Welcome to the forums, DKS1. vBulletin must really have griped at you about reviving this thread!
Stage one - you are ecstatic about the new heaven that you've walked into with no traffic, deadlines or personality mine fields to traverse.
Stage four - you come to realize that it is your time to enjoy your life doing just whatever it is you want (reading/golfing/grandkids/traveling etc....). You are truly grateful for for the life you are able to live as a result of decisions and sacrifices you made throughout your life. That is when true peace and happiness sets in!!
I certainly enjoyed stage one, and every few months I feel that I’m back in it for a few days.
But after my first time through there I skipped straight to stage four. I spend almost all of my time in this stage, and life is very good.
I’ve had job offers over the years (yes, I’m 62 years old and still getting job offers) but I’m too busy with other projects. Right now those projects alternate among grandparenting, home improvement, and updating The Military Guide (both the book and the blog). Then I’ll start writing my third book. Then I’ll start a fourth one.
Is Nords still around? Pretty old thread!
Not only is it a pretty old thread, but it’s also my first post.
This database has nearly 100K threads, and I’m a little surprised that vBulletin could find my first. Either that or you’ve spent way too much time here lurking on old posts?
I’m one of the earlier members, and I lurked here for a year before I felt comfortable posting my questions.
I visit here every week or so to check for my poster name and the “military” keyword to answer questions for U.S. military families.
Nords needs to give us his 20 year update
I supported his retirement buying his book, i'm 5 weeks into retirement
Congratulations on your retirement! Take your time, find your pace, and please let us know if you have questions.
And thank you for buying the book!
Back in 2005 about 50 of us posters started collaborating on the manuscript. (You all know who you are.) I was inspired by Bob Clyatt’s “Work Less, Live More” to volunteer to gather everyone’s input into the drafts. Everyone who volunteered got a vote on what military-friendly charities we’d support with the royalties. That project finished in 2009 and I found a publisher (after nine query letters) in 2010.
The original crew of contributors voted to donate the royalties (and blog income) to Fisher House Foundation and Wounded Warrior Project. As of last month’s royalty check, that comes to $29,899. In a few months your royalty bucks will put us into $29.9K territory.
I published the 20-year update in June 2022:
https://militaryfinancialindependen...nancial-independence-and-military-retirement/
(There’s no ads or affiliate links, and this is my original 2010 site. Books linked in the post are at your local public library.)
All of the questions in that post came from millionaires. It's also my second-longest blog post ever, and some of you know that's quite an accomplishment for my prolixity.
I wrote my answers while my spouse and I were settling into a two-month housesit in Santa Barbara. We’d never done that before, but other friends (and long-time housesitters) asked us to help them out (they wanted to move on), and I’d never surfed SB before.
Besides my spouse and I were wondering whether we still had the ability to commit to a full-time two-month responsibility (the answer turned out to be “Yes”, but we didn’t care to repeat it) and whether we could still take care of a dog (also “Yes”, and he was a great dog, but he cramped our lifestyle).
Since I published that post there’s been one change: I’m thinking about buying another longboard. It’ll probably be next year, when my first one is old enough to drink, and I’m probably going with a custom shaper (in Waialua) to create it in epoxy.
By then our daughter & son-in-law expect to be settled back on Oahu, our granddaughter will be four years old, and she’ll help me figure out the colors.
