As of EOB this Friday I will be retired. I have had a singular career working on some amazing projects and meeting equally exceptional people.
One thing I have greatly enjoyed is communicating with colleagues on this forum. I have met some of you in person at conventions and conferences, but I feel like I know many others from our exchanges here. You all (Yall in Texan) have been an invaluable resource imparting knowledge, insight, and a sense of camaraderie. Thank you
Mazel tov and best of luck sir.
I hope you enjoy every minute.
Congratulations and welcome to the club. If you’ll be at the conference in October, I’ll be happy to show you the secret handshake.
Congratulations! Have a wonderful retirement, and don’t be a stranger here!
Congratulations, James. The best thing about retirement is that you can do what you want to do, when you want to do it.
What are your plans? Its good to have something to retire to, rather than just retire from.
I wish you all the best in your retirement, and hope you’ll continue to contribute to 4Specs.
Congratulations, James, on your retirement.
At my retirement party, everyone will get a shovel.
I am semiretired and leaning more into 3/4 retired in the next year. It’s wonderful and I am enjoying every minute!!!
Coming to five years retired. Virtually from the beginning of this web forum, the first thing I would do when getting to work each morning was to put this up on one screen, the emails on another, get a coffee, and start my day. I still look at this first when turning on the home desktop, although new posts are getting rare.
Most of those new posts seem not to be about spec or product issues but more often about spec related software reviews, comlaints, problems and issues.
One of the best things about being retired is being able to totally tune those out.
As has been noted, it’s good to retire TO something rather than FROM something. I no longer open this right away in the morning (I do Spelling Bee first thing), but do pay attention to posts. If there’s anything to which I can contribute, I do. But as Steven pointed out, the questions are often about stuff I cannot relate to - and that’s OK. I, too, am glad to be retired.
I officially retired at the end of July. I still have a couple of projects to finish, but Holly is officially taken over the firm.
When I retired in December 2017 I was looking forward to having more time for CSI and for writing, but neither panned out. Like others here, one of the first things I did each day was fire up 4Specs. I soon discovered that without being forced to deal with contract documents, consultants, and clients daily, I no longer had a regular source for topics.
In 2020, we moved from the boonies north of the Twin Cities to an inner suburb of Saint Paul. We moved into our new (to us) house 28 February, and left almost immediately to visit one of Linda’s sisters in Fort Myers. The plague struck while we were away, and for a couple of days we weren’t sure we’d be able to get home. We hadn’t had time to put food into the fridge or the pantry, so we had our daughter in Minneapolis go shopping for us. She sent us pictures of empty shelves and grocery carts full of toilet paper, along with a “You owe me!” message.
I recently said something I thought I would never say - I’ve gone to my last convention. Even while I was working, the last couple of years I’d go but not register. How many built-up roofing seminars do I need in one life? I did the speed-dating thing a couple of times at MSR, and decided it had almost zero value. Still, I went to conventions, but when they killed the exhibit hall, there wasn’t much left. Linda and I are both glad we were involved during the glory days, and we often reminisce about them.
While I am not retired yet, I agree with Sheldon regarding “the last convention.”
My “last CSI convention” was in Nashville. I think this was the first one that CSI tried to put on by themselves. With the exception of one education session, I considered it a complete waste of time and money.
In Nashville, I did that version of the speed dating, which was mostly manufacturers asking me how they could market their products to reach more specifiers.
The CSI convention is overpriced, in my opinion, when compared to other industry related conventions and the value received.
I also agree with Sheldon on the MSR’s value, although that is something I would consider doing again, in hopes it has improved. However, considering its main purpose it to make money for CSI, improvement, from the attendee perspective, may be wishful thinking.
When I was still working, I appreciated and enjoyed both the MSRs and the conventions/conferences for many reasons - renewing friendships, meeting colleagues, and the education.
Once I retired, I stopped going to the MSRs so younger, still working, specifiers could go. I was envious of the locations, but the value was for them.
I continued activity in CSI, both in the chapters to which I belong and the region. I also continued to attend the conventions/conferences. The CSI friendships were worth it and so were the trips to the varied locations.
However, fewer and fewer of my contemporaries are attending. This year, I noticed there were more and more people I did not know - and this is a good thing!
I’ll evaluate next year, although Phoenix is a draw.
I retired 5 years ago. About 6 months after I retired, one of the community colleges where I had been (mis)managing construction projects called me and asked if I would be willing to replace their project inspector who had taken another job. I’ve been going up there every week or so to check on smaller projects under construction and designing small renovation projects. I’m doing most of the work from home and putting in 5 - 10 hours a week.
I moved to Bedford, VA 3 years ago and switched my CSI membership to the Blue Ridge chapter. Their elections were coming up, the president was term limited, and nobody threw their hat in the ring, so somebody cast a write-in vote for me and now I’m chapter president.