I’m now officially retired from the specialty chemical manufacturing business, but I’ll continue to write here as before. I ended up working 28 years for the same company. Career-wise, it was all but certain a mistake to stay all that time. But there was job stability in a place I wanted to live and raise a family. And being curiosity driven, the early transition metal chemistry we did was very interesting.

I considered doing an online MBA for a move into the business end years back but after some soul searching I had to admit I didn’t want to paddle spreadsheets around in the corporate wading pool until retirement. I worked for a small company where it was possible to wear many hats but I didn’t realize how lucky I was.

The orthodox corporate life is not for me. It is a world of ultra-precise job descriptions discouraging the hiring of talented generalists and on-the-job training. After we were bought out by a capital investment firm there was a proliferation of KPIs, Key Performance Indicators for the anal retentive MBAs. C-suites are now packed up with smooth talking devils who traffic in saccharin B-school euphemisms and the latest accounting sorcery. I understand the need for KPIs in business and the information drawn from them. But what a colossal bore for a scientist.

Management consultants are a dime-a-dozen, each with their own bag of tricks and associated best selling books extolling the virtues gleaned from stitched-together anecdotes. The exalted individuals squatting on the board of directors meet quarterly to review progress on the bottom line as promised in a flurry of business-speak the previous quarters. Obviously this is customary for the board and C-suite but it’s for the love of accelerating EBITDA rather than the love of chemistry and engineering. I am fundamentally a science guy, not a prince of the executive class.

What remains of my retired brain is a mishmash of rapidly aging business trade secrets and a Rolodex half-full of now retired industry people. But, this is true for most retirees. My career was a crazy quilt of sales and marketing, scale-up, process safety, patent analysis, R&D, accident investigation, calorimetry and TSCA regulatory submissions. Such hopscotching around job descriptions was only possible in a small privately-owned chemical company.

My new gig is as a freelance writer for the local newspaper. It’s a real kick. I am the first science writer for the paper but am writing under my real name from now on. It’s for an entirely different demographic that requires me to use AP style and an active voice after decades of writing in the passive voice.

My next online/print articles are on the presence of uranium in the water of a new reservoir. How can that happen? After that is a 2-part series on the technology of both the input and output sides of municipal water treatment.

It is quite interesting to be part of a news gathering organization. It’s like being in a watch tower with binoculars. A newspaper is like a shark- it has to keep moving if it is to survive.

I just finished a spring semester online political science course on the comparative politics of Eastern Europe from the interwar period to the collapse of the USSR. I was able to get into this university extension class because I had $1600 and a heartbeat. A little spendy but I’m doing it again next fall.

I took the class to gain insight on the question of “What the hell is wrong with Russia?” Why are they so paranoid? Why can’t they join the broader community of nations in peaceful co-existence and prosperity? What gives?

I’m in the middle of a comprehensive biography of Peter the Great of Russia. From the book it is plain to see that Russia has been insular and suspicious of outsiders for a very long time. Peter’s fascination with the customs and technology of Europe was tolerated only because he was Tsar. The Patriarch of the Orthodox church, who resided in old Muscovy, was particularly opposed to any western influence and spared no opportunity to dissuade Peter from western influence. Peter paid little attention. He was what we would now call a “party animal”.

Numerous stressors have expired from the turbulent churning of daily concerns except for the big political fiasco of our time- Trumpus Maximus. Even when Trump eventually falls over dead from natural causes his legacy of evil, ham-fisted stupidity will live on and will take generations to reverse, if ever.

From my career days I have a professional library of over 1050 books, 80% of which are chemistry related. I’m under great pressure at home to be rid of them lest my survivors be inconvenienced with disposing of it. I’m looking at selling them on Amazon. I tried to donate them to my undergrad chemistry department but there was no interest (!!!). The problem with online sales is that it’s a sizeable mail order job with lots of packaging and shipping BS to contend with.

I have taken up sport shooting at a local gun club with my new 9 mm Sig Sauer pistol. It is a little out of character in some ways but I’m always interested in expanding my horizons. On TV you see fictional bad guys repeatedly firing and missing the good guys even in a close-in shootout. On the other hand the TV coppers shoot and rub out the crooks at long range with the first double tap. Okay, the coppers train regularly but pistols are not precision devices.

I continue to be inspired by my favorite YouTube geologist, Myron Cook. He lives next door, up in Wyoming. I enjoy geotourism and expect to continue with this activity.