Retirement Diary #1:

I have officially been retired for four days. I have spent them registering an LLC, dissolving a corporation, generating Bulmash Media collateral (stickers, shirt, business card), tending to other infrastructure tasks for this site and its related social media channels, and actually starting to evaluate all the stuff I’d started collecting for my learning path.

My first four daily classes:

1. Pianoforall – I do not ever expect or intend to become a great piano player or necessarily even a competent one, but I want to learn music. I tried taking a music theory class, but it was too much lecture and not enough practical exercise. I have a midi keyboard and I feel that for my learning style, the playing/practice part will better reinforce the concepts and keep me at it longer.
2. Blender 4.x Basics – Although I primarily want to do 2D style animations and Blender is known as being a pro-grade open source 3D modeling and animation tool, Blender can do 2D in multiple ways. I explored a lot of animation tools before settling on (not for, but on) Blender. That said, there is a good amount of traditional illustration learning planned.
3. Beat Making For Beginners – More practice to go with the theory, but learning more about rhythms and music production.
4. Inkscape Master Class – I love Inkscape. I’m not bad at it, but there are a lot of pieces I don’t use. So I’ll dive deep on the tool I plan to use and learn its finer points. If I can, I intend to draw everything with a mouse, using shape primitives and bezier curves instead of a pen or pencil, and this is a foundation for succeeding at that goal.

Tomorrow, I go to the gym for the first time in months. Then I have a friendly catch-up call with Amit Jotwani, a former co-worker from the Amazon Alexa Developer Education team. Trying to plan a catch-up with a local former Alexa teammate for the week after.

The next 5-6 weeks will be all about building habits for a successful retirement with exercises and classes in the mornings, errands with lunch, then practice time in the afternoon.

Wish me luck!