Yesterday was the five year anniversary of when I gave my final notice and retired. I’ve enjoyed myself for these five years, a lot of sad and disappointing things are going on in the world but none of them would be any easier to deal with if I also had to deal with a full time job. I’m grateful for each day I get to determine my own agenda, work on my own projects, or just watch videos and take a nap.
My relevance to my old career and the people from it continues to diminish, I have less and less contact with folks that I used to work with. I don’t really follow “the industry” anymore. I spend most of my time doing woodworking projects. I’ve improved the shop and done a lot of interesting projects (you can read about them here).
I joined the Eastern Massachusetts Guild of Woodworkers which is a great group of people who all have similar interests to mine. Ironically many of us are retired folks from various technology industries. I enjoy spending time with them every month and having a group of more learned woodworkers to get advice and ideas from.
We’ve been traveling ( you can read about trips here ) and have future plans for travel. I haven’t done any business travel and I’m so happy to not have to anymore. I was thinking about this in the beginning of the year because that used to be the season of “management off-sites.” These were always hard for me being an introvert and being forced to socialize 24/7 for several days at some god-forsaken golf resort in California. They were tiring and ultimately pointless, at least for me.
So, in summary, still not bored, enjoying myself, planning to continue.
Another update in another few years…