So where do you hope to retire? Same place as you live or move?  See, we live life in a great but very expensive state. California.  If I could die here, I would.  But that would be financially stupid.  So here we sit.  Where to move. Per my wife’s parameters, we have to live within 20 miles of a major airport.  That severely limits the places we can live.  Furthermore, I want to live in a progressive city, so no urban yet conservative place at all.  Atlanta maybe?  Although GA scares the fuck out of me.  Nashville? TN is a rat hole, so…no. Go back to my home state of Minnesota?  Thought about it, but I haven’t lived there in 34 years.  Those people I think I have a connection with?  Yeah, they’ve got their own lives.  I couldn’t possibly insert myself into them this late into the game. 

So where do you move?  And what criteria have you used, if you have, to do so?

Since I was a kid, I wanted to retire in the Sierras, surrounded with the trees and mountains I’ve always loved. The wildfire danger the last several years killed that idea.  Nashville, where my sister relocated to a few years ago, would have been my next choice, but the cost of living there rivals California now. So, Ohio was a good compromise. Three doors down is the edge of a forest that goes on a mile and a half in every direction, which is what I really wanted. I don’t plan on leaving.  

JB: Except for rarely going down to the Studio any more, little has changed. Reading more. That’s about it."

JB, do you still find yourself doodling? Or are your pens exclusively for words now?

Math like this has me thinking more about my mortality. I was in my late 20s when I first encountered JB online the AOL BYRNE WARD. Now I'm older than he was, then.

I remember a recent online post about 9/11 and a comment about a 47-year-old woman named Edna that perished in the attacks. At first there was musing that it was odd for a woman that young to be named Edna. But then someone else did the math and noted that if she would have been 70 years old today, which was eye-opening because it just doesn't feel like all that long ago.

I've been starting to think about "the great unknown", myself. I'm 51(!) now, and that's like a kiss of death in the tech world, because it's such an ageist industry. My kind of job can be done completely remotely, and has been since COVID. But companies are starting to clamp down and I'm feeling that I'm getting too old to go back to the daily 1 hour and 40 minute commute that I used to do. But insisting on remote work will limit my options and salary (let's face it, if I can do the job remotely from NJ, someone else can do the same thing from the midwest (or heck, India) for far less money. I'm getting to the point where I'm ok with that, and am starting to think about what I want to do with my next (last) 15 years in the workforce.

Ooooh. [String swell]