Mulling

I haven't made any NYR's yet. I usually don't, but I do think about things.

As I mentioned in a response to a comment on an earlier post, I am planning to retire by June 2008, and if it happened that I did it sooner than that -- well, okay, if you insist. What I'm mulling over now (again) is What Do I Want To Do....when it does happen. Think of this as the later stage variant of What Do I Want To Be When I Grow Up, which I never did get a reasonable answer to. The best that I can come up with at the moment is that whatever 'it' is, it should be something that I really want to do, it doesn't have to earn me any money (though it shouldn't cost anything substantial), and it'd be nice if it had something to do with kids, or with health care, or with information technology. A brighter person than me could from that series of statements create three or five 'oh, you mean like doing .............' observations, but nothing comes to mind. I do know, incidentally, that retirement is also an opportunity to do something that I've always wanted to do, like become proficient in a foreign language, or learn to plan the piano decently (not professional, not classic, just better than the barroom guy), or bake decent bread, and I'm going to give those a shot. That's about it. I'm not a very deep guy. Thick, oh yeah, but not deep.

And I might think over just what I'm trying to prove with 'information technology' in that list, when I know perfectly well that I will do nothing of the sort. I will not become proficient in Python, let alone other, more esoteric programming languages, and I won't use them in remarkable ways even if I did. I will not find a way to use Microsoft Excel to make the local Democratic party way more efficient and effective. I will not become involved, nay, influential in the implementation of Electronic Patient Records, Computer Based Physician Order Entry, or any of that, in local hospitals, offices, and clinics. I will not pioneer or even figure in the Age of Computer Innovation at the local level. I'm not that kind of guy. I know this, and yet I say those things. Whom am I trying to kid?

Maybe its that I want two things that are incompatible: a challenge.... and something that I really would like to do and can do....

So thats what I'm mulling over.