retired-ed.com
Random thoughts from a happily retired American living in Germany
Online MBA
Austin and its Flying Critters
Back in February I made my first trip to Austin, Texas, to help my younger daughter (Child A) who had suffered some injuries. My older daughter (CityWendy) came along to help me out for the first weekend. She and I went to a store on the order of Target (I forgot which store it actually was) and I heard what I thought were recordings of jungle birds. I heard the same thing when I pulled up to get gas in my rental car. I finally figured out that the sounds were not from a recording but from birds. Lots of birds. Legions of birds. It wasn’t until I moved into Child A’s apartment about a week later that I actually got to spy these birds. They are grackles, and they love to flock. That’s right. They like to flock. And flock they do.
Here you see them on a wire at dawn back in March. I don’t see them any more. I guess that they got the flock out of there. In talking with one of my daughter’s colleagues about these birds, which are extremely noisy, by the way, she said that I should wait around until the bats get here. Say what? Bats? Now I am familiar with the swallows and Capistrano, and I am even familiar with the buzzards returning to Hinkley, Ohio, but I knew nothing about bats in Austin. I learned quickly. It seems that Austin is the site of the largest urban colony of Mexican freetail bats in North America. There is quite a history to this. It all has to do with the rebuilding of the Congress Avenue Bridge in 1980 when engineers installed expansion joints in the bridge structure. These joints proved to be ideal roosting places for the Mexican freetail bats. You can read about it here. These bats are amazing creatures and are rather numerous, to say the least. At the moment as I write this, there are about 750,000 bats living under the bridge. However, that number will soon double. It happens that almost all of these bats are females and they are pregnant. Don’t you have to wonder whose job it was to determine that? They give birth to one pup a year, and the birthing season is just around the corner. By August, the evening sky will be filled with 1.5 million bats as they make their way to their hunting grounds. It is said that they comsume between 10,000 and 30,000 pounds of insects every evening. I took a bat cruise one evening and got some pictures.
Keep in mind, please, that the bats were moving, the boat was rocking, and it was twilight which caused a slower shutter speed. The image might be a bit blurry, but you’ll get the idea. By the way, it is not an especially good idea to be looking up when the bats fly overhead, although I’m told that it is good luck to have bat poop land on you. I’ll pass, thank you. So between the grackles, the bats, and the flying insects that they eat, Austin is not only the live music capital of the world, it might also be the flying critter capital as well. By the way, Austin has the largest urban colony of Mexican freetail bats. The largest colony of all is just down the road in a cave near San Antonio. As you can see, I’m doing my bit to keep Austin weird, which is a local slogan. Come visit, it’s a great city. If you like it hot, come now.
To learn more about bats, you can visit the Bat Conservation International website here.
Retired-Ed
1 Comment
Leave it to the Brits!
In an attempt to increase the readership of my new blog, I asked my daughter (citywendy) for advice. She gave me two good ideas. The first was to lose the “signature” at the end of each post. It always said “retired1″ at the bottom of each post. That is actually a login name given to me by my hosting service. I wasn’t adding that tagline, so I figured it must be in the code of the “theme” that I was using. Sure enough. I just had to become familiar with using php language to figure out how to fix the problem. I thought I had that fixed, but maybe not.
The second piece of advice was to find other blogs that dealt with retirement and link to them. I’m working on that one. In making my initial search, I ran across a site in Britain that is quite good. They call themselves “The Retirement Experts”, and they may be just that. I have added a link to their site, and you can find them here.
The site has an incredible amount of information that will serve those of us who might actually remember the Truman and/or Eisenhower administrations. And in a bow to our British cousins, I’ll say “those of us who can remember the Queen’s coronation”. You will find information on personal safety, dining, traveling, buying a second home, and many, many other topics. You can also register to receive their free monthly newsletter.
You’ll also find daily featured articles. For Thursday, 28 May, I found 10 articles, including kitchen safety, driving tips, home heating information, a kit for your car, and health problems for retirees.
A couple of caveats exist. First, for my North American readers, keep in mind that this site is based in Britain. Although the information provided could be applicable almost anywhere, it is geared (for the most part) to Britons, but don’t let that dissuade you. And the language is familiar. The old saying that America and Britain are two countries divided by a common language really doesn’t apply here. I found the site to be perfectly understandable, even for my Yank state of mind.
The second caveat is for people who might be turned off by Google Ads. The site is peppered with them. On the upside, many of the ads were geared to an American reader (probably because Google recognized that I was viewing the site from the US). I found them to be informative and if I didn’t want to read one, I just didn’t click on it.
So there you have it. A very informative site for the mature reader. Check it out.
Post Comment
A Chapter Ends — A New Chapter Begins
Wow! This last week has been a blur. After getting back to Ansbach last weekend, I began to pack up my belongings in my apartment. I moved slowly, and I didn’t really finish until Wednesday morning. I went to work Monday and Tuesday. The final day, Tuesday, was spent by accepting emails from friends and co-workers who were wishing me well. It was rather poignant for me. As I left the office for the final time, I happened upon a colleague who was leaving the building at the same time. He asked me if I perhaps had some song that was appropriate for the moment. On a whim, I whipped out my iPhone and played Johnny Paycheck’s “Take This Job and Shove It”. Although that didn’t really mirror my sentinments (I had a great career and was a little sorry for it to end), it did lighten the moment and seemed like a very appropriate song to have at hand. I also could have played Todd Rungren’s “Bang the Drum All Day”. You know that one, right? “I don’t wanna work. I just wanna bang on de drum all day….” Also appropriate for me at the time.
Wednesday was spent finishing packing and hauling everything back home, one last time, to Schweinfurt. I spent just one night there with the Queen, and then it was off to Frankfurt on Thursday. Because I had an early flight on Friday, I needed to spend the night in Frankfurt at an airport hotel. Geez, what prices! One glass of wine (Pinot Grigio) cost more than an entire bottle at the local grocery store. In Europe, Pinot Grigio is pretty much commonplace and is ubiquitous no matter what country you are in. In remarking to another guest about the exorbitant prices (and they pretty much “had us”…there was no other nearby establishment to escape to), the remark was made that I should just consider the money spent to be the same as Monopoly money. Don’t think of it as real money! Probably good advice, considering that there was no other option. The meal of cardboard “Rösti” and rubberized mushrooms also was way overpriced. Was there meat with that dish? Maybe, but I think I would be hard-pressed to identify it considering that it had been way overcooked.
Fortunately, the flight on Friday was largely uneventful. Even the guy in front of me kept his seat back out of my lap. The only matter of interest was our arrival in Chicago. Is this a new wrinkle? In order to get off the plane, we had to show our passports. “Have your passports ready and open to the picture page!” What’s that all about? Yep, a uniformed TSA officer met us at the end of the jetway to make sure that we hadn’t morphed into somone else between Frankfurt and Chicago. Of course we still had to show our passports once again at Immigration control. Maybe something was “up”. Who knows. Anyway, it was good to be back in the USA for a while, and I always enjoy hearing the Customs agent say “Welcome Home” as he/she inspects my passport.
The flight to Austin was also uneventful except for the turbulence on landing. That’s probably just a symptom of Texas heat at this time of year. Boy, we were all over the sky, but the pilot got us down unscathed yet again. Austin hasn’t changed much in the month that I was gone. It’s hotter, to be sure, but there’s still a ton of things to do and places to see. I read in the paper of some upcoming events. “Mamma Mia” will be playing here in June. That’s worth seeing again. I saw the performance in London several years ago and it is very uplifting. A real “feel good” musical.
This blog has been inactive for several days because I have been having trouble accessing my site. Other people tell me that they can get in just fine to read it, and the help desk at my web host can also get to my “dashboard”. I don’t know why I can’t. It’s frustrating. One bit of advice was to clear my cache and also to try a different browser. I did both and was able to get in yesterday. Today I tried and couldn’t load the page in 15 minutes. It just shouldn’t take that long for a page to load, no matter what browser one is using. Something is wrong, and I need to find out what it is. Any computer experts out there reading this blog? I’d love to hear your suggestions.
I hope to get started focusing on traveling and other adventures for retirees. Any thoughts on places to visit would be welcomed.
Retired-EdPost Comment
Mixed Emotions
It’s a little past 4 AM and I have been awake since midnight. It’s no wonder, considering all that is going on at the moment. For almost two years, ever since my office moved to another city, I have been living in a small suite in a hotel. I go home on weekends. Yesterday, I left my home for my hotel for the last time. After almost thirty-six years of working for the same agency, I will retire soon. I certainly didn’t intend for retirement to happen this way and during the school year. However, things don’t always go the way that you expect. Our younger daughter is recovering from some rather serious injuries that she suffered more than three months ago. She has progressed to the point where the doctor has released her to return to work full-time and to walk and even drive. Well, the latter two tasks will require some work and some help from dad. So, at the end of this week, I head back to Austin to be of some use to Child A.
Thinking about leaving my apartment, as I have come to call it, is certainly an exercise in mixed emotions. Although I miss living with my wife during the week, this place has become “home”. It is my sanctuary and the place that provides solitude. Sometimes that solitude became my enemy; yet, at other times, it was very welcome. I really “moved in”, and now I have to move out. What I’m saying is that I have a lot of stuff to cram into my car for that final trip. I don’t know if I can fit everything in or not, and I have already made trips home with stuff from the apartment on the last two weekends. I will be sad to leave this place.
Thinking about leaving my job is even more difficult. I have worked in the same district for fifteen years. Although I have had several different offices, the ambience is pretty much the same no matter where we are located. I had to pack up all of the “stuff” that I had accumulated over the years, although much went into the trash container. I’ll have to return my beloved Blackberry, but the effect of that loss has been pretty much eliminated by my retirment present from my wife: a new iPhone. Boy, those things are really something! For the record, I am not writing this on the iPhone, but I could if I wanted to. Using a full keyboard is much easier!
So I will leave my job and go on sick leave until my official retirement date, which comes in the summer. I’ll be back in Austin, which is a place that deserves its own blog post. More on that later. I was there for more than two months immediately following my daughter’s injuries, and I look forward to spending more time in that wonderful city. But there is so much else to consider. My wife will continue to work at her job (teaching) until the end of the school year and then she’ll return to the States for a vacation and the usual round of doctor appointments and other visits that have become a part of our annual routine. However, this summer has some added thrills to concern ourselves with.
As soon as she returns, I’ll join her in St. Louis, as will the entire family. My mother-in-law will celebrate her 80th birthday AND she and my father-in-law will celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary. A big party is planned, so that is also on the horizon. Not long after that, we’ll both make a trip back to Austin so that Child A can get reacquainted with her mom whom she hasn’t seen since Christmas. Will that be the end of the summer for us?
Oh heck no. Child Number 1, the blogger of some note, CityWendy, is getting married in July. Central Park will be the venue, and this gives the mother of the bride something to obsess about. What’s the worst thing about being the father of the bride? It’s having to concern yourself with what the mother of the bride is going to wear and how can she possibly get her hair done correctly by someone in a strange city. Oh yes, I am really looking forward to this summer. But wait! It isn’t over yet.
About a week after the wedding, we are hosting a reception in St. Louis for our relatives and friends who couldn’t make it to NYC to see the real thing. Fortunately, the mother of the bride has taken care of all of those arrangements and my only job was to nod my head and agree that the venue chosen was an excellent choice. But it’s something that we need to worry about and obsess over. Right?
And then there’s that return flight. I don’t like flying any more. It used to be exciting, but then the airlines spoiled everything. On my last flight back to Germany, I sat in what United Airlines refers to as “Economy Plus”. It’s supposed to have more leg room than the rest of the cattle car. Perhaps, but I have to wonder about that. I paid a bunch of money to get that seat and then discovered that people get upgraded to that section for free. Does that piss me off? You bet, and to compound things, the guy in front of me pushed his seat back so far back into my lap that I couldn’t eat my wonderful meal without having the fork take a circuitous route from the tray to my mouth. Really an exciting 8 hours. The only good thing about that is that the trip eastbound over the Atlantic is about an hour shorter than the westbound trip due to the prevailing winds. Small consolation!
So now I have ranted about all that is keeping me awake and it’s too late to try to get back to sleep. Will I miss my job? Oh yes. Will I miss the people that I work with? Absolutely, but at least I’ll still be in the same country and I can maybe see them once in a while. Am I nervous about the future? Yes, but I also look forward to having time to just do whatever I want to do. Travel. Write. Take pictures. Maybe learn how to cook better than I do now. I guess I should stop dwelling on the past and embrace the future. It’s going to be exciting.
Retired-Ed
1 Comment
Tom and his Music
My friend Tom now works in my office in the area of educational technology. I have known him for years and for most of those years he was the band director and music teacher at Wuerzburg High School. My daughter (“Child A” as she says I can call her) was once one of his students. Music teachers don’t come any better than Tom. He is an amazing musician, playing trumpet, piano, electronic keyboard and I don’t know how many other instruments with ease. I once saw him playing the pre-service music for a memorial service to honor a dear friend and colleague who passed away much too young. Tom was playing the piano for perhaps 30 minutes prior to the service. At the appointed time, he switched from the piano to his trumpet, and with no warmup, he flawlessly played “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” as the service began. As I said, he is a truly amazing musician.
Tom will retire from his position just a few weeks after I leave my post. His new career will be composing and selling music for beginning bands on the internet. I know that my readership includes some educators, and I want to pass along the link to his site. Please check it out here. I think that you’ll find new compositions there that will be a welcome addition to beginning band programs everywhere.
Retired-EdPost Comment
Having fun with your GPS
I love gadgets. Boy, do I love gadgets. If my parents were still alive (and Mom would have turned 100 next week), they would tell you that as a boy, I pestered them all the time to take me to Gorham’s Gifts and Gadgets back in my home town of Springfield, Ill. Well, the only difference between a boy and a man is the price of his toys. When the first personal computers came out, I had to have one. But I was at least a little smart. I was the principal of a small school in Korea at the time and I bought the computer for the school. It was a Radio Shack TRS-80 which had,believe it or not, 4K of memory. That’s right, 4K, and it was almost cutting edge technology at the time. Thank you, taxpayers, for allowing our students to get proficient ahead of the rush. It was the same thing with digital cameras. Had to have one. GPS, check. And that is the subject of this post.
I had a GPS several years ago when the Queen and I visited London. I had a friend who was a military reservist and had been mobilized to serve at Navy Headquarters there. Yes, folks, I’m sure that was very difficult duty, but somebody had to do it! He joined us for breakfast one morning, and as we said good-bye, I pulled out my GPS to make a track to our next location which was probably to have tea with the other queen, but I have forgotten that part of the day. My friend noticed the GPS and suggested that I would enjoy his new hobby of Geocaching. Wow, did I ever. This hobby is a great way to get outdoors and test your mettle against the competition. The idea is that people will hide “caches”, which are often just Tupperware containers hidden in a specific location. The coordinates of the cache are uploaded to the Geocaching website and then you go look for it and log your results. There are almost 800,000 caches worldwide, and the number increases daily.
I have found caches in the woods, in a tree, attached to a sign, and I even found one in an old boot in Austin, Texas. It’s a challenge to find some of these, and I have not been 100% successful, but I have always had fun. If you enjoy the outdoors or even the urban scene in a big city, you might enjoy geocaching.
Check out the site to get the straight scoop on how to proceed or email me at retired1@retired-ed.com.
Oh, and by the way, if anyone knows how to get this Google Analytics counter to read something other than zero, I’d love to hear from you. The reports work fine, but the visible counter never advances.
Retired-Ed
1 Comment
1968 Revisited
For many of us in the vanguard of the Baby Boom, 1968 was a watershed year. It marked the year when many of us graduated from college. It also marked the year when the social upheaval in America reached its peak. Many of our high school classmates died in Viet Nam, and we watched cities burning on television following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. I remember vividly being awakened in my fraternity house by one of the guys who said, “Kennedy is dead.” My first reaction was to get on his case for waking me up to give me news that was five years old. Unbelievably, he meant Robert F. Kennedy. My second reaction was, “Not again.” So much more happened that year. Many thought that the Class of 1968 would change the world. There were so many of us as the first wave of the baby boomers hit the work force. Did we make a difference? I guess we’ll have to leave it to the historians to determine that one.
No “boomer” should ignore our advocacy organization, the AARP. If you are already a member, perhaps you get their online newsletters. The current issue features a link to their excellent reprise of 1968. You can find it here. The site also offers a pop quiz about 1968. I did NOT ace that quiz. If you’d like to learn more about the AARP or to join the organization, you can visit the AARP website here. They offer discounts, cruises, travel opportunities, insurance and many other benefits to those of us who have reached that point in our lives where we are eligible for membership. For my fellow educators, they also offer membership in the NRTA, which used to be the National Retired Teachers Association. Check them out, and do look at their review of 1968. It’s really very good.
Retired-Ed
1 Comment
Charmin It Ain’t
If you are a reader of my daughter Wendy’s blog , you’ll remember that I recently spent about 9 weeks in the states helping my younger daughter after a rather serious injury. In fact, I’ll be going back to Texas in a couple of weeks, but that’s another story. While I was gone, a new custodial contractor took over duties in my office building. When you deal with the lowest bidder (this is the government, folks), you often get what you pay for.
At one of our first management meetings after I got back, some of the women were complaining about the quality of the toilet paper. It’s no secret that we men don’t need to sample the TP as often as the ladies, so I was clueless…but I checked it out. Folks, this isn’t the fleecy white TP that graced your mother’s bathroom. “Recycled sandpaper” was one description. I’ll let the picture speak for itself, and I’ll learn to wait until I get home.
Sandpaper on a roll?
Post Comment
A Sendoff with Style
Burg Colmberg
dsc_0312
The food was excellent. My wife and I both had the pork. It seems to me that German chefs really know how to prepare pork in so many different varieties. Our meal was wonderful. Two of my talented colleagues provided music throughout the evening, and then I was “roasted” by the group. Finally I got a chance to speak and took full advantage of it! I had a lot on my mind, but most of all, I wanted people to know what a wonderful career I have had. Our two children both were born and grew up overseas, and I think that the experience has broadened their horizons immensely. Our daughter, citywendy.com, has often written of her experiences. And there’s nothing quite like springtime in Bavaria. Our evening was magical.
I went back the following morning and took some pictures. I have included two of them here. One is of the castle. Pretty nifty for a retirement party venue, huh? The other photo is of a view of the surrounding countryside from the castle. It was a moving experience for me to be feted by my friends and colleagues.
Tomorrow, May 5th, is a holiday in many countries. In Japan, the birthplace of both of our daughters, the day is called Kodomo-no-hi, or Children’s Day. It is a much loved holiday in that country. In Mexico, and even in many locations in the US, the day is Cinco de Mayo, and even if you aren’t aware of the origin of the holiday, you have found a good reason to drink Margaritas. Oddly enough, our local Mexican restaurant in our German town is closed because they always close on a Tuesday. That one I simply don’t understand.
But there is another reason to celebrate on May 5th. It is Mrs. Atterberry’s birthday! Happy Birthday to the Queen! We have been separated geographically for the past two years because of my job, but I will drive home on that day in order to have dinner with her at one of her favorite restaurants. It looks like 5/5 will amount to a 10.
Retired-Ed
3 Comments
Archives
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- January 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- June 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
Links
- !Email me!
- AARP
- Canadian Mother
- City Wendy
- Flyers Rights
- Geocaching
- igKNIGHT
- Keep Austin Weird
- nothingbutbonfires
- pdfbandmusic
- residentlush
- Retirement Chronicles
- Retirement Expert
- SHS Class of 64
- T. Lynn Ocean
- Vacations to Go
- Voyij