Keith's Odyssey to Planet Fitness: Re(5x)tired. For good. I'm pretty sure.

Retirement has been a big topic around this blog for a bunch of years. I've mused about my career in any number of posts, but most prominently here. Some of the posts have amused people, some have made them gnash their teeth in envy. I've considered myself retired several times, only to be lured into the work world again.

But the magic day has arrived! Retired from actual work again, this time for good. This is the 5th time, you can read the 4x summary here. The last work gig was Altagas, for the second time, for a year. It's a measure of my trust in Andrea V that I took the pitch meeting, and accepted. There was some tough sledding involved along the way, but it was (mostly) a fun gig, and great to be working with her again. Plus several other people again.

That wasn't the first time I'd gone back to a company. Skystone contracted me back for a short gig, as did IMS. Keyera sort of did, since I had been contracted to them when I was with Skystone. BP sort of did too, since my first billable hours at Skystone were back at BP where I had just come from. There were some preliminary discussions about another gig with BPD, but that never worked out. That's often the case in this world, discussions that don't work out, and no harm done. I once had one deal all flanged up just before Stampede, and when I went in after Stampede to actually sign paperwork, the wheels had fallen off that wagon. Just as well, from what I heard later.

My actual last working day at Altagas was late April, with some transition discussions in May. There's more Andrea would have liked me to work on, including more of what she actually hired me to do (I got THAT close to finishing), but something else was higher priority, and that just about drained the AFE that paid me. I don't mind in the least. The only thing remaining as I write is to take back their computer. It's all neatly boxed up, ready to go.

The time between that last day of work to today has gone by very quickly. At first it was battery recharging, and I didn't do much. Lately I've started to perk up and update the current to-do lists, and begin to add to them. Lists are kind of fun.

Actually, the whole career thing has gone by quickly. I started in oil and gas in late 1992 at Nova Gas Transmission, so just under 30 years. Plus a stint at the City, and a bit of this and a bit of that, and zoom, all done. I thought I had arrived when I joined Skystone in early 2002, and I don't feel any older, and it doesn't seem like all that long ago.

In the retirement world, I've got one multi-day photo gig lined up, just a few details to sort out. I'll be doing a band shoot later today. There's a pair of actual out of town trips with other people all flanged up. These are Zeller tours. Should be fun! I've been working on the details for a photo project, and breakfast with a buddy on the weekend has given me some ideas about another project. There might be a couple books involved. More news as it happens. Some of my readers might even be interested in participating.

We are slowly and carefully getting our social life back in order. We've had our two shots, and passed the 2 week waiting period to be considered fully vaccinated. By the time you read this we should be good to go, except, the Delta variant. People are still a little spooked by it's increased ability to infect people, and perhaps even fully vaccinated people. Research is still happening, and we will continue to be cautious.

There is much discussion about getting back to normal. There are people upset about not being able to find staff for various positions, and they blame CERB payments. There's a simple solution. If your staff are critical to making your business run, and you're having trouble hiring them, then pay them more. Make the appropriate adjustments to your pricing. If your business requires that your staff subsidize you via low wages, you are a shitty business person, and deserve to go under. Maybe if it's industry wide, the whole industry needs to reconsider it's business model. We don't eat out a lot, though I'm big on all day breakfast places, and I'd happily eat at a place with a sign that says, 'we charge more but it goes to our staff, so we discourage tipping.'

There is much about 'normal' that does not work for ordinary people. Listen to the people saying CERB was wrong, that even the idea of a basic income is too extreme to even discuss. Why do they say that? Follow the money. They are well off (at least) and want a large labor pool that is forced to take crappy jobs at low wages because there is no other choice.

Why is commuting downtown to an office considered normal? We've shown that many jobs can be done remotely. The managers that insist on people coming into the office every day are control freaks, and likely to be poor managers. We learned that people like truck drivers and grocery store staff are essential workers, and yet they are generally poorly paid. Even more insulting, their wages went up a bit when it bought the company some social capital, but the wages soon dropped again. Meanwhile, the already rich are getting much richer.

There is a heat wave happening just now, as I write this in late June. It's really nice spending time in the basement puttering with the last wine kits, cleaning bottles, tidying up, and all sorts of other activities. I keep thinking there is a constructed photo with the wine boxes and bottles. I had one go at it some time ago, but the result was not what I was looking for. Some photographers have a vision for a photo in their head, and they proceed to construct it, using models, sets, props, lights, fog machines, whatever is required. This is very different from the way I normally work, where I take what I find and try to capture it the best way possible.

Retirement day is also Canada Day, by a total coincidence. Yes, as can be seen in the garden photo here, we are displaying a Canadian flag. This is from June 23, so I'm early.

I'm somewhat annoyed by the recent media attention on the graves found at former residential schools, with the attendant shock and horror from all too many people. This should not be a surprise to anyone. The horrific details were made clear during the Truth and Reconciliation hearings that ran from 2008 to 2015. It is a shameful chapter (a very big chapter!) in Canada's history. Children were forcibly removed from their families with the clearly expressed desire of destroying their culture. Given the racism of the people running governments and the religions at the time, it's amazing that anyone survived. My personal feeling is that the Canadian branches of the religions involved should have been shut down, with all the assets seized as part of the settlement.

There is a movement to cancel Canada Day, and I vehemently disagree. There is much to celebrate here. There's also much we can make better, and we should spend the rest of the year working toward that. What do we do about the historical memory of people now deemed to be racist, misogynist, or other 'ist's', by the standards of today, or in light of historical scholarship? Here in Calgary, that I know of off the top of my head, we've seen a bridge and a school renamed, and that's a good thing. There are others that are proposed for renaming. Should statues of such people be taken down? I'm not as sure. I sort of oscillate between removing them to a museum, with documentation that recognizes both the good and evil they did, or leaving the statues there with the documentation added prominently in place. Mostly I lean towards the removal to a museum.

What should go in the history books? Like it or not, many people of historical importance to Canada held opinions on at least some topics that are now considered repugnant. I don't think the answer is to remove them from history, or to whitewash them by ignoring the seamy underbelly. As in so many things, context is everything. I'm not sure how best to say that person x, in addition to the stuff already in the history books, also held the opinions x, y, and z, which are not acceptable now, but were par for the course for people of that time and place.

So just how hot is it in Calgary? This is from 3pm on June 30, just across the road from our house. It humped up even higher later in the afternoon, and just now, at 7:30 as I give this a final read over, it's back to normal.