Year in Review 2024
Another year passes, let’s try this again:
Family/Friends:
Older generation started to leave us, Jack the brother-in-law to my Uncle John passed away in February; another relative to my Uncle John, his sister Maria fell down some stairs and broke several ribs. Earlier in December my uncle Denny had some heart trouble and had some surgery done.
After a couple years finally saw my cousins Dave and James again, both live overseas… though James is moving back to the States full time.
I mainly knew them through online interactions but both Porsupah and Dragoneer/Preyfar passed away this year.
Entertainment:
Finally got all trophies on Cult of the Lamb, main game and both DLC’s. Made me happy because now I can set that game aside and start focusing on other games have on backlog. They came out with another DLC in August and even though I worked through some of the new quests they didn’t come with new trophies. Games I really like I’m striving to get all trophies for… unless I have pretty much zero chance of accomplishing it lol
Attended the new NJ furry convention Garden State Fur the Weekend, first furry convention since lockdown. Chatted with shy_matsi and tjcoyote, two people I haven’t seen since before Covid.
Work:
Saw some co-workers and former co-workers leave the company this year. Largely started end of May when the company offered an early retirement package to anyone over 50 with a certain number of years in service and a couple other restrictions. Found out that my former manager Steve applied for it and received it (which surprised a few of us who figured he was around 56 or 57 years of age). But he'd said he was tired of the skewed work/life balance and that if this option hadn't come up he probably only had another year or two in him for this job. Package was too good to pass up, three weeks for every year of employment and some medical credits. Hell, if I was the minimum age of 50 in order to apply I might’ve taken it too just to have money for a brief sabbatical lol
They kept him for a bit longer than we all expected, end of September, he'd wanted to leave sooner so he could start actually enjoying life - he rented a house in Florida and I think he's spending a good portion of the winter down there. Mentioned if he makes it to Miami he might run into a few other former co-workers he'd known (Mauricio and Yina). Had a fun retirement party for him his last week.
Another former manager of mine, Kevin, also took the package, he made clear he’d be finding another job to work through the almost ten years left until his retirement but that the package was too good to pass up and he’d been thinking about leaving anyway. He actually got lucky because he apparently was in the process of leaving in the company when the package became an option. If there weren't some issues with the compensation at the company he was interviewing with didn't delay things he might've left without a package.
Some of us took Kevin out to lunch his last week in June, we ended up sitting near some people we knew who were taking a coworker of theirs out as a goodbye lunch. I never worked with Ed but he was friends with some of my coworkers and we chatted every now and then.
I’d then discover over the following couple months more people who took the package (an actuary David and an underwriter Jeannie). Then at some point late in the year found a former co-worker Bob had left the company back around June - confirmed he had also taken the package. In August another coworker of mine (Mike) decided to leave the company, eventually found out he'd follow a former manager of his to a competing company… though when he left he made it sound like he didn’t have anything lined up when he gave notice. And lastly a manager who worked with my team last year, Ovi, was laid off around July.
Attended my first company Christmas part since 2019, was fun... first time in awhile I got pretty tipsy :P
Finance:
As mentioned in another post awhile back, I've been working more towards investing in a brokerage account - past year or so I decided it would focus on bringing in dividends. Slow going but having a plan for the account and measuring its growth helps keep you interested in adding to it; currently producing a few hundred bucks a month but my goal is to get it up to at least a thousand a month. I'm keeping to my investment goal each month, that plus reinvesting the dividends should snowball at some point. For anyone interested, I’m focusing more on monthly dividend producing stocks/ETF’s/REIT’s but my current largest ones include GOF, O, QYLD, and SPYI.
Retirement accounts have hit a nice milestone... though not quite enough to retire early lol. I will say that I have increasingly thought about a conversation I once had with jbadger about how much needs to be saved for retirement. I remember him mentioning that ultimately he wanted something like a four million net worth by the time he retired (I don't remember if that included the value of his house or just 401k/IRA). I don't see myself getting even close to that, but it is something that keeps me a bit grounded whenever I feel like I'm making good progress.
Anyway… time marches on.
Family/Friends:
Older generation started to leave us, Jack the brother-in-law to my Uncle John passed away in February; another relative to my Uncle John, his sister Maria fell down some stairs and broke several ribs. Earlier in December my uncle Denny had some heart trouble and had some surgery done.
After a couple years finally saw my cousins Dave and James again, both live overseas… though James is moving back to the States full time.
I mainly knew them through online interactions but both Porsupah and Dragoneer/Preyfar passed away this year.
Entertainment:
Finally got all trophies on Cult of the Lamb, main game and both DLC’s. Made me happy because now I can set that game aside and start focusing on other games have on backlog. They came out with another DLC in August and even though I worked through some of the new quests they didn’t come with new trophies. Games I really like I’m striving to get all trophies for… unless I have pretty much zero chance of accomplishing it lol
Attended the new NJ furry convention Garden State Fur the Weekend, first furry convention since lockdown. Chatted with shy_matsi and tjcoyote, two people I haven’t seen since before Covid.
Work:
Saw some co-workers and former co-workers leave the company this year. Largely started end of May when the company offered an early retirement package to anyone over 50 with a certain number of years in service and a couple other restrictions. Found out that my former manager Steve applied for it and received it (which surprised a few of us who figured he was around 56 or 57 years of age). But he'd said he was tired of the skewed work/life balance and that if this option hadn't come up he probably only had another year or two in him for this job. Package was too good to pass up, three weeks for every year of employment and some medical credits. Hell, if I was the minimum age of 50 in order to apply I might’ve taken it too just to have money for a brief sabbatical lol
They kept him for a bit longer than we all expected, end of September, he'd wanted to leave sooner so he could start actually enjoying life - he rented a house in Florida and I think he's spending a good portion of the winter down there. Mentioned if he makes it to Miami he might run into a few other former co-workers he'd known (Mauricio and Yina). Had a fun retirement party for him his last week.
Another former manager of mine, Kevin, also took the package, he made clear he’d be finding another job to work through the almost ten years left until his retirement but that the package was too good to pass up and he’d been thinking about leaving anyway. He actually got lucky because he apparently was in the process of leaving in the company when the package became an option. If there weren't some issues with the compensation at the company he was interviewing with didn't delay things he might've left without a package.
Some of us took Kevin out to lunch his last week in June, we ended up sitting near some people we knew who were taking a coworker of theirs out as a goodbye lunch. I never worked with Ed but he was friends with some of my coworkers and we chatted every now and then.
I’d then discover over the following couple months more people who took the package (an actuary David and an underwriter Jeannie). Then at some point late in the year found a former co-worker Bob had left the company back around June - confirmed he had also taken the package. In August another coworker of mine (Mike) decided to leave the company, eventually found out he'd follow a former manager of his to a competing company… though when he left he made it sound like he didn’t have anything lined up when he gave notice. And lastly a manager who worked with my team last year, Ovi, was laid off around July.
Attended my first company Christmas part since 2019, was fun... first time in awhile I got pretty tipsy :P
Finance:
As mentioned in another post awhile back, I've been working more towards investing in a brokerage account - past year or so I decided it would focus on bringing in dividends. Slow going but having a plan for the account and measuring its growth helps keep you interested in adding to it; currently producing a few hundred bucks a month but my goal is to get it up to at least a thousand a month. I'm keeping to my investment goal each month, that plus reinvesting the dividends should snowball at some point. For anyone interested, I’m focusing more on monthly dividend producing stocks/ETF’s/REIT’s but my current largest ones include GOF, O, QYLD, and SPYI.
Retirement accounts have hit a nice milestone... though not quite enough to retire early lol. I will say that I have increasingly thought about a conversation I once had with jbadger about how much needs to be saved for retirement. I remember him mentioning that ultimately he wanted something like a four million net worth by the time he retired (I don't remember if that included the value of his house or just 401k/IRA). I don't see myself getting even close to that, but it is something that keeps me a bit grounded whenever I feel like I'm making good progress.
Anyway… time marches on.