Wife retired today!

[wroughtn_harv]

Nasty, I started splicing copper in Nam. We twisted and soldered nineteen gauge. We couldn't get snips and had to use sidecutters for stripping our conductors. I heard that we could get snips via the local telco back home. We lived in a PacTel area. My mom went to their local office and they told her they didn't do that. So she went over a town to GTE where they not only gave her a pair of snips in a box ready to ship, they told her to have me come by for a job when I got home. If you go here 267 Signal RVN you can see what telephony was like in Nam in the middle sixties.

Back in the day, seventies, pots (plain old telephone service) worked on the principle of "if it touches, it'll talk." Now it's about flashes of light.

My first exposure to fiber optic cable was in Vegas where I was installing a thirty six hundred pair cable. It was 1981 I believe. And they'd just pulled in a fiber cable ten thousand feet from the central office to one of the new casinos. I was told they turned off the lights in both ends of the fiber and one of them shined a flashlight towards the cable. The other end saw the light.

I've been away from telephony for almost twenty years. Through my wife I've watched it change from a career to chaos. The impetus seems to be to make the job where any idiot can do it. The problem with that concept is only idiots will stand for being treated like that over time. They will end up having only idiots and don't-give-a-rat's-butt attituders eventually. They're driving all the good people off in droves.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

That certainly sounds good, Harv, and I'm glad for you and Glenda. When you say you're "looking at her taking it" I guess you're both considering all the possibilities. I've known lots of folks who retired and really enjoyed it, but while it may seem odd to some, I've also known quite a few who looked forward to retirement, then fell into depression because they were bored, missed the people they had worked with, and just didn't like the change at all.

Bird, we were talking about you this morning. The idea of traveling for awhile seems pretty attractive. I have a truck that could haul a fifth wheel travel trailer along with some tools for doing work occasionally to supplement the income.

Actually, I've had a dream for some time of traveling to projects and working with people doing unique and challenging projects. It's not a working for them kind of dream, it's about working with them concept. I see that as pegging out the fun potentialmomenter (my new word).

We also have the bracket system in the mix. I haven't been pushing it because I have to make the brackets at this point in time and am more concerned about fine tuning the system than marketing it.

 

[EddieWalker]

Harvey,

Sure sounds like you are at an exiting time in you life. The option of being able to travel around and live in different places for a time, then move on to another has a HUGE apeal to Steph and I. We're hoping that in time, we'll be able to do that ourselves.

Good luck to you and Congrats to Glenda if she accepts the retirement.

Eddie

 

[jinman]

We're looking at her taking it. Between the 401K and Social Security her contribution to the family coffer won't change much. AND she won't be facing all the stress of that job to boot.

Harvey, this sounds like a pretty darn good deal, especially since the stress is lowered and the freedom is increased. I don't see how you could go wrong.

 

[Bird]

Harv and Eddie, full time RVing is an interesting and fun life, although I suspect it's like a lot of things; people can tell you all about it, but then when you actually do it, it's different than what you expected. Actually, I think it would be easier now than when we were doing it because of the changing technology. I had a computer, but no Internet service. And we had a mail forwarding service, but no cell phone and no phone number. We just had a "non-subscriber" AT&T credit card for making phone calls from pay phones or other people's phones.

I had envisioned spending a month or so in one place before moving on and slowly moving with the seasons around the country so we'd always be in a pleasant climate. It didn't work out that way. We had to be in the southern tip of West Virginia in late October for Margaret's mother's birthday, we had to be on the Texas coast in November for Thanksgiving with my parents, we had to be in the Dallas area for Christmas with the kids, so we wound up traveling longer distances faster than intended and racked up a lot of miles.

And there are certainly jobs to be had for travelers; some pay very well, some minimum wage, if that. But some are also a lot of fun. I really enjoyed doing gas leakage surveys, even though it paid very little. But the last year I did that, we spent the summer in west Texas and Arizona; not exactly the kind of climate I had envisioned. But you do meet a lot of new and interesting people.

 

[EddieWalker]

Bird,

One of the things I'd really like to do is spend a season in Yellowstone. They hire couples and gurantee that they get the same days off, but not what days they will be. Jobs are at the stores, maintenance or whatever they need done. Pay in minimul, but they give you a place to park your RV and you make enough to feed yourself and pay your bills.

It just seems like spending four months or so there would be a really great way to see the park and learn about the area. I think you can do this at other places around the country, but Yellowstone is the one that really interests me.

I bet a guy with Harvey's skills would be something they'd really want to take advantage of. Give him a place to stay, pay him a decent wage and let him rebuild some of there old stone and iron work that's half a century old and in need of some upgrading!!!

Eddie

 

[Bird]

Yep, Eddie, we checked into that when we were in Yellowstone. Of course we were only there a few days but was checking into it to see if we might want to apply for the next year. Not a bad deal at all, but not quite what we wanted. We did similar kind of work one summer in an RV park with a thousand campsites in Virginia Beach. They had 2 stores and Margaret worked in the #1 store. I worked the gate at times, I did the bingo some nights, I pumped propane, etc., but mostly I did maintenance; plumbing, electrical, and mowing.

 

[txdon]

Harvey and Glenda, when it comes to the monetary point of working or exploring a new livelihood I would say retire every time. In the FD I saw many who stayed on till they were 70+ and then could not enjoy retirement because the change was not good for them, as Bird said.

Looks like I might have to put up two RV pads for you and Ron when you're heading across central Texas.

Oh by the way, My next project is a front entrance, something simple and surprising. I can do simple but you always come up with that "surprising element".

 

[hazmat]

Harvey - head North East right now, - I've got a fence fixin' to go up.

Life's short - enjoy it while you can.

Bird, we were talking about you this morning. The idea of traveling for awhile seems pretty attractive. I have a truck that could haul a fifth wheel travel trailer along with some tools for doing work occasionally to supplement the income.

Actually, I've had a dream for some time of traveling to projects and working with people doing unique and challenging projects. It's not a working for them kind of dream, it's about working with them concept. I see that as pegging out the fun potentialmomenter (my new word).

We also have the bracket system in the mix. I haven't been pushing it because I have to make the brackets at this point in time and am more concerned about fine tuning the system than marketing it.

 

[ToadHill]

I think you mean she left the workforce, my wife tells me that wife's never get to retire.