I'm DONE with Work

At 2:26 pm on Thursday December 4th 2025 I left IBM in Armonk NY for home. I called my wife and told her I was DONE with work. I didn't mean I was done for work for this day, this week or this year. I meant I was DONE with work FOREVER!!

I had been thinking about retirement for a while so when my manager told me that they eliminated my position I wasn't really that upset or surprised. I had told my manager that if he had to lay someone off he could pick me. I didn't really expect it to be this soon as IBM normally lays people off in March so was expecting to work a few more months. This year they had a special layoff in December so lucky me. 

Financially I'm fine as I have been planning for this for years. The annoying part now is working through all my options for medical insurance and other benefits and trying to get the most out of the package that IBM gave me as they don't provide a lot of guidance. It's going to take a lot of research and a bunch of phone calls to figure it all out but I got plenty of time now. 

I'm not going to miss the daily grind of going to work. (Although I mostly worked remote). I did enjoy what I did. I had a good team and we had fun together. It still hasn't hit me that I won't be going to work anymore. It will probably take a few weeks or months to adjust. 

It is strange to look back at my career. I did a lot of cool things from creating guidance systems for nuclear missiles to launching satellites to helping create the framework of the internet. It amazes me how much technology has changed in the 40+ years I have been working. Now we are just beginning the age of AI and it is going to make big changes to the technological as well as the sociological landscape. 

This last job at IBM was one of the longest and most satisfying jobs of my career. I was the lead software architect which meant that I took the crazy requirements from the project managers and executives and tried to work with my development team to turn them into reality. This is not easy as the requirements are never clear and you will never have the time or resources to properly research, design and implement the software. I could go on and on about all the problems with software development but that is for another time. 

The scary and fun part of my job is that I was the guy at the top of the hill that people came to for answers. There were some peers I could rely on if I needed some help with a particular topic but most people expected me to have the answers or at least know how to get and answers. AND for the most part my 40+ years of experience gave me the answers. And if I didn't have an answer I just made something up that sounded good and people believed me. 

For the last 6 months my manager had asked me to start working with some of the more experienced developers and architects to teach them how I do things as he wanted to spread my knowledge to them. This gave me a chance to try and define my style and way of doing things. I actually gave a "TED Talk" like presentation to the team a week ago and which was a good summary about my way of doing things. 

My team likes me because of how calm I am in tense situation and the empathy and support I give them. I remember the awkward person I was socially when I left college so I'm glad I was able to evolve to a point where I can meaningfully interact and support the people I work with and care about. I was very touched by some of the messages they left me when I told them I would be leaving. It's good to know I made an positive impact to the people I worked with. 

And I think that has been my biggest strength is that I know how to build and create good teams. I use some psychology from Adam Grant, Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Kahneman, Dale Carnegie and a few others. I also throw in some "Yes And..." techniques from improvisation comics as well as some techniques I learn from reading textbooks for the blind and dyslexic. And of course a dash of sarcasm.   

Concentrating on making the team work better together instead of my own career goals has made me a better architect and leader in general. When you have a supportive team you can do good work and enjoy what you do. In the last few years I have had to work with a lot of younger developers. I know that some people complain about the younger generation being lazy and self centered but I have found the people I work with to smart, energetic and more forgiving and inclusive than I was at that age. They may be a little more risk adverse and anxious but I think they will do great things and hopefully fix some of the messes I left around. I actually hope to keep in touch with some of them and try to continue to support them as much as I can. 

My bike friends who read this and call me the "lying bastard" may ask who is this caring supportive person. But they know that when I bring them across closed bridges, dirt roads and ridiculous hills that I'm not trying to kill them I'm just trying to build character. (Okay maybe a little of it is taking out my frustrations at work on them but let's be honest they are the insane people that keep submitting themselves to this pain)

Not having a job doesn't mean I will just be sitting in front of the TV waiting to die. I could get another job if I really wanted to but I don't need to. I have a lot of things that I have wanted to do. More biking of course but I also want to work on improving my photography. There will also be more volunteer work now that I have some free time. I still want to maintain my technical knowledge so hope that I can use my knowledge and experience to help people and organizations with technical problems.

It's going to strange to not go to work this Monday or ever again. I'm sure there will be an adjustment phase but I'm looking forward to freedom and possibilities of retirement. 

And eating the chocolate I got as part of my going away present. 

 

 

 

Risk Management

Leading a ride comes with certain responsibilities. The main one is that you want to keep everyone safe. I try to plan my routes on less traveled roads and make sure I point out any hazards or trouble spots along the way. There are always things you can't control but you try to plan for all contingencies. I had schedule a ride for this past Saturday and my main concern was the weather. I try not to ride in the rain if possible but sometimes you have to push the limits a little in order to get a ride in. 

I will not ride if it is raining or I know that there is going to be significant rain during the ride. Of course weather forecasts are not 100% reliable and if you look at the different sites you can get wildly different forecasts. When I looked on Friday night it looked like the rain won't end before noon but when I woke up on Saturday morning although it was raining the forecasts that I used showed rain ending by 9am an hour before the ride would start. The question I asked myself at 7am was did I believe the forecast and are the roads too wet to ride. My first inclination is always to do the ride because I would rather do a crappy ride rather than sit at home and be pissed I didn't do a ride. However in order to make the decision you have to evaluate the risk. 

In my job I have to make a lot of decisions everyday about what is the best design for a piece of software, what technology to use, and who should do the work. Part of making these decisions is doing the analysis to understand what is the best choice that will achieve the goals. Sometimes after doing the analysis the best choice is obvious but most of the time there are so many factors involved that picking the best one is a guess. This is why it is always important to consider the risk associated with any choice. 

For example should I use some new technology to develop the software or stick with a technology that I know the developers could easily implement. The new technology offers some advantages that allow us to offer some useful features to our users BUT it could take a lot longer to develop and be harder to integrate in to our current system. Is the risk worth the reward and what happens if we fail, is the question you have to ask before making the decision. This is true not only in software development but in life in general. How to I invest my money do I buy stocks or put it in a CD. A CD is safe but may not generate enough return to overcome inflation but stocks have no guaranteed return although they usually outperform any other assets. There are similar questions you can ask about your career or your relationships. In all cases it is important to asset the risk of any situation and try to mitigate it as much as you can.

For Saturday's ride I decided to do it. I knew the roads would be really wet which meant it would be messy and that there would be a possibility slipping on the road lines and leaves but most of the people signed up for the rides had ridden in wet weather before and the route I planned should be relatively safe. A few people who signed up for the ride bailed and I don't blame then for doing it as it was not a great day to ride. 

When I got to the start of the ride it was a little chaotic because there was a Turkey Trot Run in Joseph Lawrence Park which meant we had to park in the school parking lot. There were even some roads blocked off but we managed to talk our way past the barriers. The first half of the ride was a little messy as the spay off the road coated us and our bikes. We did make it down through Robling and into Burlington, without any problems, to visit the Eagle statue by the Burlington Bristol bridge. Chris even got us to go a quarter mile down the road to see the fishing troll

 

After getting out of Burlington we had a quick stop at the Jacksonville Deli before working our way back to the start. By this point the roads had started to dry out. It was still cloudy and not much warmer than when we started but it was much better riding. So this time taking the risk was worth it as we got the ride in. 

 

A Night Under the Stars

Time has been in short supply for me for the last couple of months. Between helping clean out my mother-in-laws home and some other commitments that I have I haven't had a lot of time to relax or do anything fun outside of my normal bike rides. Even thought the weather is turning colder I am still getting out with the posse for some rides. Last week we went to Lahaska and this Saturday we did a short ride to Millstone from Cranbury. We are settling into our winter time routine where we let the weather determine where and how far we ride. This means shorter rides and more rides on the trails. 

This time of year brings longer nights which I plan to use to spend more time looking at the stars. Back in July I purchased a Dwarf 3 smart telescope. This is not your normal telescope where you look through the eye piece to see the stars. This is a smart telescope which has a camera made for astrophotography along with electronics to find and track any object in the sky. Technology has come a long way in the last few years. It use to cost $10,000 to $20,000 to get a setup where you could get good photos of deep sky objects, now for $500 to $600 you can get similar results. 

The way these smart telescope work is that they use multiple short 30sec to 60 sec exposes over hours and integrate them together. This helps gather more light and improve the signal to noise ratio. There is also sophisticated software built into these scopes that remove noise and improve the color and clarity of the image. The image at the top of the post is of the eastern veil nebula. About 15 years ago I have a friend who had a large 15inch dobson telescope and we got a view of the veil nebula. It was very faint and hard to see. Even in his big telescope the best I could see was some cotton like fuss against the dark sky. Now with my Dwarf 3 I can see it in full color and see the twist of gasses caused by the super nova explosion.

Although I have taken some good photos of the sun and moon through my small telescope and camera I never was able to get any good images of any deep sky objects like galaxies and nebulas. Now I can. (See Trifid nebula below)

 

This Dwarf 3 is easy to use. You just install an app on your phone and tell the Dwarf 3 what you want to take a picture of and it scans the night sky and finds it. In my old telescope I use to have to go through an alignment process to get it orientated before I could point it at a target. The alignment process usually required me to manually point the telescope at 2 to 3 different bright stars so the telescope could calculate its position. The Dwarf 3 doesn't need any help with alignment it uses a thing called "plate solving" to align itself. Basically it just looks up at the sky and knows the distant between all the stars in the sky so it can stare at a small piece of the sky measure the distant between the stars it sees then does through some extremely complex calculations know exactly where it is and does a precision alignment. 

The advantage of this way of doing an alignment is that you only need a small part of the sky to do an alignment. This also allow the Dwarf 3 to precisely track a target which is important as it takes a least an hour or two to get a good image. 

I spend August learning how to use the Dwarf 3 and it didn't take too long before I got some pretty good images of the some deep sky objects. Here is lagoon nebula with just over an hour of imaging time.

It's good but with more time I could get even more detail and color out of the image. The thing that impressed me about this image is that I took it from a field wasn't that dark and had a lot of stray light reflecting to the sky. 

At the end of September I got a chance to go to Belleplain state park down toward Cape May. The southern Jersey astronomy club has a weekend each year where they hold a star party. It's not really a party where you eat and drink and dance under the night sky it's more where a bunch of astronomy geeks sit in an open field under dark skies and look through telescopes and talk about astronomy. It's my kind of party which speaks to the geekness of my nature. 

I got to the field in Belleplain state park about 6pm. There were 10 other people already there most of them had some type of camper or tent set up to stay overnight and next to the tent was some type of telescope set up. One of members of the club actually had a small camper with a tent next to it. In the tent he had a couple of laptops set up like a mini mission control center. From the laptops there were bundles of cables going to a large telescope. I talked to him about his setup and it was impressive. He showed me a few pictures that he took. One was the shadow of the moon IO on Jupiter which was as good as any picture I had seen from NASA. 

My setup was not as impressive.

 

It was just my Dwarf 3 which is just he size of a book on a tripod. But this was all I needed. I spent the entire night taking pictures of different objects. Including the Andromeda galaxy 

 

The Helix nebula

and lastly the Orion nebula. 

 

I spend about two hours imaging each one and Dwarf 3 track and imaged perfectly. It was a good clear night which helped. For the first few hours I hung around with the other astronomy geeks talking about the stars and just staring at the night sky. It was very relaxing. I was glad there were other people with me in the dark field because if I had been by myself I would have worried about some animals or the Jersey devil coming out to get me. As the night wore on and it was past 1am I took a nap in my car between setting up the Dwarf 3 to image the next object. By 6am in the morning the sun came up and I was done. I spent another couple hours napping in the car which actually was pretty comfortable so I got about 5 hours sleep. 

One of the interesting discussions I had with the other astronomy geeks is the fact that some people don't think that these smart telescopes are as good as an experience as looking through a real telescope and seeing the object live. I will agree that looking through a telescope and seeing the rings of Saturn live is cool and it feels more real. I look up at the sky then through the telescope and see the rings of Saturn and I feel more connected to it. When you use a smart telescope you just see an image on your phone or computer after the fact so it does seem as real. However smart telescopes allow you to see a lot more of the night sky in a lot more detail. I can see details I couldn't see before. It's not only the fact that I can get some cool picture it's that I can see reflections of the star light in the nebula or the structure of a galaxy. This helps me understand how these structures formed and gets me thinking of the physics and processes that caused these formation. As I tell people who want to observe the night sky you have to look with you mind as well as your eyes because what you see is cool but the reason for all those object you see is something that will feed your curiosity for years.  

The picture I got at the star party were good but I have barely scratch the surface of what can be done with the Dwarf 3. Some people on the Dwarf 3 forums, I follow, have imaged objects for 8-10 hours and then done a lot of post processing to produce some images that rival the Hubble telescope images. Since we have more dark hours in the winter I plan to work on getting some more images during night with clear skies. With the Dwarf 3 I now have the tools I need to explore the night sky in a new a different way so expect some more pictures of the sky in this blog over the winter. 

Fall Weather

 

I know it's fall when I have to break out the long sleeve jerseys and tights. Although fall can be scenic with the leaves turning it means cold weather is coming. I have been very busy the past couple of weeks not only at work where I have been putting in some over time but also in my personal life. Last Saturday we had a estate sale to start cleaning out my mother-in-laws house and I have been providing some technical advice to  my community on some upgrades they want to make. I really haven't had much free time. 

I did get out last Sunday with the posse on a ride to Farmingdale which felt good after a busy week. This Saturday I decided to go with my other club. They don't have many people that ride when it gets colder so I don't usually ride with them in the late fall. I was planning on signing up for the B ride but when I checked nobody had signed up but I saw a few people I know who usually do the B ride signed up for the C+ ride.  

It was barely 50 degrees when we started the ride and we went out at a relaxed pace. The moderate wind from the west was annoying but the pace was easy so it didn't really bother me. It felt like a recovery ride which is what I wanted after another busy week. The wind got stronger after the break but it was now at our back so getting back to our starting point was a quick run.

Although life has been busy and the weather is getting colder I will always find a way to try to get out for a few miles to relieve the normal stress of life.  

To Ride or Not to Ride

 

The weather forecast is part of any ride preparation. The temperature, precipitation, and wind forecast determine what I will wear the type of route I will do and even if I will go out for a ride or not. I try not to ride in the rain so if it is raining or there is more than a 50% of some heavy rain I won't go out for a ride. I will in some cases push the boundaries to get a ride in which is what I did this past Saturday. 

Laura had scheduled a ride out of Lambertville for Saturday. The forecast was 60 degrees with a 30% chance of rain. Most of the forecasts had the rain holding off until late afternoon. However as I left my house to drive to the ride it started to drizzle. I thought I would drive through it based on the radar but it only got heavier as I headed towards Trenton. I almost decided to turn around. As I went through the tunnel into Trenton the rain stopped and it got brighter. When I got to Lambertville the roads were dry but it was still overcast. By the start of the ride it has started to drizzle again and there were several bands of light rain on the radar. At that point Laura decided to cancel the ride. I might had made the same decision had I been leading as you always want to err on the side of caution. You don't want to worry about keeping 9 people safe while riding on the road in the rain. 

However Pete had suggested that maybe we could just ride up the hill from Lambertville and at least try to get a few miles in. If it started to rain harder we would turn around and head back down hill. I join Pete along with Ricky, Martin and Brad? 

We didn't followed the plan route Pete just winged it as we headed up Seabrook. He kept us heading mostly north along the ridge. We did hit a few patches of drizzle but nothing that actual got us wet or caused us to turn around. We even saw some patches of blue sky and sun especially as we got closer to Frenchtown. As we kept going we didn't know exactly where we were. When we crossed Rt 12 we knew we were above Frenchtown but kept going. Then I recognized a few roads on Laura's route so I loaded the route and followed it as it took us along the ridge then downhill to Rt 29. 

The clouds were getting a little darker then so instead of continuing to follow the route to Milford we headed back to Frenchtown where we had a rest stop at the Bridge cafe. From there we decided to just head straight back on 29 as that would be the quickest way back if it started to rain. 

The rain never came and when we got to Lower Creek road we headed up it and then up over Sandy Ridge and eventually down Alexauken to Lambertville. We ended up with 47 miles and 2100 ft of climbing so more or less what the planned ride would have been. We definitely got lucky with the rain. It could have easily gone the other way with us getting caught in a drenching rain but in this case the risk was worth the reward.

Paradigm Shift

Since I started riding I have always uses some type of pickup truck to get to a ride. First is was my Ford Ranger then is was the Baja. It each case I had a rack in the bed of the pickup that I would mount the bike to. It was a fork mount rack meaning I would take the front wheel off the bike and attach the front fork of the bike to the rack. Like shown below in my Baja

 

It worked well and even when I got a thru axle bike all I had to do is get a different fork mount to put on the rack. The new car is an SUV which means I don't have a bed for my normal rack so I had to switch to a hitch mounted rack. I didn't have to do much research on which hitch rack to get as everybody I know has a 1Up rack and loves it.  It's a sturdy rack that attaches the bike by securing the wheels so you don't have to worry about scratching or bending the frame. 

 

Of course this requires a hitch to be installed on the car so I had that done this past Wednesday. I had the Stealth Hitch installed. I chose this hitch because the other hitches I looked out required a piece of the bumper to be cut out and I didn't want to cut up a brand new car. The Stealth Hitch does require a small hole to be cut underneath the car so that the hitch receiver can be attached but it is not visible and the hitch receiver can be removed when I don't need the bike rack so you won't even know that a hitch has been installed. 

As with any rack you always worry that the bike will fall off. With the old bike rack in the bed of the Baja I didn't worry much because worst case the bike will just fall into the bed of the car and I won't lose the bike. With a hitch rack if it falls out of the rack its going to be bouncing down the road. 

I will say the 1Up rack is very secure. As long as you attach it properly to the hitch and make sure the bike is locked in, there is no possibility of losing the bike. When I loaded the bike for this Saturday's ride I left my house then stopped in a parking lot about a mile from my house just to make sure the bike was secure after a few bumps in the road. The new car uses a camera at the back of the car for the rear view mirror and when the bike is in the rack I can just see the rear seat in the mirror so I can monitor the bike as I drive along. 

The rack was really steady and the bike didn't seem to move much driving along. The new car and bike rack are a lot different than the Baja so it is going to take a while to get use to everything. I like the new set up and know the new car, bike rack should be able to take me on any ride I want to go on. 

 

Moments of Sadness

Although my latest posts have been more about my vacation and the lost of the Baja I have been riding. There was just nothing special or interesting about the rides to post. This past Saturday Jeff had a ride to Lahaska from Washington crossing. I had not been in the hills for a few weeks so wanted decided to do the ride. I started with a few other people from the NJ side to get a few extra miles in. 

Jeff didn't put any hard hills on the ride so it was an easy ride to Lahaska where we stopped for a break. Jeff tried a new shop for the stop but it was super crowded so a few of us went to another store. At that point I decided to head back to the start on my own. I had a memorial service I needed to be at in the early afternoon and didn't want to be late. 

The memorial service was for a friend of ours, named Rich, who was one of the first people we met when we moved into our community just over four years ago. He was nice guy who helped us meet a lot of other people in the community and settle in. He became the core of our group and we had a lot of fun together. Because of him my wife now volunteers at a farm for rescue animals which she really enjoys. 

Unfortunately about a year and a half ago Rich was diagnose with glioblastoma an incurable form of brain cancer. He died a few weeks ago which was sad because he was only 65. When we first met Rich we knew we found a good friend that we could hang out. He was a very easy going person and always willing to help us out when we needed something. We had hoped to have him in our lives for a long time so it strange that we will not see him again. We will be ever grateful that he connected us to the other people in the community that now form our group of friends. I will also be grateful for Rich introducing my wife to the rescue farm where she volunteers once a week. It's a place that makes her happy ever time she goes there. We are very happy for the joy that Rich brought into our lives and are sad that he left us so soon.

Rich's memorial service wasn't the only sad moment on Saturday. My mother-in-law also passed away in the early afternoon right before Rich's service. She was 97 years old and her health had really started failing her a couple months ago. She had lived in her house on her own until a couple of years ago when we had to get an aid to help her out. The aid was part time then a few months ago it was around the clock. A couple of weeks ago she was put on hospice care so we knew she didn't have much time left. At 97 her body was just worn out. 

She and my father-in-law were good working class people. My father-in-law, who we lost 9 years ago, was a diamond setter in New York and my mother-in-law was a secretary at the local school in Paramus. They were the typical suburban couple who made friends with all their neighbors. The wife's got together for coffee when the kids went to school and the men got together to drink after work. When I met their daughter and were introduced to them they were nothing but kind. Once I married into the family I felt like part of it and had no problem getting along with them. I'm sad to see my mother-in-law go but she lived a full life. She was really starting to suffer for the past couple of months so her passing is really a blessing at this point that will give her some piece.

Friend and family dying is part of the things that we experience as part of our lives. These are sad moments that make us reflect on their lives and our own. These moments make us sad but they also make us realize and appreciate the people who have been a part of our lives.