December 31st

Today is one of those days you stop and look back. On this day a year ago I retired from IBM. When asked where I worked I've been saying I retired "at the end of last year." After today I can say "I retired over a year ago." Although I went back to work April 1st after being off for three months I still like to think that I'm retired, and just working because I want too. After the recent stock market down turn I suspect if I did the math I might find out I have to work. For now I don't want to know, and I'll just keeping working because I want too.

Another thing that happened 20 years ago today was I closed on my current home. I also made sure I paid off my house 9 years ago this month to avoid any Y2K issues. Funny. I have never missed having to make a house payment all these years, and I never missed getting up and driving to work this last year.

So to mark the day I built a new hand rail for my back steps. I figure I'll be needing it to help me up those steps sometime in the next 20 years.