House Anniversary Day

Yeah, I know it is Labor Day, and that is a meaningful Holiday here in the US.  But for me, it the day I moved here.  First and only owned house, 31 years ago now.  I never would have expected to be here so long on that day I moved in!

Every year, about this time, I think about moving.  Before I retired in 2006, it was because of the traffic.  I live in a town where The Highway comes through, and traffic was bad then and worse now.  But being retired, I can avoid most of the traffic now, shopping at 2 pm Tuesday-Thursday.

The past 5 years, it has been because the neighbors have let trees grow all around my property line, and the loss of sunlight makes gardening harder. 

But I know every square inch of the yard and I could walk around the house in complete darkness.  I really like the room arrangement too.  You walk up a half-flight of stairs and the kitchen, living room room, and TV room are connected in a circle.  A hallway goes off one side and leads to the main bath and the 3 bedrooms.  And the neighborhood has buried electrical lines, which are great.

When I saw the floorplan 32 years ago, I knew it would work for me.  I can see the TV from where I prepare food in the kitchen.  And since I spend a good bit of time doing both, that is great!  I don't like the basement though.  It has a staircase right through the middle of it, which makes arranging my woodworking equipment awkward.  I chose to have a built-in garage.  I wouldn't do that again. 

If I moved, I would want the same floorplan above basement without the built-in garage below and would want the garage to the side (2 car garage if possible - 1 bay for a boat.  2 acres of land to assure sunlight for the garden.  City water and sewage.

But for now, again, I will stay...

But 31 years, hurray!

10th Anniversary Of Retirement

Yeah, 10 years now...  I retired 10 years ago last week.  It doesn't feel like 10 years.  The first couple years were noticable.  The next few were less so.  These days, I have to think about my career life. 

As much as I enjoyed my career challenge (and I really did - it kept my mind busy and I saved my Federal Agency a lot more money than they paid me), it was a relief to stop. 

Some people can't stop working because it defines them; they only think of themselves as what they do for a job.  They have nothing to do other than their jobs.  Not me.  I always had a life outside my job.  I knew too many people who, while pretty poor at their jobs, that was all they had.  I'm glad I was not one of those.

I spent my career going full-out at it.  After my first month as a temp worker, I found I had done all my work one mid day and told my boss.  So I got more.  And the "more" was more complicated work.  I got made permanent shortly after that.  And advanced...

I got moved from office to office, always some duty new to me.  I loved learning new stuff.  It was a challenge, and I loved challenges.  From counting furniture, I went to writing telephone change orders to moving whole offices with all the furniture and equipment and ordering new carpet.  From there, I supported Presidential Commissions and Committees and then Senate and House Members' office.  I went on to inventory the White House assets.  I even got under the President's desk in the Oval Office and Private Study for several Presidents.  I saw Ford's football helmet, and I got a few of Carter's peanuts and Reagan's jelly beans.  I still have a pad of White House notepaper, tucked way in my treasure chest, LOL!

But even that had advancement limitations, so I got into telecommunications management.  That was amazing.  It was planned to be a 17 person office.  But I was the only one hired before a budget cut stopped the hiring.  And for 20 years, it was just ME! 

I wrote the first telecommunications manual for my Agency (General Services Administration - GSA), and received the first telephone call records.  On paper (useless) at first, but then on pre-internet vendor-specific data mag-tapes (still useless). 

I found a company that could read the vendor data tapes on a (then) fancy bit of hardware.  It took 36 hours to process a month's calls.  Then I found how to do it in 24 hours, then, 2 hours, and finally I could get it into something Microsoft Access could read.  After that, I learned to get the data from Access to Excel.

I created an entire procedure across GSA for sending offices their long-distance calls.  You wouldn't believe how many people call non-business numbers.  Let's just say that some employees had private businesses running and some called "naughty" numbers.  I put a stop to most of that!

With the call records available to office managers, I turned my attention to video-conferencing.  My supervisor and I visited all our regional offices to help set up videoconferencing rooms nationwide.  We not only designed state-of-the-art non-acoustical walls, we found ways to to that for ceilings and floors too! 

I designed a spreadsheet that kept all video rooms schedulable across time zones.    I was also dragged around by higher management to other agencies to show them how to red the contractor data in Access and Excel, and also how to use my scheduling system (it seemed simple to me but usually got an "OH!" response.

I gave the office a year's notice of my retirement.  They were shocked; apparently most people just gave 2 weeks notice.  But I wanted a good replacement.  And to management's credit, they acted 4 months before I retired.  My supervisor and I were the interview team. 

From a couple of dozen resumes, we chose 5 and interviewed them with a set series of questions.  One guy was so tightly wound (nuts) that I was looking around for a letter-opener to defend myself.  Another had no apparent connection to the skill set described and his own.  2 others were "decent".  The last one had a sense of both managing a program and relating to customers. 

After she left, I said to my supervisor, "We have my replacement".  I spend the last 4 months training her on the details of my system.

On my last day, my supervisor's supervisor gave me a project and I just laughed at him.  I packed up my stuff and walked out the door.  It was funny.  We had various work schedules, and mine was the latest of the day.  So I was alone in the office that last day. 

I had filled my car with my potted snake plants and personal stuff at lunchtime.  I spent the last few hours emailing my regional co-workers about how great it had been to work with them, and hoping they trusted my replacement to help them as I had.

And then, I walked out the office door turning out the lights as I went, locked it behind me, and drove silently off into the sunset. 

I kept in touch with my replacement and a few trusted co-workers for a few months.  My replacement couldn't handle the work.  I guess it was the right temperment but not the ability to work "flat out crazy".  I was eventually replaced with 4 full time employees.  And THEY complained about the workload. 

From my first year to my last day, I always outworked any 2 co-workers and at a higher accuracy.  Each office I left needed at least 2 people to do my work.

To this day, I am STILL pleased about THAT!  I TOLD them they needed more people to do what I did, and they didn't believe me.  At first...  LOL!

So Happy 10th Retirement Week To Me!

Yeah, I'm bragging...  ;)

It Was 27 Years Today...

...that I moved into my "starter home".  I'm still here! 

I went through a long string of bad apartments and many roommates to slightly better apartments with a 2 roommates to a rented house with one roommate, to the same rented house alone.  And then FINALLY came the day when I was 36 and could get my own house.

I did a lot of research.  The Washington DC area is expensive, and the several counties surrounding it were not much better.  A co-worker pointed out that e lived just beyond the county line of the 2nd level of counties out from DC, and I learned that a house there cost only half of what the same house (on a smaller property) cost closer in.  The trade-off was a slightly longer commute.

I had to look around a lot before I found what I was looking for (large property with a decent house size).  I told the realty agent that I didn't care about schools, community activities, shopping, or restaurants.  Well, I'm a real homebody; you plant me in a decent house and yard and sometimes I don't leave it for a week (except for commuting to work before I retired).

The realty agent kept showing me tiny ranch house on tiny properties.  He was convinced that, as a single guy, all I needed out of life was basically a one-bedroom apartment with barely space for a M/V and a TV, a living room for parties, planted on the smallest possible yard (because who wants to mow a large lawn anyway).

After being driven the the umpteenth tiny house and yard I finally grabbed him by his cheap shiny garish tie and made him listen to me.  The next day, he drove me to a newly-built dead-end street just being developed.  30 lots available and I could choose any one.  Plus the developer had several varieties of houses to choose from.  I identified the best one by size and flatness and available sunlight.  It had 5 sides (comes to a point in the back because the street behind it is curved.

And I discovered "split-foyer" houses.  I grew up where basements were below ground and there was a one or 2 story house above that.  Split-foyer means that the basement is at ground level with basically a large ranch house on top of it, and the front door is halfway up so that there is a half stair leading up to the living area and a half stair going down to the basement.  So the front door is 6 steps up from ground level.  It's weird.  But I like it.

With 3 "bedrooms" there is a master bedroom, a computer/library room, and there was a guest bedroom that is now the cat playroom.  The basement has an enclosed garage and the rest is a nice woodworking shop.  The dining room is now the TV room and the living room is now the dining/cat tree/library room.

The yard is a half acre.  Half of the back yard is left relatively wild and half is flowers and garden with some small lawn.  I keep the front yard rather standard for the benefit of my neighbors.  My one gift to my neighbors is a standard routine appearance.  I live mostly inside or in the back yard, so I don't really care about the front; so let it please the neighbors.  The front yard is planted with some hostas and a few showy shrubs. 

After 27 years, I know every stone, weed, and mole tunnel.  My friends and siblings say I must be bored living in the same old place for so long.  Why should I be bored?  I LIKE this place.  The inside is perfected to my tastes (which don't change by fashion demands), and the outside is so familiar and comfortable.

For a "starter home", its pretty good.

So I am celebrating this 27th anniversary here, remembering how it was the day I moved in vs how it looks today.