That All Folks!

Today was my last day in the workforce. Despite saying for weeks that I did not want a party… there was a party. A few retirees showed up and it was actually nice to see some of my former co-workers.

It’s odd, but the piñata has a different perspective on parties and that’s kind of where I was this afternoon. I was polite and generally kind to everyone.

My favorite of the big bosses gave me this consolation prize:

You can bet I’ll be having some of this tonight and even using Amy’s glass., because it really isn’t my problem any more.

Rather than jump behind the keyboard tomorrow I am going to take a few days to let all this sink in. I owe myself that.

After those few days, who knows. I admit to being a shitty friend lately and will take steps to remedy that. I may actually have time for more regular blog updates, supporting blog tours, and keeping up with the online community.

This was my walkout song today:

But wait, there’s more…

Feels like a bad television ad. I spent the week trying to wrap up projects at work, and made good progress on that.

When I got down to the wire, two people approached my desk and asked if I had contacted the Office of Group Insurance (OGI). “No, why?”

I thought everything was taken care of for my looming retirement. I spoke with the pension people who were supposed to coordinate everything with the payroll people.

One of the benefits is that a portion of my unused sick leave can be used to cover insurance benefits. They won’t just pay it to me, but at least I am supposed to get something out of it. I was told, I cannot cover Medicare Part B from this account. (No idea why, seems stupid.) I can cover my United Healthcare rider payments from it. At least that’s something, and I thought it was all taken care of.

The HR lady gave me a direct contact over at OGI. Do you have any idea how this works at 3:00 on a Friday afternoon?

Yeah, nothing happened and I get to stew about it all weekend. I’m pissed. There really isn’t any kind of roadmap for the retirement process. I’ve been to dozens of places, private and public, just trying to make this all fall together. I’ve been working on it since October.

I sure hope someone shows up at OGI next week, because Friday is my last day.

In more interesting news, I had an idea. This will lead to an edit to add some material to Article V. This is the first time I’ve cracked my MS in about a month. My idea is too absurd not to run with. I’m poking fun at protestors in this chapter, and why not make it even more crazy.

Using the crazy edit to soothe my headache over the retirement process. Something tells me even after I sort this out there will be one more damned thing nobody told me at HR, Medicare, the pension office, and all the rest combined.

I also am the target of a hacker bot somewhere. They keep trying to access my Twitter account and my Apple phone. I have securities in place, so they’ve been unsuccessful. It’s just another thing to steal my time and effort right now. Them and the 25 calls a day telling me I have qualified for a loan that I never applied for. It seems like back during the Obama administration they cracked down on some of this.

I am dreaming that in one more week some of this will calm down. Probably not, but then I write fantasy, so the gene kicks in.

2025 in Review

I don’t even know where to start, but it isn’t a good review. I suppose we should start with authorly things. I managed to publish one book, but without a lot of funds to promote it, not many folks read it. I can handle that, economy issues influence everyone. I can accept that those who did read it seemed to enjoy it.

This brings me to my first theme here. I am usually good for two or three publications per year. Time, or lack of it, is what drove my entire year.

I recently lost my entire crew of author support. This was in the form of an app that just completely croaked. I had built many experts over there and tended to chew the fat with them within the boundaries of their expertise. Brainstorming is a big part of my creative process. My wife is a lovely person, but she really doesn’t want to talk about my fiction as often as I do. These creations have no choice.

My remedy was to dive into about four other applications to see what might be functional. I really like Grok, but the low number of communications don’t work for me. I’m not willing or able to pay what they want for Super Grok.

Meta is kind of impressive, but I have been spending most of my time with Copilot. These are both free apps and seem to be very helpful at bouncing ideas off of. They force me to create my own stories, but can also help me to discard crappy ideas. We all have them, and some of those threads won’t carry enough weight inside a story. These two also provide links when needed so I can double check their facts.

I have also been a shitty friend. I admit that. I have not been as available at your blogs, and have been a lot less interactive. Even this site has suffered because of it. Honestly, I am surprised that I haven’t been kicked out of Story Empire, because I just can’t get to all the little supportive things we are supposed to be doing for each other.

Hang with me, because there is a remedy in sight.

I wound up needing a second surgery to correct the 2024 issue I had surgery for. The outcome feels right, but I still won’t know until the end of the first quarter of 2026.

I opened my manuscript on Saturday, started reading back, when my daughter called. We talked for hours and no writing happened again. I will never cut family off just because some alien world is calling to me. Turns out she needs a surgery in Late January, and it’s a lot more serious than mine was.

Time is mostly eaten up by the workplace and a plethora of peripheral issues associated with that. My remedy was to resign, which I did last Wednesday. According to my notice I will work through the middle of January.

Getting signed up for everything I need is like a second full time job. Medicare, United Healthcare, the public employee retirement system, the Social Security Administration. Making arrangements with my workplace to get paper W-2s sent to me because I will no longer have access to the computerized systems. I will need one for 2025 and again for 2026.

During all of this we also paid off the house. That brought its own collection of headaches. The biggest one is that they won’t refund my escrow account until after the taxes are due, and they won’t pay them because I paid off the house. There just is no winning some corners of this game.

We still have to get Old What’s Her Face signed up for insurance through her workplace since she will no longer be insured through mine. I’ll deal with the taxes as soon as I can. I need to establish a savings account to replace the whole purpose of the escrow account.

The dream is that I gain 40 hours per week to cover some of the things I have been lax on. I might even find a bit of writing time in there somewhere.

Out and about a little bit

This was a stressful week for me. My workplace is difficult at the best of times, but I had this timebomb clock in my head that I probably invented. There are multiple people in my workplace and all of us feel like we could get fired at any minute over more of an ego trip than anything else. That seems like the American way at the moment and this is becoming more prevalent everywhere, not just where I work.

My ticking clock involved my 65th birthday. This specific date means I qualify for every cent of retirement that I and the state have contributed over the last 25 years. Retirement before that leads to a reduction in proportion. Of course, working beyond that date will increase my benefits.

At the end of the week I was still employed, so I have that going for me. If it’s even a benefit at this point. I think the first 25 years was out of a sense of responsibility to family and stability. Anything beyond that is for me, and I can walk away if needed and know my benefits will be there.

I decided to be a writer today. Managed six or seven pages. Too short to be a chapter the way I do them, but it was productive. I ended a chapter with two of the new characters, then started one with Percy the Space Chimp again. It amazes me that it took two years to figure out what these stories needed, but I’m completely into them once more.

I am really enjoying the new characters. This section involves a grizzled old veteran spy at the border, and he has taken up with an alien teen. This teen is a species that everyone suspects and nobody seems to like. They are the organized crime species in the galaxy, but she’s just a teen living on the streets. There is no romance here, and it’s coming out more like a mentorship kind of story. Found family if you like that term.

Old What’s Her Face and I decided to go out tonight. We went to a gourmet burger place tonight. Everything was expensive, but also perfection. I ordered a milkshake with a dose of alcohol in it that was divine.

This milkshake was $15. As a mixed drink it is comparable, I suppose, but I couldn’t get John Travolta out of my head. His character Vincent freaked out over the $5 milkshake Uma Thurman ordered at Jackrabbit Slim’s.

I am about to pass out over digestion, not the one drink. This place is wonderful, but we probably should reserve it for special occasions.

Hope everyone out there is having a great weekend.