Thursday, May 10, 2007

I'm a cancer survivor It's been true since before I started this blog, but I don't seem to have mentioned it before.  I got my diagnosis of prostate cancer three years ago this month: May, 2004.  I had a prostatectomy (surgery to remove the prostate gland) toward the end of July of that year.  (Missed my niece's wedding in California, which happened a couple of days before the operation.) The results of my PSA (prostate-specific antigen) tests went to "undetectable" soon afterwards, which is the best available indication that the cancer is, in fact, cured.  Strictly speaking, though, one never can be absolutely sure of that; it becomes certain for all practical purposes only about ten years after the operation, assuming the PSA results don't change. I do live my life on the assumption that prostate cancer is not going to kill me.  And so I can (and do) count myself as lucky.  Not as one of the luckiest of survivors, though, in that I still have some side effects, urinary and sexual, from the operation.  I'm still working on those. Though I no longer feel as if my life is in danger from this disease, it has also led to a permanent change in my outlook: I am not likely to forget again that you never know.  At any time, something may come along which threatens, at least, to kill you. I'm sure that that made me a lot less willing to slog along in a job environment that I had come to hate, just waiting until I was sure that I was financially ready to retire.  And so, my cancer experience is probably part of the explanation of how I came to retire when I did, last June, when I was not at all sure that I was financially ready. Categorie(s) for this post include: About me; Retirement. 4:38:40 PM    comment []

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

What I'm up to: April 2007 edition These days I am testing the hypothesis that writing can be a basic part of what my future is about.  By "writing" I mean writing English (some on computer-related topics, and some not), as opposed to "coding" (actually writing computer programs).  I expect still to write some code, but perhaps that won't be the center of what I do: not as much as it has been for most of my career. I know I can write; the hypothetical part is whether I can make some money at it, from time to time.  That would certainly help; I'm not ready to consider myself entirely retired, yet. Categorie(s) for this post: About me; Retirement. 3:54:06 PM    comment []

Monday, February 26, 2007

Starting Over, Sort Of The title of this post refers to the fact that once again, there's been a long gap in my posting. So what am I up to these days? The most important answer is, "finding myself".  I'm sixty years old, consider myself semi-retired, and am still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. It's now been a little over eight months since I left my last full-time job, as a developer of installation programs for SAS Institute.  ("Last", at least in the sense of most recent; perhaps "last" in the sense of "last regular, full-time job ever".) But within the last month or so, I've realized that, until then, I'd been suffering from a disorder for which I've coined the name phantom boss syndrome.  In other words, I hadn't really let myself believe that I can actually choose what to do.  So more recently, I've been in a process of coming more fully into that realization. This blog entry is one manifestation of that.  I've been wanting to write more often, for this and other media, but hadn't been letting myself do it.  I am hoping that, now that the log-jam is broken, it won't form up again, at least not to anything like the same extent. Now, I just have to figure out how to find myself some readers. Categorie(s) for this post include: Retirement. 11:04:15 AM    comment []

Saturday, August 26, 2006

What I do So what am I doing with myself, since I "retired"? I consider myself to have two "callings": software developer, and writer. Let me talk about the former for a bit, now. At the moment, at least, I'd say that my three favorite programming languages are Perl, Scheme, and Java.   (I wonder how many people there are who would pick those three. I suspect -- but not confidently -- that the answer would be "not many", because they're all so different from each other. ) Perl is the language I've worked in the most, over the last several years (which is to say, over the greater part of my time at SAS).  At any rate.  My "focal project" at the moment is implementing a flexible backup utility as a Perl module.  "As a Perl module" implies that this is not a standalone application designed for complete non-programmers to use: you have to write a Perl script in order to make use of it.  But for those who know how to do that, it gives them a great deal of control over how the backups are done.  I'm writing this mostly because I want it.  But I do intend, also, to submit it to CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network), once it's done. Categorie(s) for this post include: Retirement; Perl; Backup software. 2:00:26 PM    comment []

Thursday, August 24, 2006

I'm back ... and "retired" Obviously, I haven't been posting lately ... like, in almost six months. I've been, ah, busy.  Yeah, that's it. Seriously, though.  My life has been through a lot of change in this time.  The most notable: I'm no longer employed at SAS Institute.  I ceased working there about two months ago. I'm listed on their books as "retired".  I'd say that "semi-retired" or "on sabbatical" fits my actual status better, since I don't expect to finish out my life without any more "work", meaning, activity which seeks to make money in some way. Categorie(s) for this post: Retirement. 1:48:00 PM    comment []

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