June 28 - the rain has started

Yes, about 1/2 hour ago -- 11am on Sunday -- the rain started. This rain is not a bullet -- it's a shotgun blast and impossible to avoid. It's only "scattered showers" in the context of the entire continent !

I have a couple of wildlife stories that I forgot to tell ... The ride before yesterday I saw a deer come out from the side of the road in the distance. He/she walked partway out on the road and then turned back. I thought that perhaps it had seen me coming, but no ... It came out again, got almost to the center of the roadway and then turned around again and went into the brush at the side of the road. Surely this time it's because it saw me coming, but no ... It came out again -- yes, three times, I'm not exaggerating, got to the center of the road, sniffed at the yellow line, backed up a little and then ran forward jumping over the yellow center line. Who'd a thunk ? It was afraid of the center line !

Yesterday, coming back from town (in my car) I got to the dump by the ESS Narrows and there was a bear in the middle of the road. It was small, but I don't think that it was this year's cub. It paid no attention to me and I drove up to within 6 feet of it, stopped, honked my horn ... it looked at me and then finally ambled off the road. Now that's an animal used to cars ! When I took a bunch of stuff to the dump the other day there was a big mutha (as in mutha not as in mother) down there 30 feet away who eagerly dug into my kitchen garbage. Yes, the best strategy is to throw the kitchen garbage first -- gives them something to do -- and then start throwing other construction etc. garbage. Yes ... I'll have to keep that in mind. I didn't want that one coming up for handouts ! This is not Yogi Bear !

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The rain has stopped. Suddenly the forecast doesn't look as dismal ... chance of thundershowers. Ok, we can deal with that.

It was a pretty quiet day yesterday. I toyed with the idea of going down to Parry Sound -- we have wine awaiting us there -- but the day slipped by. I did some minor wiring in my workroom, looked at the possibility of putting in a three-way switch for the lights downstairs (difficult without messing up the drywall), jiggled stuff a little in the barn to get at Jason's boat and hook up the battery charger, watched the rest of a movie that I'd started the evening before, did a lot of tidying in the garage, cleaned out the shop vac, re-adjusted the pre-load on my H2 headset that I had not gotten tight enough ... you get the idea -- lots of little things -- puttering.

We had cod for dinner, which was great. Apparently it's cheaper than most other fish at Tarini's -- not sure why, since the cod stocks are almost nonexistent. Accompanied by sweet potatoes and asparagus, again we did not starve.

Sandy did a lot of reading. She's constantly behind in reading Macleans whereas I do most of my world-watching on the internet. I'll pick up a Macleans and read an article or two that grabs my attention -- much more an editorial view of the world than I get on The Globe and Mail online or CNN.com.

Bob Lopes sent me a news link yesterday before it was picked up by the G&M -- Towers Perrin, my former employer, is merging with Watson Wyatt. They are equivalent in size, except that WW is a public company. TP was originally trying to go public on its own -- at least that was the idea a couple of years ago -- but this is probably a better way to do it in this market. When I checked the WW stock price yesterday after the announcement it was up about a quarter percent -- so at least at that point the market saw it as neutral to favorable.

Had I stuck around, i.e. had TP not sold the admin business to EDS or had I not gone with that business, this would likely have been my last year with the company, except for this deal. Financially this deal probably doubled people's TP stock value (from book to market), but I see from the announcement that there are restrictions on sale of said stock for 1-4 years. I expect that there would also have been vesting requirements. Long story short, the financial side of it would probably have kept some of us working for another few years.

I am so happy that I retired. Money isn't everything if you don't have time to live your life. It was a very stressful job -- even had I lived beyond retirement, I would have been brain dead (more brain dead, that is). I heard from Alice Pao the other day that yet another colleague, not long retired, passed away. Peter Hursh, former manager of the LA office and another before that, died last week. He was not much older than me. Sure, some of us were critical of Peter's management abilities (in the consulting business we're critical of everything and everyone) but Peter was a nice man. I liked him as a person.

Again ... I'm so happy that I'm retired. I'm looking out on the lake, the sun is out, a little fog is rising from the water (which was at 79F the other day but probably cooled off a little yesterday), I'm contemplating a bike ride today ... rather than catching up on a million emails and prepping for my first conference call. Ah yes, it was the right decision. Even if it was pouring rain right now, it was the right decision !

That reminds me -- I did another chore yesterday. I cleaned the evestroughs / gutters -- and of course I did that in the pouring rain. I've probably cleaned them a dozen times since we finished building, and I'm sure that it was always in the rain. Water pours over the gutters ... put on the rain coat ... get out the ladders ... clean out the leaves, pine needles, pine cones and get them running properly again.

That's it ... another day in the life.