Retirement

One of the things my wife wanted to do was speak Spanish. She grew up in New Brunswick which is a French/English bilingual province so she had some multi-language brain cells from childhood (I think that's a real thing). Anyway, she started Spanish lessons in 2017 with a plan to be functional by fall 2019 when we had planned a trip to Spain. She was very functional by the time we went there and it allowed us the freedom to travel Spain with our own agenda with zero concerns about communicating.

She continued with Spanish classes since then, and lots of hours on Duolingo, and is still at it. Fast forward to today and she is fully fluent. She says that she crossed the bridge to where she can think in Spanish in a conversation rather than translating in her head to and from English. People she talks to in Spanish tell her that they can't pinpoint her accent to know where she is from (she is a blue eyed blond so that probably confuses them too). Its amazing what she has been able to do to fulfill a key bucket list. I am so proud of her. And the side benefit of having a translator when we travel is pretty cool too.

 

That is very impressive. I can't imagine getting to that level, nor being willing to put the work in that it must have taken.

I'm just mad I wasted 10 years being forced to learn Afrikaans and haven't had a use for it in the last 45 years. Honestly, I may be able to remember 5 or less words of it today.

 

Ignore what you can and work with the rest. Nerve give up! I refuse to acknowledge that statement!

 

I'm involved with the production team of a very large church that has an large annual event for leadership training. A German contingent formed to present this event in Germany. I starting attending as a volunteer in their production team.

We held a training event for church production folks here at the church and some of the German team attended. We went out for dinner and while at dinner, the leader - Hartmut, asked me "Steve, how many times have you been to Germany now?". I replied "Five and if I attend in May it will be number six". Hartmut replied "Yeah, that's what I thought... we have spoken enough English to you... you need to learn German!"

Hartmut was "yanking my chain" but I took it as a challenge and went home and bought Rosetta Stone. I showed up in May speaking a passable German. I am now on trip #18 and I have been told that if I was to spend some extended time there, I would be fluent. One on one, I am ok but I get lost in group conversations as they move too fast. I am "halfway" across the bridge - sometimes I think in German and sometimes I still translate...

Who says you can't teach an old guy new languages???

 

Well, even though the winter storm did not give us much snow up here, the gale force winds did some damage at the construction site. The wall on the right side came down in the wind, and parts of it blew over to our neighbors place and slightly damaged one of their cars. The framing crew is on site today doing some clean up and starting to rebuild that wall. Could be worse I guess. The shore of the great lakes is tough place to do winter construction. The winds can be very high and relentless.

 

My dad did something similar in retirement, and now speaks pretty good Spanish. He went to Spain recently for vacation and was able to communicate with the locals.

 

I'm enjoying the second language stuff so I'll drop in what I think is a decent story...

Back in 1996, I needed to go to our plant in Tours France to install an oxygen concentrator test system with another engineer and his wife who happened to be a french teacher in a local school district.
This was about two weeks after TWA flight 800 NYC to Paris sadly crashed in to the Atlantic and there was a concern that it was terrorist related so I feared my equipment would get hung up in customs and delay the install.

Equipment was waiting for me, install went great, finished training early and I actually ended up having a free day on my hands. I was asked by the plant director what I would like to do and without hesitation ..."I want to ride the TGV in to Paris and see the Eiffel Tower!" About a hour later I had reservations for a room at the Hotel Mercure right downtown and a businesses class seat on the TGV.

As my buddy and his wife were headed to our German plant, I asked my buddies wife Patti to teach me, "Good evening, my name is Mr. Herold - I believe you have a room for me." in french.

Practiced, Practiced and then practiced a bit more. I'm pretty sure the guy I was sitting next to on the train thought I was nuts. I wanted to nail this though. You always hear about the ugly American that thinks everyone should speak only English and I did not want to be that guy so I kept working at it.

I get off the train, wander my way to the hotel, walk up to the front desk and drop it....

"Bonsoir je mappelle monsieur Herold, je crois que vous une chambre pour moi"

F___in' nailed it!

The guy looks back at me in with a rather heavy New York accent goes "Ya, Mr Herold we got your room!"
He was an ex-pat from NYC.
I have never wanted to strangle someone quite that badly in my life.

 

My 13 YO grandson is in German Club at school. So one of his presents from me was a lifetime membership to Rosetta Stone - German. I am looking forward to conversing in German with him... It will help both of us out.

When I go to Germany, frequently I arrive early prior to the event I am attending. I use these extra days to acclimate to the time change and to visit my German friends. One time I was traveling by train and up in the front of the first car of the train. There was a door in the front of the car that swung open versus the main doors that slid open. When we stopped, there was a woman waiting at the door with me. I opened the door, got my bags out and helped her with her bags... As she turned away, out popped "Entschuldigung, ist die Tur automatisch oder soll ich es schließen"? She replied "Ja, Ja, es ist automatisch"...

As she walked away I realized I hadn't translated it... I thought it in German. That's when I knew I was starting to really understand the language.

 

Hmm, will you get back pay to the date of your application?

I would pay a fee/penalty to not have to pay SSN - let me keep it and invest it how I like.

 

My wife got back pay when she signed up for SS.

 

We have been clamoring for that for years. The problem is, all the smart people would opt out, and then there will be even less money to pay SS for the people that didn’t plan for retirement. The system is in bad shape as it is, they don’t want anyone opting out!

 

It's pathetic it takes that long though, especially for those that did not plan and lived from paycheck to paycheck.

 

Retirement?? I do f@#k all, all day…….don’t start til noon!

 

It isn't a mysterious process. You can signup before you stop working. Tell them when you want to start drawing and it gives them time to process your request.

 

If you're living paycheck to paycheck, and are relying solely on SS, you're not ready to retire.

 

Agreed, an arm injury forced my late dad to retire though. He was planning to work into his late 70s. My parents were paycheck to paycheck, very poor. My mom lives on his monthly SSN now.