I get into work around 5:30am each morning. My walk into the office from the parking garage is an easy five minute stroll across two city blocks. It’s down a steep hill, meaning I get a pretty awesome view of the San Francisco Bay and the city itself from this walk. At that time in the morning, the street is deserted. The sun hasn’t risen yet. The streetlights glow a lonely green to empty intersections. It’s usually crisp at this... Read More Read More| Happily Disengaged
2025 was always going to be a special year for me, solely because it was my milestone marker on this path towards financial independence. This is the year I was supposed to retire.| Happily Disengaged
I have a problem. It’s the worst sort of problem because it’s not a real problem. I imagine most day dreamers and travelers and story lovers have the same sorts of problems that I encounter from time to time. My mind can wander around the edges of my reality. I can get lost in my dreams. Caught in a web of wants. Forks in the road of my ceaseless thoughts lead me to yearn for places and things I never... Read More Read More| Happily Disengaged
I had a job walk the other day with some visitors to the project I’m on. As we neared the end of the walk, one of them asked me how long I’d worked for the company. I told him I’d started in 2004, but came up through the trades, becoming a superintendent in 2015. “You came up the right way then.” He told me, surprised by my answer. I was surprised by his answer too, as he’d gone to college... Read More Read More| Happily Disengaged
Exciting times ahead, I’m heading to Japan in a few short weeks. While I’ve been budgeting carefully, this spring has been an expensive one. I bought the airline tickets back in December for around $4500 roundtrip, and have been sporadically booking and paying for accommodations every few weeks. Since we’re timing vacations with our kids’ school breaks, our options were either April or waiting until June. We’ll be there for around 2 weeks with stops in the tourist triangle of... Rea...| Happily Disengaged
Sitting in commuter traffic can do all sorts of things to the psyche. One has time to reflect on life while behind the wheel of their vehicle for over an hour each day. It’s a sort of forced isolation. An education on patience. I used to ponder the inefficiency of it all. I used to try to avoid the insufferable Bay Area traffic. Try to find back roads. A different route home. A faster lane. Traffic made me mad and... Read More Read More| Happily Disengaged
I worked this past New Year’s Eve, so when midnight rolled around later that evening, I found myself fast asleep on my living room couch. My kids came over and excitedly woke me ten minutes before the ball drop. I stumbled over to the room where my family was watching tv and watched as the minutes counted down. Fireworks erupted on the screen. The clocks on the west coast silently crossed into 2025. And that was it. Another year ticked... Read More Read More| Happily Disengaged
It dawned on me on my way to work one morning that I’ve stopped giving a damn about FIRE. Driving through the darkness of the early morning freeways, lights of the San Francisco skyline and bridges glistening out past the windows, podcast on the History of Byzantium blasting through the truck speakers, the thought popped into my mind that I don’t really need an exit off this freeway I’ve found myself cruising down. I don’t need FIRE anymore. What do... Read More Read More| Happily Disengaged
