"Carl's Lounge" (Off-Topic Discussion, Traditional Knife "Tales & Vignettes")

r redden said:
Here's how I find it boring most of the time Alan first I am disabled and I know I'm not the "normal" retired person because I have more limitation than most but most of the retired folks I know have very ....To me this is boring and I have no stories to tell because I basically have spent the day alone with no one to interact with. For me retirement most days is boring not to mention the fact you are old when you retire and age has a way of preventing you from doing a lot of things and you are fully aware that you are in the count down phase of your life.
Click to expand...

here i am thinking you just shoot that shotgun off the porch all day at clay pigeons! :D:D:D
 
r redden r redden I dunno, that sounded like a pretty good day to me! :) I guess if it was replayed over and over it might get old, but I'd love a nice, unhurried, relaxing day where I still got useful things accomplished like you described.
 
Come on down Bob we would love to have you.

I guess the repetition of life regardless of what we do is the real boredom factor. It's like going on vacation and thinking "man I wish I could live here" but most the time it's really just the fact that it's something different. Us folks that live in the mountains can't wait to go to the beach one or two times a year and the folks that live at the beach can't wait to come here. As people have said for ever the grass is always greener on the other side.
 
I am fortunate to be on our Co's retirement plan board of trustees. I've learned a lot. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that the slicksters in D.C. made it possible for corporations to shift from defined benefit ie pension plans to the defined contribution retirement model without giving the public an iota of consideration on how to make it all work. Truly sad.
 
r redden said:
Come on down Bob we would love to have you.

I guess the repetition of life regardless of what we do is the real boredom factor. It's like going on vacation and thinking "man I wish I could live here" but most the time it's really just the fact that it's something different. Us folks that live in the mountains can't wait to go to the beach one or two times a year and the folks that live at the beach can't wait to come here. As people have said for ever the grass is always greener on the other side.
Click to expand...

amen, i said that about hawaii when I visited 5 years ago. Still havent been back yet though folks tell me there are other places to visit.

suppose our hobbies keep us sane. heres a little work in progress on something ive been working on. hope to make it mass production some day, well limited, but will be custom made to order of course.

6FClbjL.jpg
 
BigBiscuit said:
My days are much like Randy's. It's like the movie Groundhog Day. I need to move to western North Carolina so Randy and I can entertain each other. ;):cool:
Click to expand...

r redden said:
Come on down Bob we would love to have you.

I guess the repetition of life regardless of what we do is the real boredom factor. It's like going on vacation and thinking "man I wish I could live here" but most the time it's really just the fact that it's something different. Us folks that live in the mountains can't wait to go to the beach one or two times a year and the folks that live at the beach can't wait to come here. As people have said for ever the grass is always greener on the other side.
Click to expand...
I'm not far from Randy , 3 handed Pinochle any one?
 
Bugdoc said:
I am fortunate to be on our Co's retirement plan board of trustees. I've learned a lot. It is a tragedy of epic proportions that the slicksters in D.C. made it possible for corporations to shift from defined benefit ie pension plans to the defined contribution retirement model without giving the public an iota of consideration on how to make it all work. Truly sad.
Click to expand...
Yes !!!!! My old company did that to us and then they gave us a big meeting to tell us about it and said that we would just have to learn to manage our own retirement plan and figure out how to manage it it to make and or save money . Did not bother me much , but many people could not do it . But I sure can not complain about their matching funds .

Harry
 
I'll be 65 later this year.
I get up at 5:30.
Get to work by 7:15.
Work at top speed on multiple projects till 5 or 6. half hour for lunch.

My financial planner says this has to keep up for at least 2 more years. But he recommends 6 to ensure I don't outlive my money.

"bored" sounds pretty good from this corner.
 
The whole pension con really depresses me. It seems to me that in both America and Europe, govts and corps are evading responsibilities to those who have worked long & contributed/saved. When I first started in this sector, you could retire on a small but inflation indexed pension at 58 if you had 32 years contributions and if you wanted to. By 60 the % was better and by 63 you could get 70% of average salary, but you could go on longer if you wanted to and if there was work.

That's long vanished. The usual propaganda is that 'everybody' is living so much longer, this is a statistical myth based on ignoring things such as huge infant mortality in previous centuries and merely counting things like the % of people over 90. It's gone up by 125% e.g. the actual No.s may not be that big. Take a look at graveyards of the past, lots of people made good ages it was not so that everybody dropped dead at 40. Obviously, advances in basic surgery have improved matters but look at the cancer,diabetes,MS, Parkinson's epidemics that are raging in the western world. In my parents' time some of their associates or friends died of cancers, the usual types such as lung,breast or prostate but nothing like the No.s of younger people struck down by so called rare cancers of today. You may say diagnosis is better, maybe but it does not explain the huge increase in numbers of younger people getting diseases. So, I'm sceptical about the massive increased life expectancy especially in the near future.

And what of the large No.s of people who do contribute to pensions but never live to draw it? That money gets forgotten it seems.

It's basically a kind of conspiracy to hope that people get worked to death before they can draw much if any pension, let's say it how it is. On top of this, here in so called socialist Scandiland, firms have been sacking dismissing droves of people over 50 irrespective of their work record or abilities. Such people of say 56-60 face a very real prospect of getting no work again, so thy draw social-which isn't much and yet tax contributions go down. I have to pay the equivalent of nearly 500 USD a month towards my pension alone and this rises every year before retirement, in addition there's income tax, unemployment insurance, union fees. So I'm contributing alright but what I'll get is less and less all the time and further and further away in years. People tend to forget that pensions are also taxed, and here it's higher than salary or wages. You should be a corrupt incompetent executive who resigns with a golden handshake and loads of options to pursue more of the same. Those who lecture us about the 'necessity' of working longer and the wonders of it are more often than not in some extremely privileged position whose main remit is to gather up pensions from boards, govt agencies and various other life long gravy trains. The reality for most of us is very different.

I'd like to retire now after 36+ years of work, I do believe it's important for young people to get a chance too. I have a lot of intellectual interests and reading to do before glaucoma robs me of my sight but it's a race against time. No I would not be bored as my work has been causing me stress and I have a lot of other interesting things to do and to offer but mere economic necessity prevents it, and that is the point it is an attempt to stop people enjoying their senior years. Years we've contributed towards and worked for let's not forget.

There is of course the lottery :D:D (the mirror of life ;))
 
I've been retired for almost 6 years now and I'm 67. I attribute my ability to do that to some good planning, some good fortune and some dumb luck.
When I start to think I'm getting bored, I remember the rat race I was in everyday. The feeling quickly subsides.
 
Peregrin said:
I've been retired for almost 6 years now and I'm 67. I attribute my ability to do that to some good planning, some good fortune and some dumb luck.
When I start to think I'm getting bored, I remember the rat race I was in everyday. The feeling quickly subsides.
Click to expand...

not bad! some good investments, some savings. we cant all win the lottery
 
r redden said:
Here's how I find it boring most of the time Alan first I am disabled and I know I'm not the "normal" retired person because I have more limitation than most but most of the retired folks I know have very similar lifestyles as me.
Here is today so far and it is a typical day
. I woke up at 6 am drank 2 cups of coffee and had a bagel while I watched the local news then turned off the TV at 7:00. My grand daughter (that lives with us) left for school at 7:30 the wife left for work at 8:00. I cleaned up the house that occupied me for about an hour. I took a shower shaved and put on todays clothes 45 minutes. Got another cup of coffee read the news paper 30 minutes more gone. Got on BF messaged with my friend lostball, played a couple of games of Spider Solitaire. Went to the mailbox I had a NOS Schrade 34OT I had bought from the auction site for less than $10 (score). It still had a burr on all 3 blades so I knocked them of on an Arkansas smooth stone. Fixed a ham sandwich with some chips and a glass of milk for lunch. Got back on the BF and am posting this.
I don't have the money to do a lot of things I would like to do because I am retired. I will go for my daily walk in a bit wait for the granddaughter and wife to get home cook dinner, clean up the mess find something to occupy some time until I go to bed so I can get up tomorrow and repeat the cycle. To me this is boring and I have no stories to tell because I basically have spent the day alone with no one to interact with. For me retirement most days is boring not to mention the fact you are old when you retire and age has a way of preventing you from doing a lot of things and you are fully aware that you are in the count down phase of your life.
Click to expand...

Randy, a lot of my days are much like what you describe. Nothing amazing happens, except that I am waking up relaxed and knowing that a I am not involved in the rat race that I had been. That I will never have to walk into that d--m machine shop again. Yes, sometimes when Karen and I are not traveling, it can be a very quiet life. For most of July and August I have been recuperating from yet another surgery on my right foot that was crushed in a construction accident while in the army engineers. So my ability to hike and go on walks with my better half has slowly went out the window over the years.

Being partly disabled I have to substitute actives that I can still do for those that I can not. I miss my hiking, but now do more shooting with both firearms and airguns. I am getting to read more than ever, and the local library has been a treasure trove to me. Swinging in the hammock on the back patio in the shade with a Peterson full of tobacco and a good book is a nice way to spend some time. If that gets a bit boring, then the Webley air pistol comes out and some lead pellets get used.

When time and money permits, (both of us are now fixed income senior citizens since Karen retired in 2013) we take a road trip. This may be a day trip to someplace here in Texas we haven't seen yet, like a museum or natural destination, or a trip to either California or Maryland to see offspring. Cheaper than airfare and we stay at our son's place in Maryland or daughters place in California.

When I get a bit bored, I just remember how much I was burned out on the ,machine shop thing, and how now my time is my own. Nobody has anything on me. If I don't want to do anything but read a book that day, I don't. If I want to take my binoculars down to the lake and walk a bit on the trail to see what I can see, then I do. But I will do something everyday that gets me up and moving a bit, or at least thinking. I think my grasp of the holy trinity of sight picture, breath control and trigger squeeze is becoming a zen thing, and I'm working my way through Texas history. I figure if I'm going to live the rest of my days here, I may as well know as much about it as I can.

After an active life, I find a bit of boredom a bit of a nice thing. Almost relaxing. It means that you are not franticly looking for food and water like some in other parts of the world. It means that you've done it right, and are secure in where you are. A bit short of money is a condition that most fixed income seniors are familiar with, and it's okay. But like you said, we're at an age where we can't do as much anymore. My backpacking days are over as is some of my other activities. But I still wake up every morning and will continue to do what I can, just because I can. Sometimes simple pleasures are very good. That they often don't cost a lot is a side bonus. Now that .22 ammo is available again, I'm shooting more. Through the past ammo shortage I can't begin to guess how many pellets I've shot.

I'll always keep in mind what Teddy Roosevelt said; "Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top