My time at Southern Miss is winding down after 22.5 years. Adding that time to some previous service to the state as a junior high teacher I will have enough time (with unused sick/personal leave) to retire at the end of this Spring semester (2012). It's a rather odd feeling.
I have worked at a handful of jobs over the years: grocery store worker, factory worker (one summer), garbage collector (very limited time), farm laborer (too hard), construction worker (barely), service station worker (fired for being too slow washing cars!), motel clerk (they actually have to be awake at night), high school math teacher (1 summer), junior high math teacher (1.25 years), graduate student, scientific programmer at NASA, partner in Delta Data Systems, Lockheed employee, graduate student, consultant, government expert, and finally college professor. As you might guess it seems like a long time for me to stick with 1 job for 22.5 years. I have done so and have taken the typical abuse with a typical amount of complaints. In addition I have enjoyed the job better than most. There is substantial freedom as a professor, though the current political climate in America is anti-intellectual and professors are considered lazy bums by many folks. I hope that my effort to train others has resulted in benefit to my many students. If so then I have earned my pay.
I am wondering what to do with the rest of my life. Hopefully I won't have to face poverty in retirement, though sometimes this world can be a cruel place. Assuming that we can live off my retirement income, I will try to be creative and keep myself busy with a variety of different projects. I have noticed over the past few years that my energy level seems a little lower than when I was young, so I don't want to spend the best hours of each day toiling at a job. I think I am good for perhaps 4-6 good hours a day now and jobs demand 8+. Many programming jobs requite excessive hours. Of particular note is the cruelly long hours demanded in the game programming industry. It would be fun to create great games, but not 80 hours a week. At my age (currently 59) I wouldn't last long in such a job. I can't predict whether they would fire me before I would tell them to take their job and shove it.
I need to start spending more of my time exercising. I probably need to try for some form of daily exercise. I have a hard time forming exercise habits and need to work on variety. Here's my list: dancing, zumba, walking, cycling, weight training, swimming, gardening and woodworking. The walking and woodworking aren't great aerobic exercises, but walking has been my most successful form of exercise. I have walked to/from my office at Southern perhaps 3-4 times a week for over 22 years. The rest of that list is more theoretical.
Will I get bored and wish I still had my job? I hope not. Will I get bored and take another job? That seems more likely, but I really don't want to promise to work 40 hours a week again. Will I need money? Need is relative and I have lots of needy relatives (just a pun). Seriously, need is relative. I hope I don't decide that I need money.
If I get bored perhaps I will take up a new hobby. I think I would have some fun with electronics. I'll be considering that this summer. I still think this old dog can learn some new tricks.
