So, yeah.
It’s been three-and-a-half years since I updated this. I guess not much has happened?
Let’s see…
For starters, I moved in with Sandie a couple of years ago. She bought a log cabin in Lawrenceville on a few nicely-wooded acres and we decided that it was easier for me to just move here than it was for us to continue in separate domiciles. As it turned out, the move was pretty well timed, because a mutual friend found himself homeless shortly after I vacated my place, and he’s been renting from me ever since.
The boys, Joshua and Chamberlain, weren’t especially thrilled with the ride from my house to the cabin (particularly Josh, who managed to rip out a couple of claws in his panic during the ride), but they’re settled in nicely with their “cousin” Mojo (a Shih-Tzu dog) and have adjusted to the new things that come with a new place. Chamberlain loves nothing more than to sleep on the screened-in porch (at home, the closest he could get to being “outside” was to sit by an open window), and Joshua spends most of his time sleeping upstairs in my office. He’s had a rougher time of it – including falling from a catwalk that spans the main room of the house (scaring the hell out of me) – but he seems on the whole to be relatively content.
I quite my job at the X company in November of 2022. Mainly because my director moved to a different job, I couldn’t stand his replacement, and when a newly-created position opened up for an overall service manager, it went to a colleague of mine who I could never see myself respecting. The story I gave them was that I wanted to “get back into tech,” and move away from a supervisory role, but the simple fact was that I couldn’t stomach the thought of reporting to either of those guys. My new job is, to put it mildly, difficult. As far as the “tech” goes, it’s fine – I work almost entirely with SQL servers, which is no big deal – but the questions that I get from the accounting companies that I support might as well be in another language. 18 months into it, I’m still constantly asking my teammates, “What exactly are they saying the problem is?” There are plenty of days that I think I regret making the jump, but then I try to imagine doing my old job and taking direction from two morons, and I wind up feeling better about the decision again.
My woodworking hobby has taken off since moving here, also. The previous owner had setup a detached garage on the property as his workshop, and Sandie and I continued that. At first, we both had workbenches in the place, but she slowly moved most of her tools and projects to a corner of the in-house garage (she calls it “the SPA” – small projects area), and I’m slowly filling the bigger shop with some serious hardware. Planer, jointer, laser engraver, router table….all the fun stuff that I would have loved to put in my garage at home, but for which there just wasn’t space. Don’t know that my woodworking has gotten any better, but at least I’m willing to try things that I would not have considered previously. Sandie, as is her wont, is methodically remodeling the house, and she’s asked me to try building things for it – benches, closet space, cabinets and the like. I practice for things like that by making shop furniture, and I do see some improvement. Maybe if I can ever retire I can make a bit of money on the side as a carpenter.
Speaking of retirement, Sandie took that plunge a year or so ago. She’s younger than me, but when her father passed away a few years ago, he did so as a pretty wealthy guy. Sandie’s mom set her and her sister up with pretty decent allowances and they’re both living the retired life. She’s told me to make the plunge a few times, but I’m not ready yet. I want that sweet government insurance. And I want to have some structure. I think when I actually do take the leap, I’ll be looking for a part-time gig within a year just to stay somewhat focused (and also have a bit of extra scratch coming in).
I continue to play with the Georgia Brass Band, and continue to act as the librarian for that group. During the Covid lockdown in 2020, I started scanning all of our music and estimated that it would take me 6-12 months to have everything digitized. 48 months later, I’m maybe a 10th of the way through it. Granted, I had a move during that time (there are currently 11 file cabinets full of music in the basement), but my original idea was vastly underestimated – and I don’t spend as much time scanning as I probably should. The group sounds good, though. We’ve gone back to NABBA a few times (competing in the Championship Section) and haven’t embarrassed ourselves yet. May do it again in 2025. The jury is still out on that, but our director – who founded the band – is retiring after 25 years at the helm (on Sunday), and he was not into competition at all. The new guy, who hasn’t been selected yet, may be more excited about it.
So that’s a (very) brief rundown of what’s been happening for the last 3 years. I’ve said this (many times) before, but I’ll try to be more diligent about keeping this thing updated going forward.