Retirement First Quarter Report
At the beginning of April I passed the first three month milestone of retirement and I want to write down some thoughts about this new phase of life. Am I glad that I retired? Absolutely, but I would be lying if I did not admit feeling some fear caused by the fact that our retirement income is tied to the market that reacts to the whims of the President of the United States.
The market, and my reaction to it, is emotional and so the challenge is in managing those emotions. Uncertainty is a reality that always exists and my technique for living with uncertainty is to focus on, to the extent possible, what I know. For example, if all of our savings were to disappear, which is a very unlikely scenario, I have had these three months of life lived to my schedule whereas I could be still working, still have the savings disappear, and not have had that time.
Retirement for me is about savoring the most precious gift of time, which always passing and often only appreciated via hindsight. The best way to face uncertainty is in gratitude for the current moment. I have reasons to be grateful simply to be alive to experience this moment, but I confess that in the later years of my career I grew frustrated with having the precious time of my life controlled by a corporation that simply did not know nor care about me.
I’ve been working since I was 12 years old. When I define work in the context of my life, I broadly include in it all the requirements placed on my time by others, school and employers. Forty seven years, almost non-stop, of waking up to an alarm clock dictated by somebody else, and when I became more aware that my remaining time in life is shorter than the past life I have lived I grew more irritated with having to share that remaining time with a lifeless corporate entity.
Had you asked me what I planned to do in my retirement I would have simply answered, not work! Loveboy’s Working For The Weekend has been on loop in the soundtrack of my life these past 47 years. I retired so that there were no more stressful Sunday nights as my mind and body gave up the brief bit of relaxation it started experiencing the prior Friday evening.
Mission accomplished! I have even found on a few occasions that I forgot the day of the week, feeling as though it were a weekend.
Same Ole Cubs
Every year it seems the problems with the Chicago Cubs is the same, they struggle to hit with runners in scoring position because they have poor hitters. When the same issues keep appearing that indicates to me there is a systemic problem, which is not something fixable through signing one or two players. The evaluation of talent and construction of the roster is producing the same results we see year after year.
Getting the Cubs to the World Series after a century of losing is turning out to be easier than getting them back a decade after. It’s easy to get a talented team when you tank seasons and trade away what experienced players you have for prospects. The core of the 2016 team were those prospects lead by experienced veterans, but veterans who were in the later half of their careers.
Obviously, fans are not going to allow such a heavy rebuild. Seems to me that if you aren’t able to load up on prospects you have change your approach to obtaining MLB players. Every free agent signing the Cubs have made since 2016 are of players who are in the back end of their careers. Signing Alex Bregman this year is no different than signing Dansby Swanson, players who have won championships but who are not in their prime and therefore seem less capable of hitting consistently over a season.
Read Joan Westenberg’s essay, Optimism Is Not A Personality Flaw. Christians actively working to initiate armageddon are the most dangerous of the pessimists that Westenberg describes.
Finished reading: Before Religion by Brent Nongbri 📚
Stay Awake
The intended effects of social networks for the sake of wealth ought to be the lens through which we look at AI. At their beginning we were told of all the good things social networks provide, and they did do that for a while, but then the wealth generation went in to hyper drive. We have no reason to believe the motivations towards more and more AI is not the same wealth generation. And since there can only be one most wealthiest person on earth, that leads to not caring about the negative impacts on the rest of the world.
A potentially helpful question to ponder when thinking about where all this AI “stuff” is going. Think of the songs that you have heard in your life, do those songs stand out because they sound good and are entertaining or do they stand out because you connect to the lyrics and relate what they convey? Perhaps that connection has also leads to feeling like you know the song writer, or better yet that the song writer knows you.
Bob Nystrom’s blog post, The Value of Things, inspired the question. Perhaps a way to combat the nihilism of AI is consciousness. Most times we are unconscious, which is like hearing music and simply enjoying the sound, while times we are conscious enough to hear and relate to the words. The risk of AI is the decrease in the amount of time that we are conscious, so perhaps working on our own consciousness is a method to combating the affects of AI.
Dave says, We Are All Good Germans Now, and I get his point but while he is using metaphor, there is an actual act made by the United States for which we all Americans should feel is our birthright shame. The United States is the only nation on earth to drop a nuclear weapon on another nation, and this reality, which is our shame, is how most of the world sees us. Consider the reason why you never hear U.S. politicians suggest attacking North Korea.
Ever since World War II U.S. citizens have been told to fear the possibility of other countries dropping nuclear weapons on us, while the rest of the world knows the U.S. has and thus is willing to drop nuclear weapons on them.
I agree with this representative in pushing back against those who want to make light of the recent threats the President made. The consequences of not taking a mad man seriously is that the mad man being emboldened to keeping and someday following through. Fear does not lead to greatness.
I wonder, is this how everyone felt during the Cuban misile crisis? I think not enough people are paying attention to what is going on and what might happen in the next 24 hours. We don’t want to face the reality is that the script has flipped and the United States, we, us, are the bad guys. I know it’s hard for my generation to admit this given how much post World War II programming we all received, but understand all that you were told to fear about the USSR, that is now how the children of the world today are now being told about the US. And they would be right.
Seeking Purity Denies The Cross
Today, on Holy Saturday, Christians are in the between times of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, and for those so inclined a time such as this can be a good time to wonder, just what is this all about and where is it that we are going.
As a life long Christian I can’t help but feel a sense of deja vu, here we are once again at Easter and then days and months will pass and the liturgical calendar will start all over again. And I wonder some times, what is the point? Is humanity evolving in any way through this repetition?
This beautiful spring day was also the home opener for the Detroit Tigers.
Very cool dashboard for the Artemis II mission around the moon. There is so much more technology now than when we last traveled to the moon 50 years ago, including our ability to check in on the voyage via the Internet. I wasn’t home to watch the launch on TV but I got a notification on my phone about it and was able to watch the launch on my phone sitting in a strip mall parking lot.
Welcome the first daffodils of the season.
When you know what one has done in the past you cannot be surprised when he does it again. Politics as usual will prevent us from conducting the self assessment of how Trump was reelected in the first place because that says more about ourselves than were might be willing to face. Meanwhile we have to survive the next three years and that is not assured.
Contrasting Between What Is And What Intended
Tomorrow is the start of the Christian Holy Week. For those wondering whether Christianity is relevant to our current time, the stories about this week ought to provide the answer, but one may only see that with the help of leaders who connect the dots.
For me one of the best descriptions that sets the scene was written by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan in their 2006 book The Last Week. It begins:
“Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30. . . One a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers. On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, entered Jerusalem at the head of a column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus’ procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of empire.”
While this is not a report on what literally happened, it’s plausible contrasts the differences between what we all consider the norm of civilization, peace through violence, and the alternative rule of God of peace through love.
Palm Sunday is about hope, yes, but that is only appreciated in contrast to what is going all around us. If you get caught up in the hoopla then you are missing the point.
Amit has released a new version of his stats plugin that I use for my blog. I really like the new look. One that surprises me is that the number of my posts are pretty even through the days of the week. I expect to easily exceed my average number of posts over the last several years now that I am retired with more time to read and write.
Just got the Ugreen HDMI wireless extender transmitter and receiver and I am using it to connect the Pixel 10 desktop mode to the Innoview portable monitor. I’ve watched some video on YouTube and although this is only 1080P the video looks good enough. I am thinking this is an easier way to connect my iPads to a television while traveling but I was curious about how well this works with the Pixel 10. There and been some brief disconnects and it looks like the connection is more solid while I have the transmitter plugged in to power, otherwise it pulls power from the phone.
I think the MacBook Neo presents a dilemma, what is the worth of really good physical construction of a laptop if the computing capabilities inside may not be as valuable over the long haul? I think people considering buying the Neo need to consider how they will feel if after just a few years they will want to replace it with a more performant computer. At the root of this is the question of whether or not one thinks $599 is a lot of money.
Most likely what the Neo is really about for Apple is increasing cash flow from Macs. Previous Macs tend to be useful well beyond five years after release, which makes it hard for Apple to convince people to buy their new models. I think Apple hopes that today’s Neo owner will replace their Neo next year or the year later at the latest.
The step count on my Pixel Watch was consistent with expectations yesterday, so it is looking like that disconnecting and re-connecting the watch to the Fitbit app on my phone helped with the problem. I did notice an odd situation of the step counts decreasing by a few hundred after ending a workout and I am not sure what is going on with that, but at least the counts are in the ballpark of being correct. I don’t expect high accuracy here, close enough but consistent is what I need to track how I am doing over time.
Today we went on a retiree date, an afternoon matinee of The Lion King at the Detroit Opera House.
Fitbit On Pixel Watch Update 1
My Reddit post about the Fitbit app on my Pixel Watch is the source of an article on 9to5Google this morning as many people have replied to the post stating they are experiencing the same issue.
As an update, since I disconnected my watch from the Fitbit app on my phone, restarted both watch and phone, deleted yesterday’s step and distance data and then re-connected the watch to the Fitbit app the step count appears to be within expectations.
The problem now is I am not confident that the step count will remain accurate, so the whole situation is requiring more attention that I would like. One needs to be able to rely on data like this or there is no point in even collecting the data.
I have noticed through observations while sitting here at my desk that steps are added slowly over time while they shouldn’t be added at all. I have the felling the sensors on the watch are not being used properly right now, for steps and distance the watch should only increase when one is moving forward and not while sitting at a desk typing.