Some Updates...

...are overdue!

First of all, I almost cannot believe that it has been about 10 days since my last blog post. Perhaps, time flies even when you are not having all that much fun, such as when without a computer. The being without a computer thing may soon be resolved as it seems my pension payments will increase markedly commencing with my August 1st payment. After 9 months, it seems they have finalized what I will be getting but, of course, that does not match what I was told, by my agency, that I would be getting before it went to the federal Office of Personnel Management. It appears they are possibly short changing me 8 to 9K annually. More figuring to be done, on their part, if thy cannot explain that sufficiently. The only explanation I readily will accept is that they reduced my pension by the amount necessary to pay for a spousal benefit in the event I precede the wife and that the reduction is done all at once and does not show up in the listed deductions in the monthly pension statement. If it was reduced for any other reason, they will be hearing from an attorney who will be representing me.


Anyway, I will be getting a sizable increase in my take home annuity payments and that should allow me to buy a new laptop sooner than later. Maybe by the first week of August. I hope so, I do miss my daily blog reading and blog posting. I am using my son's laptop right now.

Other things of note, in my life, at least for me, over the past 10 days are that:


Another family member has passed on. This one an aunt. Probably tied for my favorite aunt, on my father's side, when I was a kid but I had not seen her in years. Yet, I often saw my cousin, one of her sons, who works as a range officer with the agency from which I just retired almost 9 months ago. I am hoping that family deaths do not come in threes as they used to say that actor's deaths came on. My aunt passed, one week and one day after my brother.

I am still working, part time, as a security guard at the library. I have come to learn that the only reason a librarian is required to have a Master's Degree (at least here in NY) is because there was probably some conspiracy among academics and government officials to assure that college professors and the government would get more money by requiring applicants for the position of librarian to be licensed and to require a graduate degree to get that license. My opinion of it all - what a friggin farce. I think that a high school graduate with a 3 month librarian training program under the belt could probably do the work. If not a HS grad, then certainly someone with a Bachelors Degree, in something like advanced basket weaving, could do it successfully, from what I have seen. Yet, I will admit, a few of the librarians that I have met, where I work, surely seem to believe themselves to be purdy schmart - schmartar than the aVer-age bear (even than the above average bear) - and they seemingly like to let the rest of the bears know all about it. By the way, this is not a covert, implied, hinted, hidden attack on any librarians with whom I work or otherwise. It is simply my opinion of a few of them whom I have met on my job and my opinion of a Master's degree being a requirement for the position. Maybe there is something to them having to get a Master's degree, but it just seems to be something that I think should not be required to do the job of librarian. As for the rest of the librarians, which is most of them, they are all very nice folks.


Not much else has been going on for me. Certainly no other great changes, than the family losses and my pension amount increase, have taken place in the past 10 days or so.


Oh, I did get back the Browning Citori Lightning shotgun from Browning. I works just fine. Whatever was the minor repair they said they did seems just the right thing for them to have done. Nice experience with them and all at no charge to me except that for shipping the gun to them!


One other thing of note for me was that, yesterday, my daughter and her fiancée had their engagement party. Since they are getting married in St. Maarten, there will not be many who can attend the wedding, so they had sort of a pre-wedding wedding party. It was a smash hit. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, there was an open bar for 4 hours and the food was virtually all very good to excellent. Having to pay for half of it (the grooms parents paid the other half) was not so bad and in all honesty it was well worth it, that is seeing how much the two love birds and all the guests enjoyed themselves.


All the best,
Glenn B