The old grindstone!
It has been creating delightful occasions of frisson. After putting in a full work week, one enjoys the weekend, a bit of time off before returning to work. Except that this weekend lasts forever. This is not time off before returning to the grindstone, because that grindstone no longer hangs around my neck!
I promise to stop going on (and on and on) about this Real Soon Now. Quite a number of friends have expressed their jealousy (in mild jest, I hope). Just keep in mind that I jumped ship pretty early pension-wise, so how well this works out for me remains to be seen.
And you’ll have to bear with me if I blather on about work (or retirement) a bit longer. It’s a pretty major life change!
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5 Comments | tags: Bob Marley, frisson, grindstone, Marriage, relationships, retirement, Soylent Green, work, yardsticks | posted in Life
A few hours ago I walked out of work for the last time. (Actually, it’s likely I’ll visit again, which of course involves both walking in and out, but that will be as retiree come back to visit. (Or possibly a consultant come back to save their ass, but that seems somewhat unlikely on several counts.)) Yet in the poetic sense, it was the last time.
It wasn’t quite as weird as one might think. I’ve been leaving in my head and heart for a while. Today was more like a wheel that’s been slowing down finally coming to a stop. A final turn. Answering one last email, and then out the door.
Today marked the end of an era.
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25 Comments | tags: no questions, retirement, sleep, work, Wrigley Field | posted in Life
Only four more days remain of my career at The Company! It’s hard to believe (and not a little weird). The only thing in my life that’s lasted longer than this career is my life itself. I’ve never lived in one place anywhere near that long (and my romantic relationships have all been famously short).
This week we sort of edged part of the data chain into production this past week. Supposedly the rest is being pushed there this weekend. I’ve got four days to test in production, wrap up a career, and then I walk out the door!
As you might imagine, my mind is really not in the blogsphere right now!
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10 Comments | tags: bosses, retirement, work | posted in Life
After a seemingly endless succession of gloomy, cloudy, drizzly days, we’ve managed to pull off a couple of blue-sky, bright sunny days! Not in a row, mind you, but Friday was beautiful, and today is downright glorious! Sunday is truly earning its name today!
The Minnesota Twins, bless their hearts, even pulled off a win against the Detroit Tigers yesterday (hoping for another today). That gives them a win-loss record of 30-35, only five games below the desired .500 mark. (It’s a no-go mojo for a team to play below .500 or a batter to hit below .200 (in infamous “Mendoza Line“).)
On a day like today one can’t help but to think about oranges.
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11 Comments | tags: Batman, batmobile, batphone, Hamlet, humor, June, knock knock, orange, oranges, poetry, round fruit, silly | posted in Brain Bubble, Writing
Thursday and Friday of this past week were days 10 and 9 in [big booming voice] The Countdown to Retirement. I’m taking Mondays off in June (no more Monday mornings!), so I have two four-day weeks remaining in my 33-year career at The Company.
And it’s a good thing I decided to stay through June. The project I’ve been working on since last September still hasn’t hit production (through, I stress, absolutely no fault of mine).
This week we finally got to the point of end-to-end testing in the QA environment, and I’m anticipating we’ll start testing in production next week. Talk about taking it down to the wire!
As you might imagine, rather than lazily basking in the last remaining weeks of my career, I’m instead working my ass off!
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18 Comments | tags: Bruce Willis, Looper, Mariano Rivera, Minnesota Twins, retirement, work | posted in Baseball, From My Collection, Life, Movies
There is such a thing as a shaggy dog story. It’s a story that winds on for as long as the teller can spin it. Eventually, as the audience gets ever more restless, the “joke” ends with the most banal and trivial of non-punchlines. The longer the telling, the more pointless must be the punchline.
Old dogs notoriously can’t be taught new tricks, but perhaps that’s because they’ve learned the tricks they care to learn and aren’t interested in jumping through new hoops.
This little tale is not a shaggy dog story, but about wise old dogs…
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8 Comments | tags: dogs, German Sheperd, humor, jokes, panther, squirrel | posted in From My Collection
You may remember that early this year I said you should be thinking about elephants. I hope you have all been working on your assignments, because there are some important metaphorical discussions ahead concerning elephants.
And some jokes. Do you know why elephants are wrinkled? Because they’re very difficult to iron. And whatever do you do with an elephant with three balls? Walk him and pitch to the giraffe. [bah-rump-bump] (One pity about blogging… A line that bad really demands a rimshot, or other funny sound effect, for proper punctuation.)
Here’s another little gem from my collection. Just love a good punch line!
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31 Comments | tags: elephants, humor, stories, telephones | posted in From My Collection
This week begins the 25 final work days at The Company. Retirement is up there with the other major lifetime events: birth, marriage, career, parenthood, property, divorce, health, death. For many it’s the conclusion of the other main relationship in their lives.
I find I’m too distracted and tense to write blog articles right now. The anticipation making me… making me… I dunno,… making me w… wonder if the day will ever come. It’s like an adult Christmas that only comes once in a lifetime.
So, in the meantime — Spring Cleaning—I’m clearing out my files. These are things I’ve kept for years thinking I might use them someday…
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8 Comments | tags: humor, Walmart | posted in From My Collection, Life
The countdown to retirement continues. As I mentioned last Tuesday, this week I pulled the lever on making it official. Six more weeks, and I can put The Company in my rear-view mirror and speed off in my own directions. The big project I’ve been leading looks like it will complete before I exit. We should begin end-to-end system testing in a week or so.
The flip side is that, between tension over retirement and massive project effort during the week (and trying to catch up on blog reading and commenting (and watching baseball)), there isn’t much left for blogging right now.
So you get another Brain Bubble. I would have called this post “No Shoes,” except that it sends the wrong message. This post isn’t about lacking shoes. Or shirts.
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11 Comments | tags: logic, road signs, signs, syllogism | posted in Brain Bubble
The other day I was watching a TNT rerun of Castle, a show I recently decided to check out and discovered I liked. I’m actually vaguely embarrassed — not in liking the show, it’s a good show — because I didn’t realize the male lead, Nathan Fillion, is Malcolm from Firefly (and the movie based on it, Serenity).
A while back (probably when they first began airing older episodes), TNT was running a lot of ads for the show, and I kept thinking, “Gee, that guy looks so familiar.” It took another blogger reviewing the show to make the connection. (I’m oddly bad with faces sometimes.)
It’s a good show, but this isn’t about Castle so much as coffins and creepy things.
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18 Comments | tags: Abby Sciuto, bugs, Castle, coffins, Firefly, Nathan Fillion, NCIS, NOVA, snakes, spiders, venom | posted in Brain Bubble, Science
Logos con carne 