May 26, 2016
I recently started looking at the blog features
of LinkedIn, and found that people are posting some well thought out observations,
via links to their blogger pages. I had
been posting to my blog "finefoodorfodder.blogspot.com" while in Juba,
South Sudan, up until July of 2013.
Things just got hectic for a while; then we had to leave the country as
soon as possible after intense fighting broke out on Sunday, Dec 15, 2013. I didn't post to my blog again until April
and May of 2014, from my home in Los Angeles.
At that time I was commenting on the South Sudan peace agreement discussions
underway in Addis Ababa.
One technical note: I had dozens of photos loaded into Picasa
albums, and attached to my blog during 2011.
They all reverted in the blog to blank squares, and none of those Picasa
albums from 2011 through 2013 show up in Google/Picasa albums now. Only those photos from 2012 and onward still
appear in my blog posts, which were linked to Picasa photos and uploaded under
a different email address than my current Single Sign-In address. Never quite figured that out. Maybe one day. Soon I'll try to import my old blog posts from
2011 through 2014 to this new blog. I
have no current access to the dashboard of my old blog. Ah, woe is me!
Back to the update at hand. In June, 2014, I took on a theme park type
project task with LA ProPoint, for friends that I had known for a long
time. As with many projects, the time to
devote to a blog just dwindled, you might say.
Right, it's now 2 years later, and the intervening events must make a
lengthy list. I kept my contacts with
friends and coworkers from the South Sudan era, and just tuned in to a lot of
news. I finished the intense equipment
development project with Universal Studios Hollywood/Fast & Furious tram
tour show in June, 2015, then took a 6 week vacation in South East Asia
(Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos), then officially
"retired". I started doing
volunteer work with Habitat for Humanity in a local low-income housing project
in the Fall of 2015, while I spent more time with my own local Engineers
Without Borders/Los Angeles Professional Chapter (EWB). I volunteered time to develop a
design/project management pilot project for EWB in partnership with the
National Forest Service, for upgrade to an Angeles National Forest park
site. I've also been supporting
close-out efforts for an EWB/LA water project in Tanzania, and reviewing a new
proposal for a water services project in Cameroon.
None of these volunteer projects take up a lot
of time right now, but they provide a real sense of satisfaction, and they are
not part of a "career trajectory", unless you think of retirement as
a career. I enjoyed my 9 years of LA
area public school and water infrastructure development projects, and my miscellaneous
10 years of experiences in the theme park development industry (here in the
U.S., plus Spain and Japan) and 7 years in the LA area defense industry were
all possible because we live in this 1st world environment.
During this semi-relaxing semi-retirement, I
took a 10 day vacation in Istanbul in February 2016, to join my nephew Joel,
who has been walking from Sri Lanka to Los Angeles, without walking on water, for
more than 1 1/2 years. We were tourists
in Istanbul for those 10 days, took hundreds of photos, and watched the movie
"Deadpool" in a theater along the political demonstration zone, then Joel
continued his trek westward. Now I've
been immersed in networking and in this political year circus, while planning
my next vacation - 2 wks in Vienna. I'll
meet my nephew again, along with his parents and sister, and after that 2 wks of
photos and touristy memorable experiences, Joel will continue westward toward
England, and we'll return to our "peaceful" USA.
My point to this post, other than filling in a
few gaps since 2014, is to reflect on what life teaches us if we're
listening. We so often don't take the
time to observe and critique what goes on around us, or to think about how we
can shift destiny, for ourselves or for others, for the better.
Usually we're just into survival, or in my case
I'm seriously considering what the remaining years that I have on this planet
will be like. In our own
"little" 1st world environment, we seldom consider how different and
diverse the rest of the world really is.
We take so much for granted that we expect the rest of the world to
speak our language and share our values.
It's time to get over that. I
have friends and former coworkers who mean a lot to me, who are currently
living and/or working rather far away in Japan, Australia, China, S/E Asia, the
Middle East, Africa, Europe, and Central America (I'm not in regular
communication with anyone in South America, but I'll try to remedy that one day). They are opening themselves to other people's
realities. You, whoever you are, should try
to expand your thinking beyond the daily drive for survival, and imagine how
you can make things better for someone else, somewhere.
Since this is another catch-up post, I'll end
with the observation that I am in a position to work because I want to, not
because I have to. I'm fortunate that
our own culture has allowed this old fart to take time to write, to try to
relax occasionally, to travel periodically, and to work on things which are
embedded with a sense of purpose. I can
tell you're impressed by my penmanship and witty repartee!!! Or not !!!
