New blog

I’ve converted my blog to a static blog so that I no longer have to maintain the database and other things that were causing me issues.

Working From Home

There has been a lot of discussion in the last few years about people working from home where it went from almost no one to most office workers working from their homes. My experience working from home differs from most people as it has been part of who I am for 25 years, way before it was what every one did.

My first time working from home was in 1998 when the company I worked for closed its offices and kept me employed for a few months until I found another job. Back then we pretty much only used email to communicate. That experience was awful as I had only lived in Portland for less than 6 months and really didn’t know anyone. I was definitely not a fan of it, but doing that was better than being unemployed.

About six months after I started my next job in Portland, I decided that I really didn’t like Portland. I was lonely and the weather was pretty bad during the fall and winter (overcast didn’t work for me). I sold my house and gave notice to the company I worked for and started preparing to move back to San Diego. I didn’t have a job lined up, but I’d figure it out. The owners of the company I worked for asked if I wanted to work remotely. That was a no brainer as I didn’t have a job.

At the time, I had an extra phone line and we used email and AOL Instant Messenger to communicate. I really enjoyed the job even though I didn’t interact much with my colleagues in person. I continued for about 3.5 years and I parted ways as I was bored and the company didn’t have work for me at the time. Working from home was never considered an issue and I was pretty effective at my job.

Over the course of the next 20+ years, I contracted and had a few jobs all being able to work from home. Video conferencing didn’t become the norm until about 7-8 years ago so we used AOL Instant Messenger, fax, telephone (dial into a conferencing system), VoIP PBX, and email to communicate. Never was there a question if I could do the job being at home; it was just what I did. The only time it came up is I had a manager tell me that I couldn’t get promoted if I wasn’t in an office and the closest office was in San Jose.

During this time that I worked from home, I got married and became a father. Looking back over that time, I can tell you that I wouldn’t trade working from home for any amount of money as it gave me the flexibility to be there for my family. I didn’t miss a school performance, school conferences and was always there if needed. I drove my son to school and picked him up a few times a week when my wife worked. In addition, the time I didn’t have to commute allowed me to spend more time with my family. This is time that you can never get back. Doing some rough numbers, if I had to commute 30 minutes each way over the last 25 years, 1 hr/day * 50 wks/years (allowing for vacation) * 5 days/week * 25 years = 6250 hours = 260 days! Even a short commute would take a lot of time off my life.

In the few times when I looked for a job, I tried to look for remote work as I didn’t know if I could actually go into an office. About 9 years ago I did get a job where I had to commute 30 minutes each way, 5 days a week. I only lasted at that job a short time with not being able to work from home one of the several reasons that I went back to contracting.

After my last company went through some rough times, I decided to look for a new job. This time, however, I didn’t exclude jobs where I had to go into an office as I’m in a different place in my life. My son has now finished high school and no longer needs me to drive him around. The job I landed requires me to be in an office 3 days a week and I go.

It is kind of interesting that I go into an office where my immediate team is not located; I’m the only person in this country! When I have calls, I always see lots of squares where everyone (with few exceptions) is in their own location. It is kind of rare to see 2 people in the same room. With teams spread out around the country and world, are we more productive with everyone in an office? I’ll certainly understand that some jobs have to be done in an office due to security/secrecy, hardware availability, etc.

As I’m not generally a social person, working from home has been pretty good to me. A major downside to working from home has always been working too much and not being able to separate work from home as my work computer is just there; it was even harder when I was a contractor and my computer was used for both work and home. Working for someone else and having a separate work computer makes it a little easier to separate the two as I close my work computer at the end of the day/week. However, I can’t help but to put in long hours especially now that my team is in a time zone that is 16-18 hours ahead of me.

Will working from home stay for most office workers? I have no idea. I can’t imagine having to go into an office 5 days a week; 3 days is hard enough as I’m far more productive at home than I am in an office full of cubes.

Lost My Wallet

I’ve been carrying a wallet for something like 35 years in my back pocket. Initially, I carried my ATM card and a few dollars. When I got my driver’s license, I added that to the mix. Slowly over the years, cards just kept getting added, such as my insurance card, student ID, CPR card, credit cards, EMT card, AARP card, etc. It got to the point that my wallet was quite packed, and I looked for a slimmer wallet. I did find a wallet that reduced the bulk, and I used that one (or a replacement) for many years.

Last summer, my son got his driver’s license and at the same time bought himself a used iPhone. While I suggested he get some type of standard wallet, he was insistent on getting a MagSafe compatible wallet that he could attach to the back of his phone. For him, it worked well as he only had his 1 card and a $20 bill; he insisted that he would only use ApplePay and didn’t need to carry his ATM card.

This past summer, as I was thinking about what I had in my wallet, I took a careful inventory of what was in it.

• CPR card - digital version on my phone; never needed to show it.
• ATM card - I only use it to get money out of the ATM, which is deliberate and not just when I’m out and about.
• Auto insurance card - digital version on my phone; proof of insurance in each car.
• AARP card - digital version on my phone; have yet to use it.
• Prescription benefits card - no longer in use as it is part of my health insurance.
• Driver’s license - digital version not yet accepted anywhere.
• Credit card - needed as not everywhere takes ApplePay.
• Costco Card - digital version on phone.
• EMT card - never used it, but I’m not quite ready to leave it out of my wallet.
• Health insurance card - always asked for at doctors’ offices.
• CERT identification card - card explicitly says “not for identification purposes”. Used it once to get into an evacuation site to volunteer.

Looking at what was really needed, I slimmed down my cards to carry to 5 and decided to give a MagSafe wallet a try. The first thing I was kind of surprised at was how strong it held. The wallet also holds the cards pretty tight, so they’re not going to fall out. As I generally only wear long pants, I’ve made sure that all my pants have a side pocket on the leg; this allows me to carry my phone with attached wallet without making it hard to side down or walk. If I wore jeans and put my phone in my front pocket, the MagSafe wallet might be a bit more awkward.

I’m now a few months into this “experiment” and while it does feel weird to no longer have anything in my back pocket, it is kind of liberating. When I get into the car, I pull out my phone (with wallet) and put it in the cubby where the CarPlay connector is. Since I’ve gotten into the habit of always putting my phone there (for the last 8 years since I first got a car with CarPlay), I don’t forget my phone when I get out of the car.

The only weird thing about a MagSafe wallet is that when I want to take a picture, I have my wallet hanging off the back.

I’m quite happy with this change and feel like I’ve been dragged into this century by relying on more things to be on my phone (yes, as technology person, this sounds kind of weird).

The Road to Retirement

At the height of the pandemic, I started to think a lot about retirement. When I was 12, my father started me on the path to retirement by setting up an IRA for me. While this may seem young, experts say that time is the best way to build a nest egg (unfortunately due to tax law changes, I can't establish an IRA for my son as it requires him to have income to offset his contributions). Throughout my life I've been thrifty (some may say frugal) with my finances. Combined with being hard working and frankly, quite lucky, financially I'll be ready for retirement.

Being set for retirement only leaves me with a big hole; what is retirement? I've always told myself that retirement is doing what I wanted on my own time. That vision hasn't changed. However with retirement on the horizon, I need to figure out how I'm going to fill my time. I know what I don't want to do and that is sit around all day in a recliner, read the paper and watch TV. Sure, maybe I'll do that occasionally (well, what is a newspaper?), but being stagnant isn't in my nature and studies have shown that being active mentally and physically are keys to living a long life.

Friends and family have asked what I like to do. That's a really good question; I've spent the last 17 years (almost) with my main goal being to help raise my son. So I've put what I want to do in the backseat. I've always wanted to help other people (yes, I know it is part of the Scout oath) and have done that through volunteering. I'm definitely going to spend more time volunteering. I've been a regular volunteer at Feeding San Diego and I plan on increasing time there. Also in the last 1.5 years I've changed how I work with the Scouts; I've gone from being a troop leader to helping at the district level. This has brought me a lot of joy and I feel like I'm making a difference. It's good that I've discovered happiness in that as they can always use more of my time. Is volunteering the only thing I want to do?

What will I do for myself? Yes, I could argue that volunteering fulfills me and it does. However, there must be more. That's the part of retirement that I'm still working on figuring out. I really enjoy 3D printing and my son is dead set on teaching me how to use OnShape. I also enjoyed flying a drone (gave that up years ago as I didn't find I had time) and am thinking of taking a drone class to get licensed; that may open up a business opportunity if I want to film this commercially which sounds cool. Not sure it will pan out, but another piece to occupy my time.

Any suggestions from the peanut gallery on what to do in retirement? I'm not quite there yet, but I'm not going to work until I drop (I hope).