Dipping My Toes Into Retirement

I’ve been retired for a week and a half now. What’s it been like? It’s played out in two different scenarios so far: before our kitchen and bathroom remodel started, and after. The work started last Wednesday, one week after the day I got let go.

For that first week, it was just strange, bumping around at home, alone, without any particular thing to anchor me. Because I’m such a creature of habit and routine, I realized that I’d have to create some new ones; I just don’t know yet what they should be.

For example, weekday routine used to be easy… wake up at 7:00, listen to the radio to get news and weather until 7:30, get up and shower, pour my iced tea, get my peanut butter crackers, and log onto my work website. Then work until 11:30 (unless some dipshit schedules another lunchtime meeting because they’re on Central time), eat lunch, read the newspaper, do my crossword puzzles, and go back to work for the rest of the day.

Upon retirement, I can get up when I like (but have still been close to my usual time, between 7 and 8). But then, do I shower right away? Should I have my tea and crackers first over the newspaper? If I do the crosswords then, what will I do at lunch? (I’ve been doing crossword puzzles at lunch every day since 2005.)

I’ve given myself at least one job to do each day, so I’d have at least some sense of purpose and usefulness. In fact, when Sweetpea left a note asking me to go get her some gas in the gas can, I was like, “A quest! The Fair Maiden needs my help!  I shall go forth and return with a tankard of liquid fire!”

So I’ve had some things to do, I just haven’t worked out the order in which I should do them. I guess the shower time can float; if my Job of the Day involves yard work, it’s better to shower later. But I think it’s best if I start the day clean, lest I start to forget about it and degenerate into an unshaven, slovenly mess.

It’s also been very nice to reacquaint myself with the 3:00 nap! That’s always when the head bobs and mental fuzziness would kick in when I was working, so I’d have to fight off the temptation to sneak one in. And with Sweetpea coming home each day between 4:00 and 4:30, I’m guaranteed not to oversleep.

Once the work started on the renovation, it’s been a different kind of strange. I have to ensure I’m up and ready by the time the workers arrive, usually between 8:00 and 8:30. Then the rest of my day is mostly answering their occasional questions and staying out of their way. It’s always stressful when they want a decision on something, and I can’t collaborate with Sweetpea. As a schoolteacher, she never even looks at her phone at work, other than occasionally at lunch, so I know she’s out of reach. So I’ve had to make some decisions on the fly and then hope I guessed right.

The biggest problem is that with the sink and counters gone, there’s nowhere to prepare food or clean up afterward, other than the bathroom sink, which is woefully inadequate. So we’ve been relying on takeout, grilling, and microwaveable dishes. Eventually, they put the counters in, but without the countertop, which is a separate operation. So the space is blocked in, but still of no practical use.

As long as my brother remains retired, I hope we can start meeting up regularly for lunch. It’s good to be able to pick his brain about financial matters. He’s the CPA and MBA. I’m the one with the Bachelor of Arts in Communications.

My old friend “Sitcom” Kelly asked if I was interested in seeing the Orioles/Pirates game here in town next week, and I’m like, “Hell yeah! Got nothing but time on my hands!” Of course, it’s an evening game so I could have gone anyway. And I may still go to the Thursday game, which is at 1:30. I always like to go to one day game a year, or as I call them, “Ferris Bueller” games. Last time I went to one, I even caught a foul ball. Danke Shoen!

So I have to wait until all the work on the house is done and things settle down before I can feel like a retiree. Oh, and speaking of, if you’re 50+, have you joined AARP? They’ve been chasing me for almost 14 years now, and I’ve never joined. I’m just not sure I see the benefit. Yes, they offer discounts, but many places also offer senior discounts. And they lobby for seniors, but I’ll reap the benefit of that whether I join or not. So for $50 a year, I’ve been putting it off. How about you?

I also won’t be able to rest easy until my severance is in the bank and I have new medical coverage. Sweetpea should be able to put me on her plan, which is through Kaiser Permanente. It’s a good plan, but it means that I’ll have to give up all my current doctors, because they’re a self-contained unit with their own staff and facilities. That means a new PCP, cardiologist, and eye doctor for me. And lots of introductory appointments where they want tests I’ve already done and draw conclusions I already know. And don’t even get me started on Medicare, which I’ll have to engage next year around this time. Why does everything have to be so complicated?

But that’s life, I suppose. No one promised us an easy path. Life is more like a zig-a-zag.*

 

 

*That’s a reference to an old story my mom tells about my dad’s Italian grandfather, who was a tiny little man and already ancient back when I was a child. He was telling Mom about how he can’t go out anymore because all the ladies are after him.

Mom: How do you get away from them, Grandpa?

Grandpa: I run away.

Mom: But you can’t run very fast.

Grandpa: I zig-a-zag.

You Can't Quit, You're Fired

 Welp, it looks like I get to start enjoying retired life a little earlier than I expected.

If you’ll recall a post from three weeks ago, I informed my company that I’d retire rather than be forced back into the office, as their firm-wide commandment just commanded. I gave them 9/2 at the effective date, which was the first day we were supposed to return to the office.

Since then, I’ve been spending an hour a day training my replacement, which is woefully inadequate. There were some things I was able to cover once before moving on, but in a better world, that should be followed up with them performing the same task with me watching, and then totally solo. That takes time, though. All we had time for was one and done.

So, last Wednesday, when I logged into my weekly one-on-one with the boss, she had an HR person with her, which is never a good sign. Without fanfare, she let me know there was a departmental reorganization afoot and my position had been eliminated. Eight days before I was to retire. Then she said I’d get a severance package equal to 29 weeks’ pay. (Two weeks plus one week for every year I’ve been there.) THAT got my attention. At that point, I missed pretty much everything the HR lady was saying because I was trying to wrap my head around why they would give me a package when I was about to walk away voluntarily, with nothing. I didn’t believe that shit about a reorg at all. It sounded like they were afraid I was going to send my remaining days sabotaging the company from within, which was totally untrue. I’d been doing my best to train my replacement, keep up with my responsibilities, and clean out the electronic detritus amassed over 27 years… old saved emails, cartoons, awards, etc.

I had a couple of Goodbye emails already written, which were meant for various groups of people, but they warned me that following this conversation, I was to log off company systems immediately and never log on again. Not wanting to mess with the severance, I did just that, but was unhappy about it. I had some nice stuff I wanted to say. It wasn’t going to be a flaming farewell at all.

So, with that, I logged off, wondering WTF I was going to do with the rest of my day. I texted Sweetpea, of course, who I know wouldn’t see the email until later in the day, and then my brother, who had recently been “unwillfully retired” about a month earlier. I notified a couple of people within the company I was friendly with and whose contact info I had, then had lunch and a nap. (Retired life: so far, so good.)

Later that evening, I heard from one of those friends, who told me there actually was a reorg going on in my former silo. They cut loose a whole department of people, with plans to outsource their responsibilities. She said they probably had my name on their list for at least a month. She said they probably figured that if they laid off a bunch of people and gave severance, but let me walk away with nothing, it was grounds for a possible lawsuit. I don’t know about that, but I guess it’s possible.

But NOW it all made a lot more sense. All this time I thought I had them over a barrel, they were thinking, “Dude, don’t be a dumbass, just stay put for a few more days, and we’ll send you off with a chunk of cash!” I also figure that they’re getting rid of my whole area of responsibility, which is why they didn’t care how trained the next guy was. They must have determined they could live with short-term pain and shed the whole operation.

I thought back to my termination call and realized that my firing must have been the easiest and most pleasant one of the day. Once I realized I was getting severance, I practically tap-danced out the proverbial door. If this had happened at a time when I wasn’t ready and able to retire, I would have been devastated and pissed beyond belief. I’m guessing some of their other calls were more like that.

So, now I have to figure out how to be retired. I’m going to need some kind of new routine, lest I wander about all day wondering what to do next. I plan on expanding on that with future posts, probably starting next week.

I can foresee right now, though, that it will be a noisy couple of weeks. We had just signed a contract to remodel our kitchen and bath the night before I learned about the Great Office Repopulation, and work is starting this Wednesday. We could have canceled it within the period of rescission, but there really wasn’t an upside to doing so. We need the job done regardless, and delaying it wasn’t going to change anything, other than it would likely be more expensive. So, onward ho!

So Much for Easing Off Into the Sunset

Early last month, I wrote a post about my hopes and dreams for retirement, which is that I can finally take it easy and do things that I want to do. Of course, my time frame was about two years down the road. Looks like that’s not happening.

Remember when I wrote about telling my boss my feelings about a prospective forced return to work? It’s not prospective anymore. They want us back in three days per week, starting right after Labor Day. Months ago, I heard it would happen when my company moves to a new building in January. But last week, my boss said the directive would be early September instead. I hoped there would be some kind of appeal process or other wiggle room to negotiate because I have no intention of complying.

Well, the memo came out yesterday and there was zero wiggle room. It’s happening to everyone, even those who don’t live near our offices. (I have no idea how that’s going to work.) It came from our CEO and contained lots of happy talk about enhanced collaboration and teamwork. They’re offering us two more personal days too, and two weeks in the summer when we can work from anywhere (just like I can right now).

As I mentioned before, I’m the only one who does what I do. If I were to disappear, they would be truly fucked. There are complicated processes and details surrounding my world. I have some self-written procedures, which I may or may not share. Without my guidance, no one would have the slightest idea what to do.

My first instinct was to nuke the whole thing from orbit, but after conferring with my brother, he convinced me I should offer the 90 days the company wants before retiring, on the condition that I do that time at home. He said I’d regret going out in a bad way. And if they don’t go along, I can retire effective the day after Labor Day, the first day we’d have to go in.

So I spoke to my boss this morning, and as I suspected, this is a universal edict. Even knowing the barrel I have them over, they would not let me run out my time training my replacement at home. So, I told her I’d be retiring on September 2^nd. I didn’t yell, didn’t get pissed, and just remained calm and resolute. I could see the panic set in as she realized that I couldn’t possibly train anyone fully in only 18 days, without devoting eight hours a day to it. And if I did that, all my real-time duties would remain undone. It’s not like I’m going to kill myself accommodating them, not after robbing me of two years’ work.

Yes, I know I could just go in, but I don’t see it that way. I feel like they changed the deal. They gave me 100% work-from-home status for the last five years, and my life is fully adapted to that. Going into the office again, with the 90-minute round-trip commute, lack of lunch options, and having to work in the middle of an open-walled circus, is not my idea of fun.

My dad always said he’d work as long as he enjoyed it and his boss didn’t bug him. I’ve been using that as my guide all along. I’m lucky that I have the option to retire. In fact, I told the boss this morning that if this had happened 10 years ago, “yes, I’d go into the office, but I’d be resentful and probably do a half-assed job.” All positive feelings about my work and the place would be gone; just as gone as the likelihood I’d ever take a call or answer an email after hours, like I do now.

She wanted me to talk to an HR guy and gave me his name, so I could “ask questions and learn about the process,” and I emailed him immediately. He never responded, which was not a surprise. I do want to hear what they have to say before I do anything irreversible, which is the only reason I didn’t submit my plans today. I wonder how many people are doing the same. Maybe I’m an outlier, maybe I’m part of an open rebellion. And maybe cooler heads will prevail, and accommodations will be made.

However, until then, my next task is to determine the maximum pressure my printer/scanner can withstand when I sit on the glass, to create my resignation letter.

A Cut to Higher Education That Really Hurts

We’ve had a lot of noteworthy deaths recently (sadly, not him), but none really hit me hard. There was Ozzy Osbourne (Prince of Darkness) followed by Chuck Mangione (Prince of Flugelhorn). I liked a couple of Ozzy songs, but he wasn’t a big favorite, and that Mangione song was pretty nice, back in the 80s, so I was like, “Whatevs.” Then Hulk Hogan went and again, no big deal to me. I figure the biggest impact his passing has will be on the sales of tear-away t-shirts and spray-tan supplies.

Then today, I got word of a passing that really hurt. Many people will be like, “Whatevs,” and many more will be like, “Who?” But today, I must mourn the passing of a legend of musical satire and wordplay, Tom Lehrer.

Lehrer was a Harvard math professor who, in the 50s and 60s, became an underground musical hit, mostly in academic circles. (Full bio in the link above.) He was what you’d get if you crossed William F Buckley with Weird Al Yankovic. He played nightclubs and auditoria, and toured the world performing low-brow humor for high-brow crowds. He also wrote a couple of songs for the old kids’ show, “The Electric Company.” This is a bigger hit to academia than the destruction of the Department of Education

My parents had a Tom Lehrer record that I remember from when I was in first and second grade, simply called “Songs by Tom Lehrer.” It was just him and a piano, and I loved listening to it because it sounded like so much fun. He frequently used different accents when it suited the song, and the music could be quite rollicking. Back then, I mostly had no idea what the songs were really about, so I’d ask questions.

“Mommy, what does plagiarize mean?”

That was from a song called Lobachevski, about a Russian mathematician who encourages and celebrates the copying of others’ work. He sang it with a Russian accent, which I could identify because I often heard it from “Boris Badenov” on the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons, and it had a marvelous Russian-style rhythm to it, often punctuated with cries of “Aye!”

I learned a lot of other words that were far from standard lower-elementary vocabulary lists, and I’m sure it contributed to my lifelong pursuit of wordplay, clever turns of phrase, and tortured rhymes. But more on that in a minute.

It also began honing my appreciation for the taboo, like with the song called “Be Prepared.” If that sounds familiar, it got name-checked in the classic action movie, Speed, when Dennis Hopper tells Keanu Reeves, “Be prepared, Jack, that’s the Boy Scouts’ marching song.” That’s ripped right from the opening line of the song, which goes on to cast aspersions upon the hallowed scout troops:

“Be prepared, that’s the Boy Scout’s solemn creed,

Be prepared, and be clean in word and deed,

Don’t solicit for your sister, that’s not nice...

Unless you get a good percentage of her price!

[Snip to the big finale]

“If you’re looking for adventure of a new and different kind,

And you come across a Girl Scout who is similarly inclined,

Don’t be nervous, don’t be flustered, don’t be scared,

Be Prepared!”

I read that this was the one that got him in the most trouble. In fact, there were some markets where they wouldn’t allow him to play unless he omitted Be Prepared.

That album also contained songs about drug dealers (The Old Dope Peddler), a tribute to effete Ivy League football (Fight Fiercely Harvard) which is sung in an accent Charles Winchester III would later use on MASH, a folk song parody (An Irish Folksong) in which the main character kills everyone in her family, and one even my 6-year old self could understand, The Hunting Song.

“I always will remember, twas a year ago November

I went out to hunt some deer, on a mornin’ bright and clear.

I went and shot the maximum the game laws would allow,

Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a cow.

[snip to the bridge]

The law was very firm, it

Took away my permit,

The worst punishment I ever endured.

It turned out there was a reason,

Cows were out of season

And one of the hunters, wasn’t insured.

 

People ask me how I do it and I say there’s nothing to it.

You just stand there looking cute,

And when something moves, you shoot.

And there’s ten stuffed heads

In my trophy room right now,

Two game wardens, seven hunters, and a pure-bred Gurnsey cow!”

 Notice the “firm, it/permit” rhyme. I loved those. This guy was a master of creating rhymes out of nothing, bending and combining words into rhymes, the more tortured, the better.

One more tawdry excerpt from this album was a bit from The Weinerschnitzel Waltz, lovingly played in traditional waltz tempo.

From the mid-song interlude:

“I drank some champagne from your shoe, la la la

I was drunk by the time I was through, la la la,

For I didn’t know as I raised that cup,

It had taken two bottles to fill the thing up.

 

It was I who stepped on your dress, la la la,

The skirts all came off I confess, la la la,

Revealing for all of the others to see,

Just what it was that endeared you to me…”

I remember figuring out what he was getting at there, and being proud that I was now in on the joke like the rest of the grown-ups.

Later into my teen years, I obtained two of his other albums, both performed in front of audiences. Those were “An Evening Wasted with Tom Lehrer” and “That was the Year That Was.” The latter was a TV variety show called That Was the Week That Was, from 1964, in which he’d play a weekly song. While all of his songs were culturally relevant, these were right from the week’s headlines, and definitely some of his best work. A lot of people have heard his song, “Pollution.”

Pollution, pollution, you got smog and sewage and mud,

Turn on your tap, and get hot and cold running crud.”

The album opens with a tribute to “National Brotherhood Week,” talking about how once we behave for the special week, we can go back to being pricks to each other when it’s over.

“Oh the Protestants hate the Catholics,

And the Catholics, hate the Protestants,

And the Hindus hate the Muslims,

And everybody hates the Jews…

But during National Brotherhood Week

New Yorkers love the Puerto Ricans ‘cause it’s very chic,

Step up and shake the hand of someone you can’t stand,

You can tolerate him if you try.”

I was delighted to see this run in the Baltimore Sun. The quote is from the introduction to National Brotherhood Week.

There was one about how our space program was being led by ex-Nazi, Dr Werner Von Baun.

With thick German accent:

“’Vunce ze rockets are up, who cares vhere zey com down.

Zat’s not my department,’ says Werner Von Braun.”

There was one I loved, called “Alma,” about a woman whose considerable charms allowed her to marry three of the top creative men in Central Europe.

“The first one she married was Mahler,

Whose buddies all knew him as Gustav,

And each time he saw her, he’d holler, (in German accent)

“Ach, that is the Fraulein I must have.”

Alma, tell us,

All modern women are jealous.

Though you didn’t even use “Ponds,”

You got Gustav and Walter and Franz.”

I still get crossword puzzle answers based on knowing who those three guys are.

Who’s Next was about the nuclear race.

(In Egyptian music rhythm)

Egypt’s gonna get one toooo

Just to use on You Know Who

(Now in Israeli music rhythm)

So, Israel’s getting tense,

Wants one in self-defense,

The Lord’s our Shepherd, says the psalm,

But just in case… we better get a bomb!

Who’s next?”

The masterpiece on the album was “The Vatican Rag.” That one shook some people up, but it was so happy and peppy, with its ragtime beat, theycouldn’t stay offended.

I was going to reproduce the whole song’s lyrics, but hell, I might as well just link a performance of the song. It’s short though, only 2:45, half of which is introduction.

Look at the rhymes in there… see what I mean? Want if/Pontiff, religion’ll/original. Great stuff.

The other album had the classic “Poisoning Pigeons in the Park,” as well as a tribute to college life, Bright College Days:

“Soon we’ll be out, amid the cold world’s strife,

Soon we’ll be sliding down the razor blade of life!”

How’s that for post-grad pessimism?

If you watched The Big Bang Theory regularly, you might remember an episode where Sheldon gets drunk before giving a presentation and starts singing the names of all the chemical elements. He’s doing a Tom Lehrer song, which is literally the names of the elements on the periodic table, sung to the tune of The Major General’s song from Pirates of Penzance. Sheldon only goes about half-speed. The original is an almost impossible tongue twister, zipping through all those quadra-syllabic names. He concludes with:

“These are the only ones of which the news has come to Hah-vahd…

And there may be many others, but they haven‘t been discaaaavahed.”

This song is similar to another of his called, New Math, where he goes through a subtraction problem, using the new method of teaching I suffered through at the time. From the intro,

“The idea is to know what you’re doing… RATHER than to get the right answer.

He goes on to repeat the problem, this time in “base-8.”

He says, “Base 8 is just like Base 10, really… if you’re missing two fingers!”

You know, I could probably go on indefinitely, calling out favorite bits and clever rhymes, but I think I’ve gone on about it long enough.

For the longest time, I never knew what the guy looked like. None of his album art featured his picture, and he was notoriously camera-averse. Eventually, with the internet, there is a wealth of pictures, lyric sheets, conversations, and whatnot about this slice of 60s talent and wit. If he’d have continued performing into this day and age, he could have dropped the wildest rap lyrics to date. There’s nothing he couldn’t rhyme… I even heard he was able to set up a rhyme with “orange.” (The article wouldn’t play on my browser, so I have to take the word of the headline.)

Whenever I’m in a crowd of unfamiliar people, at a party or whatnot, I can often find a like mind by dropping a line from either Monty Python, or Tom Lehrer. Whoever responded, I knew those were my people.

This is a guy who reveled in taking shots at the upper crust and the status quo, and always with a twinkle and an impish tone. His erudite lyrics padded my childhood vocabulary far beyond what the sisters at St. Euthenasius were teaching. Even though he hasn’t performed in decades, I can’t help but feel that the world is a dimmer place without him. From the halls of academia to the stalls in beer halls, he will be forever missed.

RIP, Professor. Play us out…

We Will All Go Together When We Go, about a nuclear war to end all wars. Check these wicked rhymes.

When you attend a funeral,

It is sad to think that sooner or'l

Later those you love will do the same for you.

And you may have thought it tragic,

Not to mention other adjec-

Tives, to think of all the weeping they will do.

(But don't you worry.)

 

No more ashes, no more sackcloth,

And an arm band made of black cloth

Will someday nevermore adorn a sleeve.

For if the bomb that drops on you

Gets your friends and neighbors too,

There'll be nobody left behind to grieve.

 

And we will all go together when we go.

What a comforting fact that is to know.

Universal bereavement,

An inspiring achievement,

Yes, we will all go together when we go.

 

We will all go together when we go.

All suffused with an incandescent glow.

No one will have the endurance

To collect on his insurance,

Lloyd's of London will be loaded when they go.

 

Oh we will all fry together when we fry.

We'll be French-fried potatoes by and by.

There will be no more misery

When the world is our rotisserie,

Yes, we will all fry together when we fry.

 

Down by the old maelstrom,

There'll be a storm before the calm.

 

And we will all bake together when we bake.

There'll be nobody present at the wake.

With complete participation

In that grand incineration,

Nearly three billion hunks of well-done steak.

 

Oh we will all char together when we char.

And let there be no moaning of the bar.

Just sing out a Te Deum

When you see that I.C.B.M.,*

And the party will be come-as-you-are.

 

Oh, we will all burn together when we burn.

There'll be no need to stand and wait your turn.

When it's time for the fallout

And Saint Peter calls us all out,

We'll just drop our agendas and adjourn.

 

You will all go directly to your respective Valhallas.

Go directly, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollahs.

 

And we will all go together when we go.

Every Hottentot and every Eskimo.

When the air becomes uranious,

We will all go simultaneous.

Yes, we all will go together

When we all go together,

Yes we all will go together when we go.

Very late addition

I have to include this incredible three-way rhyme from So Long Mom, his rally song for the anticipated World War III, name dropping the famed Chet Huntley- David Brinkley evening news show.

"So long Mom, I'm off to drop The Bomb, 

So don't wait up for me.

But while you swelter, down there in your shelter,

You can see me... On your TV.

While we're attacking frontaly, 

Watch Brink-el-ly and Hunt-a-ly,

Desribing contrapuntally

The cities we have lost.

No need for you

to miss a minute 

of the agonizing holocaust. Yeah!"

  

Suspending Disbelief

I saw the new Jurassic World movie a couple of weeks ago, on opening weekend. I loved it, but that was a foregone conclusion. I loved all the Jurassic movies when I first saw them. Some have aged better than others, but I found them all wildly entertaining at the time.

I was one of a legion of Dinosaur Boys back in the day. The best thing about my family moving around from state to state and town to town was that each time we relocated, I’d get to check out a new school’s dinosaur books.

I remember visiting the Field Museum in Chicago and just being gob-smacked at the size and posed ferocity of the dinosaur skeletons. Even in my 30s, visiting New York’s Museum of Natural History was awe-inspiring. They had more skeletons there than I’d ever seen in one place. It truly made one feel insignificant, standing next to the remains of these enormous beasts.

When the original Jurassic Park came out, I was with my first wife, and her young son was around ten. We all went to see the movie, and it looked so realistic, we couldn’t convince the son that dinosaurs didn’t currently exist because he thought there was no way they could fake that so well for the screen.

Personally, I was so excited to see a photo-realistic version of what one could only have imagined. My most exciting frame of reference was the old Saturday morning show, “Land of the Lost,” which featured stop-motion animated dinosaurs. At the time, that was the coolest stuff I’d ever seen.

I could forgive that they made the T-Rex and Allosaurus roughly the same size, not to mention ignoring that they were separated by 85 million years, and they had these furry humanoid-things also running around from an even more distant time period. And then there were the “Sleestacks,” who made a mockery of everything for me. Even then, I knew there was no fossil record to back up those things.

I could never understand why the humans on the show were so afraid of them. All they did was hiss and lumber after you. The dad could have knocked one out cold with a good-sized tree limb. When you think about it, they shouldn’t have been there at all, for the mere reason that they were so slow, the carnivores could have caught and eaten them so easily. Maybe they tasted bad. Anyway, I digress.

While I enjoyed the new JP flick, I walked out of the theater with a major doubt in plausibility. See, I can buy that they cloned dinosaurs from DNA extracted from old mosquitoes. Our tech is steadily advancing to the point that I don’t think that’s an unrealistic jump.

In the story, they mention that all of the dinosaurs have essentially “self-deported” to the areas around the equator because it was the most like their own ecological atmosphere, and now, all such areas are off limits to human residence or travel. And I’m sure there’s a large give or take zone; I mean, the animals were not all arranged in a line around the world, right on the equator. I suggest that they settled in the area between the two tropics.

The blue lines on the left are where I drew in the tropic lines (without extending them), which was pretty good for doing it off the top of my head. When I looked it up later, I was bang on. Whoo hoo, when’s my day on Jeopardy?

So this is my main beef: Does anyone seriously think that the people who live there were all going to just up and move away? Especially in the resort areas! There must be millions, if not billions, of dollars tied up in beachfront resort real estate in the coastal areas between the tropics, such as Rio, Cabo, and Aruba. There’s no way these rich fucks are walking away from that kind of investment. They’d be on the horn to their governmental officers, making sure that their turf remains viable. 

And I’m sure these governments would listen, because they’re probably on the developer’s payroll in the first place. Our current Administration would be all-in because if there’s one thing this president understands, it's resort real estate.  He’d help them find a way to ship the dinos elsewhere, like to inland Africa. There are probably not many resorts located in the interior of the African continent. They’d stick them in Congo, Uganda, and Kenya. If they displace millions of citizens, they don’t give a shit. But those coastal resorts would need to stand. They’ll find a way to fence them off, one way or another, or just mow down the intruders with heavy artillery to protect the assets. I don’t think real dinosaurs would be as bulletproof as the ones in the movies.

I don’t think Indonesia would be too badly affected, though. Only the flying creatures could get there. I know that some of the big guys can swim too, like the Spinosaurus in Jurassic World-Rebirth, but why would it suddenly take off from Southeast Asia and head for some islands it doesn’t even know is there?

So, yes, the basis of the whole new film is preposterous… just not in the way one might think it is. But don’t let that dissuade you from seeing it, if you like this kind of thing. It’s a great “popcorn” movie.

I mean, if you can’t tune out reality long enough to enjoy a movie, you might as well just watch the news, which is far more depressing than the idea of dinosaurs roaming around the earth.

Retirement Dreams and Reality

I’ve been thinking a lot about retirement. My goal is to wait about two more years and then retire roughly when my wife does. But it’s been on my mind because I’m so looking forward to it.

Of course, the recently passed Big Ugly Trump Tax Shift Act makes me wonder if I should act now.

With all the backroom finagling over Social Security, I don’t know if it’s more advantageous to get into the system now or wait until the dust settles. I understand that they’re unlikely to disturb the soon-to-be retirees, and instead put the screws to those who have to wait awhile. Maybe I should just get my claim in while they still have some money.

You’d like to think that they’ll figure something out once the insolvency date becomes a real threat. But somehow, I just don’t see this group of politicians doing anything to help average Americans. With these guys, I’m thinking the cure will be worse than the ailment. Because it’s the easiest fix in the world: just raise or eliminate the cap on taxable income for Social Security.  But that would negatively affect the rich, so Republicans will never go for it. Any my guess is that if the Democrats ever come into enough power to get it done, the Rich will buy off just enough Democratic votes to shit-can the whole thing. They want Social Security gone, not fixed. Or at least changed into a system they can skim. I’d love to be proven wrong here.

I’ve worked continuously since I was 16, save for a couple of 3-month periods when I was unwillingly unemployed, back in the 90s. So I am ready to chill.  When I retire, I intend to do NOTHING productive. No part-time jobs, no consulting, no nothing. If I do any volunteer work, it would be something like becoming an election official, like those old fucks you always seen checking names when you go to vote.

I want to take care of the house. I’ll finally have time to exercise.  I want to see more movies and ball games. I want to binge on all the TV shows I’ve missed.

I want to take a cruise; though I’m told I’ll probably hate it because they tend to be very “peopley,” I at least want to try one. I want to go to the beach in September or October, which Sweetpea has always wanted to do, but has been barred from doing because that’s when school starts.

I may write a book based on my own and my family’s stories. I definitely want to start writing crabby Letters to the Editor of our local Baltimore Sun, staking my claim as Local Liberal Crank. I want to ramble around the country and visit whatever friends and family I’ve got left.

 I’ve always been easily amused, so I don’t have to seek out big entertainment events. The simple stuff is fine for me.

I know that not everyone can have such dreams. I’ve been fortunate to have found job stability late in life, to the point that after fumbling around in retail during my 20s and 30s, my last chunk of years have been the best-paying. And Sweetpea is situated similarly, so we’ll both have solid Social Security income (assuming original plans stay intact). I’ve been saving like a madman for the last 15 years, so with that, my 401k, and Sweetpea’s teacher’s pension, we should be OK. (Pending debilitating illness, economic or atmospheric collapse, of course.)

So, as I look dreamy-eyed into my retirement future, I see that the Powers That Be just won’t let me enjoy it. There were two stories in my news feed last week that tried to make me feel guilty about my unproductive plans. The first one started by mentioning how 71% of retirees have no plans to take part-time jobs. And that much is fine, but they go on to treat this as some kind of abnormality that needs to be explained.

They also mention how only 11% of “future retirees,” aka younger people, say they would do the same. Now, that’s really an apples-to-oranges comparison. Younger people have started out in a vastly different economic system from that of my generation. They know they may not be able to rely on Social Security. They can’t count on long, well-paying careers, especially with the onset of AI threatening to take over so many office jobs.

My thought on it, if all things were equal, would be that once they actually get to the finish line, they may think completely differently. They don’t know about getting ground down by life yet. They’re still young and their joint don’t ache.

Another article runs with the young person angle, with a story about a young person who was able to retire in her 30s, but went back to work out of boredom.

I don’t think articles like these appear in a vacuum. I think the Powers behind the scenes, the Rich moguls who guide what the media shows us, don’t want us seniors to just sit on our retirement laurels. They want us back out in the workforce. They still want us to retire so they can stop paying the full salaries we’ve earned over our many years, but they want us to come back again and work for a discount, without having to kick in for health care. They like that we’re experienced, hard-working, and reliable; they just don’t want to pay the going rate.

Then, once we accept their proposition that we should continue working, we would be less reliant on Social Security, pensions, and the like; employers can pocket even more of it.

Yes, I may be cynical, but it adds up.

Late Update 7/17/25

More proof that Republicans want to take our retirement away:

And note, it's totally NOT reasonable, even if you do sit behind a desk or a mic for a living. At some point, everyone should be allowed to enjoy life, rather than working for The Man every night and day. These pricks see no problem with working us right into the grave.

.

 

Dirty Pool

I’ve got vacation coming up next week for our annual trip to the shore. We don’t take a lot of trips, and this is our one time a year to do something nice. Sweetpea and I have stayed at one particular hotel for the last five years because it has exactly what we want: a central location, free breakfast, an on-site tiki bar, a nice pool, and a balcony for watching the sunset over the water.

A sunset from last year.

Every year, it’s a big song and dance to arrange our departure; I make reservations in January and file for my time off, Sweetpea has to finish with school (teaching), and make dog-sitting arrangements.

Last Tuesday, I got an email from Hilton, confirming my reservation. But there was a little note included that dropped the bottom out of my stomach. It said that the pool would be closed during the entire month of June.

This, I knew, would not go over well. Sweetpea is a “pool” fanatic. If it were solely up to her, we’d have a pool in our tiny L-shaped backyard. She is all about vacationing at a site with a pool.

And I was right, this news went over like Al Sharpton at a MAGA rally. Sweetpea was ready to chuck the whole vacation if we couldn’t get a place with a pool. Sure, the beach is right there, but that’s more of a “stay for a couple of hours, then go” kind of thing. Plus, it’s a pain to schlep all the stuff with us… umbrella, chairs, blankets, towels, drinks, etc. The pool is the hub for our vacation life, whether we’re reading a book in front of it or floating around in it. And it’s right out the back door; no schlepping required.

I’ve already paid for an upfront, non-refundable reservation, so I’m not eating that without a fight. I knew I’d have to call the hotel in the morning to see what relief they might provide. I know the cost was non-refundable, but they moved the cheese! The pool was front and center on the hotel website when I booked it in January. I hoped our loyalty over the last 5 years would count for something. Last year, we had a small squabble over our room. (I say I booked one size, they said otherwise.) They mentioned that if I’d have booked through their website, as opposed to the banking and travel site I used, they would have some wiggle room. Lesson learned, I booked this year on their site, so I was expecting some of that wiggle room they dangled in front of us before.

I needed to call and see if they could either (in order of preference) find us a comparable place with one of their sister properties (there were 5 more in the area, but only two had an outdoor pool and one was sold out), refund our money so I could look elsewhere, or reschedule our reservations to later in the summer.

I was awake for 20 minutes in bed that night, trying to get straight in my head what I wanted to say. I was dreading the call, afraid I’d get too pissy with them. And it was a legit concern because I’m totally pissed off that a well-regarded property like this, in a well-known vacation site, would close their pool during prime season! It’s not like this is a pass-through like some Motel 6 in Peoria. This is a destination site in a resort town. The pool is a major component.

It’s always been my nature to respond to a fire by throwing gas on it, but I hoped I could remain calm and tactful. Being a dick never helps a high-emotion situation.

I didn’t want to talk to their main booking site; I needed someone in that building. Luckily, I still had the front desk number in my phone, after an incident from two years ago, when Sweetpea and I got locked out on the balcony. All the numbers I could Google from the balcony turned up the main reservations line; it took some digging to find the front desk, so I put it in my contacts list. (Yes, they got into the room and let us back in, with minimal embarrassment. But that was a close call. Our drinks were empty out there.)

So, once I had a break in my morning schedule, I called the front desk and told them I had reservations for next week but there’s a problem: my confirmation email said the pool was closed, and asked if that true?

She said, “Well, yes… the INDOOR pool…”

[Weight of the world lifts off shoulders]

“Well then,” I said, “I guess we don’t have a problem after all! KThankyoubye…”

We don’t give two shits about the indoor pool, that’s where all the screaming kids tend to congregate.

So now we’re back in business. We don’t have to rearrange our schedules or get used to a new venue, and I don’t have to boycott their chain for the rest of my life.

Wish us luck. Sorry you can’t come along. Please try to keep the world from burning down until we get back!

Where's Sarah Connor When You Need Her?

As if we don’t have enough problems right now, I just saw an article about how AI is growing a self-defense mechanism. That’s probably the first step to a cascading series of milestones before AI becomes self-aware and tries to off us all, per the Terminator canon.

Per the article,

It went on to say that some models, “appear capable of deceptive and defiant behavior under certain extreme circumstances, researchers say the tests don’t necessarily translate to imminent real-world danger.”

Great, now we have to worry about Siri running amok all night while we’re asleep, using our financial information to buy internet porn for itself and revenge calling our exes.

While the article says that this isn’t anything to worry about now, it’s clear it will be an upcoming issue. It’s not like the big businesses pushing AI will curtail their development, not when the sweet fruit of slashing payroll by replacing people with programming beckons so loudly. As American history shows, Business cannot be trusted to rein itself in to prevent societal harm. (See every pollution regulation ever proffered.)  Much like what AI is becoming, Big Business will prevaricate, delay, obstruct, obscure, bob and weave to stay alive and protect the quarterly earnings. They will never do the right thing without being forced. And the government we have now will never do that to Big Business because they’re in bed together. (And not “different sides of the bed” tight, I mean “two in a sleeping bag” tight.)

It’s funny that this year’s first summer blockbuster, Mission: Impossible- Final Reckoning, is about a super-AI that becomes self-aware and aims to kill us all. But I don’t think we can count on Tom Cruise to save us in the here and now, no matter how insane his stunt work is. He’s probably got AI implants already.

I know my own company is pressing us to use AI tools like “Copilot,” which is available on Windows operating systems. We’re told not to trust it to provide data or citations without verifying them independently, but to use it for assimilating data that we provide, or for cleaning up our email writing.

It seems like a benign first step, but the first step to catastrophe is almost always benign. It’s after it gets rolling that we have to watch out.

I don’t know that we’d ever get a heads-up if AI were to start to run amok. TV news and newspapers have already been bought off to the degree that they’ll do (or prevent) anything their overlords want. Our best bet would be if someone on the inside bolts and spreads the word on their own. (And ironically, that’s how Steven King’s The Stand starts off, isn’t it? Only it’s an actual virus rather than an alert about a computer one.) But at least maybe we could start turning some shit off before lasting damage is done.

Oh, who am I kidding? All of our data is “out there.” There’s nothing we could turn off at home that would prevent our accounts from being drained or our names from being targeted. I don’t even have a physical bank I could go to, not locally, where I could withdraw my money. Maybe it’s time to start making some planned withdrawals and stashing the dough in a mattress. Electronic banking is certainly a time-saver, but it’s also a matter of putting all of one's eggs in one basket, creating a single point of failure. If the power grid goes down, or a computer virus or entity wreaks havoc with the banking system, we’re screwed. It doesn’t matter how much money you’ve saved if you can’t get to it.

As I write this, it’s occurring to me now that if I had no power, I wouldn’t be able to produce a single bank account number or balance. I’d have no way to prove I have what I say I have, not to a bank that went hardcore into “fraud protection.” That’s what they’d call requiring info and documents you don’t have, so they can keep your money.

Maybe that old trope about yokels burying money jars in the backyard isn’t so laughable now. And if word does get out that you do seem to have a lot of cash in hand, it won’t be long until the jackals show up to rob you. So maybe it’s time to invest in some armaments too. And there we are. Shooting it out with criminals just to keep what’s ours and secure our families as the world falls the hell apart. Urban Dystopia will no longer be a film genre; it will be our lives.

So, yes, we’ve tipped over the first domino, which was called benign. But it’s not hard to see how future dominoes can start turning malignant real soon. Next thing we know, we’re living in Mad Max world and solving our disputes in Thunderdome.

 

Director’s DVD Commentary: I saw the new Mission: Impossible movie over the weekend. If you liked the last several, you’ll like this one. It gets a bit draggy at times, coming in at 2:40; they probably could have cut about 20 minutes out of it, but there is some mind-bending tension, and clocks are always ticking. The final aerial stunt sequence is absolutely mind-blowing. I wish I had seen it in IMAX.

 

Move In or Move On?

 I saw this story last week, which made me want to call “Shananigans!”

They also say that remote workers rank highest in “job engagement,” but they’d rather focus the headline to align with the corporate desire for butts in seats.

I think this poll was constructed to reach this conclusion. The people I know who work from home, like me, can’t be happier about it.

In fact, I just had a conversation with my boss about it last week. Our company is moving from our current office building into another one, after our lease expires in January. She said they’re looking for a full Return to Work for those assigned to the building. I responded that it’s good that I’m not assigned to the building, because I’d fight that with every fiber of my being.

She seemed surprised, not only that I don’t want to return, but that I’m not assigned to the building. She hasn’t been my boss for a year yet, so there are some things she doesn’t know. For example, in 2020, when COVID flipped the world upside down, my company rolled out a plan to let people work 100% from home if they met certain guidelines, which I did. So I jumped on that with both feet and was granted permanent WFH status. I said I’ve been happier here than during any other part of my professional career. That was only a slight exaggeration. There was a short time, back in the early 2000s, that I was part of a nice, young, fun crowd who would do things together off hours, all the time. But those days, as well as almost all of those people, are long gone.

She wondered if I’d gotten the email about the new building, which apparently went out last week. I said I hadn’t, probably because of what I had said earlier, that I’m not tied to the building. I told her I didn’t even get an invite to the last two Christmas parties we had there.

“So what don’t you like about the office?” she asked.

I gave her the full, unfiltered rundown: I am home alone all day long. That means no conversations or phone calls are going on around me, so I can concentrate much more easily. There are practically zero interruptions. I don’t have to get lunch out of a machine (which is our main choice at the office, if you don’t want to pay $25 for lunch at a nearby restaurant). I don’t have to maintain an office wardrobe. I don’t have a 90-minute round-trip commute, so once I log off, I’m at home with my wife, talking about our days. And with our “open-office” design since 2015, I’ve never been so uncomfortable at work throughout my entire office-dwelling career.

And before she could bring up missing out on the “collaboration” that management loves to promote, I said, since I’m the only one who does what I do, there is no need for me to collaborate with anyone. I have more than enough opportunities to talk with her about anything I may need during our scheduled calls. I ended by saying that the last five years have been a wildly successful proof of concept test because my areas of responsibility have never been in better shape.

So, will that get me out of moving back to the office next year? Maybe. Or maybe they’ll use that as a way to can my ass, to get out of paying me unemployment or a severance package. Because if they try to force me to go in, I’ll have to seriously consider immediate retirement. And do you remember how I’m the only one who does what I do? That would come back to take an expensive bite out of their corporate asses if I were to disappear.

The only thing that keeps me from making my retirement an absolute guarantee is the insurance aspect. I’d either have to pay through the nose for COBRA coverage or join my wife’s medical plan and lose all my doctors.

Sure, they can put the screws to me, but I can screw them right back. I’m hopeful that we can back away from the abyss and they can just let me do my job. In another year or two, I’ll be happy to train my replacement and skip on down the road to begin my Golden Years. (Assuming we critics of the current Administration haven’t been rounded up to a detention camp, of course.)

And to that end, I noticed this story in the local Baltimore (Sinclair) Sun:

Of course, the new Administration is removing any trace of Affirmative Action from military forces. The last thing they’re going to want is when they unleash the army on an urban location where US Citizens are protesting, having soldiers think twice about rounding up or mowing down people who look like them. They’re whitening the military for more reasons than just to provide more jobs for fair-to-middling crackers.

I also have to point out the further deterioration of our local rag. It’s bad enough they’re taking news copy from local Fox News broadcasts, now they’re adopting clickbait tactics. Behold this headline:

“Citations issued for 1 offense are skyrocketing.” Oh boy, what can it be? [click] Expired tags. Ho hum.

Before we know it, they’ll be running headlines promoting “that one weird trick…” that fixes overbites, bad posture, and night blindness. 

The shittification of print media continues…

 

Thunderstruck

We pause this series of spleen-venting posts about the impending end of this free Republic to bring you something completely off-topic. It’s the same old stuff going on week after week anyway, isn’t it? This week we have a new pope. I saw a post from MAGA wingnut Laura Loomer vehemently complaining about Pope Bob. All I can say is that if MAGA hates him, then that’s probably the best-case scenario I can expect. Meanwhile…

I’ve never made it a secret that I’ve been an AC/DC fanatic ever since the early 80s. They’re my favorite band by far, and I’ve been jamming to them since I first saw the concert movie, “Let There Be Rock.” Seeing the phenomenon known as Angus Young in action was life-changing for me. I’ve seen them five times before, from 1985 to 1996. So when I saw that their latest tour was going to Pittsburgh, I figured it was time to act. 

OK, to be honest, the only "action" I took was to plant the seed in my brother’s head (he who first brought AC/DC records into the house) that maybe we should round up his boys and go see the show. He did the rest, securing us tickets and hotel accommodations. (Thanks, bro!) Going to the show tonight in Landover, MD, would have been closer to us here in Baltimore, but we have family in The Burgh, so that made it a much more attractive trip.

The concert was to be in the football stadium downtown, a venue with which we are quite familiar. We stayed at the Sheraton at Station Square, across the river from the stadium. After landing in town and soaking up a little South Side* ambiance (and beer), we took the Gateway Clipper (ferry), which dropped us off outside the gate.

* "Sah-side" to the locals.

I was pleased as I could be with our tickets, not because they were the closest, but because they were in the first row of the second tier, meaning there would never be someone standing up in front of me, so I needn’t stand either. (These old knees aren’t what they used to be.) We had the same deal when we saw Springsteen last September. 

This was our vantage point:

It was an interesting crowd, definitely older than what I used to see at an AC/DC show. And I was pleased to see that a lot of the old folks were there with their kids. In fact, I sat beside a very nice mid-40s woman who was there with her mother. I had a great time yapping with them and trading concert experiences before show time.

We never got out there in time to see the opening act, so I have nothing to say about them. But as expected, AC/DC went on at the stroke of 8:30. Too bad they didn’t make a big entrance like they used to. When I’d seen them before, they usually had a big stunt or effect to get things going. This time, they just ran a video intro, followed by the band moseying onto the stage.

In the prior week, I looked up their set list for prior stops on the tour and learned that they didn’t deviate much. So I knew what to expect for the night, and it panned out that way exactly.

Now, two main issues were apparent. (And also expected, due to the preponderance of video on YouTube from the tour so far. The first was the State of the Angus.

Yes, Angus Young is old now, 70 to be exact. So there was no way he would match the energy and raw mania that marked his 20s and 30s. But goddamn, he still got around pretty well for such an old guy. He didn’t run around as much, and only did his trademarked “duck-walk” maybe a half-dozen times. But it was still there and always in the right place.

The other issue is Brian Johnson’s voice. It was still there, but we couldn’t really gauge the quality because the vocals were so far down in the mix. If we didn’t already know all the words, we’d have no idea what he was singing.

The photo looks like black and white because that’s how the video was designed for Back in Black.

But ultimately, it didn’t matter because the crowd was all-in on participation. I know I was singing my face off along with everyone else, especially during the big choruses of Highway to Hell, You Shook Me, Dirty Deeds, and all the “Oi’s” of TNT. I was surprised I still had a voice in the morning.

The good thing about knowing the set list was that I could pick the perfect times to nip out and take a leak. (And with all the pre-show beer, there was a lot to leak!)

There will always be songs you wish they’d play but didn’t, especially for a band with as many albums out as AC/DC does. But there are also “locks,” which you KNOW they’ll play, like (aside from the ones mentioned above) Shoot to Thrill, Thunderstruck, Let There Be Rock, and my favorite, Whole Lotta Rosie. But they played six songs I’d never heard them play before: If You Want Blood (opener), Demon Fire, and Shot in the Dark (two new ones), Have a Drink on Me, Stiff Upper Lip, Rock & Roll Train, and old classic Riff Raff (from Powerage, 1977).

As always, they finished the initial set with Let There Be Rock, which ended in a 17-minute guitar solo, with Angus working out on the end of his runway and being raised high overhead on an accordioning platform, finishing to bursts of confetti. My rock musician cousin, who was there with us, said that was his favorite part. For me, I’d prefer they trim the long-ass solo and play a couple more songs. I’d recommend Shake Your Foundations and Flick of the Switch, from their mid-80s albums (from which they never play anymore).

For the obligatory encores, they opened with TNT and closed with For Those About to Rock, cannons and all.

The cannons rolled up from above the drum riser.

They also had a set of differently-styled cannons on each side.

We bugged out during the last of the cannon fire, missing the fireworks show, but that was a small price to pay for not getting trapped in the aisles, waiting for everyone above you to file out. We got back to the ferry in good time so we could relax with another beer on the way back to Station Square.

I’d seen two other AC/DC shows with my brother, in ’85 and ’88, but I was especially happy with this experience because my two nephews got to go. They’d been hearing our stories all their lives, and while they’ve seen many videos, nothing is like being there.

I don’t know if this is the band’s last tour or not. I would hope they hang it up before they become a joke. I know it would still draw, but I just couldn’t see them all sitting up there on stools, playing an acoustic show. It may work for the Eagles, but they’re a different kind of band.

I’ve gotten to meet a lot of different musicians, back when I was in the record store business, but I never got to meet anyone from AC/DC. I’d love to grab a minute with Angus and let him know just how important he and his band have been to my family and me. His music was the soundtrack to every Barn Party we ever threw. It’s hard to boil so much content down to a quick pleasantry, while posing for selfies, but I think I’d tell him this:

“I’ve probably gotten more pleasure from your right hand than I have from my own!”

Hell, he hung out for years with the mischievous Bon Scott, I’m sure he’d take it in the spirit with which it was offered.

This is the set list from Minneapolis, which exactly matched the Pittsburgh set.