Life After Work

Wow, 30 days.  It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long.

Today was spent at an all-day interview.  I really didn’t want to interview… yet, but my friend sent my resume to his friend and really talked me up so I figured I should a least show up.  I assumed that I would be done by noon, but no such luck.  I got interviewed by seven people from 9AM – 4PM.  I liked them; I think they like me.  I see this as a potential problem because I’d really like to take the year off, and it looks like they’d like to hire me soon.  I’m not ready!  I need God’s guidance in a big way.

Day 30 mood:  A whole range of emotions: a great sense of worth, annoyance, dread, happiness, contentment.

I wrote in my other blog over the weekend that I felt like I was living a life of luxury (the luxury of time off with money, where I could do whatever I want).  Today, I feel more like the “idle rich,” in that I’ve been very idle, and though I’m currently “rich,” if I don’t start to do something, I’ll soon not be so rich.

This week’s appointments are a job interview on Tuesday, and meeting a friend for lunch on Wednesday.  I hope to simply get through the job interview – I have no desire to work right now, and with the recent sale of all those stock options, and the tax implications that come with it, I really shouldn’t work for the entire year – I earned my annual wage in a single day last Thursday!  The lunch on Wednesday will be fun, but I also know that it will feel disruptive to my schedule, which is absolutely ludicrous because I have no schedule – I’m not doing anything!  It’s disruptive only because a scheduled item, where I have to be at a chosen location at a given time, means that I have to watch a clock.

On Saturday, the leaders of our church met.  It was a good meeting; all of us got on the same page.  This was important because we had to present “pastor search 2.0” to our congregation on Sunday.  With unified leadership in place, the vocal minority in our church (the dissenters) had no leg to stand on and were kept quiet.  Some may even have changed their views.  It was a good weekend for our church – a time of healing.

Well, I did install a bunch of software on my new laptop, and I did do a solid three hours of stock research – working towards a group of ~20 stocks to put my cash into.  I finished off my day by grocery shopping.

My dog was barking a lot today.  I’m afraid that my family will come home some day to discover that the dog is deceased.  He really annoys me.

Day 29 mood:  It was an easy day.  It was a dull day.  Anyone want a dog?

I had to set aside my normal routine today so I could do one thing:  Create a presentation.  At 2PM today, I will give a presentation in my wife’s classroom on my college experience, my work experience, and any words of advice I have for this group of 8^th graders who hope to someday go to college.  I had a blast putting the presentation together, and I finished it about an hour before I needed to get to school.  I presented the material and it was very well received.  I hope to read their notes and comments over the weekend.

When I got home, it was time for another “presentation” of sorts: I had to prepare for this evenings Bible study for our “Lifegroup.”  First though, I needed to cook dinner.  I cooked, we ate, we watched a little TV, and then it was time to go.  I really didn’t prepare the lesson as much as I usually do because I was tired from earlier in the day, and I figured that God would speak to our group through His Word anyway.  It turned out to be a great study; we learned a lot, the snacks were delicious, the conversation was lively, and more than the usual amount of people came.  I left energized… but fell asleep rather quickly when I got home at 11PM.  What a wonderful way to end the week!

Day 26 mood:  Finally, Purpose in my life, if only for one day.  Today felt really good.

Well, today was a different day.  My wife took the day off so she could work… if that makes sense.  She was getting behind on grading papers (really, I haven’t seen her for over a week or so because of this!).  My daughter is also home sick today.

Last night, a friend of ours died so my wife went over to be with the family, and today she may do so again.  My daughter is on the couch, coughing, clinging to a box of tissues and watching TV.  This sort of leaves me alone, but with people in the house – all three of us are doing our own thing.  At least my wife and I had a nice lunch out together.  It felt like a date.

Some things are happening at our church right now – we currently lack a full-time pastor – so “fixing things” (restoring/maintaining harmony) has occupied much of my time this week.  As of yesterday, with the latest fire, my wife has also gotten involved.  As leaders in the church, it’s time we did something – It’s time we sprang into action!  I started “springing” on Monday, but man, I’ve been beat up a lot this week, and there’s more on the way.  My wife is now very zealous and is trying to motivate the rest of the leadership to step up.  I hope she succeeds.  I’m weary, and not in the best mental state to lead a charge right now, but charge we must for the sake of the church and the cause of Christ.

Today was also the last day I could trade my options online.  Since the Dow was edging up to 12K today, it was largely a flat day – the stock market likes to hover around big, round numbers for a week or so before deciding on a new direction.  It’s unfortunate that I won’t see a rapid rise with my options – Sigh, I’m out of time – but if I can get the cash into other stocks before the market settles on a direction; a positive direction in my estimation, then I might just make a buck or two.  It just killed me to watch my options waffle +/- 25 cents all day… which represents a swing of $5K in cash – roughly two month’s “burn rate” or a really nice 3 week vacation for two somewhere in real terms.  I sold at the midpoint of the day – basically the opening price – but around $1.50 off of last week’s peak.  Now I almost feel obligated to “make up” for the $30K I “lost” over the last week.  In truth, I lost nothing, but have gained a small fortune (It was a banner day:  I sold $538K in company stock with a small portion of that being the option amount that I get to keep.  Sheesh!, the full amount of the company stock is about what my house is worth!  I’ll probably never move that kind of money again – with the single push of a button no less!).  I am VERY thankful that I even have to concern myself with all this, as very few people even get stock options.  In the last four months, these options have allowed me to buy a really nice car, put solar panels on my house, and now, provide cash to live on for approximately three years.  I am truly blessed!

Day 25 mood:  Grateful, grateful, grateful!  God is good, and I’ve been blessed beyond measure.

The kids were home today (a teacher in-service day) so much of my time was spent with them.  It was a very enjoyable experience!  The highlight of my day – shopping at Walmart with them.

I also had lunch today with my former crew.  Tomorrow is the last day for one of them.  He’s moving on to long-term consulting.  I know he’ll be happier.  He sure seemed happy today.  The thing is, much of our lunch conversation was about how much they hated their boss (my former boss).  To me, this was a bit of a downer.  I don’t hate my former boss; I feel sorry for him and for his family because he’s so angry all the time, but I don’t hate him.  With my friend’s departure, this only leaves one guy left from my team.  I had gotten a flier on a job yesterday from a friend, and the job better suited my lone remaining friend, so I gave it to him.

Also on the job front, I got a surprise phone call from a company that wants to interview me.  It’s the one semiconductor company that I would consider working for!  They want to interview me because a friend at work forwarded my resume to friends of his along with a shining recommendation.  They are interviewing me even though they have a hiring freeze.  I am humbled and honored… yet, I’m not ready to return to a normal job.  It’s too soon!  I really, really want to take the year off!  I’ll do the interview (next Tuesday), but I’m not too excited about it largely because I don’t want them to hire me… yet.  I have personal goals to meet.  I have travel plans, and thoughts of further travel plans.  My mom invited me to visit her in the spring and I might want to do that (me and my family will also go in the summer).  My wife gave me permission to go on a solo trip anywhere I’d like to go, or the two of us could go somewhere for a week when she’s off for winter break, or I can go somewhere with my travel buddy (he’s thinking of Hawaii). I think I should get out of here and go somewhere while I still have the chance.  If this company wants me, maybe they don’t want me until November or December at a minimum!  Wouldn’t that be nice?  Chances are though, they’ll interview me and not be interested, or I may actually turn them down should they want me to start anytime soon.  It’s too soon!

Day 24 mood:  Wondering where God is leading me.  It’s been a week of highs and lows.

The days are all beginning to run together; time has no meaning.  I wonder if this is what retirement will feel like?  I’m beginning to see why people often die shortly after retirement – they have nothing to live for… unless they plan ahead.  I thought I had planned ahead, but I am currently resisting my plan.

I did my morning routine right up through exercising, and then wondered what I would do for the rest of the day.  I didn’t feel like accomplishing anything on my list – everything seemed too big to tackle, and I didn’t even want to tackle just a piece of a project.  I am getting very demotivated, and I have yet to do a lick of what I had hoped to do should I ever find myself without a job.  I’m so disappointed in myself!

I guess part of my “funk” too is that I continue to get trickles of work from my consulting job, but only half an hour at a time, and I don’t think they’ll want to pay me for this time.  The work, though short-lived, requires a lot of concentration, and when my family is home, I can’t concentrate – there’s too much noise!  Meanwhile, well-meaning friends at work continue to ask for my resume because they want to get me into another company.  I don’t want to do that right now; maybe never!  I need rest.  I need purpose.  I need to DO something… after resting.

I got a phone call yesterday from Schwab stating that I had until next Friday to sell all my stock options, and only until this Thursday to do so online.  I thought I had an additional week!  This is not good because the stock is plummeting, and I was hoping for the boost that always comes after the fiscal year-end announcement, which will happen next Wednesday.  Meanwhile, the stock went down 10% late last week.  Fortunately, yesterday was an up day, but today started down again, so I sold a quarter of the pot just in case it never goes back up again.  Now I’m kicking myself for not selling early last week – I almost did, but I got greedy, and I was waiting for the year-end results.

Day 23 mood:  grumpy, demotivated and lazy.

Today began with a “Starbucks” meeting prior to the church meeting.  Unfortunately, I went to the wrong Starbucks so I was late (hey, my city has eight Starbucks!).  There were three of us who would later be meeting with two other leadership groups at our church and we wanted to make sure we had a plan before we arrived.  We formed a plan, met with the other two groups, and I think things went fairly well – Praise God!  I think we’re on the way to building bridges.  Hopefully, goodness, kindness and mercy will prevail moving forward.  Next Sunday, we have a congregational meeting, so it’s good that at least some issues have been ironed-out.  We will have some disgruntled people at that meeting, but we generally expect a few at every meeting.  This meeting will have more than usual, so the more the leadership groups are on the same page, the better.

Day 22 mood:  Thankful that this morning’s meeting went well – it set the mood for the rest of the day.

I told myself this morning that I was taking another day off, but I sort of got bored so I began to do stuff.  It was a high pollen day outside, so rather than walk, I decided to get on the Wii.  I hadn’t been on Wii fit for slightly more than a year.  After doing my initial body check, it said that I was unbalanced, that I had gained 12.5 pounds over the last year, and that I had the fitness of a 61 year old.  I’m 47.  Guess I’ll need to start doing this fitness thing in earnest!

Whew, Wii fit was tiring.  I made myself an egg and country potato lunch and washed the whole thing down with an entire bottle of Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider.  I was kind of sleepy after that.

I had received a call from Fidelity about my 401K plan during lunch, so I called them back.  Turns out, I would save $100 a year by rolling my 401K plan into an IRA, so that’s what I did.  The funds should be transferred (tax free!) by this time next week.  After that, I can decide if I want to convert some of my traditional IRA to a ROTH IRA.  I probably will.

The solar guy was supposed to come at 2PM to show me how to find my savings on the web, but he called to reschedule.  I was a little annoyed by this because I had purposefully not gone out to procure some things so that I would be home when he arrived.  Now I’ll have to be home tomorrow at Noon for him as well.

When my son got home, we watched Police Academy together.  I then practiced for tonight’s band rehearsal… and then went.

I almost drove my car off the road on the way home.  I decided to use a route that I rarely take.  As I was getting up to speed on the onramp, I came to realize that there were two corners to navigate, not one, and that second one really surprised me!  I guess I should have had my high beams on!  In my Honda, this is not an issue – I’d still be gaining momentum even after I got onto the freeway – but with the Porsche, I was up to 70 at the second curve!  Yikes!  Good thing those tires are sticky.  I got slammed into the door, but the car didn’t budge an inch – it kept its line.  This car is amazing

Day 18 mood:  I’m in a funk.  I want to do something significant, but I’m not quite ready yet to actually start.

OK, this is more like day 16-17.

On Tuesday morning, I came to realize that I had no “A” priorities to accomplish (things that must be done today), so I started working on my “B” priorities (things that must be done in the next 2 – 5 days).  I got as far as item #1, accomplished it… and then felt like watching the last Blockbuster movie from my one month pass:  Smokin’ Aces.  This turned out to be a dynamite movie, and a great way to end a month of movie watching.  After finishing that movie, I thought I’d do Wii Fit… except that the floor thingy had no batteries, so I went to Blockbuster, returned the video, bought batteries, and proceeded to watch two more movies on Starz (remember – three free months!).  In essence, I took the day off.  I felt really guilty about this, but it did feel good to do nothing for a day.  I’d get back to work on Wednesday.

On Wednesday morning, I still had no “A” priorities to accomplish so I started working on my “B” priorities.  I got as far as item #1.  I had to get up out of the office to retrieve something to complete task #1.  While I was up, I decided to start recording movies (I’ve been recording around three movies a day – trying to maximize my free three months of Starz Network – and all while watching Blockbuster movies!  I have not been watching the Starz movies; only recording them to this point.).  Well, the movie I started to record was one that I had never seen, and wanted to see, so I sat down and began to watch it.  Today’s DVD theme was “great books I have read that have been turned into movies – Needful Things by Stephen King, Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, and Rising Sun by Michael Crichton.  I highly recommend all three books!  The movie versions are a little more hit and miss.  Well, I didn’t want to just sit down and watch Needful Things – I had already taken yesterday off! – so I decided to cook dinner while watching the movie.

Tonight’s dinner, an Indian dish called “Palak Paneer,” requires a ton of prep, and is generally cooked well ahead of time.  Perfect for cooking right now!  Unfortunately, I cooked through most of the movie.  I saw the first 20 minutes while chopping things, and the last 40 minutes after I had finished cooking the dish.  Maybe someday, I’ll see the middle of the movie!

I was hungry after that – cooking does that – so I started Starship Troopers and began to watch it while eating.  I never got up.  I wound up taking another day off.

In the evening, I talked to my wife about his; telling her that my laziness was overpowering my internal drive to succeed (normally, I’m very intrinsically motivated).  Usually, my drive wins, but it wasn’t winning this week, and I was feeling guilty as a result.  She told me not to sweat it; that she had gone through the same thing when she first stopped working.  She actually felt that it was good for me to get away from everything until I was more relaxed.  She recommended that I take the rest of the week off; maybe more.  I love my wife!

In other news, one of my dearest friends has hinted that he’d like to do the same thing I’m attempting: web/computer-based work.  He doesn’t know anyone who has attempted this – I don’t personally know anyone who has succeeded in doing it – but I do know two companies that have succeeded over time by building passionate groups of followers (I am a passionate follower of both companies!).  I have seen how they have succeeded over time, so I was going to try to emulate that.  I also have a book on how to succeed on the internet (though I maintain that most of the folks who write these kinds of books actually succeed by selling books.).  This book had a lot of good ideas, so it was totally worth the $1.98 I paid for it.  Unfortunately, one thing this book points out is that it helps to have an outgoing personality and an entrepreneurial spirit.  I lack these things.  To date, I have failed at everything entrepreneurial I have ever attempted largely because I am an introvert.  I generally succeed when I’m in the background – making others look good.  My friend has the same problem – we’re both engineers!  I will either have to “create” a happy, outgoing figurehead (like a mascot), or hire a good-looking, outgoing person to be my front-man/woman.  My area of comfort is content and style; not sales and marketing.  Hopefully, as I begin this project, I can find subscribers who will be passionate about my content and then I won’t have to worry about a figurehead.

My friend wants me to hurry up and succeed so he can quit his job and emulate what I have done on the road to success.

Day 17 mood:  Wanting to relax, but still feeling guilty about trying to relax… and so I’m not so relaxed.  I think I would relax more if I didn’t have church-related things to do almost every evening.  My days are free, but my nights are full.  To truly relax, I need to get away from everything, including my evening commitments.  Right now, every day feels like a “sick day” because I relax a little, but I still have obligations.

Both yesterday and today began with fog.  I love fog!  The world seems so eerie and mysterious in fog.

Today is also the day that I lose my Blockbuster one-month all-you-can-view video pass.  I’m happy to get rid of it, as I believe I have now seen every movie that has been made over the last year.  There is such a thing as too much of a good thing!  We actually ran out of things to watch last week and stopped borrowing videos.  Today, I rented our last two movies and cancelled the plan (before they charge me for another month of movies).

Being that today is Martin Luther King Day, my family is off.

My son spent the weekend at a friend’s house… a two-hour drive away from here!  At noon today, we begin the trek towards a prisoner swap:  we have two of their kids (who were visiting their mother and their dying father… long story, but our friends are taking care of these two kids while dad is dying of cancer), and they have our son.  We will meet at a mid-point.  Since the first thing we have scheduled to do today is at noon, my wife will no doubt sleep until 11:50AM.  My daughter and I have been up since dawn; as usual.

I’ve already completed The Noticer by Andy Andrews.  It’s a really insightful book about the need for perspective.  I have someone in mind who should really read it right now, so I will hand it to her tomorrow when I see her.  Today I’ll start my dad’s other recommendation: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl.  I have no doubt that I’ll also learn a great deal from reading this book.

Day 15 mood:  In a fog, literally and figuratively: trying to see the long-view (perspective) of my current situation.  As it says in Andy Andrews’ book, “The best is yet to come!”  I believe it!