Life In Retirement

The pole that I took was extremely telling. Only about 1/3 to 1/2 as many people voted as usually do despite the usual amount of traffic. The question was, "How long do you plan to live after you retire?"

75% - 20+ years
25% - 10-20 years

Wow! Really? Okay, this says a lot.

1. Do people hate their job so much that they want to spend 20+ years of their life doing something else? More specifically, doing nothing to speak of?
2. Consider that living on a "fixed income" really means living on a declining income because inflation will eat away at your yearly income every year. So if you want to maintain a certain high standard of living well into retirement, you need a lot of money to start retirement.
3. It is quite possible that many people plan to have a retirement job. Something that does not take 40 hours a week. Perhaps managing a used book store or working at a coffee shop part time or tutoring/mentoring/coaching kids. A second career, this seems reasonable to consider during a long term retirement.
4. As a generation in the United States, generation Y is not nearly as healthy as our ancestors. Our life expectancy is not what our grandparents is. Cancers, inactivity, and pollution are not helping us all live longer. 
5. Retirement is a relatively new phenomena. 

I know, statistically, my survey was insignificant because of a sample size of four (I never vote on my own surveys). Regardless, the answers were informative.

It's Not Rocket Science: Week 34

Another week, another seven days which are gone from my life. That being said, it had it's life changing moments. My family and I revisited Sabetha, Kansas, our former hometown. I made several contacts there about possible jobs. They have an incredible 4% unemployment rate there! I would have never, never guessed that I might possibly move back there, but I had a great time when I lived there, and I could very well stand to have a great time again.

Other than those personal job contacts, I applied for the obligatory 17 jobs. The highlights include some of the smaller space companies with government contracts for International Space Station resupply. One of them had the most ridiculous application process. It was basically filling out a form that included everything on my resume. Why can't they just read my resume?

I celebrated Thanksgiving! Atypically, I didn't get enough turkey. The rumor around my house is that we might get a small one and make that this week, because none of us had our fill of turkey. Regardless of the food I spent a little time to think of some of the things I am thankful for. One of the things I am learning through this unemployment is how much life is not necessarily about our job. There are so many things that in my life to be thankful for that I feel ungrateful complaining about not having an engineering job where as millions of people around the world do not have clean water or any idea when they will eat again. If the rest of the world heard the way that Americans talk, I think that they would be astonished at our arrogance, ignorance, and what we take for granted. I realized this listening to one of my generation talking this week.

It was also the first time in seven years that I have been able to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family and that was quite nice. Family is awesome!

I ran 65 miles including a 10k run that I raced to sixth place. I was first in the 20-29 age division, getting beat by a teenager and 43 year old, but no 50+ men or any women! The two races this summer that I ran I was beaten by women, both times former olympian women. I also took two days off from running, one planned and other inconvenienced by my driving shift through Iowa from 1:30 AM to 5:30 AM. I am really good at driving long distances. I knew I would drive through the worst part. It was fine though, turn on Pandora and go. Piece of cake.

No Janzen Gear news or new paintings. I did start a Squidoo Lens about choosing hangboards. I read three free ebooks from Seth Godin on the trip to Sabetha, as well as reading Seth's blog sometimes. The concept of a lens is pretty cool, like Wikipedia, but more subjective and detailed.

North Korea Shells South Korea

Sure that is old news, it happened a few days ago. What is significant is that unlike the 1950s the players have changed teams.

Russia called the North Korean's actions unacceptable!

Russia is not playing with North Korea. This is kind of a big deal. Most of the world seems to be leery of North Korea. There may never be another cold war or world war at least for many decades, but I think an economic war would be far more likely. The rules would be different but Russia and China would surely be big players.

In my mind this is kind of like Sony and Toyota becoming so very popular after the second world war. It is interesting to day the least.

I am Thankful!

I am thankful for all sort of people, opportunities, and stuff that was directed my way this year. In an effort to say thank you, I made a list in no particular order of 101 people and things I am thankful for this year. Sometimes I do this while I run.

• my family, immediate and extended
• my Tahosa friends
• my "Pakistan" friends (most are from the US, UK and Canada)
• my WPI friends that lived with me this winter
• my Sabetha friends that I have seen, talked with, and shopped with this year
• my WPI roomates
• my Mezcal menugas
• my new Ballard (Seattle) friends
• my WPI grad school classmates
• my WPI grad school professors
• the people I have interviewed with
• my education, all of it
• the people who have contributed to Janzen Gear with nothing to show for it yet
• my patents
• the ability to run
• the ability to climb
• the state of Colorado
• Montbell
• Patagonia
• Saucony
• DMM for making a double axel cam (that was just plain genius)
• Apple, Inc.
• Clif Bar
• GU Energy
• Toyota (yeah 270k miles!)
• free camping bivy permits, national forests, and on routes
• Millsite!
• 3G coverage
• coffee
• lattes
• chocolate
• cheese
• used book stores
• online banking
• credit cards (part of my problems but they are very enabling)
• CNC mills
• enthusiastic kids
• my Philmont friends that I have talked to this year
• the Internet
• ebooks
• iMovie
• DVDs
• 50s (as in the temperature Fahrenheit)
• Facebook
• YouTube
• oil painting
• big wall climbing
• free soloing
• fear, without it I would be dead
• ice axes
• maps
• burritos
• four wheel drive vehicles
• fences along the highway so I don't have to worry about hitting cattle
• blogging
• paved roads
• the generosity of people I know
• not being persecuted, for anything
• recommendations from others, they don't have to say anything good about me but they do anyway
• music
• FM radio stations
• carpeting
• the simple machine the wedge, we've really done a lot of things with it
• friends of friends, by far the least awkward way to meet people
• tequila
• scotch
• wine
• bartenders
• coffee shops
• link cams
• unemployment - really. I am appreciating more all of those things that are not money. Leaving out a lot of explanation on how my thought process gets there, I wish I could experience starvation and poverty, so that I could really appreciate even more what I have now.
• my psychosomatic back pain helped me understand stress and my body more than anything ever has
• not having a kid, baby, child or anything. I'm looking forward to it, but not in the very near future.
• bolts on rock climbing routes
• Doritos Late Night Cheeseburger commercial with Bombs Away by Kyle Andrews (and featuring Belen Chavanne)
• RedBox
• girls, women, females, ladies, whatever they prefer to be called, that smile
• size small (and women's size small Columbia jacket)
• size extra small Patagonia shirt
• size medium socks, hahaha
• finishing my documentary My First Expedition: Broad Peak
• Seattle
• belaying from the bumper
• 5.12
• Longs Peak (four attempts and no summits this year)
• Call of Duty
• Janzen Gear
• a 1980s orange Miyata Professional with Dura-Ace gears
• solar panels
• photosynthesis
• leaves changing color
• teachers
• professors
• one-on-ones
• powder days
• skiing on ice
• the Extraterrestrial Highway
• metric
• tri-cams
• Google Chat
• truth

Life is good.

A Visit to my Hometown

About six years ago my family left a small town called Sabetha, Kansas. The circumstances that led to our leaving left me with very negative and bitter feelings about the town. The reality is that only a handful of individuals really caused the negativity, a number I could count on one hand. Furthermore they were people I rarely interacted with. They also acted in what seemed to them their best interests. How can I argue with that?

My anger masked the truth. I had the feeling that the whole town was against me, save a few close friends. This time when I returned, for the first time in more than four years, I had the opportunity to see about 30 people that greatly influenced me. These people helped make me who I am. They took an interest in my life. They contributed dozens and even hundreds of hours individually to just me.

For more than six years I distanced myself from most of the town. It wasn't very hard going to school in Massachusetts, living in Wisconsin and working in New Mexico and Colorado. Returning to some of the places that I spent hundreds of hours with some of the people I spent hundreds of hours with was unforgettable. People continually change and the places that we remember have new and different people, so it will never be the same. That is fine by me. What happened is done and as awesome as it was, it had the painful moments as well. I've said and done so many stupid things. For so many things that I did to you my friends I am sorry. I will not live in the past, at least not until I get Alzheimer's or something.

In the one day that we were in town I made more contacts about possible jobs than a month on my own. I finally had the chance to tell a number of people thank you face to face. For sure, I hope that I contribute and share with others the way this little town, with 4% unemployment, shared and contributed to me.

Everything I can dream of:

Learning about wage discrepancy between the top and the bottom has frustrated me the past month or so. Apparently the average total compensation of a CEO of a Fortune 500 company in 2009 was about 9.2 million dollars. That is so much money! Honestly, what could a person use that much money for each year? If I had that kind of money...

What are would an exhaustive list of the material things that I would spend money on?

1. Pay off all of my debt, and all of my family's debt. In my immediate family that is round about $300,000. Assuming that some of my cousins will have student loans and I think that most of my family has paid off their houses, let's make it $400,000. For all of the debt in my entire extended family. 
2. Buy a new car for all of the people in my family that can not readily afford new cars. That is somewhere around a dozen people. At about $27,000 for a nice Prius that is almost $325,000.
3. Buy a few sweet cars for myself. A Porsche, Ferrari, Ducati, and something that handles really rough trails, probably a Toyota. Total cost about $700,000.
4. Buy a piece of land with a nice house in the Estes Park, Nederland, Boulder area. For a four to six bedroom 5,000+ square foot house about $2,000,000. 
5. Expeditions, with no expense spared from my point of view, to Everest, K2, G1, G2, G4, G5, Trango Towers, Antartica, Alaska, Yosemite, Bugaboos, Aconcagua, and the Torres del Paine park. Total cost by my estimation $240,000.
6. It would be nice to have investments capable of supporting my lifestyle. Perhaps $3,000,000 earning 6% interest and assuming that 4% interest is reinvested to account for inflation that leaves $60,000 the first year for living expenses increasing at 4% per year.
7. A private jet! For about $1,500,000 a small party jet (Cessna III among others) can be all yours.

In total that comes to just under $8.2 million. Yep, I could have everything I can even imagine wanting and still pay a million dollars in taxes if I had the chance to be an average Fortune 500 CEO for one year. 

What is the point of this post? To point out the ridiculous income differences among the upper echelon of our society and the rest of us. For a one time, after tax, check of $8 million I would never have to work again and have everything I can imagine. Now because of the way salaries and averages work perhaps only 1/4 of Fortune 500 CEOs earn more than $9 million a year. 

The point is, how much of a reward is that extra $10 million bonus or stock that some CEOs earn yearly really worth? What is the difference between $10 and $20 million in compensation? In my view that $10 million difference is 200 well paid employees. What can you possibly send all of that money on? More houses? More cars? More expensive food? Famous works of art? Those are all valid things to spend money on, yet I submit that most of that money gets invested. That is to say that if a CEO was paid seven million a year for ten years after buying several large houses, and other extravagant things, after taxes he could still have $20 million in accounts and investments!

From my perspective, dozens of employees have the ability to contribute more than one manager. That is to wonder what sort of performance difference is noticeable between one employee earning $4 million a year and 21 employees with one earning $3 million a year and the other 20 earning $50,000? To be honest, I do not know. It seems to me that the incentive between three and four million dollars, a 33% raise will ultimately earn less money for the company than twenty employees who are motivated to have a job versus be unemployed. Performance bonuses and pay increases I feel are essential to motivating workers at all levels to be effective and efficient. Also, I have to wonder what the value of any one person is, economically. Is one person who earns $15 million worth the same as 300 people who earn $50,000? I mean, I guess that they really are worth that much because someone is paying them that much, but really? One person worth as much as 300 others? What if CEOs bid on jobs? Would companies hire the lowest qualified bidder?

In a twist from economics to life I will post a quote from Saving Private Ryan:

Lieutenant Dewindt: "... 22 guys dead."
Captain Miller: "All that for a general?"
Lieutenant Dewindt: "One Man."

It's Not Rocket Science: Week 33

As far as unemployment goes, this was a really good week. Not that I had a job offer, but apart from that it was a good week. I applied for about 22 jobs, mostly in the United States. So often I apply for jobs that seem interesting, like the kind of job I would have a great time at, then positions get canceled, or they go with someone more closely qualified. But all things considered the job search was not a highlight of my week.

I ran a whopping 103 miles, which is about where I would like to be every week. People often wonder why I run so much. It is simple really, I feel better after I run. When so many things in my life seem out of my control I can control my running. It is also a motivation with clear cut goals. I want to run specific times over specific distances. That is accomplished by running specific times over other specific distances during training. My career goals are not quite as clear cut because nobody has done either one of them. Furthermore, running is an affordable past time where as engineering is expensive. Another way to rationalize my running is to ask what other people spend their time doing? Which often turns out to be watching television or going to a bar. Both can be fun but are relatively zero sum games. So I run because I can measurably get better and I value development.

I left the new designs for the Janzen Gear hangboard at a local manufacturer and bought 20 feet of Hard Maple. Now I wait for him to call me back so that I can drop off the wood and receive 10 new hangboards.  It's real! I mean the ice axe debacle, as I am calling it, was a lesson in divesting and business. I think I learned a lot from that experience and I think the economics of this new product will show that. I figure that if I can sell 500 a year that would cover all of my expenses. Seeing as how there are more than four million rock climbers in the United States alone I don't think that's an unreasonable goal. Who knows, if I could sell 1000 a year I would quit applying to engineering jobs and buy a new computer. That being said, I haven't sold even one yet.

What else did I do? I thought about my future, specifically my future education. I guess it is not a question of will I become Dr. Isaiah Janzen it is a question of when and doctor of what?