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1964: after high school life begins. Asked to consider not returning to OSU after the first year. 1966 drafted; grunt, door gunner, HU1 pilot. Out in Dec '70. 1972 married, joined fire dept and bought first house over a 6 month span. 1980 moved family (which now consisted of wife Teri, daughter Amy and son Ryan) to CO. 1990 moved all to bush Alaska to work for the dark side (the FAA). Started Blog to keep family and friends up on our whereabouts. Retired in March 2010. In Feb 2012 sold house in Alaska. By May had bought in Redmond and completed the move. Still nesting in Redmond and loving it!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

WWWD

I turned 64 yesterday.  Remembering the Beatles song and apparently not much else.  Years ago I decided to prioritize all the information that my job would throw at us and just ignore the stuff you knew was unlikely to be needed or sure to be changed again in the near future. 

Even though I don’t keep up with my favorite comic strips, I had followed Dilbert and Wally enough to develop the WWWD system for prioritizing data.  Just imagine, What Would Wally Do?  We developed a flow chart.  Beginning with some one giving you a task and running through several choices of possible actions. For example:
    Test one.
    If you ignore the task, will it ever get traced back to you.
    If yes, move on to other possible actions; if no, trash it now.

There were many yes/no tests and if you were still stuck with the task at the end of the chart, the last resort was “get Tracy to do it”.  She was the one that took the job a little too seriously and could be counted on to care enough to do it herself when no one else would.

I am certain that adopting WWWD for the last few years of my illustrious career kept my blood pressure within limits long enough to retire.  The drugs provided by the VA probably didn’t hurt.

Things have been moving a little fast since retirement.  I have yet to develop the instincts I need to apply WWWD to this situation.  Luckily, forgetting most everything seems to be working.  Teri tells me when I should have remembered the things that count so I can adjust the system. 

Right now we are working on a schedule for the trip from here to Portland that will get us there on the 13th of April.  Looks like we will follow the coast to Houston then meet up with the Hatches in Carlsbad for a few days.  Then it is off to LA LA land via Death Valley.  Then up to Bend, OR for a few days with Emil and Sara.  Finally, back to Portland for the Timbers home opener.

Ryan and Judy have been here for the last few days and it has been quite the circus with the three littlest grand children.  Teri got all together for a family photo with self timer and tripod.  I’d like to say that it gets a little easier each time as the kids get older.    Maybe next time I’ll be able to say that.


Truck is getting the once over, then the fifth wheel gets new tires and we are ready to move again.  Tentative launch is March 7th.

Stay safe.

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