After 8 years in early retirement, I still have friends that ask me what I do all day. We just got back from a nice weekend up north and are heading into a typically (busy) summer week. I made a list of the main activities that are keeping us busy this week. Here are 10 activities between now and Friday … – M: Take Mom … Continue reading Peak Summer in Early Retirement
With my Dad’s, passing, I continue to reflect on significant memories with him that helped shape my life. One of those memories involves this old, wooden, Bancroft “youth model” tennis racket shown above (with my current racket) and a good lesson in finance. I was about 10 years old. We lived in Hillsdale MI – a small town in the southern part of the state. … Continue reading My Dad’s Lesson In Interest
My father passed away last week at the wonderful old age of 91. I say “wonderful” because that’s how he always said he was doing. “How are you doing, Dad?” … “WONDERFUL.” Sometimes he’d brightly say it twice: ‘Wonderful, Wonderful!” I’m not at the point where I can share a lot of my feelings about his passing. It’s too soon for me. At the same … Continue reading Farewell Father & Friend …
When we were at our Florida place earlier this month, I drove over to St. Petersburg to catch a ballgame. As I’ve mentioned at least one time before, I’ve been collecting ballparks as an adult, the same as I collected baseball cards as a kid. Tropicana Field was my 31st MLB ballpark stop. I got interested in getting to ballparks in every MLB city when … Continue reading Strange Activity
My wife went to the drug store yesterday. She bought 3 small things and came back with a receipt that is 24.875” in length. I measured it. It’s indicative of how desperate some retailers have become in today’s marketplace. I had a similar experience at our local Hallmark card shop. I was there to buy a simple Father’s Day card and the saleswoman kept following … Continue reading Enough With The Offers!
That’s our nice SUV – sitting in the garage of our recently-purchased condo in Florida. We drove it down to Florida a few weeks ago and left it there. Now we need to replace the hole it left in our Minnesota fleet – where we spend most of our time. The big challenge in replacing it is that the automobile industry is in a bit … Continue reading Hole In The Fleet
When we bought our vacation place in Florida, we wanted something that was easy to ‘Lock & Leave’. We just finished our first trip down here and we are making a quick departure back to MN today. I asked a number of friends if they had checklists that they used before they locked up their vacation places – many were nice enough to share. I … Continue reading Flyaway Checklist …
A week ago, we drove 1,550 miles from MN to FL to drop off a vehicle at our new vacation condo. My trusty SUV is being retired to Florida – so that we can just fly down whenever we want and have some wheels here. We got arrived in the Sunshine State last Friday and it’s a good thing our SUV’s air conditioner is well-charged. … Continue reading Tropical Summerland
Colleges & Universities are under attack from a lot of directions lately. Conservatives attack their focus on DEI over merit, and Progressives attack their historical white patriarchy. Students are protesting on campus, taking over school buildings, and making a mess of things during commencement season. Here’s more bad news. The ROI of a college degree is increasingly looking bad. Especially for a graduate degree. A … Continue reading Higher Education ROI
Last night, my Mom sang in a choir concert with friends at her Senior Living Center. We missed it, as we are halfway across the country – taking a car to our FL condo. Still, the rest of our family was there and my brother shared photos of the event. It got me to reflecting on aging. Aging is an inevitable part of the human … Continue reading Recipe For Aging
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