25 years of life after fire

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Now that I'm 25 years into retiring when I went out in 2001 intending to take a year off from work got my old tech company some little outfit named Intel. First year went really well I made a lot of money in the market mostly cuz I was out of it when the tech stock boom crashed. What I did was got married twice had a kid eight dogs and four cats lots of dog walking lots of time volunteering at the school this is very rewarding. I was the guy that built the haunted house for the Halloween festival every year when you're doing that your kid thinks you're a superhero so well if his friends lots of fun. I have many days when I couldn't figure out how I used to spend 10 hours a day behind a desk and more than a few where I wished I was still driving that desk around I spent very little time managing my investments I found several different mixes that I really liked and I still recommend the vanguard s&p 500 fund is a good one as most of us know dvy was really nice that spit out of about a 3% dividend yield while seeing quite a bit of capital appreciation at the same time I like to mix 50/50 between the s&p 500 and the in dvy cuz they tended to hold very different equities the former being more tech heavy and the latter being lots of stuff that people keep buying whether they lose their job or are we going to recession or not like electric companies the other utilities alcohol tobacco and so forth. I also like the 50/50 mix of vanguard Wellesley and vanguard Wellesley fund which gives you a 50/50 stock Bond mix high quality active management old funds normally I wouldn't go for active management but they don't charge too much and they have good long-term results. I also recommend lots of time skiing and hanging out at the local lake doing lazy things like buying gigantic floating islands I used to tie a cord around my ankle and swim out to the middle of the lake with my wife and kids while people in expensive boats flew by us wave and then laughing I was the one that was laughing because I didn't spend 40 grand for a boat a ton of money keeping it up. So what have you folks all done since you were tired I did have a space of time where I felt like I probably should have worked for another 5 or 10 years not because I needed the money but being a big fat lazy bum for 25 years feels like it might haves been a little much but my new home if I actually managed to find one I'm going to spend a lot of time golfing and working out cuz they have a really nice workout facility lots more dog walking I don't really care for walking that much on my own but it's always interesting to watch what a dog finds interesting I like to take them up to the elementary school about a mile away and let's agree all of the kids jumping out of their cars and off the buses so what are you guys doing I'm going to go inside I can barely read on this tablet but the son of my face.

 

[RetiredHappy]

Now that I'm 25 years into retiring when I went out in 2001 intending to take a year off from work got my old tech company some little outfit named Intel.

Are you saying that you used to work in the Intel Folsom campus?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I did I had about a third of the it organization working for me over there back in the late 90s it's falling on hard times lately though almost everybody that works for me back then about 40 some odd people are just retiring or did so in the last few years. It's about two exits on the highway from me. By the way I said sun in my face not son of my face I should have put some money into better voice input for devices!

 

[homestead]

I also like the 50/50 mix of vanguard Wellesley and vanguard Wellesley fund which gives you a 50/50 stock Bond mix

Did you mean Wellington on one of those?
Welcome back!
I'll be retired 18 yrs this fall , the market has been good for us. No complaints.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

I did Wellesley and Wellington same advisor same management the first one is the 4060 fund and the other one is the 60/40 fund you blend them together you get a 50/50 fund of mostly the same stuff it was very popular in common 20 years ago cuz it's spits out close to 4%. Wellesley usually spits out 4% and gives you enough appreciation to keep your head above water I like dvy for the same reasons a lot that holds no bonds at all but I like the whole idea of mostly stuff people are going to keep buying and paying for whether the markets up or down and it sure gave me great capital appreciation over 20 years I still hold about $500,000 in that and $500,000 in Wellington in my IRA I'm not taking any income from my portfolio yet. The other fun mixes I buy a lot of California real estate when the markets lousy and the income that I make from selling that years later at a big markup is about all I've lived on for the past 20 years. The other fun part about not having a lot of income as in no job and not a lot of taxable dividends most of them are qualified is that I qualify as a low income person when it comes to things like electric rates and so forth that saved me a ton of money the programs tend to work off of income and not assets I feel a little dirty doing it but most of these things are funded and in the companies involved like Pacific gas and electric get to keep the money if they don't spend it on low-income people and since I hate PG&e that doesn't bother me a bit.

 

[Sue J]

I remember you!

Nice to see you checking back in here.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Thank you I haven't been around for the last few years but I'm finding myself with more top in my hands with no dogs to walk which I expect to fix fairly shortly.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Dvy holdings for anybody that was wondering

The iShares Select Dividend ETF (DVY) tracks the performance of the U.S.'s leading dividend-paying stocks and comprises 105 individual equity holdings. The ETF is heavily weighted in Financials (~25%) and Utilities (~23%), and has an expense ratio of 0.38%. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
The top ten holdings in the DVY portfolio are:

1. Altria Group Inc. (MO): ~2.13% - ~2.33%
2. Pfizer Inc. (PFE): ~1.89% - ~2.39%
3. Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ): ~1.86% - ~1.98%
4. Prudential Financial Inc. (PRU): ~1.84% - ~1.90%
5. • ONEOK Inc. (OKE): ~1.68% - ~1.83%
   • T. Rowe Price Group Inc. (TROW): ~1.81% - ~2.08%
   • LyondellBasell Industries N.V. (LYB): ~1.53% - ~1.68%
   • Edison International (EIX): ~1.53% - ~2.03%
   • General Mills Inc. (GIS): ~1.52% - ~1.64%
   • HP Inc. (HPQ): ~1.52% - ~2.11% [1, 2, 3, 4]

Financials that give you the dividend yield tobacco drug companies cell phone companies etc

 

[RetiredHappy]

I did I had about a third of the it organization working for me over there back in the late 90s it's falling on hard times lately though almost everybody that works for me back then about 40 some odd people are just retiring or did so in the last few years. It's about two exits on the highway from me. By the way I said sun in my face not son of my face I should have put some money into better voice input for devices!

In which division?

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

IT and then marketing. They wanted me to spend some time in the IT department being a customer before bumping me up into the marketing department. Then I took my sabbatical when I got back I realized we were making almost all of our own stress to no benefit to anybody. I checked out right about the time the Pentium 4 launched and the engineering folks were going to basically have to strap a refrigerator to the CPU to keep it working. Made a lot of recommendations about going to dual and quad cores which they eventually did. Was very disappointing to see where it went after that. What about you you familiar with the company?

 

[RetiredHappy]

IT and then marketing. They wanted me to spend some time in the IT department being a customer before bumping me up into the marketing department. Then I took my sabbatical when I got back I realized we were making almost all of our own stress to no benefit to anybody. I checked out right about the time the Pentium 4 launched and the engineering folks were going to basically have to strap a refrigerator to the CPU to keep it working. Made a lot of recommendations about going to dual and quad cores which they eventually did. Was very disappointing to see where it went after that. What about you you familiar with the company?

My spouse retired from there and I was there for 13 years (across 3 countries). We were both in IT senior management. We were offered a voluntary package that was offered to senior management which was not publicized to Wall Street and we took it. That was not part of their redeployment/layoff and was completely voluntary. We got so tired of laying off our staff what felt like year after year.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My spouse retired from there and I was there for 13 years (across 3 countries). We were both in IT senior management. We were offered a voluntary package that was offered to senior management which was not publicized to Wall Street and we took it. That was not part of their redeployment/layoff and was completely voluntary. We got so tired of laying off our staff what felt like year after year.

Same here they offered a package in 2001 a Year's pay benefits including health Care a free computer and a whole bunch of t-shirts from a failed program. I drive by it all the time on route 50 and I always wave and say thanks for the money in the free computer

I sold all my stock at 73 dollars right around 2000 just before the market crashed. I figured I'd take a year off and then go back and get my old job back with readjusted stock options and a much better salary 2. Years later the stock still hadn't recovered but they did want me to come back no thanks. I was working for Pat gelsinger when I retired they should have made him president when Andy became the chairman. Craig what's his face from manufacturing was the wrong pick for sure. He tried to push the manufacturing copy exactly stuff into it which is more of an art form than a than a science that didn't work at all. And then they took a million years to get down to 11 nanometers. Hard to watch from the sidelines.

My favorite trick was taking everyone's cell phones and beepers away and then giving them back three or four months later with all different numbers. Bunch of dumbasses.

 

[Koolau]

Welcome back, CFB. I remember you from the old days. I've missed you. I hope you are back now for good.

It's really amazing. You've been retired for 25 years and you're still pretty young (mid 60s?). I've been free for 21 years and I'm an old man. I think you had the right idea.

 

[RetiredHappy]

My criticism of Craig is similar, and his goal was to have as many pictures taken with head of states (countries) as possible. He would go to many countries to announce investments in fabs and manufacturing facilities and have his pictures taken. Paul Otellini was another disaster, put a sales guy to run a high tech company, right...

Sean was the pick to succeed Craig and Paul, and I had worked with him quite a bit. Really visionary and charismatic, but he got a major stroke and that ended that plan. It has been very painful to watch what I had felt was the best and only company that I wanted to work for, to spiral down due to bad leadership. Paul turned the company into the K-Mart of high tech.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

My criticism of Craig is similar, and his goal was to have as many pictures taken with head of states (countries) as possible. He would go to many countries to announce investments in fabs and manufacturing facilities and have his pictures taken. Paul Otellini was another disaster, put a sales guy to run a high tech company, right...

Sean was the pick to succeed Craig and Paul, and I had worked with him quite a bit. Really visionary and charismatic, but he got a major stroke and that ended that plan. It has been very painful to watch what I had felt that is was the best and only company that I wanted to work for, to spiral down due to bad leadership. Paul turned the company into the K-Mart of high tech.

Here's the stupidest part they picked him over Pat because Pat was a little guy with glasses and Craig Barrett was a big strong burly dude. It's what happens when your CEO and company founder used to throw them all top cocktails at Soviet tanks and wrote a book saying only the paranoid survive. If you never read it there's a book called inside Intel. Very interesting and very revealing.

 

[RetiredHappy]

Only the paranoid survive is a good book. The problem is that after Andy, the CEOs that succeeded him were too cocky and not paranoid.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Only the paranoid survive is a good book. The problem is that after Andy, the CEOs that succeeded him were too cocky and not paranoid.

It was always an odd company. I used to like it when they talked about the fabs shaking down all the employees leaving to see if they were stealing gold. And the whole thing around letting go of old people that resulted in the f a c e lawsuits. Right after I left the company the first thing that the HR did was lay off the two oldest guys in my group. Until I called HR and pointed out to them that that's exactly what they just did then all of a sudden their layoffs went away. I like having a few old guys around throw them into those meeting rooms with all of those type a guys in their 20s and 30s so something actually got done.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Only the paranoid survive is a good book. The problem is that after Andy, the CEOs that succeeded him were too cocky and not paranoid.

I was just thinking last night there were an awful lot of husband and wife employees in it. If you're around back in the right time do you remember Carlene Ellis? I used to date her daughter Becky. Whom I didn't know was Carlene's daughter until we've been seeing each other for a few months cuz that was definitely a case of never breaking up with you you're going to have to break up with me. I was good friends with Lewis Burns who succeeded her. Then they made that digital health services spin off and put both Lewis and Becky into it and that didn't work out well at all. The Senior Management there thought that since they made billions of dollars out of sand that they could do anything at all but they never understood software companies like McAfee what a disastrous acquisition that was.

 

[RetiredHappy]

I was just thinking last night there were an awful lot of husband and wife employees in it. If you're around back in the right time do you remember Carlene Ellis? I used to date her daughter Becky. Whom I didn't know was Carlene's daughter until we've been seeing each other for a few months cuz that was definitely a case of never breaking up with you you're going to have to break up with me. I was good friends with Lewis Burns who succeeded her. Then they made that digital health services spin off and put both Lewis and Becky into it and that didn't work out well at all. The Senior Management there thought that since they made billions of dollars out of sand that they could do anything at all but they never understood software companies like McAfee what a disastrous acquisition that was.

Yep. Of course, I knew Carlene Ellis and Louis Burns. I didn't realize Becky is Carlene's daughter. Oops. When Intel was so profitable, they were simply wasting alot of money on M&A and Digital Health because they didn't know what to do with the cash. Digital Health was Andy's baby because of his prostate cancer. It was never going to be profitable.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Yep. Of course, I knew Carlene Ellis and Louis Burns. I didn't realize Becky is Carlene's daughter. Oops. When Intel was so profitable, they were simply wasting alot of money on M&A and Digital Health because they didn't know what to do with the cash. Digital Health was Andy's baby because of his prostate cancer. It was never going to be profitable.

Yeah at that point in time Carlene was just looking to bug out and run her restaurant in downtown Old Folsom. Becky used Carlene's maiden name. About the same time that Carlene decided she liked women better than men and divorced her husband Becky's dad. It was quite a tangled web. But it all worked out at the end because Becky's friends all gave her a rash of s*** but dating an old man like me. I think I was 31 and she was 24 or 25.

The other problem it had especially with the people that have been around a long time was what I called the rest and best types. They had so much money in stock options coming up that they didn't want to do anything risky or that might get them in trouble or get them kicked out of the company. So then I start doing their jobs for them because I needed that stuff done to move my projects forward and they get pissed at it and their managers all came at me. So much for that Intel value of risk taking. I still have all my old performance appraisals from focal. Worth read now and then things like as far as thinking outside the box I'm not sure this guy actually knows there is a box and he sure exemplifies risk-taking.

And then tons of those people held on to the stock options we can it's always going to go up. And then the poor people who exercise their options and held on to them to try to get capital gains tax treatment instead of income tax treatment I just sold every year and took the tax meeting. My taxes were something like $250,000 one year to the feds and I think about a hundred or $80,000 somewhere in that area to the state of California. But at least I didn't go bankrupt like they did. I do wish I'd gone to work for Cisco back in the early '90s instead of Intel. Our earnings were there but the stock price just didn't match up with a lot of other tech companies. That used to drive Andy crazy. I remember him saying we've got the e where the hell is the p? That's when his hearing we're starting to go out and he was using a little horn that he put in his ear so we could hear everything.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Rest and vest voice input is terrible

 

[RetiredHappy]

About the same time that Carlene decided she liked women better than men.

So that was real? I heard this as a rumor but I just dismissed it as gossip. She was one that you either love or hate.

I am sure you and my husband knew each other but let's keep everything annonymous. He also worked closely with Pat and he was in the Folsom campus longer than I was. We were very surprised how Pat ran Intel to the ground when he finally got the CEO job. If you read what happened, he pissed off a few big customers big time, like you need us but we don't need you, and lost them. The current CEO is turning it around finally.

 

[TheWizard]

I much prefer it when folks discuss a specific company they worked for back then, rather than talking about a generic "Megacorp".

I mean cripes, it's not like you're posting your Social Security and CC numbers...

 

[RetiredHappy]

I much prefer it when folks discuss a specific company they worked for back then, rather than talking about a generic "Megacorp".

I mean cripes, it's not like you're posting your Social Security and CC numbers...

I figure you folks are bored with our conversation by now.

 

[Dtail]

I figure you folks are bored with our conversation by now.

Nah it is interesting.