January 1, 2010

Happy New Year!  We have every reason to celebrate this year.  This one represents so much possibility to us.  Oddly, we were in bed by 10:30 last night, a couple of old people tired out from a half day of skiing.  We were invited to a party, but I was as worried about my ability to drive tired as the abilities of other drivers to drive drunk.  It just didn’t make sense to contemplate heading out on the roads.  Instead, we had a lovely dinner, shrimp cocktail, steaks, and an excellent bottle of sparkling wine (Roederer Brut Rose).  We celebrated the Ohio New Year with a few phone conversations with friends.

With the conclusion of 2009, we can conclude our moose counting.  Since we moved here, we had been wondering how often people see moose in Alaska.  I finally decided to conduct a reasonably scientific 365 day study.  My end result is that I saw one moose about once every three days.  Kris saw one about every four days.

Skiing hasn’t been great.  We skied the day after Christmas with similar conditions to Christmas Day, rain at the bottom and wet snow at the top.  We skipped last Sunday since it was going to be just more of the same.  No new snow has fallen since that rainy stretch, but the temperatures have dropped with the appearance of clear skies and sunshine.  This has turned our mountain into ice.  You can tell bad conditions immediately on the first lift ride as the skiers below make loud scraping sounds with every turn.  Nice snow is nearly silent.  We still had fun yesterday.  There is always deep soft snow along the edges of the runs on days like this.  The beginners are afraid of the edges of the trail so they go down the middle, scraping the firm surface and pushing those scrapings to the sides of the trail.  The scrapings were deep in places with a nice sugary consistency.  To ski the narrow strip of sugar requires very quick turns, but the conditions are forgiving, far more forgiving than the long icy slides in the middle of the trails.

Today we will stay home.  The conditions haven’t changed except to perhaps be colder.  There are some good football games.  And we don’t feel a sense of urgency to get in every day of skiing this season.  In a couple of weeks, we will be able to ski whenever we want.  We are really looking forward to crowd-less weekday skiing.

You may have noticed the October 9 posting placed out of order.  Weekday skiing can only be achieved by eliminating other weekday commitments, namely our jobs.  There is no longer any risk associated with publishing this part of our life plan.  We are turning in our two week notices on Monday.  We are quitting our jobs.  We have been counting down the days since August.  My countdown started with 70 workdays remaining.  It was a long countdown and we are both elated to finally be here.

Decisions like this don’t come easy.  The long countdown allowed us to challenge the idea for months.  The start of the countdown doesn’t represent the point at which we made the decision.  It represented the point at which the idea became concrete enough to believe it was reasonable.  Even committing some financial resources to the purchase of a van and a trailer didn’t commit us.  Those investments were relatively small in the greater scheme of life.  We can’t point to a day when the decision was made.  In fact, until we turn in our official resignations, we can still back out.  We would probably even be able to back out after that.  At this point, though, we have no doubts.  We really haven’t had any doubts along the way, but it was comforting to know that we weren’t committed.  It allowed us to analyze and test.  The analysis and tests always pointed in the same direction.

The last few months have included some fear.  It comes more as an adrenaline rush, like standing at the top of a scary ski run looking down.  It seems like a bold move, no more bold than quitting our jobs in Ohio and moving up here, but conventional thinking would challenge the intelligence of walking away from well compensated positions with plenty of future options.  We have both enjoyed our job experiences here in Alaska, but both seem to have run their courses for us.  We can’t name a likely future assignment that we find interesting.

We have told many of our friends and their response has been overwhelmingly supportive.  I have now told most of the people I work with, including my boss.  While I haven’t given an official notice, the management team knows what is coming.  I had some fear about this as a vengeful response could be to end my employment before the end of the year, costing me my 2010 vacation pay.  Vacation schedules forced my hand if I was going leave with positive relationships still intact.  I couldn’t have my work partner return from her vacation to a surprise that I had less than a week left.  As the end of the year approached and the workload assured my necessity into the new year, I lacked fear of a vengeful response.  The response has been great.  High up in our organization, I had two surprisingly supportive responses.  Our operations manager was one of them.  He expressed enthusiasm for our departure for a life adventure and sincere appreciation for my contribution over the last two years.

The best challenge to our plan is the issue of quitting our jobs before we have secured new jobs with the State Department.  Many have suggested staying until we have more certainty.  Our justifications are probably just justifications, but the logic isn’t bad.  First, we have been saving for years in after-tax accounts with the expectation that we will retire before typical retirement age.  We now have an estimated seven years of savings with only nine to sixteen years until retirement age.  When are we going to spend that savings?  In many ways, it is better to spend some of it when we are younger and can do things like ski an intense season or spend another summer Alaska-style. 

The second justification is that our hearts aren’t in our current positions.  They have become a bit tedious.  We aren’t learning much.  The daily challenges are no longer challenging, just frustrating.  I suppose everyone reaches that point in their job and it does take a certain amount of character to gut it out, but most people do that in the interest of future rewards.  We don’t see any rewards in it for us.

The third justification is that we need time to study.  We are committing to an entirely different career direction.  We need to prepare.  Trying to study in the evenings after burning so much of our mental energy during the day is far more difficult.

And finally, this approach is just more fun.  There is a certain rush from jumping in with both feet.  And if we are leaving Alaska for foreign assignments, we would like one last chance to enjoy this environment.  Winter and summer activities will both be better during weekdays and we will have far more opportunities in a lifestyle that doesn’t stretch us between work, fun, and preparation.  Eliminating the work will be better. The icing on the cake was the trailer.  We have talked for years about living full time in an RV.  We think it might be a part of our retirement plan, but we have never done it.  This will give us some experience with this idea. 

Like I said, justifications, but perhaps some logic.  Ultimately people do what they want and justify.  Now 2010 is here and we are accelerating into the future.  We hope everyone is experiencing a similar sense of excitement about the coming year.