Is this normal?

 Life, Work  No Responses »
Feb 112011
 

So far this not working thing is proving more difficult to get used to than I anticipated.

It’s not like I’m bored, as there are lots of exciting things to do, like reading, watching the plants grow in the back yard, or better yet following the news on the internet and TV as chaos and lunacy slowly permeates throughout the world and especially the US.

It’s that I feel there’s something missing. After working for the same company, through all its turmoil, and essentially the same people for over 20 years, now there’s a void I am finding difficult to fill.

At one time, we were a happy [and sometimes dysfunctional] family. (That of course all changed when Precision Castparts Inc took us over in Oct ’09.) Now, no one calls any more to ask for my advice. Even Becky, who I was the closest to, has seemingly forgotten me already. It’s like losing a family member, or maybe in this case, getting a divorce.

Yeah, I know, eventually I’ll get over it. I just wish someone could define eventually for me.

BIG SIGH!

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 Posted by Marc at 5:26 am  Tagged with:

There’s no going back now

 Life, Work  5 Responses »
Feb 052011
 

I’m starting to feel a lot better about my decision.

Yesterday, I managed to retrieve my company telephone number for my own use. It wasn’t easy [or cheap], Verizon customer service sucks, but it is done, and then this afternoon I sold the Camry.

I definitely got my moneys worth out of the Camry (248,000 no hassle miles), and even if I had given it away, I still would have been way ahead of the game, but I got $1,200 for it‚ and that’s with a cracked windshield and a passenger side door that only opens from the inside. (Those were the only things wrong with it.)

And best of all, I don’t have to worry about getting a parking ticket in front of the house anymore, because I forgot to move the car on street cleaning day.

Now the only obstacle left is getting Social Security disability approved, which is proving to be a little more daunting then I expected. There seems to be a few more documents to fill out then there were 2 years ago when Edie filled out her application.

Fortunately (or unfortunately depending on your perspective), I have one of those diseases that “is expected to end in death”, so it get’s special treatment, and gets “fast tracked” through the system.

Oh well, working in the aerospace industry for over 30 years, I’ve come to expect changes I don’t like, but I’ve always managed to endure.

Hopefully this time won’t be any different.

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 Posted by Marc at 3:26 pm  Tagged with: , ,

I hope I made the right decision

 General Health, Life, Work  1 Response »
Feb 012011
 

Well today I decided to announce to my realm of aerospace that I would no longer be performing my duties as the Director of Quality and Metallurgy at Arcturus Manufacturing. It wasn’t exactly how I planned it, but when the controller at my company called asking about my application for state disability, it just sort of mushroomed into that.

This isn’t something I decided on the spur of the moment though. I had been contemplating this for several months, but now that it’s done I’m starting to have some doubts. Arcturus has been a part of my life for over 25 years, and now it’s all over?

Even one of the guys in the shop called, indicating how great it was working with me, and telling me how much he had learned from me. I’m sure it was just platitudes, but now that I’ve made my intentions clear, and I assume everyone else at the company now knows it, the reality of it is starting to settle in. It’s just so hard to imagine. It all seems so final.

I did want this ( at least I thought I did), and financially Edie and I should be OK. We’ve got a decent nest egg, and that along with a year of state disability (which was approved, but quickly ended because of an error by Kaiser, and resubmitted yesterday), plus Social Security (even if my SSDI isn’t approved, which could be problematic since I haven’t had any treatment yet), we should still be able to maintain our same lifestyle, for as long as I expect we’ll be around.

Still it isn’t helping to relieve this knot I have in my gut, nor this sinking feeling that I may have made the wrong decision. :(

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 Posted by Marc at 4:51 pm  Tagged with:

A great dilemma

 Edie, My MCL, Work  4 Responses »
Jan 142011
 

For the past couple of months I seem to be getting more and more fatigued (I know my cycling abilities have sure been lacking), and my spleen has been becoming more bothersome, especially during my long commute to work. It may just be this time of year (which I have never liked), along with the below normal temperatures and above average rain fall making me feel this way, but whatever the case, things are starting to get to me.

Seeing how I was feeling during my last appointment, my oncologist put me on permanent disability. Initially I thought that is what I wanted. No more making that long commute 2 days a week, and no more having to deal with working for a publicly traded company, with all the little idiosyncrasies I never had to deal with before. But the more I thought about it, the more hesitant I became.

There are benefits to working, if for no other reason than it breaks up the monotony of the everyday routine. Then there is the health insurance question.  I’ve grown comfortable dealing with Kaiser and my current oncologist, and going on disability would end that. At least it would end my company paying for it. I could afford to continue paying for the same coverage on my own (through COBRA), but that seems like such a waste, when I don’t have to, since I am eligible for VA care.

So before I did anything I decided to talk to my boss, and see if we could make some other arrangement. There was one possibility with our sister company in Paramount, which would have been perfect, but that position was filled the day I talked to my boss about it. The GM at our sister company indicated there may be some other opportunity for my particular skill set, and that is still going on, but that isn’t quite as easy as it would have been in the past, when we weren’t part of a huge multi-billion dollar publicly traded corporation.

Plus I just discovered Arcturus has disability insurance as well, so collecting that along with CA SDI, and Social Security disability, I could make out like a bandit (making more money not working), for some length of time. Plus I have 6 weeks of vacation accrued which I can collect as well.

So now I’m stuck in that place I didn’t want to be. Even more than this time of year, I hate having to make decisions.

So in the mean time, I’ve turned in my paperwork for disability to my doctors office to send to the state of California, and I’m taking the next two weeks off for vacation, mainly to help Edie, since there is some concern with side effects from one of the drugs she is taking (Denosumab), and also to mull things over some more.

Stay tuned!

Sorry for the duplicate posting

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 Posted by Marc at 7:32 am  Tagged with:

Deja vu all over again

 Life, Work  6 Responses »
Sep 062010
 

BIG SIGH! This seems to be an ongoing issue with me, that is how tough it is some mornings just gettin’ out of bed.

And it has [almost] nothing to do with the state of the economy, or the tearing apart of the fabric of our society by some factions in our country, or even mine and Edie’s illnesses. It’s just becoming more noticeable with each passing day how everything I’ve come to accept and enjoy in life is being altered in ways I’m not happy with.

Sure there have been some changes that have been for the better, and have made our lives easier, i.e. computers, the internet, smart phones, wireless everything, etc. but those are just things. And the more I think about it, I’m not so sure the advent of the internet has been such a good thing.

I’m talking about things you can’t easily describe. It’s like how the dynamics of the bike club I started back in the late 80′s, along with a few friends, has changed, and now the same thing is occurring with the bike club I ride with currently. So many of the people I was accustomed to riding with, are either riding less, not doing the rides they used to do, or are no longer riding at all. Yes there are new people, who I do enjoy riding with [and some I don't], but still it’s just not the same.

It’s how things have changed at work. Now that we’ve been purchased by this huge [public] conglomerate, it seems everything we do has come under greater scrutiny, and we’re being inundated with what appears to me to be so many needless and useless requirements. We used to be one big happy family, operating profitably for years (and still do I’ll add). I even enjoyed going to work. It’s just not the same any more. A once cohesive unit now seems to be falling apart.

I see it in other areas as well. I see it on the road when I’m riding my bike. Drivers, in a hurry, purposely cutting off cyclists, so they can make that right turn just ahead, or to hurry up and wait at the upcoming red light.

It’s noticeable in how easily people jump to conclusions, react without thinking, and as a cycling buddy put it recently, how easily people go

from zero to pissed off in 0.01 seconds.

While the vast majority of people don’t fit into this mold, there does seem to be an ever increasing number who do. Fortunately I’m not one of them, always controlling my outbursts, and being courteous to everyone. [Most of the time anyways.]

Oh well, I guess if there’s one thing that doesn’t change, it’s that everything keeps changing, but knowing that doesn’t change how I feel. I should know, I felt the same way yesterday morning.

And please no comments about me getting help or taking some drug for depression. Sure I’ll admit to being depressed at times. Who wouldn’t with my circumstances, but that still isn’t going to happen. Heck I won’t even take Vitamin D or an Fe supplement, so if you think I’m going to take some drug for depression, you’re sadly mistaken. I don’t believe in them. And that’s something that isn’t going to change.

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 Posted by Marc at 6:22 am  Tagged with:

Just how much longer can this go on?

 Cycling, Edie, My MCL, Politics, Work  5 Responses »
Jun 122010
 

It seems the longer we go, the worse things get.

The fiasco in the gulf is just one of many example.  We’re so busy politicizing this, and trying to place blame and fault (often where it doesn’t belong), little focus is being placed on the real issue, and that is an ecological disaster that will linger on [for uncountable years], creating unimaginable consequences from which the southeastern coast of the US may never recover, and place an undue burden on the rest of the country.

Another example is the politicization of physician reimbursements for medicare patients by the Republicans. But I’m not going to get into that. It would take up way too much of my time, and result in even greater aggravation.

Then there are the customers [at work] who are becoming more stupid by the day, designing systems that are so complicated and convoluted, and change by the minute, they guarantee errors, and non compliance with requirements, forcing suppliers to change procedures that have worked for the past 30+ years [and still work for 99% of all other customers], all in the name of improving quality. But in the end all it really does is create delays in production, and increased costs, without any improvement in quality.

And on top of all this, Edie is going through 10 days of radiation (3 more to go), and my fatigue [or maybe it's just depression] seems to grow worse by the day, forcing me to face the reality, I may not be able to delay treatment much longer.

There just doesn’t seem to be any reason to get out of bed any more, except maybe for a bike ride, the only thing that seems to allow me to maintain my sanity in this insane world.

All I want to know is, when will all this insanity end?

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 Posted by Marc at 7:12 am
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