Without failures there is no light.
Without light all there is is obscurity.
Retirement is the light slowly appearing that when busy we did not see.
It's not what we do, it's what it does under the light.
Halloween is like retirement; it's fun @ both ends.
There is no end, only high end. 😉
George, please don't see any related relation to this picture; it is simply what first came to my mind when I first saw it.
I only share it for the good straight humor, no more.
♦ www.youtube.com/watch?v=kokkHOmkPXg
I only share it for the good straight humor, no more.
♦ www.youtube.com/watch?v=kokkHOmkPXg
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That's the garage. The room jutting out to the right is a "breakfast room" and doesn't have a full basement either. This is not visible in the picture.
I'm not that motivated to whack things with big steel sticks! I dug up and replanted every green thing that we wanted to keep. That area was the Yucca shrubs that we did not want, but neither the 6 horsepower string trimmer nor the lawnmower would deal with the fibrous leaf structure of those plants, so I dug them all up and burned them.
None of the people we have dealt with have ever seen anything like this in this area. There is virtually zero rock until you get about 6 feet deep. I believe that this is all fill that was brought in....a long time ago. People who have lived here for 60 years say that it was that way then too.
I have seen old maps and pictures that show a railroad track where the paved road is now, and the dirt road we call "Bottom Lane" was once called "mine road." I believe that this area was once strip mined, maybe 100 or more years ago, then filled in. No one out here believes me though.
Garden vegetables do grow quick, fat, and juicy, so it is my plan to plant a garden next year.
It was in end of 2011 in a rainy winter like i never saw in France, in spring it looks about like this around the house viewed from the balcony over the first trees, there s my aunt with her cows on the background, trees are mainly olive trees as expected in the meditearnean lands.
Other than that i did read in this thread that people can lose some of their retirement funding in the US even if they are not the cause of those losses, how is this possible, thoses amounts should be protected by laws or there s a serious flaw in the, well , law.
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If I remember correctly, Enron required it's employee 401K to be invested in company stock. Company tanked, so did the 401Ks.
Many companies have frozen the pension system and changed to 401K supplements as retirement funds in place of the pensions.
No government rules against it. Big companies own the government.
Nice view wahab.
Many companies have frozen the pension system and changed to 401K supplements as retirement funds in place of the pensions.
No government rules against it. Big companies own the government.
Nice view wahab.
There are serious flaws in the pension laws, and the laws are always changing, and generally not in favor of the employees. Most companies no longer offer pension plans to new employees, and many ceased funding their existing plans during the economic downturn of 2008. Companies are supposed to have funds set aside to cover about 80% of their obligations owed to all employees covered by those plans. The current pension law was recently amended to further obscure the 80% mark by allowing the use of long term running average interest rates in calculating the funding percentage. Our plan was using 8% as their return rate on their pension funds, but I doubt they are really sustaining 8% per year long term. If a company goes bankrupt, their pension plan can become worthless. United airlines is a good example. Many or their retirees saw their pension checks drop by 75%.
I worked for the same company for 41 years. If I had been allowed to stay there until my "normal retirement age" of 66, and the pension plan wasn't dropped in 2008, I would be looking at a 6 figure retirement salary, with retirement medical coverage. Now it looks like just over $25K per year, and I get to buy my own medical insurance. Yes, the system is flawed.
My neighbor two houses down is a dentist, retired some five years ago.
His pension fund cut his allowance by 1/3d, few dentists have the makings of a small pension fund, bad stock investments.
He fills the gap with the money he made from selling his practice and second home.
Said his savings account is shrinking faster than he'd like. Given his lifestyle, not a real stunner.
His wife used to be one of few heirs of a tour bus company, but that went bust some time ago, $100M to Nil in a split second.
A story of going from six to 1/4th of six might cheer him up some.
His pension fund cut his allowance by 1/3d, few dentists have the makings of a small pension fund, bad stock investments.
He fills the gap with the money he made from selling his practice and second home.
Said his savings account is shrinking faster than he'd like. Given his lifestyle, not a real stunner.
His wife used to be one of few heirs of a tour bus company, but that went bust some time ago, $100M to Nil in a split second.
A story of going from six to 1/4th of six might cheer him up some.
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I used to see a guy at the big car shows in Florida. He had several custom built or immaculately restored classic cars. He was a retired United airlines 747 pilot. His pension plan paid him about $140,000 per year.
Then United went bankrupt, and his pension was taken over by the PBGC (government insurance). His payments were then about $35,000 per year. He began selling off his fancy cars one by one, but before he got very far Hurricane Wilma hit south Florida.
That caused major damage to his house, and he was killed by falling off of his roof while trying to fix some damage. His wife got zero point nothing from the PBGC. She was trying to sell all his cars at the last car show I went to several years ago.
I have signed up for my pension to start January 1 next year. Motorola has recently discontinued their retiree health care program and is in the process of transferring their pension to an outside insurance company.
We will see what I actually get for working away over 2/3 of my life for them, certainly not what I was promised all those years. I will be eligible for full Social Security payments when I turn 66 years old (about 4 years). That should be another $25K, less If I have to take it earlier.
We sold the house in Florida for enough $$$ to pay for most of the new one, but there will be all the usual move in expenses like appliances, drapes, furniture and all the stuff a female needs to outfit a house. Our cars are paid for and we have zero debt an some savings, so If I actually get $50K per year, health care doesn't cost over $10K and there are no unexpected catastrophes, we should be OK.
I began selling the toys, equipment, and stuff that I didn't need, or want to move several years ago. I have put aside about $10K from those sales to build me a nice lab / workshop / listening room / recording studio (with 1080 video capability) in that big basement. I have stashed away enough tubes and parts to keep me building stuff forever. Still pictures of fried parts.....that was the old Tubelab......Next year it will be Youtube videos of the meltdown!
Then United went bankrupt, and his pension was taken over by the PBGC (government insurance). His payments were then about $35,000 per year. He began selling off his fancy cars one by one, but before he got very far Hurricane Wilma hit south Florida.
That caused major damage to his house, and he was killed by falling off of his roof while trying to fix some damage. His wife got zero point nothing from the PBGC. She was trying to sell all his cars at the last car show I went to several years ago.
I have signed up for my pension to start January 1 next year. Motorola has recently discontinued their retiree health care program and is in the process of transferring their pension to an outside insurance company.
We will see what I actually get for working away over 2/3 of my life for them, certainly not what I was promised all those years. I will be eligible for full Social Security payments when I turn 66 years old (about 4 years). That should be another $25K, less If I have to take it earlier.
We sold the house in Florida for enough $$$ to pay for most of the new one, but there will be all the usual move in expenses like appliances, drapes, furniture and all the stuff a female needs to outfit a house. Our cars are paid for and we have zero debt an some savings, so If I actually get $50K per year, health care doesn't cost over $10K and there are no unexpected catastrophes, we should be OK.
I began selling the toys, equipment, and stuff that I didn't need, or want to move several years ago. I have put aside about $10K from those sales to build me a nice lab / workshop / listening room / recording studio (with 1080 video capability) in that big basement. I have stashed away enough tubes and parts to keep me building stuff forever. Still pictures of fried parts.....that was the old Tubelab......Next year it will be Youtube videos of the meltdown!
Yes, there are some rather expensive 4K boxes for sale in the big box stores. As with the introduction of color TV in the late 1950's and 3D TV a few years ago, there is very little content available to play on those TV's, so why would anyone buy one?
I have a cheap Panasonic still camera that does 1080 video, and a Sony camcorder that Motorola gave me for a 40 year service anniversary gift that does 1080, so that will be my limit. In reality I will probably use 720 to keep processing, storage, and uploading times down.
I am concerned that the internet service available out at the property will be poor at best. Cellular service is nonexistent. So is antenna TV. DSL is available from the phone company, but their advertised data rates suck, reality is probably worse.
Comcast is claiming outrageous speeds, but Speedtest on the neighbors setup tells me otherwise. Here in town Comcast can provide 20 Mbps sometimes....in the early morning when nobody else is on the system. Weekday evenings the download speed varies from 1 to 5 Mbps.
Out at the property I have seen download speeds as slow as a few hundred Kbps. The best I have seen is 2 Mbps. Upload speeds vary from a few hundred Kbps to 10 Mbps. That was with this laptop plugged directly into the Comcast modem.
They have all the usual excuses, but the reality is that they have not upgraded their equipment in a very long time. There is a single piece of half inch hardline going down the paved road out of town. It goes on for about 40 miles.
That was fine when the area was sparsely populated with 100 acre farms. The road is now filled with "campgrounds" full of out of state RV's that support the booming natural gas fracking operations further down the road. Most of them are connected up to that same Comcast cable. There isn't enough bandwidth to support all the people on the wire.
I have a cheap Panasonic still camera that does 1080 video, and a Sony camcorder that Motorola gave me for a 40 year service anniversary gift that does 1080, so that will be my limit. In reality I will probably use 720 to keep processing, storage, and uploading times down.
I am concerned that the internet service available out at the property will be poor at best. Cellular service is nonexistent. So is antenna TV. DSL is available from the phone company, but their advertised data rates suck, reality is probably worse.
Comcast is claiming outrageous speeds, but Speedtest on the neighbors setup tells me otherwise. Here in town Comcast can provide 20 Mbps sometimes....in the early morning when nobody else is on the system. Weekday evenings the download speed varies from 1 to 5 Mbps.
Out at the property I have seen download speeds as slow as a few hundred Kbps. The best I have seen is 2 Mbps. Upload speeds vary from a few hundred Kbps to 10 Mbps. That was with this laptop plugged directly into the Comcast modem.
They have all the usual excuses, but the reality is that they have not upgraded their equipment in a very long time. There is a single piece of half inch hardline going down the paved road out of town. It goes on for about 40 miles.
That was fine when the area was sparsely populated with 100 acre farms. The road is now filled with "campgrounds" full of out of state RV's that support the booming natural gas fracking operations further down the road. Most of them are connected up to that same Comcast cable. There isn't enough bandwidth to support all the people on the wire.
After losing his job due to alcoholism, my g/f's oldest brother voluntarily jumped off a virtual roof end of last year, at age 59.
Really smart guy, but his ego couldn't hack it not being acknowledged as the ace-no-1 in his field, so he aced himself out.
He already had rubbings with others at his work for a decade and longer, due to them not behaving with recognition of his superior knowledge.
(General treat in my g/f's family, all siblings have it, as did the parents. Likely the reason my g/f still puts up with a tiresome savage)
Ironic part, he was an actuary, specialised in risk math & analyses of pensions.
Takes 8-10 years to become a licensed one, a decent actuary rakes in more than a 747 salary (nowadays).
Retiring early at age 59 would have cost a big chunk, but still would have left about a hundred grand a year.
As usual, it's the one on the lawn who's left with the debris of a crashed pilot.
(the air business appeal sure has changed since the PATCO strike event)
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Both my parents were air traffic controllers.......In fact I still have a newspaper article from before I was born hailing my mother as the Female voice of the Miami airport tower. She started there during WWII and left just before I was born.
There was an event a few years ago that became a media circus event because some air traffic controller brought his kid into an active control tower at a major airport. Now that my parents have both left this world, I can tell you that I have been in the Miami International Airport tower more than once. My mother would climb the long stairwell up into the tower with me in tow, and talk to pilots she knew over the radio! Of course this was the early 1950's and things were a bit different then.
It didn't take me long to figure out that I was more intelligent than most of the people at the Motorola plant. How often does an assembly line worker become an advanced development engineer without formal education? Did it bother me that I wasn't recognized as one of the elite? No, I figured out that they were too busy trying to outdo and one up each other to notice. I accepted the grunt work that nobody wanted to do, and used my superior intellect to make cool stuff on the side...like audio amplifiers.
Those elite engineers? Well they are all gone a long time ago. The Motorola plant where I worked for 41 years.....It is about to become a shopping center!
Plantation FL: Plantation Pointe - Retail Space For Lease - The Shopping Center Group
Oh, that was your home, in construction then.
Anywhere anytime you can lose all your accumulated possessions of your entire lifetime, even in your brain; here in North America (USA & Canada), or anywhere else in the world.
Laws were/are still made by men to protect the rich corrupted ones in charge of everyone. Nobody has ever said that this world was fair and a rose garden with pink flowers in it. Men contribute to his own self-destruction.
The ultimate retirement is the exit; of all things material and negative.
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Everything you ever had, have, will have, is nothing @ all compared to what we all lost.
And what we all lost we never had in the first place; we only briefly thought that we did.
Today kids who are millionaires and billionaires they know as much as they learned from their own life's experience.
A nice expensive Italian car or five, two or six mansions in the world, a big huge 4K OLED TV, and all that jazz...can only provide pleasure.
And what we all lost we never had in the first place; we only briefly thought that we did.
Today kids who are millionaires and billionaires they know as much as they learned from their own life's experience.
A nice expensive Italian car or five, two or six mansions in the world, a big huge 4K OLED TV, and all that jazz...can only provide pleasure.
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The pictures I posted of a home under construction were mine. The picture of the concrete house that was built by hand was Wahab's. Guess which one would stand up to a seismic event, or a south Florida hurricane? Fortunately I don't have to worry about either anymore.
George, any seismic event you will see will at most rattle a few dishes. We do get minor events along the mountains. I've slept through every one that has been reported around here in the past 20 years.
We get seismic events.......They come when several flatbed trucks loaded with construction equipment drive down the road at high speed headed towards one of the gas processing plants being built.
There were a few events in Florida. Usually centered in the Caribbean off of Cuba or Haiti. One shook the Motorola plant a little. I never noticed any of the others.
There were a few events in Florida. Usually centered in the Caribbean off of Cuba or Haiti. One shook the Motorola plant a little. I never noticed any of the others.
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