Day -1

Tomorrow is the last day of my 27.5 year career as CIO (Chief Information Officer) at a large commercial construction / property management / real estate development firm.  Over the years people would ask me what 'CIO' stood for.  "Career Is Over" was my standard response.  Now it is.

I'm not going into the office tomorrow.  My replacement is starting and I've left some reference material for him, both in paper and electronic form.  Without a doubt he'll put it in a folder and throw it away in a while.  That's what I would do.

Over the past few months I've been attempting to come up with a plan for this 62 year old person.  Sixty-six is the age at which I'd like to draw Social Security so working a few more years is part of the goal.  My wife and I have spend more than fifteen years helping the seniors in our families and I think we've done about 20 moves.  Ask me about senior apartments, assisted living, long term care, etc.  I keep a stash of moving boxes in the garage along with the debris and 'valuables' from many of those moves.  My car has not been in the garage for a decade.  OK, that's a good goal.  Get one car in the garage before winter descends upon us.

I'd like to write a few professional journal / business publication articles on IT, management, organizational structure and development, etc.  Fortunately my employer made a commitment to Lee Hecht Harrison, an international outplacement firm.  They're pretty good at getting you motivated to find a new job or direction and have a lot of tools available.  While I was skeptical I'm much more positive now.  There are ten months remaining on that contract.  The person I'm working with is writing a book and attempting to put together an income stream so this is a pretty parallel journey.

Today is SAT.  I'm sitting at my wife and daughter's cafe helping them a bit (not at all according to my wife).  Tonight I'm going to work on some graphics and web projects and hopefully get a good dinner somewhere.  Tomorrow I'm headed 'up north' to continue fencing this year's grape and tree plantings before the deer consume it all.

Thanks to my daughter Anne for the blog name "I don't even have a dumb job."