Being Away.

Feels like I've been gone longer than I've been here, since I joined WA.First, the long-planned vacations to finish up my wife's 42-year career in education. Two trips, timed for her spring break (nudged a few days longer; after all, she's retiring!), and after closing out her final semester as principal. One, to Vietnam, a bucket-list item that popped up both cheap and perfectly timed. The other, Oaxaca beaches, as a final exploration of potential retirement spots.Then, the New Year's email fr

I Have Dad Hands!

Is that a Thing?I know about Dad Jeans. High-waisted, shapeless, worn by men refusing to admit to middle age (or greater!) Can we define Dad Hands?I have tried and tried, but two-thumb keyboarding on my smartphone, even on my much bigger tablet, just doesn't work, I don't know how the kids manage to use their devices that way; it just feels uncomfortable to me....Maybe it stems from the fact that I learned 'keyboarding' the summer between 7th and 8th grades, in junior high summer school. Of co

Done it! Cert 2, and earned the award!

OK, all the tasks done for Course 2. Answering questions was a little tricky, since I didn't notice the difference between 'Friends' and 'All' at the top, so all I was seeing was questions from my network, and all of them were completed! Little difficult helping someone who is busy helping others!But, once I got started I couldn't stop! The task asked us to help one unanswered question and before I could stop myself, I had done 3! It's fun, and it really feels good, to be able to give back some

Almost Done.

Lesson 10, Course 2 Almost Complete!My website is coming along: www.rovingretirees.orgIt took a long while getting through lesson 7 because I wanted to have authentic statistics from retiree websites to back up my assertions about Retiring on Social Security — Can It Be Done?As usual, I revised the organization of the entire post 3 times, deleted and recreated two of the sections once each, but I believe it was worth it. I'm happy with the post as published (and so is Nadine, my main crit

Have You Noticed.

This writing, this blogging stuff is damned addicting!So, I get a page and a lesson finished, crow about it in a WA-only post and eagerly jump into the next lesson, Lesson 8 in Course 2: ImagesOK, cool, this is the main aspect I've been missing; what's a web page without pictures? B-O-R-I-N-GExcitement! Images, for an amateur photo buff! Can't wait! Already know my topic! Piece O'Cake, as we Irish say it!Except....I can't get the right angle on my topic... It's not flowing.... Waste some time m

Page 2 — Finally!

I've been working on Lesson 5, Course 2 for the past week, although it seems like more!I guess it's true: "If this writing stuff was easy, everyone would be doing it!"Didn't expect it to take this long, though....Things learned: it gets easier the more you do it. My first page was MUCH harder to finish. I changed the keyword a half-dozen times, changed the whole concept of the page more than twice, and never did manage to squeeze out 1,000 wordsNow, though, the keyword stayed the same (although

Why is this one different?

My wife and I were sitting, watching some of the news coverage of the memorial in Parkland — the latest catchword in our lexicon of mass murder.And the tears were just flowing. Couldn't stop. I was confused....Why is it different this time? We saw the scenes of Las Vegas.... Santa Barbara..... VA Tech.... Sandy Hook....Why is this one so much more poignant? Why does my heart just ache for these young people, those teachers?I'm not sure. It might be due to my 30+ years as a secondary schoo

Yeah! Course 1 Complete!

Finally got through lessons 8 & 9, and I now have keyword list of some 7395 items -- no, not really, it just seems to go on and on and on....Isn't Jaaxy amazing? How could anyone stop at 5 keywords? The ideas just keep coming and coming....I can really see, now, how I can draw traffic to my site. I guess the next step will be to figure out how to get cash out of those visitors! I guess that's the affiliate part, right?I'll find out! Stay tuned!Tim

I saw the Blue Bloody Super Moon!

(but I cheated!)When I got up at 2:45am, local (Mountain) time, the moon looked just like it had when I went to bed. Beautiful, true, but neither large, blue or bloody.So, I went downstairs, got comfy in my easy chair and tuned the TV to the NASA channel: There it was! Our big, beautiful FULL moon! Filled the screen, no binoculars or telescope needed.I settled in for the long haul, draped the afghan over my legs, decided I would go outside only when the moon was fully eclipsed, and.........fell

Writing about myself.

Does anyone else have this problem? Or did you, back when you were first in WA?I've purchased my domain, chosen a theme, and www.rovingretirees.org is officially open for business -- Google even indexed it before I was finished with that lesson!Now, the coursework tells me, its time to write "About Me".... Ugh!I don't like talking about myself! I think we're trained (I'm sure I was) to be modest, self-effacing, the opposite of showy, flashy. I think I'm procrastinating beginning my next task fr