Charting a new course

It seems that I have been involved in writing my entire adult life. Whether that was something as simple as checking tasks on a list of things my bosses wanted me to accomplish or generating Engineering proposals and multi-view drawings for submission to Fortune 500 Companies, or various governments or US government agencies, I've always been involved in writing. I've discovered proposals decades later and read them. While doing so I'm amazed by what was written and all the complexities and details covered. I get to the last page and am shocked to discover that -= I =- had written it and simply didn't remember. (I surprised myself with my own ability)

As the title of this blog suggests I am intrigued by almost everything. I gobble up information like your garbage disposal devours dinner scraps and, like that device, my appetite for knowledge seems to be endless. At nearly age 70, service in two branches of the military and experience in over 120 different jobs from farming to hot tar roofing to auto mechanics to pneumatic Engineering, my brain is packed full of information and hard earned knowledge. I've done computer programming back when you had to sit at a keypunch machine and transfer your program onto punch cards then run those through a compiler to generate input the computer could work with. I majored in Psychology in college and am an Ordained Minister and a former OTR truck driver.  On a daily basis, the two things that always get my attention and comments are politics and science of some sort. 

With various age and military-related health issues, working a "normal" job, even part-time, is not something that is possible anymore. With my wife creeping up on her retirement from the State of Texas we will soon be "dependent" upon only our retirement income. While we should be able to get by on that without much trouble neither of us simply wants to "get by" in our retirement years. We have too many hopes and dreams we've waited a lifetime to realize. 

We both love traveling and seeing new things. We dream of having a camper of some sort, bumper pull or 5th wheel so we can be closer to those places and things that interest us, rather than staying in a hotel somewhere. She enjoys fishing so waking up with a lake outside our front door is something that will make her look forward to waking up in the morning. I love to read. Granted I can do that anywhere, but why not be reading under the awning of our camper while peeking over the top of my current book to watch her fishing down by the lake? That's a win-win. 

We watch all these "House Hunter International" shows on TV and we note how young most of the people are. The real estate agent says rent (RENT!!) is $2500 or $3500 a MONTH and they don't choke or bat an eye! They look at homes that range from a couple hundred thousand you to several million and are unphased by those numbers. (We'd need emergency bathroom facilities or a medic!) Our question to each other is always...... "What the heck do these KIDS do to have that sort of money to spend?" Of course, there are a few who are transferred by a corporation and have a stipend that covers housing expenses. But almost all the rest seem to use their computers to generate an income of some sort. 

It seems, therefore, that I needed some computer-based method of augmenting what will be our retirement income. My "work" must be 100% portable so that I can do it where ever we happen to find ourselves. If we're in a camper trailer at Glacier National park or we are fortunate enough to be enjoying the beach in Belize I need to be able to pull out a laptop and do some sort of "work" to generate a level of income that could permit us the financial freedom to genuinely enjoy our retirement years. To that end, I have undertaken a course on writing. 

The endgame of the course is to not only become better at writing but also to learn how to self-publish via the internet. It doesn't matter if I publish a little 10-page pamphlet on building a backyard project that sells for 99 cents or if I write something grander, it's a source of income that is portable. Several news-related websites advertise for contributors too. The opportunities are out there which makes it a matter of identifying topics that are of current interest and organizing my thoughts so I can put something together on electronic "paper". And if people will pay you for doing what you enjoy doing anyway....... is that not the definition of the perfect job? 

With our current timeline, I have roughly 5 years to get a handle on this project. It's something that needs to be already in place and working by the time my wife reaches retirement age. It basically means the difference between being able to enjoy our senior years together and simply existing from retirement check to retirement check. Doing that is NOT a life to look forward to living month after month. I want us to have the option to pick up and go where we want, when we want and NOT worry about anything. Retirement should be about freedom....... not more years spend fretting over bills and other such matters. We've done that our entire lives. We have earned the right to enjoy what life has to offer.