T-60 Days Until Retirement

BoomBozz Elizabethtown, KY

At the end of today, I will have only 60, six-zero, days until retirement or something other than working here. Of that, I only have 25 actual days in the office. All of my vacation time is scheduled and will be taken barring any unforeseen problems.

Retiring at 57 sounds good to me. That doesn't mean I will sit on the couch, eating bacon and pizza all day long though that does have an appeal.

I intend to take a welding class but will probably find something else to do while waiting for the next semester to start. I helped my father and aunt with new computers and phones last weekend. I used to do that a lot. I could probably help a few folks out and make a few bucks on the side.

One of the other things I'm intent on doing is getting rid of a bunch of collected stuff (I don't like calling it junk) that I probably won't be using in the future. I tend to save boxes from big-ticket items like TVs and laptops in case I decide to sell them. It makes them bring more and shows how well they were taken care of. Kind of like having maintenance records of my vehicles.

Over the weekend we went to Louisville to drop a bed off at our daughter's. No more sleeping on air mattresses!

On the way home, we stopped in Elizabethtown to get gas and have lunch at a place called BoomBozz. It was pretty good pizza though it was an 8" instead of a 10" like many places serve. It hit the spot. They have a lot of TVs in that place. They even had a cluster hanging in the middle, arena-style, for those not facing a wall, which is a problem I've often lamented though I'm not really a sports fan.

Retiring Early? 77 Days To Go

Life is never static. If it were, we'd be dead. Things are always changing. This is a post about another life altering event, also unexpected.



In May I found out my job was being outsourced and my services would no longer be required after March 31st, 2020. I'm going to take my generous severance package and retire early. I'm leaving little more than a week before my 58th birthday. It seems like a good place to stop to me. Jan is still working for now. Perhaps we will relocate. More on that later.

I have been reading about FIRE, which stands for Finacial Independent, Retire Early. I'm certainly not on the early side of retiring early but I still have my original equipment knees!

When the news came down that all of IT was being outsourced, I offered to exchange my late leaving position with someone that had a house payment and was being terminated sooner but they said I needed to stay because I had vital knowledge. Here I am, 11 weeks left to go and I am one of the three remaining people that will be leaving at the end of March. Interestingly enough, I was sent to the UK to help with a data center move after Thanksgiving. It was good to see some folks I've worked with for years but never met.

I've been learning Spanish for all of 2019 with Rosetta Stone. My access expired just shy of finishing the course at 97.5%.  I have continued into 2020 with a year of DuoLingo under my belt. I've resigned myself to the fact that I won't be fluent without immersion in a Spanish-speaking environment. However, I got a joke while on a dive boat in Cozumel and I can pick out some discrepancies in the subtitles and spoken Spanish on the Amazon series Jack Ryan. Season two takes place largely in Venezuela and there is a lot of Spanish.

This brings me back around to relocating. Most of the least expensive places to retire with a high quality of life and good healthcare are in Spanish speaking countries. Costa Rica, Panama, Spain and Mexico. Portugal and France also made the list. I was surprised by France but supposedly, if you don't want to live in Paris, you can get by for $1,500 US a month.

Here's a few pics from a recent trip to Mexico and my last business trip to the UK. 

Stingray in Cozumel

Cozumel Reef

Beach Swing at Iberostar Cozumel

Morning Mist in Telford, UK

Derry City Wall, Northern Ireland