Friends called yesterday. Seems everything they have ‘back east’ is sold or is for sale. Their business is now history. They are coming out to BC! They have a cabin here and are planning on spending a great deal more time putzing about on these west coast islands. I think that is good.
Another friend sold his business last year and is still trying to rid himself of all his other ‘stuff’ so that he, too, can spend more time here. At this stage in his life, his assets are millstones.
And a third did the same but set his sights on Palm Springs.
Maybe the exodus has begun?
I dunno. I don’t really care. I have already exited. I am pretty happy as I am and the additional presence of more friends only makes it better. Things are pretty good.
But it is clearly time for retirement. There is no room in the workforce for the likes of me anymore. If I had any doubts – (and occassionally I do. I sometimes wonder if I should shake the dust off my mediation/arbitration shingle and snag me a problem or two to solve. Something that does not involve heavy lifting) – those doubts were all erased last night as I read the Roger’s business telephone magazine.
Yes, I am that desperate for reading material right now. I even read the Costco mag. I read both Lee Valleys. And now I am reading the Roger’s (cell phone service provider) ‘CONNECTED’ magazine. I have the Vanity Fair Hollywood edition to review when all the other stuff is done. It does not get any more desperate than that.
GAWD! I hope the fly-in library service kicks in quickly. I have to say that all things are great but that statement hinges on the regularity of the books-by-mail plane and we suspended service while we were away. Big mistake.
But back to Roger’s Connected magazine. I was at about page ten when I realized that I didn’t understand anything I was reading! I mean, I had been wrestling with Monty (Montezuma’s Revenge) for over a week and I confess to being a bit dozy as a result but this magazine may as well been written in Mandarin.
They were talking about the new LTE devices. Seems I could ‘tap into success with top business apps for 2012!’. And every name of every device they mentioned was either misspelled (RAZR) or was in some kind of code – “the new ISo -i5 with built-in apps!” There was the Galaxy ll S LTE (no mention of whatever happened to the Galaxy I). “Motorola brings back its iconic RAZR – now an Android-running, HD-shooting, razor-thin superphone. A welcome evolution for business.”
What kinda business needs HD-shootin’?
I am clearly no longer hip. And, if you ain’t hip, stay home. So, I put my shingle back in the closet. Left the dust on it. I don’t think I can ‘cut it’ without a new RAZR, anyway, and I don’t really wanna know what that is. Frankly, I don’t think I have enough time in my life to waste any of it learning how to run with the androids or tap apps. Life is too short.
Ironic, isn’t it? As the world gets more ‘whiz-bang’ and ‘e-tronic’, I am leaning towards making wooden toys. I prefer a saw to a RAZR, an axe to APPs, sandpaper to a touch-screen. I think I am regressing, devolving. I am past my best-before date by a decade or two.
There is the very real risk that, when my kids come home, they will pack me up and put me on an ice floe and set me adrift on the sea. Where there is no cell phone coverage.
It is the way of all things.
Our Off the Grid Home 
It’s not about being hip, hep or whatever. No need to jump on the bandwagon of the relentless pursuit of novelty. You already are Mr Novelty, Mr Can’t Quite Fathom you guy, living where and Why? Cell phones used to travel in a suitcases and now they fit in a shirt pocket. ” Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” Functionally a telephone in any configuration is still a telephone whether it’s a crack berry or an Optimus 3D Max, boasting cool 3D technology, A 3D telephone! Why? You have escaped the consumer rat race. Just keep sending us maps because you can not be Googled.
LikeLike
A phone by any other name still rings in the forest even when no one is there to hear it…….or something……..eh?
Geez. Sorry to be so unfathomable. It’s a curse. But being ungoogleable?! Now that’s a gift! Of some kind, anyway.
I think you are right. I can’t find me on Google, either. Talk about existential angst! I mean, I like having readers but I don’t wanna be easily ‘found’, ya know? Sorta like wanting to be invited to parties but never wanting to actually go?
I kinda promised the neighburhood that I’d be a smidge vague as to where we were. They are more paranoid than I am. But not by much. See that cluster of islands sprinkled between Vancouver Island and the mainland? The ones that start at the north end of the Gulf of Georgia and that end almost at the top of the big island? Well, we are in that group. Hiding in the middle. Keeping a low profile.
LikeLike