warrin with an i

My Musical Journey – The Beginning Tommy Dorsey M usic has always been a significant part of who I am. I enjoyed listening to music at an early age. My father had been a jazz trombone player as a young person. My mom played the piano. My only aunt (had no uncles) loved jazz and classical music and played in an orchestra. Music was often being played in our house either on my parents' hi-fi or on the radio. Neither of my grandparents played much music, I don't remember hearing any music at either of their houses. The lone exception was they watched the Guy Lombardo show. What Guy Lombardo is probably most known for is hosting the New Year's Eve specials on TV for many years. If you are from Long Island, like me, you may know him from the Jones Beach Theater where he and his band were essentially the house band for the musical shows that were put on there. I never cared for or paid much attention to Guy Lombardo and his band, “The Royal Canadians”. M y dad had ...

  Summing Up I started writing this blog about 9 years ago. I'm not sure how much more I am going to write so I am writing this as sort of a summing up piece. However, I am thinking of possibly writing additional posts about my musical journey since music has been so important to me. We'll see, but for right now I'm thinking this will at least be the end of this portion of the “Warrin with an I” memoir. . I will turn 77 shortly. Other than chronic back issues that I've had from time to time since my late 30's, I'm lucky to be in pretty good health. A sciatica condition kept me down this past summer and as a consequence I am a little out of shape but I have started back doing gyro and swimming so I'm working on that. Even with my back issues I managed to show up for the “No Kings” protests, one of them in New York City and one of them I mostly sat on a wall due to my aforementioned sciatica issue... M y last blog post was on my work career - ...

  Retirement: It's a Real Thing I am not someone who looks too far into the future. In my day to day life I don't really think about anything that isn't coming up in the current week. I'm pretty much a day to day person. Our 1 st trip to France we stayed in Provence for a week. All the little towns in Provence have once a week markets and each town has them on different days. The locals seemed to go to a nearby market each day where they would pick up what they needed for the day's food. We did the same while we were there and that planning one day at a time agreed with me. A s I got into my 40s suddenly the idea of me actually retiring became a real thing. Up to that point retirement had been something that was way in the future and not anything I thought too much about. I looked back remembering my first job working for someone. I was 15. It was a summer that went into fall working at a Farm Stand in Syosset on Long Island. It was a large farm sta...

CDCR – The Lockout I 'd been working at CDCR for over a year on a big project to re-write their offender tracking system. We were working with a contractor, TRW. The CDCR brass and the TRW managers looked to be in conflict and it was affecting the whole project team. Lately our tasks seemed to be mostly about collecting information on what had already been done or not done. Doing actual development seemed to move to the back burner. I arrived at the office around 7:30 on a Thursday morning and while attempting to enter the parking lot I was stopped by security personnel. They informed me that I needed to turn around and go back home and I should not return to work until I was told to do so. I asked when this might happen? Their reply was they didn't know. It would probably be within a couple of days and they emphasized I should not return until someone contacted me. The contracting personnel were let in but they were all being escorted by security. They were wa...

  How To Get Promoted Working for the State Me at home around that time but has nothing to do with the story I had been spoiled. During my whole working career, up to this point, I had always been promoted without ever asking or even inquiring for one. Even when I was working a summer job when I was a kid back in New York I had been asked to be acting manager of a toy department for E.J. Korvette even though there were other, older permanent employees in the department at the time. When the manager left it was me they asked to temporarily replace him. In the Air Force promotions were strictly based on time, grade and reviews. I worked a summer in a bakery factory where they had planned to promote me to the lead position when I returned the following summer. After the Air force I worked 6 months for a lighting and lamp parts distributor. I drove their delivery truck. When the owner had to be out for a few months for surgery he asked me to take over managing the warehous...

Heads Up Curtis Park, We're Looking At You: Our House on Portola  I t was 1997. In '97 Bill Clinton was starting his second term as President. The Dow Jones climbed over 7000 for the first time. It was the year of the 1 st Harry Potter book (The Philosopher's Stone). It was also the year Princess Diana died in a car accident. Movie of the year? - Titanic. I was now working for the State of California in the Department of Corrections (CDCR) and our project had recently relocated to the old Aerojet complex out in Rancho Cordova. That year Kris and I accepted that children were not going to be in our future. While we liked our house in Rocklin, we never felt that we quite fit in there. We were always going down to Sacramento so we decided to get the heck out of Rocklin and Placer County. We began to look at homes in Sacramento proper. We liked midtown and so initially looked for a place there. Each time we found a house we liked it had hardly any yard for our...

  Working at The Department of Corrections, CDCR T he week after our 21 day marathon I was invited to a meeting to define the valid values for the system's gender field. At the time I thought “We need a meeting for this? Well at least it will be quick.” When I got to the meeting I learned that they had already had 3 prior meetings on this. I was in my 40's and I knew about transitioning but I was under the impression that at any point in time one was either male of female. Of course this was 30 years ago, well before those crazy Democrats discovered how to change someone's gender in a single school day. No matter how you feel about the Democrats you got to admit that's a pretty awesome accomplishment. Back in the “old days” transitioning required a series of operations as well as injections and supplements. Hence, there was a question of where in the process did the transition actually happen. Maybe a little like the when does life start type of issue. W h...

Hello State Service I started my new job with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) on a Wednesday. Why a Wednesday? Maybe it was the start of the month. Maybe it was just the date they gave me. Maybe my last day at El Dorado was Tuesday. Why I remember this will become clear later. I had interviewed for the position at CDCR headquarters building located on S street between 15 th and 16 th . The project I was hired for and was going to be working on was located at 1050 20 th street in what is now called the Mars building but was back then referred to as the Mayflower building. I arrived about 8. I walked in. There was no reception area. I asked someone where I'd find the IT group I would be working with and they directed me to the 2 nd floor on the south east side of the building. So I proceeded to the second floor and after standing there a couple of minutes someone asked me if I needed something or was looking for someone. I ...

Leaving El Dorado County for the State of California Me with and some Eldorado IT guys - "Stop in the Name of Love" I t was 1995. The year of the O.J. Trial and the Million Man March in Washington DC. It was also the year of the Oklahoma City bombing. On the lighter side there was the movie “Toy Story”. The Number 1 Billboard song for '95: Coolio's Gangsta's Paradise. I was looking for a new job. I had put 7 years in at El Dorado County which was a PERS organization. I was initially thinking of returning to private industry but my mother-in-law, who had a long career working in IT for the State of California, encouraged me to think about looking at the state, since I had those 7 years in the same retirement program that the State of California used. She had worked her way up to upper management and was familiar with many of the state's top IT managers. She pointed out that while state government was much larger than El Dorado size had adv...