hey Richard... You gotta put in your "dues" just like the rest of us... and then you can go full-timing... I had to put mine in... nearly 40 years at the old grindstone... well, maybe not for all 40 years... there was that 3 year hiatus I took way back right after graduation... my wife's... I was smarter in those days... I 'let' her graduate first... and then I finished my edgukashun... but in the process played a lotta tennis... made the school team too... really polished up my bridge game as well... in the student union, where else... one can't study all the time... and of course there were all the evening 'communal' study groups I just had to go to... down at the local 'establishment'... where we studied Physical Anthropalogy with all the local Co-eds...
and then there was that other short time I had to take a 'sabatical' before my first real job... it was during our second 3 years of marriage difficulties... I needed to 'work' out some inner conflicts... from having spent so much time taking Advanced Calculus and Theoretic Mathmatic Equations related to the Theory of Chaos... and all those darn philosophy courses they made me take... I mean, who ever hearda the Philosophy of Advanced Matix Derivations anyway... real practical stuff... all I wanted to get was a simple Business degree...and why was that a pre-requisite for my major, Practical Business Applications... anyway, my brains were scrambled with eggplant... and I hadn't even begun Economics 101 yet... and then there was that short period right after landing my first job... they actually expected me to show up every day... boy was that a shock... I mean, I figured since I could skip a class or two to go skiing, that's the way it worked in the business world too... no one told me different... I mean, what's vacation pay for... and don't medical emergencies have to be dealt with in an expititous manner?... and when there's a snowstorm of gigantic proportions before Thanksgiving, everyone goes skiing, right?... well, that adjustment took nearly 2 years of therapy and some counciling down at the local "establishment"... and by now we had moved from Idaho down to San Jose... that's in California... and it took me some time to find a replacement establishment... and the best tennis courts... so by now it was becoming painfully clear that if I wanted to get that neat sailboat from the Berkeley sailboat broker I saw one day while taking the wife out to a fancy anniversary dinner... our 5th, I think... I was gonna have to seriously get a job... full-time even... well, at least for 3 days outta the week... maybe more... which was ok with me... I had come to grips with it by now... the therapy had really helped a lot... and my tennis was beginning to suffer... mostly because the strings in my rackets were mysterially breaking in the closet everytime I had another therapy 'session' down at my new establishment... funny how those mice get to those strings... well, that's what my wife's explanation was...weren't they made of cat's gut?... its revenge, that's all... hmmm... I found it suspect, but didn't want her to get really upset just yet... at least not till I had a year's of sailing under my belt... besides, it could double as place to bunk if necessary, when she was really on the warpath... but I finally got that good job... you know, the one everyone dreams of having right after school... and it only took a little over 10 years... hey, some of my friends never did find work... and some of them are dead, now... probably died trying... actually I got tired of getting turned down because my resume at this point wasn't all that impressive, you know what I mean?... I kept getting asked, "So, what did you do for the first 10 years after graduation?"... so hell, I just started my own business... right downtown SF... on the corner of Market and 3rd Sts... across the street from the Hearst Bldg... on the 9th floor... it had a great view and the manager was eager for a tennet... any tennet... and that's when I really buckled down and put my nose to the grindstone... and after a few months, I actually had to begin opening the office 5 days a week... but business was good and by now my wife was beginning to re-think our pending divorce settlement... since she was gonna hav e to go into the red to get rid of me... and now I actually had a legitimate reason for not coming home every nite... because of so much work, naturally... and it seems that by now she knew I had the boat... which is where I was sleeping over... thinking back on all that, she never did actually see the boat... only the payment tickets... and then, right after the divorce was final, my new and very young secretary suggested that I needed to take a week's vacation... down to Acapulco or somewhere fun and to get my mind off of things... so I turned the office business over to a capable subordinate I had hired and much to my surprise, found myself sitting next to her on the plane ride down... she said that at the very last moment, she had decided that she better go with me because I might not be able to find my way back otherwise... seemed reasonable to me... and as it turned out, she was right... she was a great little secretary... because after 6 weeks, I had run outta money... and her credit card (I told you she was young) was maxed out... so, we could only stay another 3 weeks in Zjuatinajo on my last remaining card... and when we got back... well, the business was sorta back to zero... and my first boat payment was 90 days overdue... a real crisis to be sure... so that's when I got a real job... a real grind stone type job... which is the point of all this... but things went down hill from there... I actually started working 5 and 6 days a week... made some real money, tho... managed to pay of the boat, all the credit cards and even my ex-secretary's credit card... even tho it was her idea to use it... I could never figure that one out... something, she said about not giving her a ring... what ring... the whole time we were down there in Mexico sharing a room because it was less expensive, I never said anything about a ring .... anyway, I didn't need a secretary any longer... what I needed was a nice crew for the boat... which didn't take too long to find... but I'm getting of the subject... you have to keep your nose to the old gridstone till you're at least 40... and then you can begin to relax a little... just like I did and most other hardworking guys... and you'll more appreciate your retirement years... I know I do now... now that I'm no longer a slave to the boats, the Jaguars, the Condo in Sausalito... the ranch up in Idaho... all those expensive toys we have a tendency with which to measure our successes... no sirree, not me... no more payments, no more credit card payments... no more property taxes... no more commitments of any kind... not that I had that many commitments to begin with... no sirree... no more... I've decided that I've paid my 'dues' and now I'm just thinking about the other 'dos' which boondocking requires... maybe it should be called "boondoing"... doing stuff that makes you happy... so, Richard I can only tell you this... when its your time, you'll know it and it'll be a nice change... just don't wait too long... what you don't do, you'll regret... what you do do, you'll wish you had done it sooner... and by the way, if its worth doing, don't wait... well, that's all I wanted to say on this subject... and it was probably too much... but since this is a 'campfire' type of discussion, I guess its ok... hope I didn't bore y'all too much but that's my story and I'm sticking to it... catcha in the spring... Jubiladojipsyjim, "boondoing" along the San Diego Bay shoreline... watching all the boats sailing around and thinking to myself, I wonder how many of them have to make payments?... and the berthing costs down here are really getting expensive... and that maybe its just about time to 'do' the Baja... [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. Register anything. http://us.click.yahoo.com/Q7_YsB/neXJAA/yQLSAA/z1TolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To reply to this message, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Boondocking/post?act=reply&messageNum=8276 Please do not reply to this message via email. 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