I've been paroled!

[Free To Canoe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfn111 Congrats

+1

[38Chevy454]

Add some more congratulations and wishes for a fun and long retirement.

[utrecht]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lsbcal Congratulations! Don't leave the ER site now, I feel safer with a former law enforcement guy here. Just kidding of course, I've enjoyed some of your insights on security matters posted here. Besides travel which is great, what do you want to dive into personally?

We will be moving to the Ft. Lauderdale area at the end of the school year. The wife has a gaggle of relatives there and I actually get along with them better than my own. The next few months will be spent doing lots of small projects around the house getting it ready to be sold. Nothing major. Just some painting, fixing some loose floor tiles and other things like that.

Once we get to Florida, we plan to spend lots of time on hobbies that we've neglected over the years and see what new ones interest us. I love woodworking and have made some pretty nice furniture in the past and will love to have more time to devote to that. I play guitar moderately well and want to buy a nice guitar and take some lessons. She is an amazing cook but wants to go to culinary school to refine her cooking. She wants to learn Italian and grow a huge garden.

Long term, we have a goal in the next 5-7 years of buying a 40+ foot catamaran and sailing around the world.

We have definitely lived well below our means for the past 15 years and we both also have nice pensions, although she is only 45 and will have to wait until 48 to draw hers to avoid taking a huge hit. She will take a small hit by not waiting until 50 but in our situation I think its worth it.

[utrecht]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kimcdougc Congrats! Enjoy all your travels in this new adventure in your lives! DH retires on Feb 3rd. We have planned a "no time limit" travels around the US.

We would love to buy an RV, travel the country for a year or so and then sell it when we get back. Not sure if/when it will happen but its on our list of adventures.

[utrecht]

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Originally Posted by donheff Congratulations. Time to become a PI?

Actually we are considering getting P.I. licenses in Florida mainly just to keep our minds strong and occupy us from time to time. Between the two of us we have years of experience working as patrol officers, investigating crimes against children, family violence, public corruption cases, working undercover, chasing fugitives and finding people, ect. I think we would make a pretty cool husband and wife P.I. team.

[Lsbcal]

Utrecht, you have some very concrete plans as a start in ER and that is great! I'm impressed.

[Nodak]

Congratulations!

[powerplay]

Congratulations! I hope you both enjoy your retirement for many years to come.

[audreyh1]

Did you ever explain the origin of your name? I've been through the famous and historic city in Holland a couple of times. Just wondering.

[utrecht]

Quote:

Originally Posted by audreyh1 Did you ever explain the origin of your name? I've been through the famous and historic city in Holland a couple of times. Just wondering.

I was stationed in Germany while in the Army in the late 80's. I went to Amsterdam a couple times and saw the city "Utrecht". I never thought much about it until years later when I met my future wife and found out that she went to New Utrecht High School in NYC. We were married in 1995 and got a joint email address. We decided on utrecht@something.com. Ive used the name on and off since then.

[eytonxav]

Congrats on your retirements and thanks for your service doing a very tough job.

[seraphim]

PI is too much like work. Two years out I'm finally not feeling the stress of the job, and can watch local news without it affecting me. Travel, forget about that line of work, and enjoy your time together. That's what we do. Monday's are the new Sunday, because everyone else is at work and there no crowds anywhere when we go out places. Lol.

Congrats to both of you...


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum

[utrecht]

When I mentioned getting a P.I. license, I was talking about working for ourselves and taking one or two cases a month when we happen to not be traveling. Anything more than that is out of the question.

[Leonidas]

Congratulations Utrecht. I'll tell you the same thing I tell other cops retiring: There is most definitely a great life after policing!

Quote:

Originally Posted by seraphim PI is too much like work. Two years out I'm finally not feeling the stress of the job, and can watch local news without it affecting me.

Agree totally. All my friends who retired have almost all gone on to do some similar line of work. DA investigators, PI, other law enforcement agencies, etc. Many of them retired on Friday and went to their new jobs on Monday. Some want to stay busy, but I think most can't imagine life without working. Like one of my former bosses when I was a fed. He was my ASAC and fought hard to try and get extensions past mandatory retirement, his retirement pay more than meets his need and most desires, but he went on to start a PI firm with another former co-worker. Some folks can't give up the badge and gun I guess.

I don't miss waking up in the morning and scanning all the local news websites hoping I didn't have a problem I had to get ahead of before the chief or the mayor's office hit my phone in full-blown freakout mode. I'm 11 years retired now and I don't even pay attention to local news anymore.

[Katiek]

Congrats and enjoy your trips!

[utrecht]

Leonidas, I don't need to work at all. We've been saving such a high percentage of our salaries that our pensions are higher than what we were previously spending. Add to that 3-4% of our savings and we are able to set a much higher budget for ourselves than we've ever had in our lives. I'm only considering the P.I. thing for an occasional challenge and maybe to fill some time in case I get bored at some point.

We just got back from Cancun yesterday in time to watch the Super Bowl. It was the first time we've ever gotten back from a vacation and not felt any angst about having to hurry and wash clothes and get a million things done in preparation for having to go to work tomorrow (Monday).

A friend of ours used airline miles and surprised us with a 4 day trip to Vegas the weekend of Valentine's day. Retirement is rough.

[Mango1956]

Congratulations, Utrecht! Your plans in retirement sound wonderful! My DH loves woodworking and has built alot of our furniture. He also has done some turning on a tabletop lathe he bought. You might enjoy trying that out-it's different from working with table saw, etc. He makes Ikibana style flower holders and has sold them and given them as gifts-people love them! He also plays drums in a three piece instrumental band-another creative outlet. I love having a big garden, growing veggies and some fruit trees, along with ornamentals. I know your wife will enjoy that aspect of retirement. So happy for you, and thank you for your service. All the best!

[shasta]

Quote:

Originally Posted by utrecht After 24 years of service on the Dallas PD, my wife and I both retired on Friday, which not coincidentally also happened to be my 50th birthday. We had a large retirement party and it was a blast. People we had worked with in various different assignments over the years showed up and congratulated us and told every funny and embarrassing story they could remember. Some I think were even made up. I had one guy show up who I had served in the Army with in Germany in the late 80's. It was very humbling to say the least. The wife and I met at work when we were both rookies and we have our 20th anniversary coming up. We both spent about half our lives with these people doing a very challenging and rewarding job but now we are ready to move on to our next adventure. People keep asking how it feels to be retired and honestly right now it just feels like Sunday, but I'm sure very soon its going to feel quite different. We already have 3 trips planned between now and July. Thanks to everyone here who has given out advice having no idea that I was soaking it all in. Its been a great help as I prepared for this huge transition.

Congrats to you and thanks for years of hard public service work.

[braumeister]

Somehow I always suspected there was a connection with my hometown.
New Utrecht HS is not far from where I grew up in Brooklyn, so the name was quite familiar to me.

Trivia: Did you know it was the school shown in the opening sequence of "Welcome Back Kotter" the great old TV sitcom? Gabe Kaplan was an alumnus.

[Retch The Grate]

congrats!