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ksmith...like a real post.
Hot day. Cool front supposed to move through, which should bring cooler temps tomorrow and possible rain tonight. I don't think we need any rain for a while yet, not that I have any say in the matter.
Did a great deal of yardwork Saturday. Didn't do much on Sunday except footle around the office, rake out King's kennel, admire the yardwork done the day before.
Hours later, I'm sitting in my living room, watching Buffy. The haunted house episode, with the eyeballs and the groans and screams and Anya in a rabbit suit and such. Just as Oz starts morphing and the green buzzy lights attack Willow and Xander vanishes, I hear a thump overhead, like something is on the roof. Nothing for a few minutes, then another thump. A little while later, another. By this time, Mickey Dog and I are both staring overhead, like in that scene in ALIENS when everyone figures out at once which way the aliens are approaching their hideout.
I go outside a couple of times and look around. Can't see anything. I know it's an animal of some sort. Images of zombies trying to drag Buffy down through the basement floor of the frat house are having no effect whatsoever on my mood.
After a few more minutes, the thumps stop. King barks and grumbles a bit. Then all is quiet. Buffy squishes the demon underfoot and saves the day.
Next morning as I gave King fresh water, I did an end-around through some trees in the front yard. In the course of cleaning His Royal Highness's kennel the previous day, I had raked out some spilled food and dumped it under one of the trees. Well, it was gone--the food, not the tree. Most likely thanks to the visitor from the night before. A raccoon, or a possum. Zombies don't eat dogfood.
Next week the company credit union is offering a seminar on retirement. I signed up. I would love to retire in four years, but 50 is at the lower limit of their official retirement scale and heaven only knows what sort of hit I would take on benefits and such...assuming they will still be offering pension and partial health coverage a few years from now. I fully expect to have to work somewhere. I would just like it to be somewhere else, even for a reduced salary, with the retirement fund covering the difference.
Bought the workbook that goes along with Don Maass's WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL. Some interesting exercises in deepening character and exposition. Building an antagonist. Don't know when I'll have time to work them, but I hope to get to them eventually. If anyone out there has gone through the workbook, I'd be interested in hearing your take.
Hot day. Cool front supposed to move through, which should bring cooler temps tomorrow and possible rain tonight. I don't think we need any rain for a while yet, not that I have any say in the matter.
Did a great deal of yardwork Saturday. Didn't do much on Sunday except footle around the office, rake out King's kennel, admire the yardwork done the day before.
Hours later, I'm sitting in my living room, watching Buffy. The haunted house episode, with the eyeballs and the groans and screams and Anya in a rabbit suit and such. Just as Oz starts morphing and the green buzzy lights attack Willow and Xander vanishes, I hear a thump overhead, like something is on the roof. Nothing for a few minutes, then another thump. A little while later, another. By this time, Mickey Dog and I are both staring overhead, like in that scene in ALIENS when everyone figures out at once which way the aliens are approaching their hideout.
I go outside a couple of times and look around. Can't see anything. I know it's an animal of some sort. Images of zombies trying to drag Buffy down through the basement floor of the frat house are having no effect whatsoever on my mood.
After a few more minutes, the thumps stop. King barks and grumbles a bit. Then all is quiet. Buffy squishes the demon underfoot and saves the day.
Next morning as I gave King fresh water, I did an end-around through some trees in the front yard. In the course of cleaning His Royal Highness's kennel the previous day, I had raked out some spilled food and dumped it under one of the trees. Well, it was gone--the food, not the tree. Most likely thanks to the visitor from the night before. A raccoon, or a possum. Zombies don't eat dogfood.
Next week the company credit union is offering a seminar on retirement. I signed up. I would love to retire in four years, but 50 is at the lower limit of their official retirement scale and heaven only knows what sort of hit I would take on benefits and such...assuming they will still be offering pension and partial health coverage a few years from now. I fully expect to have to work somewhere. I would just like it to be somewhere else, even for a reduced salary, with the retirement fund covering the difference.
Bought the workbook that goes along with Don Maass's WRITING THE BREAKOUT NOVEL. Some interesting exercises in deepening character and exposition. Building an antagonist. Don't know when I'll have time to work them, but I hope to get to them eventually. If anyone out there has gone through the workbook, I'd be interested in hearing your take.
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Numbers....
Date: 2004-07-14 10:54 am (UTC)Of course, this assumes that SS is still there by the time we need it.
Re: Numbers....
Date: 2004-07-14 04:32 pm (UTC)The two big factors are:
1) How long do you expect to live? One of my retired professors (age 78) dropped by the office the other day with his wife - he was leaving for Rhode Island for the rest of the summer, and had some papers that needed to be signed. Why is he going to Rhode Island? To visit his mother and father.
There's a guy who has can reasonably expect to blow the life-expectancy actuarial tables out of the water. If you've got a genetic background like that and are basically healthy, wait on taking your Social Security.
2) Will you still be working? Prior to your full-benefit retirement age, your payments start getting reduced by one dollar for every two dollars you make once you reach a certain income level, and that income level is pretty low (I believe that this year it is around $11,600). Note that pension and annuity payments are *not* considered income when figuring this out.
Re: Numbers....
Date: 2004-07-20 07:03 am (UTC)This is a variable question. I'm a person who has taken reasonable care of myself, and I come from a fairly long-lived group--Most family members make 75 without trouble, although my mother's mother died of a blood clot after surgery at the tender age of 65, so she is an unknown. But two counter weights--I'm left-handed, which can reduce life expectancy, and I currently have Lyme--no idea how much that has damaged me, it certainly has damaged my joints.
If the left-handedness has to do with carelessness (I avoid extreme sports) and the Lyme has already done its worse, I probably will make 88 at least.
I lean toward the "don't touch it until you must" theory myself. On the other hand, illness has damaged my earning power recently. So I may be working until I'm 70, anyway. (I hope to be publishing books until I'm whatever....)