T-68 Days: Burning Vacation Days and the Census!

With only 68 days left in my working career at the job I've held for 32+ years, I earn vacation days January 1st and must use them by December 31st in a normal year. This year, my last day is March 31st.

The company policy on vacation days is to prorate. If I take none, I will be paid for 1/4, or five days, when I leave. Therefore, I'm taking all 20 if at all possible. I submitted the requests. Basically, I'm taking every Friday off to make it a three day weekend and the odd other day plus three trips. I've already taken the Scottsdale trip. So far, so good.

About the census. What is up with a 46-page book to be filled out? Seriously! It takes a wedding ring to get that much information about me. If they want to know how much my mortgage payment is and what my house is valued at, they need to buy that info off of one of the credit bureaus like all the telemarketers do now.

I filled out the name, age, sex, date of birth and race. That's all they need to represent me in congress. But they didn't ask if I was a legal American! Unbelievable.

Bucket List Check Off Item

I've steadily been checking off bucket list items for most of my life. Sometimes I remove an item, sometimes I add items. This is about adding one I hadn't really thought about until a good friend suggested we give it a go.

I'm talking about attending a Barrett-Jackson classic car auction. Jan wanted to know what was so great about a Barrett-Jackson auto auction only slightly ahead of barring me from bringing home another car.

I've just returned from Scottsdale, AZ where I had a VIP badge! Now, the January 2020 B-J event is over. It was like a state fair for car guys. I've never seen so many Superbirds in one place before!

Some pictures from it below and an in-car video of drifting a Supra!


A few of my already checked off bucket list items are listed below:

1. Dive the Great Barrier Reef and visit Australia
2. Visit all 50 US states 
3. Eat a pizza in the Pisa piazza in the shadow of the leaning tower
4. Fly a plane
5. Fly in a helicopter (I'd like to fly one but the training may be a deal-breaker)
6. See a glacier
7. See a volcano
8. View the Mona Lisa
9. See the Eiffel Tower
10. See the Rome Colosseum
11. Visit the Vatican
12. Visit the Acropolis
13. Drive a Ferrari 
14. Drive a NASCAR
15. Visit the Grand Canyon