The wife and I went out Saturday evening for a Trivia Night at the local opera house. We ended up on a team that a couple of older people who knew a lot of stuff. That, combined with what I and the wife know, led us to victory. There were 6 teams altogether. It was good to see support for rebuilding the opera house. The place looks so much nicer than when I was last there 4-5 years ago. 

Tuesday I went to the audiologist to turn in my hearing aids. He convinced me to keep trying them, as my it would take my brain a while to get adjusted to the new sounds it was hearing. So I’ve been wearing them more, trying to determine if they’re worth keeping or not. I know that someday I’ll really really need hearing aids, and I’ll depend on them, but I’m not sure if today is that day. They did really help during the trivia night. I mean, I’d like to keep them around if for nothing else but to use in noisy group situations. But that’s a lot of money to tie up for something I may not use a lot. I will take them to our trip to Florida then decided what to do with them when we get home.

Speaking of our Florida trip, I’m getting excited about it. A couple months ago, when all my hearing problems started, I was really in a funk and not looking forward to doing anything. But I’ve gotten so use to my ears now that it doesn’t really bother me. I know we will have a great time in Florida and I will look back on the trip with fond memories, not even knowing that I had all this hearing stuff going on. I do have an appointment this afternoon with my physician; I want to see if she will prescribe me steroids that might clear up my ears, if it’s an inflammation problem. One can only hope.

I’m just about done building the 3D printer. It’s taken a lot longer to assemble than I originally thought, but then again I only spend a couple hours a week putting it together. I just don’t want to get tired and end up making a mistake on it.

Emma had her 18th birthday on Wednesday. She had a big sleepover the weekend before that. Time just goes by so quickly. All you can do is try to slow it down. Freeze this moment a little bit longer.

I’ll soon be coming up on the one year anniversary of this site. This was originally supposed to be my blog, like an interesting site to share on social media. Instead it’s turned into a journal; a place to organize my thoughts. Not very interesting for anyone else to read, I imagine.

Jack’s wrestling season has started and he already has two pins in two matches. He’s a much different wrestler than two years ago. He’s strong, muscular, athletic, aggressive…that’s what puberty and testosterone will do to a boy. 

I discovered that Amazon Prime video has The Great Courses available on video. That’s great for me because I’m still on this European history kick. I already have a backlog of videos, books, and games to get to that will last into my retirement, so what’s one more item to add to the to-do list? lol.

I’m really making progress in French on Duolingo and Rosetta Stone. Sometimes I want to get back into other languages too but I really need to focus and try to master one foreign language instead. I’m getting to the point now where I was when I went to school in Quebec City, where someone asks me a question and I want to respond in French. Next up will be where my dreams are in French. I don’t know what’s after that, I didn’t get that far. There are beaucoup de gens ici in Beardstown qui parlent francais, I wish there was a conversational group available where we could talk. That would really speed up my learning. And being that the French speakers here are African, that means I can understand their continental French. Unlike the Quebecois accent that I don’t understand that well. 

I’m only working four days this week and then I’ll be out until January 2nd. This Friday we will go to Jack’s meet in Lincoln and then go to Peoria for our yearly Christmas tradition of bowling at Bass Pro Shop and seeing the Festival of Lights in East Peoria. Saturday is my birthday, Sunday we will open presents on Christmas Eve, and Monday we will leave very early in the morning for the airport. Mom once again will house sit and take care of the dogs.

I don’t know offhand how old I’ll be on Saturday. My birth year ends in a “5”, and I was born in the end of the year. So it’s never easy to find my age without having to do some mental math. Also I’m in my late 40’s. The years don’t really matter at this point. Soon I’ll be 50 and I will be keenly aware of that. Wow, 50! Five-zero. I can’t believe it when I just typed it out. 50 is old. I don’t feel old. I definitely don’t feel like I’m 50. I’m okay being 4o-something. Some days I feel like I’m 30-something. But 50….wow.

I’m at a good place in my life right now. Actually since I met my wife I’ve been in a good place. I’m in a comfortable place career-wise and financially. If I can work at my job for another 17 years and then retire, I’d be happy. It is always in the back of my mind (sometimes it’s very much in the front of my mind) that my current job will end and then what? I’ll have to find some other employment of course, but the question is, will I find something comparable to what I have now? How long will it take for me to find something comparable? I could maybe find something quickly that pays less, but that employer would have to be aware that I would leave as soon as something better comes along. And would I be able to work from home? I wouldn’t necessarily mind driving an hour to work but I can’t do the 1.5 to 2 hour one-way commute that I used to do back when I was younger. Would we have to move? I don’t want to move. I love our house, our backyard, our neighborhood, our town, our friends, our family. Our house will be great when we are older as it has few steps and there’s already a handicapped bathroom on the ground floor. We can really grow into this place. What if I lost my job but had the opportunity to pay off our house? Would I be happy taking a job around town, knowing that we wouldn’t really need the money? It’s been a while since I’ve had to be ambitious. In my current job I’ve had the ambition to learn the ins-and-outs of my current responsibilities, but as far as moving up and getting promotions, I don’t think so. I would have to move into a people-leader role and I don’t really want that. I really don’t like project management and holding people to dates and things like that.

For the past 7-8 years my options have been to 1. Learn New Skills to Remain Employable or 2. Spend Time with My Family. I’ve opted for #2 while still staying on the margins of #1. I try to pickup new skills here and there, to remain relevant in the work place, mostly so that I can be the bread-winner and support my family. That is my biggest concern. I just don’t want to go from being an Engineer (part of my identity) to some guy carrying around 50 lbs bags of feed. So, motivated by fear (like always), I try to learn new things. I tried to go back to school for Computer Science last year but that did not work out. It was mainly due to my lack of knowledge about the Java language, but also due to work and family responsibilities. I’m sure I’ll try again for this degree when the kids are grown and on their own. But when they’re grown, well what will be the rush to upgrade my skills? It will just be the wife and myself to support.

Back when I started my current job I was a voracious learner. I took all the in-house classes I could get my hands and still studied after hours. But that was because I was the newbie of the group; the last one hired; and all the other job responsibilities had been claimed by others in my group. So I really had nothing to do. I didn’t know enough to truly be helpful. I was just a warm body, there to fill the last open req (Required Position) for my manager so he could build up his team. Over the years (with growing responsibilities) I’ve delved more into the minutiae of my job so that I could become the Subject Matter Expert. But getting into the weeds here came at a cost – the Opportunity Costs of learning more skills. So now I’m at a point where I know my current job inside and out, and for what? What use will these skills be when no one needs them anymore? It’s like being someone who knows everything about calibrating the head for recording audio onto tape. Or someone who can setup a tube video camera. These were fine skills to have at one point, skills that took a high degree of knowledge. But who needs these skills now? 

The only true way to mitigate this feeling is to be sure to have enough dough on hand to last 3-6 months when you’re out of work. We have that, thank goodness, but I wonder how long I would be out of work before I would really start to freak out about our declining saving’s balance. It’s like when we moved into our new house; we still were paying on the old house too. We had enough fundage to pay for both mortgages for maybe 6 months. But after the first month, the first time paying two loans, I really became focused on selling the old home. I figure I’d be out of work a week before I put on the “autism blinders” and obsessively focused on finding a new job.

It’s strange that I went from being the last one hired in my group to being the last one around. It’s like I won some corporate Game of Thrones. Originally we had a group with 10 guys and 1 boss. Through the years we’ve had guys pass away and other get let go. Some were sent to another company when we split of our services. And then our original group was split up and absorbed by two other groups – Operations and Engineering. I went into the Engineering group (which was an amazing call, in hindsight). This allowed me to work from home permanently as I did not need to physically handle equipment anymore. The guys that got put into Operations ended up leaving due to burn-out. So I sit on my throne as the last remaining engineer (for this particular group). 

My uncle Tom died last week. His obituary is sparse, to say the least. There’s no picture of him, no listing of previous employers or locations, no children or spouses listed; very strange. But out of 12 siblings on mom’s side, this just leaves her as the last sister alive. My uncles Jack and Ted are the only brothers still around. It’s like a geriatric Game of Thrones lol. This is odd for me to think about because these three are in the middle of the family pack, age-wise. I’m the youngest of 31 grandchildren, and Mom was the last sibling to have grandkids. She’s probably the only sibling without great-grandkids. I imagine there will come a day when I’m the only remaining grandchild still living in the original hometown. All my cousins will either have moved away or passed away. This is bittersweet I guess. I remember when I was 6 or 7 years old, going to large (LARGE) family reunions at the park here in town. There were still many of us who had lived here. Maybe I’ll organize something like we had for Mom’s 80th birthday, where I get as many of the original family as possible to show up. Again, this is uncharted territory for me as I am the youngest and not particular good at organizing large events. But I’m pushing 50; I guess I’m old enough to act like an adult now lol.