One minute, you're all buffed up, wearing your best bright shiny ensemble, fining your way upstream. You see a flash and go for it, Suddenly you find yourself sitting on a bed of cream cheese smeared on a bagel and lightly sprinkled with capers or maybe some thin sliced onions.
Such was my introduction to a life changing event that led to my retirement, a move back home to southern California, my first dog, two boats, a lot of tuna, a reliable four-stroke outboard a rediscovered love, great organic gardens, a small orchard and survival through yet another southern California conflagration.
So, how did I get here, on a verdant two-acre plot of land in northern San Diego County?
The hard way, I nearly worked myself nearly into the grave, producing a couple of Events under the Demo brand, writing a monthly newsletter and weekly e-letter. After one heart attack and a stroke on deadline that kicked my ass and left me with an often-withered useless left hand and weak left side, My doctors told me i better start thinking of myself as "retired." So, i took their advice, packed up, sold my waterfront condo in San Mateo, and yelled "Adios Muchachos" to Silicon Valley as I rocketed south on I-5 southbound, heading back to the promised land and play-by-play Dodger baseball perfectly done by Vin Sculley.
Know that fantasy we Silicon Valley dwellers have about selling that million dollar condo in Santa Clara and moving back home? Here's what you get in Escondido for less money than you paid for your paper-thin walled condo atop a toxic waste pile in Silicon Valley.
A four bedroom/three bath house with attached three-car garage atop a hill from which you can see west to the Camp Pendleton coast, North to the border patrol's check point in Temecula, south to San Diego and East into the Cleveland National Forest. My skies are clear, it takes me 20 minutes to go see the Padres at Petco Park, or launch my boat at Point Loma. It takes 90 minutes to zoom up the freeway to my ancestral home in Azusa, CA, to take care of chores at my 87 year-old Mother's house and about two hours to get to Ensenada. But mostly I stay busy here at my house, aptly named by my adult children "Rancho Bizarro."
One of the ways i stay busy is by organic gardening. This year, I've had three crops of tomatoes, strawberries enough lettuce and other types of green, edible, compost to run my own vegetarian co-op. I also have a great selection of stone fruit trees including meaty Avalon peaches,big juicy Mongolian apricots, cherries, and two types of avocados, Haas and Reeds.
Sadly I also have a large colony of western pocket gophers who periodically raid Rancho Bizarro, forcing me to go up into my rooftop sniper's nest with my custom built, Leitz-Scoped .22 to defend my crops. My Creed is simple: "if I can see 'em in my garden or orchard, I can hit 'em with my .22." The movie "Caddy Shack" is something of a standard here at Rancho Bizarro but there's one difference: I take out more gophers than the Bill Murray character did in that movie.
So what's the best part of life after technology? No freaking PowerPoint presentations. Ever! Hallelujah, I finally made it to a major milestone.
Technology I rely on today:
++Compaq Presario and HP Pavilion/Ominbook computers. Few companies build hardware notebooks that is as cost-effective, feature laden of as rugged as Hewlett Packard/Compaq. I use my five pound Presario 3xxx every day. I'm about to post this from my boat anchored within range of a wireless hot spot near Point Loma in San Diego harbor. Lets see you take your garden variety notebook out in an 18 foot Panga (a type of one-person, open-ocean, fishing boat). My Presario 3xxx goes with me everywhere. If I want to watch a DVD, I just pop it in and put on my headphones. If I want to play with some digital pix, fine I slide my SD card into the appropriate slot. And I've never been anywhere with this notebook-- excepting, of course flying at 35,000 feet, where i couldn't connect to the Internet. Compaq Presario desktops are still my favorite "conventional" platform and are the standard by which I judge other hardware.
++ Belkin Pre-N Wireless Routers--Rock solid performance and I regularly work on my computers from outside the house, a good 350 feet from the router and still have a "Strong" signal. Belkin can't beat
++ Treo Verizon 650. Rock solid technology that lets me say in touch where ever I go. I still love Treo and rely on it on a day-in, day-out basis as my primary phone
++Garmin Fish Finder with GPS. I use my fish finder every time I go out for tuna. I fish by myself in my little boat. My finder is alarmed to alert me of specific species and changes in water condition (temperature). And, It allows me to get back to the launch point and my trailer no matter if its night or day. i often foolishly take my boat out to a point off San Diego called the "Twin 220's." It's a long boat ride at 3200 rpm but I've come home with at least one Yellowfin tuna enough times to make this unmarked spot on the open ocean the starting point for tuna and albacore fishing.
++ My 50 hp four-stroke Suzuki outboard. Previously My Panga was powered by a 70 horse power Tohatsu (Nissan) two-stroke outboard. I used this outboard until one day, coming away from the bait barge at Point Loma I found myself listening to the sounds of silence as a US Navy guided missile frigate was bearing down the channel directly at honest-to-God poor adrift me. The very Next week, I bit the bullet and re-powered with a Suzuki four-stroke outboard. It sips fuel and doesn't leave a greasy slick from unburned two-stroke premix. It may take me longer to get somewhere, but, what the hell, the old saw about fishing is absolutely true: "The worse day fishing is better than the best day working." It really helps that my four-stroke jut keeps on chugging out and back to my trailer.
Way to go Jim. Keep blogging, your voice is too good to keep silent in Rancho Bizarro!
Posted by: D. Churbuck | October 03, 2005 at 04:30 AM