This is Wallace ordering breakfast at the now famous “Senor Café” (Mr. Coffee) in Hollywood, Florida. Around this time last year.
For a good day, it was not a bad day. I spent the morning over at Panera calculating some actuarial breakeven points. As touched on y’day, I must be very careful not to do anything out of order. I tend to plan far more into the future than usual, often with different motives. This always pays off. A good example of planning is that, although I could get money now from my old company, would that give me too high an income a year from now to get anything else? And do you think there is anyone around who would give me a straight answer on that?Wallace and I chatted for nearly an hour. From how we operated merely ten years ago, this entire property research, negotiation, and purchase has been on the Internet and cell phone (except for the wire transfer, the only screw-up so far). The way we go about doing things has changed out of all recognition. Every picture was sent via email as an attachment, all of them digital and some taken by satellite in 3D. The same exchange used to take weeks if it were even possible at all. We don’t even keep track, but yet not one part of the process so far could have happened without computers. Those who don’t appreciate the wonderment [of all this] are simply so young as to still take things for granted.
The newest plan is to get Millie down here in advance of the Alaska cruise. Wallace assures me she [the dog] is “mid-sized” and quickly learns who to trust, which hopefully includes me. He is to investigate the possibility of sending Millie here a week or two in advance, making both the cruise and travel here for him more convenient in late May. Typically, every last “expert” I asked about how this pet travel worked had no clue so we’ll have to figure things out by ourselves. You get used to that.
[Author's note 2017: the "lap" dog turned out to be a "lab" dog weighing in at 88 pounds. The dog was slightly retarded, but like all dog owner's, Wallace thought Millie was a genius. Then again, that's what he thought about his grand-kids . . . .}
My heart is acting up again (see December 2004) and once again that forces me to look at the economics of living without working. Like my cat. I’ve made errors in the calculation once before, so this time I will build in some redundancies. Tomorrow I get some facts from the government and that determines what I do for the next 30 months. I have to ensure that whatever arrangement I make in one area does not disqualify me in another. If all goes well, I’ll be able to replace my current income without working. There is no substitute for long-term planning even if my horizon is moving closer.
So, what was my big error in calculation? Well, I took a buyout package from my old job. I had six months of banked time. The agreement was they pay me out first, then I take the buyout. I would be gone a month when the money arrived. When it came, it was quite a smaller amount. What they did was include my banked time in my buyout, so to the government it looked twice as large, got taxed back to nothing and delayed my claim for benefits by nearly two years. I did some damage control, but was out nearly $70,000 (more than a year’s salary at that time). My error was not calculating the money, but in trusting my employer and the government. I must be the only person alive dumb enough to trust the both of them, right?
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