Trees on the Beach, a Blog

A lot has changed since my last blog post.  I bought a house at the beach (a US beach, unfortunately).  I stepped down from a management role and back into programming.  I got full custody of my daughter, which is definitely better for both her and myself.  Not sure what else.  Probably more, but those are the highlights.  I guess if it were a woman's hair, it will be blonde instead of brown.  Those are pretty significant highlights.   I'm still on edge about my job.  I feel like I am in hostile territory.  Anyone who has taken a job they regretted and don't know their peers all that well probably understands what I mean.  But that's okay.  I have a significant career milestone coming up on April 1, and an even more significant one next year.  Next year, I should be eligible for retirement about October or November, depending on the amount of sick time I have banked.  So... and this feels weird to say, but my c...

Well, I had a thought today.  It had entered my mind that I might be depressed.  I'm not depressed.  To quote a character Christian Slater played in a movie, "Feeling fucked up in a fucked up situation is not fucked up." My wife and I haven't had sex in something like 7 years.  She doesn't like sex anymore, she said.  She spends too much money.  I can't save the money I need to achieve my goals.  My job is punishing.  My wife works all the time, and we spend most of our free time together, but now that her schedule doesn't allow it, I'm lost.  I have no close friends to hang out with in my free time.  All my friends have left my life, one way or another.  I am alone now.  I'm more or less okay with that, but friends would probably help. But I am focused now.  I am in the process of spending $25k to buy the 5th year towards my pension.  Five years is all you can buy, and I've already bought four.  That leaves ...

So I've moved on after 13 years.  I'm still in the same, very large, organization, but I manage IT again.  This time it's a little scary, as the stuff I now manage is very sensitive and politically-charged, and I've got the disadvantage of not knowing the place and people I now manage.  But it was a necessary move.  I was sitting in a cube with no assignment and no respect for my management.  My ex-peers are still in that situation and they are miserable.  We still communicate. This is the problem with state government.  Appointees come in like super-heroes, but they don't know anything.  They sort-of manage for 4 years, then they're all terminated, replaced by new appointees that the new governor appointed, and they don't usually know anything, either.  Meanwhile, the people who hold the place together are forgotten and dismissed, and talked about by the governor in the press as if they are burdens on the state.  You get shit on by po...

So I'm a 48-year old guy.  I am about 5 years from leaving my current job, which has been my career thus far for about 17.5 years now.  I will have to work another year or two after this one.  I feel very, very old.  I have arthritis in my knees.  But I still love programming, and I dream of traveling to foreign lands.  Will I make it happen?  I just don't know at this point.  Will I travel at all?  For sure.  My first stop after leaving my job will probably be to the old, familiar Myrtle Beach, where I will stare at the water for hours, visit Broadway at the Beach, and think about my aunt Judy and my now very distant family, mostly gone.