I almost forgot about this blog that I last posted in Jan. 2016. Many things have occurred since.
2018 - Wife officially retired from her 20plus year job at JPMC
2019 - We contracted to build a new house in Brooksville, FL
2014 - 2020 - Tech lead at Advent Health (fka Florida Hospital) .. we did what they wanted for 6 years and everyone involved survived. The contract ended 04/2020
02/2020 - Our new house was completed and ready for move-in
03/2020 - We listed our old house and it sold within 5 days after listing
04/2020 - We moved into our new house; The lock-down for the COVID pandemic began
10/2020 - I officially retired from my IT career of 44 years
Moving from our old home of 17 years proved to be somewhat stressful, as a 'technical timeline' forced us into last minute decisions without any foresight. We stayed within the 'law', that didn't really matter, as the new residents weren't moving in for another month or so, due to the pandemic.
While in a rush to get out by the next day, in hindsight it didn't need to happen, as I still had the door keys, I crashed my aquarium and drenched the carpet with muck the night before the official move out day. Prior to the aquarium demolition, I had relocated my pet fish to an ice chest of aquarium water, but that proved to be too much stress for my eldest 19-year old silver dollar fish, 'Keith Richards'. He passed away within a few hours of relocating him. We buried him in the back yard along with our other two late pets, Miss Kitty and Baby cat. I regret not waiting until the next day (even though we were technically not allowed to be be there). Anyway, I had 5 fish that survived the move, but only two remain after three years in the new place, Bruiser (a juvenile Silver Dollar) and Cat Stevens (a hardy cory catfish).
The next day after spending all night cleaning the carpet where the aquarium disaster occurred, we slept a few hours on the carpeted living room floor. The next morning, we packed our final belongings in our SUV along with Squeakie the cat. She made a small fuss about being put in the carrying box, but was fine when we drove away. She had a good view of the road in front of us, but I think she was mostly comforted by the sight and sound of both of us in the SUV. Before, it was always just me taking her to the vet. It took a couple of days in the new house for her to become comfortable. I'm sure she misses the stairs in the old place.
We gave much of our stuff away, as we no longer needed it nor did we want to haul to the new place, only to have to get rid of it later. Hey, it was just stuff and the loss was not worth the hassle of trying to sell it all. We did get some compensation for stuff that was put into consignment, but most of it just disappeared. I wrote it off on our taxes.
We have settled into retired life rather smoothly. Our daily headaches are no more, except for house-keeping ones (par for the course). We were able to manage our first 3-4 months of expenses after retirement, while waiting for the wife to take her full SS at age 70. I took mine at 67. We no longer have to arise at a certain time everyday, although we don't always sleep in late. Something about aging makes us get up earlier than necessary. Our schedule is our own and can change from day-to-day. We're enjoying our new 55-over community and have met many neighbors and made friends who are like-minded and like-aged. Monthly Bingo, holiday parties and even weekly Mahjong have become part of our lives. The wife's local family are also not too far away and we always catch up with them on birthdays and holidays.
Last year, we decided to have a pool/spa built at our new home, as I never got around to doing it in the old place despite the plans to do so. Must not have been very serious about it. Regardless, the new pool\spa has been in operation since Jan of this year, and we are working out all the kinks of pool ownership. We heated it during our colder months, but summer is almost upon us and it's time to stop burning natural gas. We can still heat up our spa at will when we need to sooth our old muscles and joints from a hard day of retirement activities.
I'm playing more golf and still working on my swing. That seems like a never-ending task, but I guess that's the reason I keep playing, always trying to improve. We stay in touch with our old next-door neighbor who still lives there. Our neighbors directly across the street have moved on also, at the peak of the housing price increases during the pandemic. Good timing. I did find out that another adjacent neighbor had passed away unexpectedly in 2021 due to cancer. He and his family had moved to the old neighborhood the same year that we did (2003). Was sad to hear about him .. a good guy.
As for my computer work, I only delve into technology for personal stuff and to aid others that may need assistance when asked. I recently volunteered to help restore a historical website created by a late school mate, who had passed some 6 years ago. It is up and running again at minimal costs, free hosting and a domain name good for 3 years. I try to keep our computers and phones updated and operating without any hitches, but sometimes maintenance doesn't help. I retired my old pc that I bought in 2008 from the now defunct Circuit City. I upgraded it and replaced 3 power supply units over its life. It finally stopped working and I couldn't get it going again, so I removed the drives and sent it to Goodwill thinking some other nerd might buy it to build a gaming pc or something. PC's can last a long time as long as there are parts available.
