And then, apart from what I’ll do, is what we’ll do – we the citizens of the great U. S. of A – under the new leadership headed for Washington in a couple of years. I just saw the latest Rasmussen Reports™, one of the better polling sources out there. If the primaries took place this week, here’s very close to what we’d get:

Republicans – Giuliani 33%, McCain 19%, Gingrich 13%
Democrats – Clinton 28%, Obama 24%, Edwards 11%

It also found that, if the actual election were held this week between Clinton and Gingrich, it would be about 50% to 43% in favor of Clinton. If between Gore and Gingrich, Gore would win 51% to 40%.

Both within the Republican Party and between the two parties, the sweep to the left appears to be proceeding unabated. Living in retirement could be quite a bit different a decade from now, as could investing for retirement. Makes these difficult undertakings even more so. But, we all love a challenge, right?

Here’s my dilemma as I approach my retirement and try to prepare for it financially and emotionally.

I have a very good idea of what I’m going to quit doing:

• Going to the office (coal mine) five or six days a week
• Interacting daily with coworkers and clients
• Adding value (taking care of business) for coworkers and clients
• Getting a paycheck

I have a pretty good idea of what I want to start doing:

• Making (and executing) plans with my spouse
• Doing things with and for our sons
• Building things in the shop
• Growing things in the garden
• Making art
• Making music
• Making our neighbors into friends
• Serving on boards
• Reading just for fun
• Napping in the sun
• Organizing our records
• Culling our stuff (eBay, here I come!)
• Volunteering
• Exercising in the middle of the day
• Seeing more movies, concerts, plays, etc.
• Writing more
• Having a glass of wine with lunch
• Managing our investments
• Looking at photo albums with spouse and sons
• Becoming more adept at digital photography and computer graphics
• Traveling
• Walking/running the dog
• Holding the cats

. . . and the list goes on.



So, I’m quite sure about the main things I’ll quit doing. And, I have a long list of what I want to do. What I don’t know, however, is what I actually will do. I can’t do everything on the “want to” list, at least not at the same time, and at an enjoyable pace, and well. So, where do I start? And, what else will be occupying my time and attention?

• Will I still be able to go to bed at a reasonable hour and get up in time to have a full 16+ hour day?
• Should I be doing a little cooking? Cleaning? Shopping? Chatting?
• What about visiting the relatives (you can pick your friends . . .)?
• What if we find we need supplemental income?
• What will I do if I or a family member gets sick or injured?
• What if one dies?
• What if we don’t die before the money’s gone?
• What'll I do?

And that, my friends, is the song, or at least the phrase from the song, that I can’t get out of my head lately. Irving Berlin wrote it in 1923. Several people recorded it, including the version I recall by Linda Ronstadt in 1983.

What’ll I do when you are far away,
And I am blue, what’ll I do?

The song is about the end of a romance, of course. My relationship with my career has been good, but not that good. Still, the end of it will definitely leave me with a sense of loss. And, and lack of direction. It will require me to reinvent myself. And, I’m not sure how much leeway, or how much capability, I truly have in that regard.

So, I can’t help but wonder . . . really, what’ll I do?

I’ve got this song running through my head and I can’t turn it off. In fact, I seem to have a mental song playing most of the time. Often, if I think about it, I can find some connection between the song and what’s going on in my life currently. It’s like my brain has learned (from years of exposure to movies, TV, and sporting events, I suppose) to provide a soundtrack to my life.

Over the last several years, two songs in particular have settled into my brain in connection with my working life. On good days, I hear BTO’s "Takin’ Care of Business." The lyrics actually decry the nine-to-five routine, but the music is powerfully positive and the chorus is the universal anthem to getting things done.

Taking care of business (every day)

Taking care of business (every way)

I've been taking care of business (it's all mine)

Taking care of business and working overtime

Work out

Other days, I don’t feel like I’m takin’ care of things the way I’d like, or even the way that is expected of me. At those times, Lee Dorsey’s (or more recently, Devo’s) "Working in a Coal Mine" tends to find its way into my head. Here, again, it’s upbeat music with downer lyrics, but the lyrics fit this time.

I'm workin' in a coal mine

Goin' down down down

Workin' in a coal mine

Whop! about to slip down

Workin' in a coal mine

Goin' down down down

Workin' in a coal mine

Whop! about to slip down

Five o'clock in the mornin'

I'm all ready up and gone

Lord I am so tired

How long can this go on?

I believe that the music that describes my workaday life – whether it accompanies situations that are positive or negative – indicates that I am usually at least "charged up" about my work. Good day or bad, I’m energized by the environment.

Lately, though, as thoughts of retirement find their way into my consciousness, they have been accompanied by another very different song. Its impetus is obvious to me, now, but was totally unexpected.

What song? I’ll tell you next time. Until then (acknowledging that this opens me up to considerable abuse), any guesses?

Later.

Okay, here’s one for you.

Cranky.com

It’s basically a search engine. Like Google. But, it’s tailored for those of us who are too old or too Internet-inept or too . . . cranky? . . . to appreciate the power of today’s popular search engines. For instance, a Google search for “headache remedies” (a randomly chosen topic; I rarely need them) nets about 124,000 hits, displayed 10 per page. Use Cranky.com and you see four hits. Also, there’s one button to push if you want to narrow your search (they suggested “headache home remedies” for this search), another if you want to expand it (“migraine remedies” was suggested), and ten places to click at the bottom of the page if you want to see hits five through 15.

Unlike most places on the Web, the pages showing the search results are clean and uncluttered, another feature greatly appreciated by those of us dealing with age-related ADD. They do, however, include a few links to “sponsored sites” of companies wanting to sell stuff to our demographic segment.

If you have time on your hands (a topic for future discussion) and are 50+ in age (blatant age discrimination), you can register. This allows you to rate any sites you access using the Cranky search engine. It is these ratings by registered “members” that are used to rank the sites and determine which sites make it to the top of the list in any search. (This ranking aspect is portrayed in the site name – cRANKy.) The ranking process makes your search results more likely to meet your particular needs. That’s the theory, anyway.

I haven’t used it a lot yet, but it does seem to perform as promised, and it provides access to a lot of other content pertinent to retirement. I did stumble across one amusing tidbit in my test search for headache remedies. I learned that the Wisconsin Badgers basketball team isn’t the only aspect of Madison that is #2 in the nation. We’re also the nation’s #2 “migraine hotspot” according to a website called Mind Over Migraine.

Maybe that’s because too many of us are doing too many Google searches.

Later.

Being the ardent thinker I can’t help but be, I think I know what you’ve been thinking (some of you, anyway):

1. Wasn’t this supposed to be a weekly communication?
Yes, I got sidetracked from this avocation by my vocation. I’m still shooting to get something of interest to you approximately weekly.

2. Isn’t a blog supposed to be two-way – a dialog?
Right again. We recently found that the “comment” area on our site was locked out for most readers for the first several days of this site’s existence. To anyone who tried, I apologize. Please try again.

3. What if I want to make a comment, but not for public dissemination?
All comments come directly to me, then I post the ones I think will be of interest to other readers. But, if you don’t want your comment posted, just say so. I may quote or paraphrase you, however, with attribution to “anonymous.”

4. Another question on the nature of this communication medium -- isn’t a blog (a contraction of “web log”) supposed to document one’s travels around the web, sharing amusing sites, tidbits of knowledge gained and whatever else the blogger finds of interest?
Boy, you’re good. That’s the question I had when this idea was originally proposed. But, I don’t have a lot of time to wander the Net. So, we decided I would build a framework of issues and views (all relating in some way to retirement) with the first several postings, then tack on some web-based content later as I find time to find it, all the while letting you, the readers, provide web link references and whatever else you have found that is of interest. So, I’m betting on you to come through for me!

Later.