patrick.net

Worked 30 years at Lone Star Gas Co. headquartered at 301 S. Harwood in Dallas. For 27 years I wrote and distributed the daily drilling reports and 20 of those years worked for the same man, Jack F. Lyle, Jr., VP of onshore drilling operations. Took early retirement at the end of '97 when they merged with DP&L and formed TXU.

Programmer. Last job was at Craigslist in SF. Retired early, but not sure I'll stay retired.

NDrLoR says

Worked 30 years at Lone Star Gas Co. headquartered at 301 S. Harwood in Dallas. For 27 years I wrote and distributed the daily drilling reports and 20 of those years worked for the same man, Jack F. Lyle, Jr., VP of onshore drilling operations. Took early retirement at the end of '97 when they merged with DP&L and formed TXU.

Wow, we're you able to financially capitalize on your daily reports/knowledge by trading oil futures/commodities over your career?

Patrick says

Programmer. Last job was at Craigslist in SF. Retired early, but not sure I'll stay retired.

What do you think you'll do? Go back to coding?

Retired pirate. Living off the loot.

Giant Robot mechanic/programmer.
At the port.
We move the world.

Onvacation says

Retired pirate. Living off the loot.

Very nice.

Shaman says

Giant Robot mechanic/programmer.
At the port.
We move the world.

Are you considered a longshoreman?

Engineer. Specailize in chemical process equipment / process engineering. Teach on the side.

Life is good.

cisTits says

I chop up baby parts at the local Planned P.

May the Lord Almighty smite thee and cast a pox on your household

GNL says

Shaman says

Giant Robot mechanic/programmer.
At the port.
We move the world.

Are you considered a longshoreman?

No different union actually.

Professional Commie workforce deserter.

Unfortunately the workforce HR culture always mirrors the present Presidential policies. in the work places I worked at during Obama.
Mostly Muslim refugees were hired in most available spots. During Trump mostly Vets got hired, and when Fuck Face McGillicutty Biden got elected, I said fuck that.
I'm going AWOL from the corporate workforce while that fuck stick and the Commie Dems are in power.

GNL says

we're you able to financially capitalize on your daily reports/knowledge by trading oil futures/commodities over your career?

I could have. For years we had the first and only fax machine (called telecopiers then) in the whole four building complex
encompassed by Harwood/St. Paul/Jackson/Young streets until the early 80's. Started with a miserable Xerox in 1974, then got a nice 3M in '75 which could do speeds up to 3 minutes using treated paper. All communications with the executive offices came through my office and I saw them first. Execs in other parts of the company would get mad when I told them I couldn't run something for them because drilling reports took first priority. I noticed after I quit having deductions made for stock in about 1988 that I was getting credited each two week pay period for them anyway, so just let it go. The only time I didn't get to see the first reports was when we were hitting TD on the Bertha Rogers No. 1-27 in Washita County, Oklahoma in 1974 when it hit 31,441 feet, at the time the deepest borehole in the world until the Russians went deeper in 1979. A teletype machine was set up by my desk and all the execs would gather around it for an hour or so every morning. The drill bit twisted off in a sulfur dome at 31,441 and we stopped. Logs indicated it was not productive at that depth and it was plugged back to about 25K feet and completed in the Granite Wash.

I hope people continue to share. This is interesting.

Onvacation says

Retired pirate. Living off the loot.

In Caligulan splendor?

Patrick says

Programmer. Last job was at Craigslist in SF. Retired early, but not sure I'll stay retired.

You should mentor my oldest, they learn shit in school these days. At least I got him signed up for tryouts. US public school system is a joke, so are most private schools unfortunately as well, they just cost more money.

Sales Manager for a large water/wastewater technology company. I have 11 sales engineers on my team covering the Western US.

GNL says

Patrick says

Programmer. Last job was at Craigslist in SF. Retired early, but not sure I'll stay retired.

What do you think you'll do? Go back to coding?

If I really need a job, that's what I'll do again. At the moment, I'm pretty happy working on patrick.net and a genealogy website I made for my large extended family.

I see coding, IT, engineering, programmers, office stuff....does anybody work with their hands anymore?

komputodo says

I see coding, IT, engineering, programmers, office stuff....does anybody work with their hands anymore?

Yes, immigrants.

I maximize medicare reimbursement for hospitals. I lost several clients for not taking the toxxine but business has been nuts and busier than ever.

I bow to no man ……. that is unless I’m working - Floor covering -Fmr owner of Floor covering store - fmr. over leveraged RE investor

latitude38 says

I bow to no man ……. that is unless I’m working - Floor covering -Fmr owner of Floor covering store - fmr. over leveraged RE investor

Need an employee?

I'm fucking tired of being "smart" :D

I'm a coder but I'm sick of working for evil corporations.

I'm semi-retired, I'm working on decentralizing the internet. What I've seen so far for this is not usable. My goal is to make things like Facebook and Twitter, obsolete. Centralized control for information, at this point in time, I judge to be impossible.

We have ANCIENT tools that exist, and I want to resurrect them. If you've never experienced something like ytalk, it's between an instant messenger (SMS/IM) and a telephone call. It has a very heavy bandwidth requirement, but in this day and age, who cares? It's far less than a voice conversation, and it's not quite like a phone conversation - you can predict what somebody is about to say before they say it. It's an unusual form of communication, where interruptions are not a problem. You can't talk over one another.

So few of you realize what the early internet was like. There was a lot of great stuff, and I want to bring it back.

komputodo says

I see coding, IT, engineering, programmers, office stuff....does anybody work with their hands anymore?

That's what I'm getting(returning) to now. I was a flooring guy in my previous life before programming Now I'm getting into to electrician work. I specialize in old Florida houses with Plaster walls and old wiring.

Tenpoundbass says

komputodo says

I see coding, IT, engineering, programmers, office stuff....does anybody work with their hands anymore?

That's what I'm getting(returning) to now. I was a flooring guy in my previous life before programming Now I'm getting into to electrician work. I specialize in old Florida houses with Plaster walls and old wiring.

Good to make something tangible isn't it?

Here, if you want to go WAY out of the spectrum:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27v7Oq-q9xs

Better talk to him before building something though. See how it holds up. Always annoyed me that we are forced to use ancient building methods but more modern ones, they've not been tested through time. I don't understand the compression stress of what he built, and I do not trust it. I think his idea would be useful for non load bearing walls though. You could make a pretty awesome Buckminster Fuller enclosure with it.

GNL says

I hope people continue to share. This is interesting.

I agree. A few I took a guess at and was right, others I had no clue at all.

NDrLoR says

Worked 30 years at Lone Star Gas Co. headquartered at 301 S. Harwood in Dallas. For 27 years I wrote and distributed the daily drilling reports and 20 of those years worked for the same man, Jack F. Lyle, Jr., VP of onshore drilling operations. Took early retirement at the end of '97 when they merged with DP&L and formed TXU.

Thanks for sharing. Your lengthy retirement inspires me.

I had a set of friends I grew up with and one of our goals was to be retired before age 50. We didn’t quite get there, but one will make it at 55 and if he hadn’t started a family at age 40, he would have made it by 52. Me and the other guy will make it before 60.

Tenpoundbass says

That's what I'm getting(returning) to now. I was a flooring guy in my previous life before programming Now I'm getting into to electrician work. I specialize in old Florida houses with Plaster walls and old wiring.

If I ever do move to Florida, I should do this.

komputodo says

I see coding, IT, engineering, programmers, office stuff....does anybody work with their hands anymore?

If I were working with my hands, could I be posting here during normal working hours?

not doing anything right now, but working on software startup idea for construction. im very familiar with building industry.

its in the idea phase, so im not rich or big time hotshot out there.

komputodo says

I see coding, IT, engineering, programmers, office stuff....does anybody work with their hands anymore?

Well, I now have to retile a built-in shower bench that the builder's tile man did not waterproof correctly. I removed the tile and the old backer to let the bench dry. Now I have to replace the backer board and add seams, then waterproof and relay the tile. I also have to rebuild my mom's front porch railings.

Former Civil Engineer. Quit engineering in 2009 to pursue real estate investing full-time. Got lucky. Now, I’m a “full-time” real estate investor. I work 2 hours/day, 3-4 days/week.

At this point, I don’t see myself ever going back to engineering. I’ll work and be a real estate investor until the day I die. There were moments I reflect back and thought had I accepted the offer to work for the Water District, what would my life be like by now?

Eman says

There were moments I reflect back and thought had I accepted the offer to work for the Water District, what would my life be like by now?

You'd be retired with a fat municipal pension and basically free healthcare?

Many of my colleagues/customers in industry that work for the public water sector are a couple years away from retirement where I still have 15+ years to go while being their same age!

socal2 says

Eman says

There were moments I reflect back and thought had I accepted the offer to work for the Water District, what would my life be like by now?

You'd be retired with a fat municipal pension and basically free healthcare?

Many of my colleagues/customers in industry that work for the public water sector are a couple years away from retirement where I still have 15+ years to go while being their same age!

Theft. No other description for it.

RedStar says

I maximize medicare reimbursement for hospitals. I lost several clients for not taking the toxxine but business has been nuts and busier than ever.

That's literally what my current company does.

I do all things SW testing related. Hired for automation, but spend a good chunk of my time at every company attempting to get developers to follow better SCRUM and Agile practices.

SW is all service, and I don't see a future in that, at least not for the next five years. If I ever started over, I'd go into farming. But for now thinking of starting my own business with my wife as health coaches. Will stay in SW until gains traction, but I would love to help people start their journey towards better health, and getting started if often the hardest part.

NuttBoxer says

RedStar says

I maximize medicare reimbursement for hospitals. I lost several clients for not taking the toxxine but business has been nuts and busier than ever.

That's literally what my current company does.

I do all things SW testing related. Hired for automation, but spend a good chunk of my time at every company attempting to get developers to follow better SCRUM and Agile practices.

SW is all service, and I don't see a future in that, at least not for the next five years. If I ever started over, I'd go into farming. But for now thinking of starting my own business with my wife as health coaches. Will stay in SW until gains traction, but I would love to help people start their journey towards better health, and getting started if often the hardest part.

I have seen this or similar thoughts posted frequently now and I somewhat disagree. SW (and hardware) will be one of the strongest fields for many decades, automation and automated processes and improvements will continue, there is still so much out there that needs to be automated. Then there is AI, self-driving cars, healthcare wearables etc. etc. Sure there will be a nice demand for good, healthy and mostly organically farmed food, however don't think you can just do this without being harassed at every step by big govt., esp. the leftoids. If you have a nice local support network with enough clients to buy from you directly you may circumvent some of those hassles, but as soon as you rely on larger grocery chains you will likely be their bitch. I remember when they phased out raw milk from most grocery stores under obummer and his shit legacy, xiden is not any better. I have known many who went into farming and it was brutally hard to make a living. I would love to do the same, but as a side business/hobby on a small scale. I see vocational work to net good money in the future, but it's still hard work, plumber, mechanic, roofing etc. Sure tech will shed, esp. around the social media overload, but it will stay in high demand for decades imo. Whether it's fulfilling for most is a different question.

socal2 says

Eman says

There were moments I reflect back and thought had I accepted the offer to work for the Water District, what would my life be like by now?

You'd be retired with a fat municipal pension and basically free healthcare?

Many of my colleagues/customers in industry that work for the public water sector are a couple years away from retirement where I still have 15+ years to go while being their same age!

There were moments I thought about it. I’m glad I didn’t accept that cushy offer. My wife has 3 brothers working for government agencies. Two of them can retire at 50 and one at 55. Great deal with the pensions IMO.

Richwicks - Haha I appreciate the offer .There’s one thing in life that has never been beaten and remains undefeated throughout the ages -Father Time .I think I might be bowing out of the race .You mught get a kick out of all the Sillycone Valley jobs I’ve done at one or another . Memorex probably the first landmark , most of the chip manufactures , I recall when Intel was a small OEM company in Mtn View as Intel grew I worked SC 1 &2 Singer Computer most of the HP bldgs and there quite a few back then Amoex in Redwood City pretty much the vast majority of SillyCone ,early Apple bldgs ,,Lockheed -Motorola -ISS the disc manuf . ,IBM bldg including the bldg that made disc drives he list goes on -Steward Brand of whole earth catalog I think he invented the mouse but his ideas were similar to what your saying information as tools Kevin Kelly ,John Barry Barlow of Eletrontic Frontiers Foundatiin also a songwriter for the Grateful Dead .It was interesting listening to these guys when they got together ……. though they were mikes ahead of my grasp Digital Equipment the small computer in Maynard Mass and Frammington ? It was in a old civil war factory .Atari gave me the prototype for their future games like asteroid and so on my kids were popular .
Ten Ton Bass ,Were you a journeyman installer ? I recently was going to go do a couple remodels in Kissnme Ut the hurricane changes that haha -I use to fly down there to do cruise ships that was $$ when I was going to Tahiti ti do a barefoot ship it was halted …….my wife said you ain’t going there or traveling anymore period .Dang !!

mell says

SW (and hardware) will be one of the strongest fields for many decades, automation and automated processes and improvements will continue, there is still so much out there that needs to be automated. Then there is AI, self-driving cars, healthcare wearables etc. etc.

Your outlook is based on the current system lasting, it can't. And completely ignores the primary purpose of the computer age, information, being co-opted by every government in the world in an attempt to realize 1984. The system is fatally flawed, beyond repair, and falling down around our ears. Adapt or die.

Eman says

At this point, I don’t see myself ever going back to engineering. I’ll work and be a real estate investor until the day I die. There were moments I reflect back and thought had I accepted the offer to work for the Water District, what would my life be like by now?

@Eman is there a target cap you recommend to not go below on rentals? im looking to invest into few here, but cap is pretty low around 4. im in ID as you know. these seem to sell every year too, noone holds them.

or just look for total fixers, sweat equity fix em up to get better cap?