Travel Month(s), Part 2

This was the big one, I guess.  Hannover, Germany and London, England over the course of about 9 days.  Pictures galore attached as documentation.  First of Hannover:

Man, I could get used to "trinken an dem platz".  Gemutlicheit fur alles!  Sitting in the open air and having a (good) beer amongst the jovial masses sure helped with the jet lag (which was significant, by the way - slept for 13 hours the 2nd day there).  Oh, and, in addition to beer, the Germans are big on sausage.  See what they have in the subway?  Fast food meat.

Business meetings were punctuated by wine at lunch and a castle tour in the afternoon.  Very congenial.

Then, off to London, where more castles awaited.  Well, more like a fortress, not so much a castle.  The Tower of London was pretty cool to see, as was Tower Bridge.  Crazy to think, though, that the Tower of London was built in 1066 by William the Conqueror, who was... a Viking!   British history is so convoluted.  I never knew, for instance, that King George III who was King of England during the American Revolution ... was German!  From Hannover, where I was at the very beginning of the week.  I'm not really sure who English people are, exactly, ethnically speaking.  Seems like a melting pot, way before America became one.

More history:  The Globe Theatre and The George Inn, both frequented by Wm. Shakespeare, are still in operation.  The fish & chips at the George were especially good.

A cruise on the Thames produced some great views of Parliament and Whitehall.

All of this London sightseeing occurred after 4 days of business meetings, and was a well-deserved reward for hard work, I must say.  And it was nice of the Royal Guards to bid me farewell in Heathrow as I was boarding.

Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't include my contact with a long-lost relative in Germany, standing outside an ancient church.  Can you see the family resemblance?  There's a lot to be said for genetics.  :)

Next up, Boston in 2 weeks.  Stay tuned.

Travel Month(s), Part 1

Well, let's start with Las Vegas.   First, the casinos.

Rule #1:  decide beforehand at what loss amount you will tolerate and still feel good about yourself.
Rule #2:  stop when you get there - period.
Rule #3:  play games you understand.
Rule #4:  quit while you're ahead.  If you ever get ahead.

Worked for me... again.

Rule #1:  bet max of $60.
Rule #2:  not applicable this trip.
Rule #3:  slots, baccarat, roulette.
Rule #4:  left with $85.  :)

Nice hotel.  And talk about cheap!  Half of this room in Boston of NYC would be $500.  I paid $150.

The official reason for this travel was business.  And darned if I didn't actually do some!  It was an excellent conference, at which I learned a lot, and from which my company should benefit.  This, of course, soothes the conscience (to the extent there is still some left to soothe).  ;)

The other trip this month was just this last weekend, and the official reason was: pleasure.  Secondarily, family closeness.  Overnighting at my brother/sister in-laws' home on a lake,

the next day we hosted them at our club seats at Lambeau Field, and it was a great game - decisive win on a pleasant day.  We're in slightly different seats than in prior seasons... down one level closer to the field, and out of the direct sun, albeit further from the glass.

The recent expansion of the stadium into the South End Zone was pretty extensive.  And they have a cool roof deck where you can not only see the stadium from way up,

but the actual Bay (known as Green) itself in the distance.

So... nice.  Two trips down, several to go.  Next up:  Hanover, Germany & London, England.

September is Travel Month.

Come to think of it, so is October, and November...

Along with some new job duties I'm picking up this year, come some travel responsibilities.  Fortunately, since I don't travel all that well, just sort of tolerate it, it's only for about 3 months of the year.  I'm becoming the "reinsurance buyer" for my company (the budget for which is nearly $40,000,000, so I'm taking it pretty seriously!) and that means traveling to where the reinsurers are, in order to market us and thereby try to get the best possible terms for all that money.

Aside from a stray trip to Bermuda in June, we just finished a series of meetings right here where we hosted some reinsurers looking for our business, then there is a trip to Las Vegas next week for a related conference, then a trip to Europe (Hannover, Germany and London, England) at the end of the month, another one in mid-October to Boston for a conference at which reinsurers gather, followed by another trip to Bermuda in November.  And by that time, if we don't have a deal put together, then I'm not cut out for this role!

And somewhere in there we close on, and move into, a new house.  Mostly when I'm gone.  But hey... what else is new?  Moving has never been convenient.  ;)  I'll settle in over Thanksgiving.  Or Christmas.  Or something.

So, watch this space for the occasional blurt of pictures from exotic (and routine) places.  I will actually try to get out of the meeting rooms and into the street if I can.

Guess we'll be settling in for a while

As I said in a post not too many posts back, this blog may have grown less needful.  It started as an outlet for the angst that had built up through the years around a career too full of unsatisfying career moves and un-looked for disruptive relocations.  Now living here, in the modest sized and low-key capital of a corn-belt state, working for a company that has a genuine purpose & mindset to support ministry organizations, and which offers me a professional stretch in my duties almost daily, I wonder to myself: "where has all that angst gone?"

I promised myself I'd put in 3 years here, to give it a solid go, and then see if I want to re-up for another 3+ years, or... switch jobs, or... retire.  Well, that first three years finished up in June, as did our role as long-distance landlords when that hanger-on of a house finally sold up north.  Real estate is definitely cheaper here, and a similar house costs at least $75K less, if not even more than that.  Interest rates are low, comparatively speaking (the first digit is 3!), as are property taxes.  So... with work going well (including some international travel coming up this fall - stamps in the passport, woo!), it seemed possible to consider a late-career investment in a retirement nest egg that we could actually live in.

The idea of going into retirement without debt is a prime goal.  Going into it with a paid-off house and no monthly rental or mortgage payments didn't seem likely.  But it would sure give a lift to the way our retirement planning models look; the last time we assumed monthly rent would be required.  Yet, to buy a house here, with the intent to pay it off by retirement, would mean...  oh, my...  wait for it...

staying put!  

For a long time!

Those of you who know my history might be laughing along right now.  16 addresses over 37 years of work doesn't indicate much success at staying put.  From job dissatisfaction, to selloffs & mergers, to advancement relocations, the longest I've stayed in one place has been 5 years.  We're now at 3+.  Another three would set a personal record.  Now, I had hoped to retire early, like in two-three more years, but as they say "the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray."  Financially, I believe I'll have to work a bit longer than that.  But at this place, in this job... I might actually WANT to.  :)

My "normal retirement age" (as the SSA defines it) is 8.5 years out.  At that point, I can start drawing on an old pension plan from the creepy company that really got this blog going in the first place.  Those guys owe me, man!  (literally and metaphorically.)  And at that point, Social Security benefits are at their normal levels, too - so retiring is pretty feasible.  But, still... 8.5 more years in one spot?  With the 3 years we've been here already, that puts the whole duration at more than double my longest prior stint.  Is this reasonable?  And, could I possibly pay off a mortgage in 8.5 years?  Even more, could we find a house at the right price in the right location with the right features?

This week, the answers wound up being yes, yes, and yes.  I have a job I enjoy that's providing a professional stretch in the twilight of my career... we found a house that is the right size, in a good location, with the setup we want... and a local lender offered a monthly payment including property tax escrow, offset by income tax deductions we haven't had for 3 years, which puts us about $150/mo more than our current rent.   So for an extra $150/mo, we can own a nice house, and pay it off right as I reach retirement age.  That's a deal I'll take all day long.

For a guy in my profession, where the past is used to predict the future, this is a dicey proposition.  Yet, it seems solid.  I'll take the chance that I can weather disruptions, and remain personally & professionally content.  We close on October 15th.  Wish me luck!

Is Status Updating on Facebook Cathartic?

Regular readers of this blog (of which there are few, indeed) may have noticed that the interval between posts has grown considerably in recent months.  One wonders if it's simply because the author has precious little to say.  Is life so jolly good, so downright blissful in fact, that this blog has outlived its original purpose: a cathartic release of tension, an easing of frustration via the written word, prompted by career and personal troubles of various kinds?

Perhaps.

But there may be another explanation: I'm busy updating my status on Facebook.  It's so easy to grab a URL or photo of interest, slap it into the status update box, make a pithy comment or three, and hit "enter".  30 seconds and done.  No worries about good grammar or proper formatting, just unload to the world whatever catches your eye, and there you are.  Sharing complete.

Maybe I'm due for a crisis, one that prompts me to dig deep in order to analyze and emote at length.

...

Or...

maybe I'm just lazy.

...

Your guess is as good as mine.

From Albuquerque to the Bermuda Triangle

Three weeks out of the office can take a guy to a lot of places.  And darned if it didn't this time.  Starting by flying into ABQ, then renting a car to drive the "back half" of Route 66 (the front half was done 11 years prior), we finished up in Santa Monica.  Along the way were plenty of iconic sights to see, from aging motels to desert landscapes to the Grand Canyon.

The sublime gave way to the ridiculous in Oatman, AZ

but we recovered the sublime the next day when visiting the man-made art-deco grandeur of Hoover Dam.

At Santa Monica, we said good-bye to Route 66 and turned north on "the 1" to drive Big Sur, and finish up north of Oakland in the wine country of Alexander Valley.

You might not think that Healdsburg, CA and Hamilton, Bermuda have much in common, but one thing at least connected the two:  stately palm trees.

After two weeks of vacation, business (yes, really) took me to the northern vertex of the Bermuda Triangle.  Didn't seem mysterious at all!  It was lovely to look at, both from my hotel balcony and from above a fine restaurant for a business dinner.

Some things were curious about Bermuda, though.  One in particular: a urinal at a high-end luncheon spot.  It was certainly a conversation piece, but I'll bet the cleaning staff just despise it.  ;)

After business meetings were done, a conference was up next at a different hotel, but with a similarly lovely view from my room's balcony:

Breaks were on the veranda, and dinner was at the beach club.  

Tough duty, this traveling on business...