Musings at Altitude

I’m sitting in the courtyard of the hotel right now, looking every bit of the geek that my 15 year old accuses me of being.  And for some reason, I’m thinking forward right now.  And I’ve come to the following conclusions:

1. I’m closing in on 49 right now, giving me about 25 more learning years in front of me; once I hit 74 though, I want to transition from someone learning to someone instead spouting ultimate wisdom to my children who will have 25-35 more years of learning ahead of them; and because they will have nothing but respect for me in that advanced age, they will most certainly cherish everything I say and in turn pontificate on my sayings to their kids as well
2. My car is closing in on 220,000 miles now, and I figure that she’ll be closing in on 800,000 or so by the time I hit 74; of course, between now and then I’ll have tried to pawn her off on any of my grandchildren that would want such a wonderful vehicle, and I fully expect each of them to say, “why in the world would I want that when my mom and dad are buying me a BMW?”; I’ll give my usual, “but she’s a great car” and they’ll respond with, “and she’s about to explode”, and I’ll keep driving her waiting for that horrific day that she does indeed stop in the middle of the highway and that day will inevitably never come since all of us are waiting for it; so I need to figure out what kind of car I want to buy when I do indeed stop learning and start spouting and need the wonderful ride of a wise man rather than a learning man
3. Our house is approaching 8 years old, so at the time that I quit learning and start spouting, we’ll have just recently then paid off the mortgage; near as I can tell, by that time we’ll have paid the actual cost to build the home at least 5 or 6 times, and padded the pockets of several financial institutions that may or may not then exist since I think one or two of them may not even exist today; that 6,000 square feet that wasn’t nearly enough for the five of us when we moved in will have become a virtual mansion by the time I quit learning and only the two of us spend our time in about 1,200 of those 6,000 square feet; but by then, we may have about 3,000 pigeons living with us (judging by the numbers that are growing on our roof today), and we could easily let them have the 2,000 feet in the basement to nest; as our children have their own children, they could fit comfortably in the 3 bedrooms upstairs, so the basement would become a family museum or very expensive storage, one or the other; at the pace that my wife and I are deteriorating (strictly based on the way either one of us are today after just a tad bit of exercise), by the time I’m 74, we’ll need a lift system to get me up and down the stairs, and instead of suffering with that, I’d instead never leave the main floor; after all, what more would I need than my office, the bedroom, the kitchen, two bathrooms, the front porch and the back deck
4. Since I’ve had 7 different jobs in the last 12 years, I figure I have 14 more jobs in these next 25 years, thus giving me the chance to influence or be influenced (positively or negatively in either case) by another few thousand people in numerous states across this great land and several different countries around this amazing world; since speaking a new language is probably something far out of the realm of reality for me, I’ll have to focus on English speaking nations or at least international locales where English is a primary language of communications; and since my wife will almost certainly not leave her current home, I can expect to add another 2,000,000 or more air miles to my current 2,000,000, thus bringing me to that rarified group of people that have traveled in the air the equivalent of going to the moon and back 8 times

As I think through each of these now, none of these seem out of the realm of possibility…don’t know if that’s wonderfully exciting or staggeringly sad!

But I must admit that I’m excited for whatever the future entails.  I have so many stories and lessons from my first 27 years of professional life that I can’t even really grasp how many more will pile on in these next 24! 

I just hope my little bitty brain can push enough stuff out to allow some more stuff in!