This is the first full summer that we have played pickleball regularly. We first played a couple years ago, but had only done it a half-dozen times until 2024. This year, we joined a park recreational group. They have open, pick-up games every morning. They play on new courts built within one of our city’s many outdoor hockey rinks. We also just joined leagues at … Continue reading Pickleball & Tennis
I recently Googled the term ‘early retirement’ to see how the media is chattering about this topic. Since I’ve been boring readers with this topic for more than 9 years, I felt I had a responsibility to keep up-to-date with how early retirement is being discussed in the media. As usual, the headlines were confusing and at odds with each other: “My Dad Sacrificed Everything … Continue reading Early Retirement: Searching For Answers?
I got a spiffy new watch as a farewell gift from the SmallCorp Board last month, but I continue to mostly wear my Apple Watch. It does such a great job measuring movement & fitness activity – I would miss wearing it. I am very diligent in closing out my fitness rings every day. I might missed a few days, but generally I get them … Continue reading Ringing Up Exercise
We’re off to Florida this morning. It’s been 3 months since we visited our new vacation condo. I’ve never traveled so carefree before. We drove our SUV down on Memorial Day weekend – with a big load of things. This time, I don’t have anything to bring. We went to the airport without a suitcase. We’ll only be down there a few nights. The purpose … Continue reading Fly The Carefree Skies
File this under “Healthful Habits” in retirement … We went to another big concert on Friday night – ZZ Top & Lynyrd Skynyrd in a double-header event outside at a nearby casino. It was a great show and we had great seats – very close to the main stage and the booming speakers. For the second straight concert, I brought some foam earplugs that I … Continue reading Wait, What?
I ran across this interesting map from MyPerfectWeather.com the other day. It shows – by US County – where the weather is more frequently between 60-84 degrees as a daily high. For most places in the country, that’s between 50-150 days. Some places – particularly on the very West Coast – are in the 250-300 range. Los Angeles approaches an amazing 350 days! In retirement, … Continue reading Living Comfortably
The news has been full of economic policy proposals from our two major candidates. I’ll tell you that I’ve been reading them with interest, but cannot make sense out of either of them. They are both promising big economic windfalls to their favored protected classes and paying very little attention to the country’s current $35T debt (123% of GDP, up from just 56% in 2000). … Continue reading Confusing Candidates
The big summer concerts of 2024 are rolling through right now. It seems like every year now, we go to 3 or 4 big shows in July & August. In July, we saw Bachman Turner Overdrive & Pat Benatar. On Monday, we saw a tripleheader at the MN Twins stadium: Steve Miller, Journey, and Def Leppard. Next week we have a double-bill: Lynrd Skynrd & … Continue reading Concert Counting
It’s been a few years since the peak of the pandemic, so I thought I would look at the impact that the big event had on the average age of retirement. I heard a politician say that some of the shortages in the current jobs market are the result of Boomers leaving their jobs to retire early. I’ve written this blog long enough to be … Continue reading No Pandemic-Induced Retirement Spree
Today is ‘National Relaxation Day’. It’s recorded in Chase’s Calendar of Annual Events, after being proposed by Chase’s 9-year old grandson, Sean Moeller, in 1985. I celebrated the day by mowing the lawn. For me, that’s pretty relaxing. After all, I’ve had a busy week. On Monday we played pickle ball. Tuesday was a 37-mile bike ride – my longest ever. Wednesday I played tennis … Continue reading Relaxation Day
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