Author: Admin

Retired!!! One of the Ultimate Lifestyle Changes…

Okay…after way more stress than I care to admit, I finally made the big move and here’s how it happened…

As early as early March I figured I had four more years at Santa Monica College. Ellie is entering high school at Crossroads and between the tuition there and the rent in Santa Monica…well, I was thinking the battle cry of every first term President…FOUR MORE YEARS! (let me skip politics to save my blood pressure)

To my pleasant surprise, the college offered a ‘golden handshake’ (simply put, 75% of 2019 salary paid over X number of years) for those who wanted to leave by the end of June.

So…let me get this straight…75% of my salary is almost the amount of tuition I need for Ellie until she graduates H.S.! Where do I sign???

I’ll spare you the number-crunching stress I put myself, JoAn and close friends through…I JUST DID IT!

As of June 17, 2020, I’ve been retired from the college…in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic no less!

I will save the …”what am I going to do now?” to future posts:)

Chapter 10

“Ladle crane operators were known for their courage during what was innocently called a ‘runner’. When a ladle of molten steel was positioned over the cast iron molds, a steel pourer on a dangerous platform pushed down on a long lever to open a stream of molten steel into a mold. On rail tracks about 15 molds were lined up to complete the pour. A runner occurred once every three months of so when the steel pourer’s lever would malfunction causing the stream not to stop between molds. The ladle crane operator was on his own at that point. All workers in the area would scream “RUNNER!” and flee the platform. Imagine molten steel at 2,900 degrees flying everywhere as the operator moved the steady pouring ladle from mold to mold until the ladle was empty.”

Contagious tears…

By only following British politics from a sofa on an IPad, I was caught off guard today watching Theresa May’s exit speech (half-ass pun).

The prime minister teared up as she finished her speech…I also teared up as she said…”the country I love”…

Does this kind of ‘contagious semi-weeping’ come from a sense that I believe her and I too love my country but wonder if our leader can honestly say that?

Or ..is it being unfair to think that my love for my country is somehow more ‘real’ than of those folks following a more conservative, isolationist path?

Traveling in the past and future

Too often I’ve poked fun at Ellie’s assessment of the week we spent in Paris in 2014. All she claimed to remember was an afternoon at Luxembourg Park.

Ellie playing Luxembourg Park, Paris

After just returning from a week in Michigan visiting family and friends…I now think I understand what Ellie was expressing about not just Paris, but traveling in general.

Unlike at home, when traveling there seems to be an obsession about two things:

  • What we may have missed
  • What are we doing next

Ellie was hyper focused in the present at that amazing park. Not what we missed or needed next…the present moment was being ‘lived fully’!

At home there doesn’t appear to be any major pressure to find these ‘moments’ like there is in a week long stay away from home.

Do you have any ideas or advice for travelers on living in the moment, not looking constantly behind and ahead?

Walking

Morning stroll to the shoreline was accented by a swift offshore breeze that produces a mist on top of the waves….that’s magical.

Santa Monica beach, 6:30 am, 3/29/2019

I’m grateful and blessed to live where we live, what I do for a living, and who I share it with.