give me a moment

I was going to title this post "Reflections on 2008". But I didn't. 2008 was one of the best years of my life. I was going to chronicle some of the events. Maybe some other time. I'm very happy in my retirement. I've been pretty much doing what I want. Time is such a gift. I will not go so far as to say life is a gift. Life is hard for most people and very hard for a lot of people. Even if one's life is going great, it can so quickly vanish. Or become unbearable. Ask John Travolta. Jim Croce. All of us will die. I don't want to tempt or dare fate. But I just want to say I am happy. I know I'm lucky. How long can it last? Until I am diagnosed with a terminal disease. Or get killed by accident. Right now I'm happy. When I try to fantasize about things, the way they could be, I always get bogged down in the details and the fantasies develop problems just the way life does. My life is a pretty nice fantasy. Everyone thinks of winning the lottery. It's a classic fantasy. If you really follow the fantasy through, you find you are still facing challenges. The philosophers take it a step further and have you just ask yourself "what if you had an experience 'chamber' and for a period of time life could happen exactly the way you wanted it. What would you do"? The hardest thing about getting what you want in life, is, in fact, figuring out what you want in life. As I've been retired and gotten older, I've gotten much better at the skill of of living in the "present". Enjoy it now. Of course I still look forward to lots of things in the future. My plan for 2009: 1. fly my two airplanes. 2. do a kitchen remake that takes out a wall. 3. Start on a tack-room/girl cave for my wife. 4. have a better than ever vegetable garden. 5. Record some music videos starring me. 6. Do some work on the TR-6 project. 7. Have a "coffee house" hangar party. 8. Take the M10 to a bunch of fly-ins through the season. 9. The house and buildings always need painting. I'm not really good at anything. I can fly a plane, but I've never been good at it. Play guitar, same thing. Handyman stuff, I'm pretty bad. Mechanical, bad. There is one thing I may be good at. Goofing off. Using up idle time. Being retired.