Retirement...

I had a talk the other night with my dad about his retirement. He
worked for a manufacturing company for about 30 years. In September
they went on strike because, as their old contract ended, the new one
didn't look very good.

In the interim, the cooling of the economy has continued and other
manufacturers have been laying folks off creating a sizable pool of
people to hire from if the company decided to break the strike. The
union voted to accept the new contract thinking it better to have a
lousy contract than no job. My dad decided to retire.

It wasn't the happy decision I like to think of retirement as being,
but a torturious choice between the lesser of two evils. Needless to
say, it makes me glad I stayed in the military.

Sunday at work...

Sunday duty really isn’t too bad. Other than getting up early and coming in it’s usually quiet and allows me to get a jump on the next weeks work.

Duty today has been full of studying and preparing for ship exams next week and trying to keep tabs on that thing loosely referred to as a schedule. It has also been a time of reflection, catching up on things that others have been doing and formulating a short term plan ahead.

This week we lost our Annabelle. She was a 17 year old cat of many social graces, idiosyncrasies and pure, unadulterated love. You can read more here. We miss you Annabelle and I miss you too.

Memories...

I love Facebook. I linked to a friend from high school who, apparently, has sought out and found every member of our high school class.

I ran across a buddy from high school. We actually go back further than that with many hours spent riding the bus to and from school from about 7th grade.

While I bitch and complain about duty and working long hours and being gone from home, this guy has really had it hard. He was severely burned over a large portion of his body and is just trying to make it day to day.

His blog doesn't sound like the mullet wearing guy I knew all those years ago but more power to you Maddog!

Ahh, memories....

Kris and I were having a conversation last night over pizza when we heard the song Faithfully by Journey. I said I remembered the song from basement parties in junior high school. She swore that was too old for this classic hit because she remembered it from her junior year in high school (I won, I was in 9th grade (junior high then) when she was a junior in high school.

She mentioned that one of the barristas at our local Starbucks had mentioned that this song reminded him of college parties, he's 19...

Memories of songs that have become timeless, nice!

End of Christmas break

Remember when you were a kid and looked forward to Christmas break? I'm lucky enough to have a job with a kind of Christmas break, kind of because it is counted as vacation. Christmas break is over tomorrow and, just like in school, I'm dreading it!