Trees on the Beach, a Blog

Man, I am so tired.  I am tired of my job.  Tired of my life.  Tired of my way of life.  But I don't know anything else.  My bone spurs hurt.  (Yes, mine are actually real.)  My bad knees hurt.  This is what you get at 50, folks.  At least some of us get it.  So how do you make your life better?  I was always about action.  Take action.  That's how you fix anything, right?  But I don't know what action to take.  And I am so tired. I did discover new music today.  I was just talking about "thoughts and prayers" online, and lo and behind, I ran across a song by  Drive By Truckers .

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 was bitching about CPMS reports for months.  Only a few blog posts, but yeah... in real life, I thought about it a lot.  So that director was fired about a month ago.  I knew it was coming.  He had no technical skills, no real IT experience, and only about 3.5 years in government service.  The guy was incredibly underqualified.  But that's what happens when you have "friends" who appoint you.  Easy come, easy go, I guess.  The rest of us grind away at the job for minimal pay our entire career, just hoping the pension will be there, and enough to survive on.  The appointees come and go, like a case of herpes. I can't wait to get out, but I had an old babysitter die of a heart problem, and it has changed my perspective a little.  She had sent me a friend request on Facebook, but I hadn't accepted because it felt like my "old life" that I left when I was so much younger.  So I sat on the request for a very, very long time... may...

On the short side, I now have 2 years and 10 months of service left in my current job.  On the long side, I'm looking at 4 years.  It feels good to be getting "close", if you can call that close.  I have started investing in the stock market, upped my 457 (like a 401k) to about $1000/month, which is maybe more than I can afford.  I am not really prepared for "retirement", so after my state service I'll need to work a couple of years somewhere else and store away all the cash.  I don't know if it's a "plan", but it's what I've got.  The monthly income shouldn't be a problem... it's the pot of cash I need to purchase a beach home that is the problem.

Does life get any better?  I'm sitting here listening to '80s music and getting depressed.  Life used to be good.

So I have about 3 years until I leave this job, and I know I'll have to work 2-3 more years beyond that in order to "create" the nest egg that is necessary in order to buy my dream home.  You see, I work in IT, and while that normally pays a lot of money in the private sector, I work for state government.  There's no money in IT working for Kentucky (maybe another subject for a different blog post), but there is a small pension that guarantees I won't starve to death.  Also, I "bought" 4 years and intend to buy another one.  With a 401(k), that phrase probably makes no sense, but with a pension, the goal is simply to complete your years of service.  For my state, it is 27 years of service.  Once you get your years in, you get a yearly paycheck for life.  It is not very big, but it is guaranteed whether you live to 60 or 110.  So you can buy up to five years.  The cost varies, but for a comparatively reasonably paid IT guy, that cost will be s...