New RElease on Life

Day 1 of post IBM career. First off, thanks to for all the nice FB and other congratulations. It was a Gold Wing day after I walked out of the plant yesterday.

Did this loop:


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In year 1 ('78) at IBM I lived in an old place in the space that is now the Government Center. Sheila and Dick Kiscaden (she to become a State Senator, he to have a long marketing type career with IBM), were the "slum lords". Another story.

'79-spring of '83 I was out in a little farm house by Pleasant Grove.

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In April of '83, I moved here.

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In those days I had a CX 500 Honda and hung out people from Spring Valley and Chatfield, so the Wing was a great way to get the mental Way Back Machine into gear.

Biggest thought of the day was that single days, hours, even minutes and seconds really define our lives for the purposes of our brains and emotions. Christmas, early pets, learning to ride a bike, first kiss, HS graduation, starting college, graduating college, job(s), marriage, kids --- retirement. It would be great if all of those were positive, but they never are -- death, accident, illness... those all fit in there.

The orders and the specifics vary,  but we all recognize them. The emotions of the "milestone" wire the memory into our brains along with the feelings. Walking out of IBM was one of those. I'm thankful I didn't "die at my desk" -- whatever comes, that event of walking out after nearly 34 years "hits the list".

For me it was "all good" to be leaving. No "bittersweet". But then, for me, so was graduating HS, so was graduating college -- I was always more interested in what was ahead than behind, and while I've started to re-establish a few connections from those old days on FB, mostly, it has just been "ever onward" relative to old connections.

Hopefully it is a good time in life to change that. Maybe even to re-establish some of those from time gone by. I could probably even consider making a class reunion in a decade or so after I get my "to do list" honed down just a bit. I didn't say that dumping the old relationships was "good",  I just said "that was me" ... for reasons that I don't really have a clue about.

I'm afraid it was due to WAY too much focus on "getting out and making money", but I've promised myself that I will work on my verbosity, so that topic is not for today!