Wow, it’s been a long time since the last post. I just wrote a short post and somehow all the text got deleted when I went to publish it. Let’s try again.

   I’ve been woefully negligent in updating this blog.  I think that I’ll post about our cruises and vacations as we enter retirement. I’m not much of a writer, but maybe this will be the start of something big!

As some have heard, back in July, the VP of Information Technology Systems called seven of us into his office individually and told us that we’d be laid off at the end of October. Two were told they were being kept until February.  While one of the ‘February folks’ has subsequently successfully posted for another job in the Fed, the rest of us have a week and a half left until we’re OUTTA THERE!

Luckily, I’m able to retire, though I don’t know how much cruising we’ll be able to do in the future. The financial manager has said that we’ll be able to continue our lifestyle as we now enjoy it, so I’m hoping for a couple of cruises per year.

The ‘bad news’ of this whole thing is that when we were talking to the financial manager, Pam looked at her pension and saw that it would nearly double what it would be today if she waits another 3.5 years until she’s 62. That sucks, but really, she pretty much likes her job and I think she’ll be able to breeze through the next few years.

So . . . I hope to post more here in the future.  And as far as the future is concerned, we have one cruise booked so far, but are looking at a couple more. The booked cruise is a Disney cruise from New York City to the Bahamas with a stop at Port Canaveral for a day at Disney World. I’m looking at trying Celebrity for a Caribbean cruise out of NYC also. We’ll have to see how that goes.

Stay tuned, and let’s see if I actually post more here!

Jen asked me to show how we’re related to Hans Herr. Here is a link to a spreadsheet I made to show our lineage.