As of tomorrow, I have retired from Microsoft. I haven’t changed jobs, I’ve retired. For at least the next couple of months I plan to do very little. I’ve been catching up on my reading, we are planning a trip to Ashland in the next couple of weeks to see what it’s like in the winter, and I am expecting to visit Florida in February for Mama’s birthday party.

When I finally made my decision and announced it to my boss I came home and slept for about 10 hours straight. The next day my blood pressure was down at least 10 points. I took leave for a couple of weeks around the holidays and thoroughly enjoyed doing nothing. Somewhere in there I had cataract surgery in my right eye and I now have 20/20 vision in that eye. I can READ again! That was something I had really missed, and contributed to my reluctance to write. I get the other eye done in a few weeks.

I really never fit in the Microsoft organization, though there are many fine people working there and I will miss them. I will especially miss the people I was working with directly, but even in the broader organization I met a lot of people I really like. It was the institutional attitude that I just didn’t fit into