’t why I am coming to your page. I want to know how your life is going and what your kids are up to. What have you been doing with yourself? I don’t really want to hear how you think the government is messing everything up. Or how the weather is going destroy us. Or what Kaley Cuoco was wearing today. I have Google News, you know, that I already can’t stand. I don’t need it rehashed in your pages as landmines in my journey to find out what your dog did today.

It got to be too much. I started filtering out friends who would post too much political rants (from either side, I just don’t care!) And then family started getting moved to the ignore bin until such time that I could stomach it. Until finally I had only a few people whom I barely knew left. I got to know some of them quite well. And I think Utah might just be one of the prettiest states to live in know. But most of the people whom I wanted to hear from I wasn’t anymore just so that I could remain sane.

So, I left it. It was hard, sure. Like anything you become addicted to, I found it hard to give up the occasional real news of people that I cared about. I even found it difficult to lose the contact of the people that drove me crazy. But a year later, I am happier now. I miss not hearing from my friends and family. My hermit ways prevent me, for the most part, from just picking up the phone and finding out how they all are doing. Maybe someday I will try it again if I think that your opinion of whomever the president is at the time is worth finding out what you had for dinner is. No, seriously, many of you were posting things that I really did enjoy hearing about.

If you have a political free blog or means of letting people know what is going on in your family that I can view without being subject to all the rants about how the world is going to end, let me know. In today’s world, bookmarks are the so passe, but they work.