StLSurveyor, post: 456235, member: 7070 wrote: Yes! I would love to! Semi Serious, Will need help convincing wife to move, but she love Oregon wine, rain and winter....
Do it. Make it so.
StLSurveyor, post: 456235, member: 7070 wrote: Yes! I would love to! Semi Serious, Will need help convincing wife to move, but she loves Oregon wine, rain and winter....
More importantly do you like rain and the not mentioned brush 🙂
SHG
Lookinatchya, post: 455485, member: 7988 wrote: I recently completed my 60th trip around the sun and it seems like there may be light at the end of the tunnel. I started my survey career in 1982. Went out on my own in 1996. I have been running a small 3-4 man shop for the last 21 years. No vacations to speak of. Work always on my mine,
I know a fellow surveyor who recently turned 70 and is still plugging along. I asked him why he doesn't retire. His comment was, " I don't hunt, fish, golf, garden or anything like that. I'm a problem solver and I enjoy surveying". Well I like to hunt and fish and have a kennel full of hunting dogs begging for more time in the field.
I applaud the guys who stick with it in their later years are are a real asset to the profession. I have a young SIT working for me and hope to hand him the reins in 5 or so years. I am mentoring him and giving him as much knowledge as I can. He has the opportunity of a life time. I stared out with nothing. Built a good reputation in my area and will have 25 years of records to pass along.
I still enjoy surveying but I thing I am starting to get grumpy old man syndrome. Don't handle all the remarks from planners, nosy neighbors, clients questioning my work etc., to well any more.
I don't have much of a bucket list but would like to do and see a few things before the years catch up with me.
So here's to all you guys just getting started and all who are looking out the back door like me!
There's a 93 year old who came out of retirement after his son passed away last year. He is having a blast being back in the office and the field.
Otis Dyer Sr., Rehoboth, MA.
RIP Otis Dyer, Jr., Rehoboth, MA
I just indirectly helped Otis Sr. With some lidar that enabled him to recover old stone walls and an old overgrown road. He was hesitant about the data until he saw the surface model... giddy as a schoolboy...
JKinAK, post: 456009, member: 7219 wrote: He didn't say that he planned to live on SS - just that he didn't have a pension.
I suspect that, like most other surveyors nearing retirement, he owns his house, vehicles, and vacation properites free and clear, he's got a few mill in the bank for liquidity, a number of commercial rental properties, precious metals, and a portfolio of stocks and bonds that make Merrill Lynch envious:cool:.
Surely you just.
Skeeter1996, post: 456101, member: 9224 wrote: Oh yeah Disneyland gives you Legionnaire's disease and grizzly bears maul you in the National Parks. My vacation is a beer or two on the patio.
I started surveying when I was 18, summers until college graduation, then full time 'till retirement at 65, a 47 year career. I was sort of a moon cow as a kid, and my father (an MD) was pressuring me to go on to grad school (UCLA), but, as one of my mentors told me, "Surveying is a disease, if it gets into your blood, you'll never shake it". I jumped in whole hog (Dad basically disowned me), Federal, County, Privates, climbing the ladder from lowly crew member to office manager of a 6 crew outfit, got licensed (two States), attended ACSM conferences religiously, took the BLM Cadastral courses on campus (a two hour drive every other weekend for four months), built a 15 foot wall of books & literature. I was a zealot and happy.
Fast forward to 1995, 70 hour work weeks, profit sharing, proposal preparations, contract negotiations, budgeting, multimillion dollar projects, extreme stress. Started having some medical problems, diagnosed as anxiety attacks; the doctor actually wrote me a prescription that said "Quit your job." I switched to a State position, generous pension, 40hr/week, vacations, no stress. Also started socking away money, sold the Porsche, gave up on the beach rental and some expensive habits.
Fast forward to 2010, wages tripled, but I was steered in to the Records manager slot because everyone else refused the position. MY attitude was I do whatever my boss tells me to do. The flame started dying out; I became the cranky old man the young LSs (and some supervisors) would timidly ask advice of, woke up to the alarming waste, slothfulness and outright criminality of some of my coworkers. It degraded 'till I couldn't wait to retire.
2014, the mess that was the survey records was finally indexed and online, 180,000 documents, with systems for maintenance, updates, etc., in place. Somehow I'd become a computer geek, and my boss was suggesting my next task would be to clean up the woefully inefficient maps and acquisition deeds preparation systems in the R/W department, also known as the Valley of the Dead or sleepytime section. Not worth looking forward to.
I hired a financial advisor because I wasn't doing so well handling my retirement accounts. After reviewing my situation he was flabbergasted I hadn't retired already, said with Social Security, the pension, my savings, and Medicare kicking in in 2015 I could have a standard of living @ 80% of my present financials 'till the day I die. He shut down my stock portfolios and gold holdings, transferred it all to low risk bonds and annuities.
In 2015 I finally pulled the trigger and retired. My financial advisor was also a good life coach and spent more time talking about people whose job was their life who withered away after retiring in front of the TV, my post retirement aspirations, health situation, general mental attitude, significant others, etc. He said I make the decision, not him.
It was a bit rough because I lived on only my pension for a year before signing on to Social Security and Medicare in 2016. Now I've got more money coming in than I can spend, recreationally travel 120 days a year, and am being coached to be less of a penny pincher and pamper myself more. It was a bit weird originally, you wake up every day looking forward to doing exactly what you want to do, be it ambitious or just lounging around enjoying the weather. Surveying, meh, I don't miss it a bit except for slight twinges when encountering ancient NGS stations on mountaintops or the odd lead and tag in sidewalks around town. Every few months I also enjoy doing pro bono work for inquisitive friends, usually advice concerning procuring survey services, reviewing paperwork and rarely stumbling around their property (sans metal detector) looking for monuments. But that fire has died, no plans for any part time surveying.
Post retirement I've dropped 20 pounds, beaten cancer (fingers crossed), grown my hair longer, gave all my suits and ties (except funeral and wedding suits) to Goodwill, and been to some magnificent parts of the good old USA, not for a weekend, but for months. The TV is covered in spiderwebs, but I must admit I surf the InterWebs maybe more than I should (RPLStoday for example). I'll 'fess up and say retirement is the best thing that's ever happened to me. The only odd thing is I still wake up @ 6:00-7:00am, raring to go, and I have to force myself to stay in bed 'till 8:00am because, well, I'm retired.
I've got a cheap GPS system I'll sell you to get back in. You sound depressed.
I started surveying when I was 18, summers until college graduation, then full time 'till retirement at 65, a 47 year career. I was sort of a moon cow as a kid, and my father (an MD) was pressuring me to go on to grad school (UCLA), but, as one of my mentors told me, "Surveying is a disease, if it gets into your blood, you'll never shake it". I jumped in whole hog (Dad basically disowned me), Federal, County, Privates, climbing the ladder from lowly crew member to office manager of a 6 crew outfit, got licensed (two States), attended ACSM conferences religiously, took the BLM Cadastral courses on campus (a two hour drive every other weekend for four months), built a 15 foot wall of books & literature. I was a zealot and happy.
Fast forward to 1995, 70 hour work weeks, profit sharing, proposal preparations, contract negotiations, budgeting, multimillion dollar projects, extreme stress. Started having some medical problems, diagnosed as anxiety attacks; the doctor actually wrote me a prescription that said "Quit your job." I switched to a State position, generous pension, 40hr/week, vacations, no stress. Also started socking away money, sold the Porsche, gave up on the beach rental and some expensive habits.
Fast forward to 2010, wages tripled, but I was steered in to the Records manager slot because everyone else refused the position. MY attitude was I do whatever my boss tells me to do. The flame started dying out; I became the cranky old man the young LSs (and some supervisors) would timidly ask advice of, woke up to the alarming waste, slothfulness and outright criminality of some of my coworkers. It degraded 'till I couldn't wait to retire.
2014, the mess that was the survey records was finally indexed and online, 180,000 documents, with systems for maintenance, updates, etc., in place. Somehow I'd become a computer geek, and my boss was suggesting my next task would be to clean up the woefully inefficient maps and acquisition deeds preparation systems in the R/W department, also known as the Valley of the Dead or sleepytime section. Not worth looking forward to.
I hired a financial advisor because I wasn't doing so well handling my retirement accounts. After reviewing my situation he was flabbergasted I hadn't retired already, said with Social Security, the pension, my savings, and Medicare kicking in in 2015 I could have a standard of living @ 80% of my present financials 'till the day I die. He shut down my stock portfolios and gold holdings, transferred it all to low risk bonds and annuities.
In 2015 I finally pulled the trigger and retired. My financial advisor was also a good life coach and spent more time talking about people whose job was their life who withered away after retiring in front of the TV, my post retirement aspirations, health situation, general mental attitude, significant others, etc. He said I make the decision, not him.
It was a bit rough because I lived on only my pension for a year before signing on to Social Security and Medicare in 2016. Now I've got more money coming in than I can spend, recreationally travel 120 days a year, and am being coached to be less of a penny pincher and pamper myself more. It was a bit weird originally, you wake up every day looking forward to doing exactly what you want to do, be it ambitious or just lounging around enjoying the weather. Surveying, meh, I don't miss it a bit except for slight twinges when encountering ancient NGS stations on mountaintops or the odd lead and tag in sidewalks around town. Every few months I also enjoy doing pro bono work for inquisitive friends, usually advice concerning procuring survey services, reviewing paperwork and rarely stumbling around their property (sans metal detector) looking for monuments. But that fire has died, no plans for any part time surveying.
Post retirement I've dropped 20 pounds, beaten cancer (fingers crossed), grown my hair longer, gave all my suits and ties (except funeral and wedding suits) to Goodwill, and been to some magnificent parts of the good old USA, not for a weekend, but for months. The TV is covered in spiderwebs, but I must admit I surf the InterWebs maybe more than I should (RPLStoday for example). I'll 'fess up and say retirement is the best thing that's ever happened to me. The only odd thing is I still wake up @ 6:00-7:00am, raring to go, and I have to force myself to stay in bed 'till 8:00am because, well, I'm retired.
Perhaps you can offer up your time to talk with a local Surveyor society group? Teach us young kids the value in the life lessons you have learned?
Spend your time writing articles for one of the Survey magazines?
I have done some calculations recently and have determined that I will have to work till lunchtime on the day I die.
I have done some calculations recently and have determined that I will have to work till lunchtime on the day I die.
My?ÿbout of pneumonia when this thread started a few weeks ago had me taking some sick leave, which I almost never do.?ÿChannel surfing until I could find a decent western?ÿis ok when you can't hardly breath, but it's no way to spend life.?ÿ I need something to do.?ÿ Maybe I'll feel different in ten years or my body will just say no.
Doesn't matter anyway, my math is the same as your math.?ÿ Good thing I enjoy working.
Steve
So, what would be so bad about doing what you like up until shortly before your death?
Nothing is necessarily bad about it but it doesn't leave a lot of options for doing things that you (I) want to do and it is not a time factor but rather a money factor.
I've always wanted to do a lot of things; for instance I want to go to St. Petersburg Russia but the odds of me every going there are virtually zero because of the costs. And that is just one of several dozen examples I could give.
Nothing is necessarily bad about it but it doesn't leave a lot of options for doing things that you (I) want to do and it is not a time factor but rather a money factor.
I've always wanted to do a lot of things; for instance I want to go to St. Petersburg Russia but the odds of me every going there are virtually zero because of the costs. And that is just one of several dozen examples I could give.
St. Petersburg (Leningrad) is pretty cool, I spent about a week there back in 2005.
?ÿ
Not really all that expensive, but it is a long flight (well series of flights from Wyoming).
?ÿ
Loyal
?ÿ
I don't think I'd have anything interesting or profound to say.?ÿ And,?ÿ as I said, I'm a?ÿ grumpy old?ÿ man now.
