As 2025 begins, I'm reflecting on 2024—a year of milestones, change, and growth.
Work
I continued to work on multiple projects up through the end of June. At which time I hit my 25th anniversary with the company. This was a big milestone that I wanted to hit considering that when I initially joined IBM in 1999, I thought I would only be with the company for 2-3 years. Instead, I built a career, and in June, I retired. I will mostly miss the friends that I made with my colleagues over the years.
Retirement
Since my retirement at the end of June, I have been trying to figure out what I'm going to do next. I have spent a ton of time being a couch potato with my fur baby by my side. But I have also attempted to get my life in order. When I'm motivated I try to tackle small organizational projects around my house that I have put off forever. I think I have eliminated a dump truck's worth of old documents and financial statements. Maybe an exaggeration but it seemed like it when I started to take it on.
I have also started to take my health a priority. I have had many years without a doctor and as I'm getting up there is years it is time to rectify that. I finally have a primary care provider and have started a litany of tests. Luckily, I'm "mostly" in good health but the things I need to work on will bubble up to the top of my priority list.
Finally, I'm trying to get myself more organized financially (tracking and budgeting) as well as working on my time management. Financially it is easy to just do anything when you have a steady stream of reliable income so now I have to watch what I spend to make sure that I don't get into any type of issue 20+ years down the line. My lifestyle in that regard hasn't changed much but I want to track, budget, and be able to make projections. As far as my time management (ahem couch potato) I will really need to work on this more.
Retirement has been a mix of relaxation, self-improvement, and finding new rhythms. So far, it's been treating me well.
Bubba
I mentioned my fur baby earlier. As I write this he is resting across my legs but has not yet started snoring. I regularly take him for long walks or visit one of the great dog parks in the area. He's mostly a joy - when he's not clearing a room, that is.
Diving
In 2024 I had 36 dives over 4 trips with the largest being the trip to Cayman Brac that my dive club FINALLY completed after multiple delays/cancelations. I wrote summaries of those trips including the heart-pounding tiger shark encounter which you can read in other posts. In this coming year I have a trip to the Philippines which should be amazing.
Election
Well we had another election in the US and as I was retired I decided to become an election worker. Going into it I thought it was a volunteer job but it is actually paid. I only worked the day of the election and I had an overall positive experience with the work, my fellow election workers, and the voters.
I was, and still am, extremely unhappy with the results of the election not just at the presidential level. I put my initial feelings in this post and have not posted anything on here since. I'm thinking of putting my political musings elsewhere but we'll see how motivated I am on that front as the new administration comes to power.
Misc.
I plan on doing a post about my entertainment spending as I have done before but that takes a bit of research so it might be a little later on in the month. I did participate in one 5k run last year and although I finished I was definitely very slow. I also plan to join a gym this year but I'm just starting to research that. Finally, I have a handful of little programming projects that I am treating as a hobby in order to keep my mind engaged.
Looking back, 2024 was full of change and discovery. Here's to making 2025 even better! How was your year?
Editorial note: I utilized ChatGPT a tiny bit in the writing of this post. I'll try to flag posts where I get such assistance now and in the future.