Fast forward the hard way

So since the last post Teresa accepted the position AND MOVED!!   Alston-Raids-Reed-Smith-MoFo-for-New-San-Francisco-Office


Teresa moved to San Fran in March, but visited a lot.  We visited her a bunch too. In the short term we rented a house in Tiburon with great views.

The house is in a beautiful and quiet area known generally as Tiburon.  Within Tiburon, we learned, there are actually several other areas.  Tiburon is the cute little town near the ferry and home to Sam’s Anchor Cafe, the popular deck/dock.  (Sam’s live feed is here:https://samscafe.com/c/sams-camera.html) 

As you look east from Tiburon your neck cranes up a significant hill onto Corinthian Island, which is where we live.  So 135 uneven stairs up from Sam’s is our area.  Lovely houses that all look small from the street, but actually go down the side of the hills.  While not huge, they have beautiful views.  The next island over, which is also visible from Sam’s, is Belvedere Island.  Another micro neighborhood with crazy windy street, beautiful homes and fantastic views.

This pic is Corinthian Island (our house not shown):

Since moving here we have focused on kids and school, sailing, and normalizing life as much as possible.   As to the kids, they still claim to be homesick and probably are homesick.  But, they have friends, activities, and are fitting in to their new schools nicely.   Sam has a wide group of friends, goes out in the neighborhood when homework is done, and is on the Redwood High School Mock Trial Team.   Ella has a good group of friends at school, is in the advanced guitar class (she and one middle school senior are the “advanced” class), and is part of a small singing group she started with the help of cousin Emily.   

Emily is our super talented cousin (http://www.operaonthespot.com/artists/#/charlotte-stowe/) who lives in SF, but visits with us Mondays and Fridays.  When not with us, she is a music and singing teacher, founder of Opera on the Spot, an Opera Perfomance Company that performs around SF.  Emily and Ella got a good group of local kids together and they sing on Fridays.   Hopefully this will grow into a performance opportunity.  But, even if not the singers are all having a great time.

As for the sailing, I joined Modern Sailing, which is a club in Sausalito.  I take classes and get to charter boats.  Weekends are crazy busy, so I try to go out with guys who have time during their week.  Tuesdays seem to work well.  We sail around the SF Bay and practice sailing techniques, sail trim, etc.  The goal is to become a truly proficient sailor.

Here are a couple of pics from sailing in the bay with new found friends. 

Next step -for my 50th birthday Teresa and I are heading to a boat show.  The Multihull (Catamaran) Boat Show in La Grande Motte, France!!  This will be a great opportunity to see catamarans from all over the world and get detailed information about them.  We have a few test sails already booked so we can narrow our choices down as a retirement platform.

Stay tuned for more.  Comments are welcome.  If the blog is at all amusing, please share too.  Not sure if I am just typing to myself here.

Boat lessons

The boat saga continues.  I convinced Sam that the cost of diesel would end up limiting our desire to use a motorboat.  Plus, we could probably get a cool sailboat and a dinghy with a powerful motor to satisfy his need for speed.  The girls also started to indulge us and participate in the discussions about sailing.  Then they inserted their bit of practicality - none of us know how to sail.

Well, that brought us to a momentary stand still.

But wait- there's more.  We had no plans the week between Christmas and New Years.  We usually take some form of road trip around that time.   That jump started my mental process.

So, I planned a trip to take sailing lessons in late December.   We took a family trip (nanny included) to Marina Del Ray and took the most basic sailing lessons available under the American Sailing Association's curriculum.    We had a fantastic trip, a great instructor, and a ton of fun sailing.   

Sam, Teresa and I took the written exam and all passed.  Ella refused to take an exam on a holiday trip, opting instead to go for a pedicure with Emma, the nanny.

So, now three of us knew the basics of sailing (very very basic) and all four of us had a great time.  Sailing is sounding even better.  Once again, sailing pops up as a possible answer to "what will we do when we retire."

Picked an area and went to a boat show

It turns out moving across country will require more than just looking at boats.  Hmm.   We started looking for places to live in SF.  We  spent a few very long days walking around in town SF.  Cool houses.  Dirty neighborhoods.  Lots of homeless.  I am not adverse to those things and like the idea of the kids moving to a more urban environment as a contrast to our home in Atlanta.  But, schools are a serious issue.  As new folks to SF it would be nearly impossible to get our kids into good private schools.  To even give it a real effort would require that we force our kids to take the SSAT, which means a lot of tutoring every week in addition to regular school work. And, they will have to fly out to SF often for the various interviews.  Nope, not willing to do it. So, we looked at surrounding areas.   East Bay is a suburb.  Same as suburbs in Atlanta.  Too similar.  Not worth moving because it won't actually offer a new adventure, just the same lifestyle in a different spot.   Then we visited Tiburon.  Across the Golden Gate Bridge.  Very different feel.  Lots of boats, bike riders, runners.  Very small town.  Teresa could take a ferry to work most days.  Hmm. We looked online at houses in Tiburon.  One house had a dock.  That led to the discussion of boats over breakfast.  Hmm. Long story short -Tiburon here we come.   We don't yet have a house and nothing is set in stone, but that is our desired destination for this new adventure. That led to Sam and me wanting to know more about boarts.  Then it led to an awesome father/son trip to the Ft. Lauderdale boat show.  Huge jump there from sort of thinking about boats to a boat show- but that is reality here in our house.  We get an idea and then jump in with two feet pretty quickly. Sam a had a blast!! Power boats, sailboats, catamarans, and a huge number of accessories that looked cool even if we did not entirely understand their function.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, Sam and I became obsessed with boats as something we could focus on as a family if we moved to SF.  He wanted a super yacht.  I focused more and more on sailboats.  The difference, he was unfettered by reality while I considered both cost of the boat and of the diesel to run it.  Plus, having grown up on powerboats I am just not that interested.  They strike me more as just another means of conveyance like my car or motorcycle while there is something primitive and cool about a sailboat in my mind. So my thoughts began to run rampant.  Maybe we could get a house with a dock.  Maybe the kids would join the school sailing teams. Wait, what, the schools have sailing teams???  COOL. There is a yacht club in Tiburon (SF's oldest), so perhaps I could fulfill my life long dream of wearing white pants and a blue blazer with boat shoes!!

Awesome!

 

This new adventure may be really fun!

 

Origin story

Welcome to Wild Rumpus Retirement- some thoughts and a journal of sorts from a middle aged guy considering what the heck to do in retirement, which is not that far off.  This is purely stream of consciousness - typos and all.

About a year ago my wife asked "what are we going to do when we retire?" I shrugged.  Retirement was not something I really considered.  I only graduated law school yesterday -wait -nope, that was over twenty years ago.  But we just had kids, so still plenty of time.  Um, nope, they are 13 and 11.  Hmm.  They will be out of high school and the house (fingers crossed) in just 7 years?  hmm. The old model?  Well, let's see.  I am a Jew that grew up in NY.  So, obviously I will move to a small condo in Florida, be on the board of the homeowner's association, eat corned beef, and check out flea markers.  Egads, that sounds awful (and very similar to what my parents did).

I know a bunch of older lawyers.  They all seem to work until they "retire" and then they keep going to the office, putzing around, and schmoozing with the other old lawyers until they go home, watch the news and complain about the country and practice of law going to hell in a hand-basket.  Yuk.

Months go by and we have no answer.  The question occasionally pops up.  Enough so that we actually engage with the financial planner we barely used before.  Prepared for awful news, we get a decent report.  Retirement before 80 is definite.   Retirement before 65 is likely.  Retirement in the late 50s is possible if we focus.  Well, that is some happy news. Unrelated to this retirement  issue, we take the kids on a great spring break trip to Italy. That sparks some conversation about traveling. Maybe we should get a small condo as a home base and just travel all over the world.  Sounds fun, but we both hate airports and the process of getting places.  I am not a huge fan of hotels.  But, I like other cities and countries.  How about a villa in Italy and live there part of the year?  Well, that sounds fun twice, but then it is just a second home that I need to worry about and an area that I will be familiar with.  Hardly an adventure.

Maybe be one of those couples that goes from cruise ship to cruise ship?  Nope, that is the old model put into mobile form without any decent corned beef.  Not us.

Time passes.  No answer, but we occasionally discuss the question.  Then, in a completely unrelated turn of events, Teresa, the aforementioned wife,  who is way smarter than I am and has an incredibly successful career as a lawyer at a big law firm is asked to move, to San Francisco and open a new office for her law firm.

When she asked me if I would consider moving to San Francisco I paused and said maybe.  We talked about it as a cool adventure for the family, a nice change of pace and city, and good for her career.  Oh, and they have awesome dim sum.  Other food too, but come on - awesome dim sum is itself a solid reason to move across the country. Downsides- I either commute to maintain my own law firm which will be a huge hassle or take the California bar and practice there (I am kind of old to start again as a lawyer at a firm).  Hmm. Well, we can table those issue until we check out the city and decide if it is even something we want.  I had only been to SF as a tourist.  Teresa  went to law school out there but never looked at it with a critical eye for life with a family.  So, we went (cancelled a big motorcycle trip I had planned which was a huge bummer, but in the end totally worth it).  We loved SF and could see ourselves living there with our kids.  Maybe not in the city as we originally thought.  The school situation was problematic and the homeless population gave us the creeps.  But, we checked out Tiburon and loved it. Tiburon is beautiful having hills, waterfront, beautiful homes, an easy ferry ride to the city.  You can bike to and over the Golden Gate Bridge, and Muir Woods is a short drive.

One interesting thing caught my eye and that of the kids when visiting Tiburon.  Boats.  Lots and lots of boats.  And lots of them were sailboats.   I did not really focus on boats too much at this point, but it registered.  Teresa and I talked over beer at Sam's (famous waterfront bar) about growing up with boats.  She lived on the water in Florida with a dock.  My dad had a boat on which I was a teenage indentured servant.  Hr dragged  me into the Coast Guard Auxiliary with him where I actually taught safety courses.

As the idea of moving to SF progressed, we decided to tell the kids (who were pretty middle of the road about the whole thing) and take them to SF.  That trip was a lot of fun.  We stayed at the top of Nob Hill and every time we went back to the hotel they insisted on pushing/pulling me up the hill.

We rented a car and went to Muir Woods.  Pretty awesome.

And ate lunch at Sam's in Tiburon, which again featured a lot of boats.

Teresa had to leave for a work thing, so the kids and I checked out some tourist stuff including the ferry to Tiburon!

 

The kids officially announced that they were excited about the move.  The expressed some concern about the house (please don't sell it) and wanted to talk about how often they would visit their friends, etc, but overall they gave their approval.  Well, that was easy -just ply them with beautiful scenery, boats, great food and the possibility of re-decorating their rooms and they are up for a 2,400 mile move.  And boats- they want a boat or a house with a dock (they set their expectations a bit high). And now, finally, circling back to the question -what will we do when we retire - how about boats?