On 12/30/2011 6:05 AM, John K3GHH wrote:
A number of posts were especially relevant to me. Rick DJ0IP's (and Jim
AD6CW's) views on retirement... mine is imminent, and I always had
visions of sitting quietly in a comfortable armchair with a good reading
lamp and a cup of coffee, following Dave K8MN's approach: going through
QSTs, especially from the days when I got into the hobby (the mid-1950s)
and before. The Yasme DXpeditions, how (and why) to neutralize a 304TL,
Lew McCoy's ingenuity with old TV sets... But, as Rick and others asked,
is that realistic? Just considering amateur radio, our hobby moves on,
and I really should be learning about surface-mount stuff like the
brilliant homebrew-contest things I see in the NEW magazines. (I was an
avid home-brewer as a kid in the tube days but have never even worked
with transistors.) Beyond radio, I have several other time-consuming
hobbies that suggest a "don't know how I found time to work" retirement.
In my case, it's too many hobbies (ham radio, photography, travel) and
too much unfinished
business. Several boxes need to be sorted and mostly recycled or
tossed, including:
1) stuff from my office after I retired, after I spent a near-solid two
weeks
sorting it there and nearly giving our custodian a hernia with
several 55-gallon
trash bin loads for recycling. Some of the boxes had made the
transition from old
office to new without being opened for 10 years.
2) the garage, which is preceded by clearing out the storage unit so
that I can put
several antennas and unbuilt kits to good use
3) boxes of stuff that we decided to keep from my late parents'
condo. Dad passed
away in 1997 and mom in 2009, and we tossed 29 lawn-size trash
bags worth of
paperwork that was long past the need to keep as records
On the magazines' eventual disposal: One of my "kids" (a middle-aged
adult) has friends whose parents have passed away, and she's helped
clean out their houses. The friends can keep only a few small momentos,
so accumulations of the parents' lifetimes go to charities or (mostly)
the dump. Our small house is filled with things that reflect our
interests, but our kids don't share them. Thousands of books, my
boatanchors, antique-car parts... There's always Ebay, but our kids have
no idea whether a DX-100 or NOS Hudson steering wheel might be worth the
trouble. At present, I'm waffling between (1) intelligently disposing of
all this stuff gradually so it'll go to good homes and our kids won't be
burdened with its disposal, and (2) keeping it all because "you never
know when you'll want it" and when the time comes we won't care and the
kids can just rent a dumpster anyway. Of course if we ever decide to
MOVE, as Ron W3WN (and one of my local friends) did, difficult value
judgments will have to be made earlier. [Ron, I'll remember your
interest! We drive through (well, around) Pgh occasionally.] We recently
disposed of hundreds of National Geographic magazines... such a wealth
of information. As Carter K8VT reported with QSTs, We could find nobody
who would accept them as a gift. Fortunately we have curbside recycling
here. That's it for now, guys. Thanks a bunch for your insights.
Obviously this matter has to be continually revisited as time goes on.
Fortunately, my wife was able to give away her old issues of National
Geographic after I bought the entire set on DVD for her last Christmas.
But no one wants the old ham magazines; not the local club, library or
the local colleges and universities. I was able to sell some of my
computer science texts and Microsoft books on Amazon; the rest went to
the library at the local Cal State U.
We have practically no family now, and no children to leave things to.
One cousin is an engineer, but I've never heard him say that he's
interested in ham radio.
I have tried to divest myself of some of the ham gear, but the pittance
that others are willing to pay for it makes it worth more to me to
keep. Likely I'll leave it to that Jr. High school in NY.
73 de Jim - AD6CW
P.S. I wasn't the first to say that I don't see how I found time to
work. That was another OT at the local club. But I found out how true
that statement is.
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