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Continue reading →: Where did he go?
Hello Friends. So it’s been quite some time since I did a BLOG entry out here in WordPress land. There is a story behind it that is quite long, but I will keep it short and too the point. Janice and I have been working through several deaths in our…
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Continue reading →: My first home
The Morgan family get’s together twice a year for a family reunion. Most of the time is spent talking and eating, but we also at times share stuff we find from our past. My sister Leslie had been going through some things at her house, and recently came across the…
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Continue reading →: Janice’s “Great Cycle Challenge” 2023
If you’ve read a bit of this Blog, you’ll know that one activity that Janice and I enjoy is Cycling. We started to ride together regularly in the year 2000 and have never really stopped. When we lived up north, there was of course a riding “season”, but down here…
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Continue reading →: Retirement – 2 year assessment
Well here I am …. officially passed the two year mark for retirement at the end of July 2023. So how is it going? First thing I have to say is that I still enjoy it! I’m clearly past the honeymoon phase and this is now my new normal. I…
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Continue reading →: Camping
Janice and I went camping with the grandkids a few weeks ago. While I don’t think we made the optimal choice for time of year ( Florida in July is a bit warm ), we had a good time. I have been camping since I was very young. My Mom…
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Continue reading →: Going Solar
I’m not quite sure how I missed blogging on this before, but Janice and I have gone Solar! It’s something we had talked about for quite some time, but we finally pulled the trigger … or I should say we pulled that trigger in the summer of 2021. It got…
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Continue reading →: Basketball
Back in February, I discussed my thoughts on American football. Given the NCAA basketball tournament just finished up recently, I thought I would turn my thoughts to basketball. My exposure to basketball began pretty young. I was born in Columbus, Ohio in the early 60s. Columbus did not have any…
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Continue reading →: Memory Box – a death-cleaning update
In 2018 I did a post about the Swedish concept of “Death Cleaning”. If you’d don’t know what this is, you can reference my 2018 blog post here. Last week out of the blue Janice suggested we should go through and clean out our memory boxes. If you haven’t heard…
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Continue reading →: American Football
So yesterday evening I watched the Super Bowl. I watch the Super Bowl every year just like many Americans, and in fact, I enjoy watching football all season long. The thing is, I’m not really sure why I like to watch football. I was indoctrinated into football at a young…
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Continue reading →: My 2nd handbell piece
Last November I posted about my first handbell piece. In actuality, it was the second piece I ever wrote but the first one I ever had performed. The first piece I wrote is called “Celebration” and my handbell group agreed to perform it this January. I’m not sure I like…
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Continue reading →: First handbell piece
If you read my blog this past June you saw that have always had an interest in writing music, and was trying my hand at English handbell music. This fall the group I’m involved with agreed to play thru the music I composed, and selected one to play one this…
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Continue reading →: Hurricanes
Janice and I moved to North Carolina in 2003 and on to Florida in 2011. Prior to 2003, hurricanes were something we saw on TV or read about but had never experienced. I’d see the damage in pictures but could never relate to the experience firsthand. The first hurricane of…
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Continue reading →: Bass Guitar – An update
Back in 2018, I did a blog about Bass guitar ( here ). At the time I was going to maybe get some lessons and see where it went. Alas, 4 years had passed and no real activity. I was beginning to wonder if my Bass guitar was going to…
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Continue reading →: Retirement update – 1 year
And so an anniversary has arrived … it’s been a full year since I retired. I did a blog at 6 months, so figured it was time for an update. In thinking about it a bit, so far I gotta say that things have gone well. I think the biggest…
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Continue reading →: Reunions
I’ve participated in reunions for most of my life. While the COVID era put a short damper on things, Janice and I have had a pretty good run participating in family and friend reunions over the years. I first experienced a “reunion” when I was about ten I think. My…
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Continue reading →: Writing Music
I’ve enjoyed writing music. I’ve been blessed with some basic musical interest and talent, and it was obvious at a young age. As a young child, I always loved to listen to records. My family had an old RCA TV/Record player combo in our living room, and even at age…
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Continue reading →: Das Boot
Back around 2003 I started working from home pretty much full time and continued that for the rest of my career. Guess you could call me an “early adopter” on the work at home “thang”. When COVID hit it was no big change in my work/life situation except for less…
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Continue reading →: Learnin’ Spanish (Espanol)
For the last several months I’ve been learning Spanish online. I’ve been enjoying it and sticking with it pretty well most days. For me, if I’m not practicing frequently, I’m gonna lose it, so an internet self-guided application is the best option for me. The lessons are short and easy…
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Continue reading →: Retirement – 6-month assessment
It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been retired for 6 months now. So far I’d say I’ve not regretted my decision. While there is always still a bit of worry that the steady check is no longer coming in, I’d say I’m getting more and more comfortable with the “new…
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Continue reading →: Covid
Let me start by saying that Covid stinks …. allot! When I was little the big thing was still Polio, but I was lucky enough to be able to get a vaccination for it while I was very young so it didn’t impact me (although I had a neighbor friend…
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Continue reading →: Christmas Concerts
Tis the season, and if you have a child or grandchild you may have the privilege of attending a Christmas holiday concert. It’s not always the most impressive music or performance, but they always seem to be fun for me. The earliest event I can remember was my kindergarten Christmas…
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Continue reading →: Gym Rat?
I was born a big baby. I was 21 inches long and 9 lbs 10 oz at birth. My Mom used to say I came out a toddler. I am now 6 foot 2 inches and let’s just say more than 9 lbs 10 oz 🙂 . I was always…
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Continue reading →: Tennis Anyone?
When I was a young lad ( age 10-12 ish), my friend Brad down the street played tennis. As most young people do, I decided if my friend liked it then maybe I would like it too! Around that time my uncle, who was an avid tennis player, learned of…
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Continue reading →: Retirement … after 3 weeks ….
So if you’ve read any recent updates on the blog, you’ll know that I retired at the end of July 2021 from IBM after working there 40 years. It was quite a “last week” at IBM, knowing that most events were my “last” and announcing to various communities that I…
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Continue reading →: Retirement …
Well, it’s here …. I’ve picked my retirement date from IBM as July 31, 2021. Kinda hard to believe in a way, but in fact, I’ve been thinking about it for many years. Retirement stirs up reflections about the working “Era” of my life, which has been 47 years actually.…
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Continue reading → : 60
So it’s been awhile since I’ve written here. Not sure why, but just haven’t been motivated to write about much I guess. But recently I passed a life milestone…I turned 60! I’m not quite sure how I’ve felt about it so far. In most ways it just feels like another…
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Continue reading →: Moving
Hello Blog! It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted here, and there is a reason. Late last year, Janice sprang the idea that she would like to move closer to the girls. As you hopefully know, we provide child care and support for our two grand-daughters on a pretty…
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Continue reading →: Golf
I got my first set of golf clubs when I was 12 . As I was child number 4, and my other siblings were leaving the nest ( I’m 7 years youngers than my nearest sibling ), my Mom decided she wanted to take up golf as well and had…
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Continue reading →: Hearing Aids
In the fall of 1970 I headed to the local elementary school to play baseball with my brother and some of his friends. I was 10 and he and his friends were 17. His best friend, Bill Graves, was an all state baseball player for West High School in Columbus…
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Continue reading →: Dance Recitals
Janice and I had two wonderful sons. They did many of the activities common for young lads like soccer, Cub/Boy Scouts, concert/marching band and track/cross country. We also got to experience the elementary school concerts and plays and we enjoyed all of it. Those events provided great experiences for Bryan…
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Continue reading →: Garage Sales ( aka Death Cleaning )
So last weekend was our bi-annual community garage sale. It’s quite a big event given the size of our community. It’s widely advertised and well known in our area, so it typically draws lots of people. Starts at 8AM, but there are people roaming about at 7AM just to see…
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Continue reading →: Birthday’s
Today is my birthday. 58 years old this year. As usual it feels good and weird at the same time. I started off life like all of us … lovin’ my birthday. They are such big milestones when you are in the first 21 years of life. So many stages…
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Continue reading →: FIRE – why the fuss?
So if you read my blogs from 2018, you came across a few articles on FIRE (Financially Independent Retire Early ). It’s a interesting trend and seems to have caught a growing interest. There are now conventions, books being written and tons of bloggers on the topic. The major…
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Continue reading →: New Year’s Resolutions?
So a belated Happy New year to anyone reading along. It’s still kinda shocking to say 2019 and it be now! It just doesn’t feel possible at moments, but reality kicks in when I see how big my granddaughters are and feel how much I groan and creak when I…
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Continue reading →: Family Christmas
I’ve been a fan of Christmas for my entire life. I started as a typical child, looking at the Sears or Penny’s wish book, and writing a list of approximately 500 toys which I wanted for Christmas. Just get me page 497-502 please. My parents always made Christmas special…
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Continue reading →: Sim Racing – quick update
Quick update on my Sim racing reentry. Step one in the process is complete! I’ve purchased a PS4 to run my first Sim Racing games. The first game I purchased was “Grand Turismo Sport”. I’ve started some of my first racing and training events, and it’s quite fun and amazing…
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Continue reading →: Sim Racing
When I was a small lad in Columbus, our next door neighbor was a race car driver. We lived on a street with an alley, and most houses had a small garage in the back. In my neighbors garage was a stock racing car. They worked on that car all…
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Continue reading →: FIRE Starter
Back in June I talked about my interest in FIRE, or “Financially Independent Retire Early”. I really can’t remember how I stumbled into the topic, but I think it was from my reading of retirement articles in general. For a time a few years back my work situation seemed tenuous…
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Continue reading →: St Augustine and friends …
When Janice and I first moved away from our home town in 1983, we went to the up-state NY area. We moved to the town of Vestal, which was just across the river from Endicott and near the larger area of Binghamton. It’s a pretty area of NY, with rolling…
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Continue reading →: My Bike
When I was a kid, I loved my bike. I would head out in the morning, and spend many hours riding around in my neighborhood with no specific goal or destination. Just to be on my bike was gratification enough. I’m sure in my head I was on some journey…
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Continue reading →: Da Beach …..
Just got back from a brief trip to the beach last week with Jared, Laura and the girls. We decided to sneak in a couple days there before the grand-daughters head off to school in a few weeks. It was a good time. We got a hotel right on the…
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Continue reading →: Death Cleaning
What a downer title! And yet, it’s what I want to talk about. So … Death Cleaning is an actual thing it seems. Apparently it started in Sweden some years back. To net out the concept, the idea is that someone should clean out their own “stuff” before they die…
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Continue reading →: Grand-Parenting
So the picture above is not fully accurate. Janice ( Grandma ) looks MUCH younger than this, while I maybe look older than that dude. I also can’t dance as well … But I am in the Grand-parent age, and I love it. It is amazing to experience your childrens-children,…
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Continue reading →: Playing with FIR(E)
Well … not real fire. Over the last few years I’ve become more interested and following the topic of FIRE, which stands for “Financially Independent Retire Early“. The FIRE community are people that saved a non-trival sum of money which allows them to leave their “traditional jobs” at a early…
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Continue reading →: Pondering my Bass Guitar revival
So I’m thinking about picking up the Bass guitar after almost 40 years. My bass guitar experience started in 1976 when my High School jazz band needed a bass player. I decided to give it a try, and just started playing. I had no lessons or instructions, but played by…
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Continue reading →: The Journey Begins
Well … Decided to create a WordPress site to explore the idea of sharing. What you may ask? ….. stuff. Please bear with as I learn what that stuff actually is, and if anyone can benefit from reading it. We’ll see …. Good company in a journey makes the way…