Saying Hi

[Fat Tone]

It seems every few years good-old MURC pops in to my mind (usually in the shower for some reason) and then some time later I'll remember to log in and see who's still around and what's occurring.

I still have the steel MURC fob on my keyring!

I can see very few posts and familiar names. I hope everyone is doing ok and just getting on with their lives. I think someone had recently died the last time I logged in.

I guess I'm feeling extra contemplative myself at the moment. I'm 56, have been pondering retirement for a while. Eldest is married, 2nd child is due to finish Uni in a few months. I've just started chemo for Lymphoma which tends to focus the mind, and I'd rather go through that whilst employed than not. Maybe next year.

Let me know how you are all doing, I'd love to hear who's still lurking and how you all are.

Tony.

[Umfriend]

Good luck with the chemo. I'm 55, 1st grandkid on the way. Got the fob, not on the keyring. Just in case MURC dies I did create a MURC subreddit which has 2.5 members and is less active than this forum. I do check in at least weakly I think. Still play and suck at chess but I found a game I am even worse at: League of Legends.

Who died? IIRC, Greebe is no longer with us?

[UtwigMU]

Good to see you come back. I finally started saving and investing during the times of the plague but I'm still far from retirement. I never got the key fob but I did meet and had some beers with some MURCers over the years.

I can imagine psychologically going through chemo must be hard. Best wishes.

[Fat Tone]

Good luck with the chemo. I'm 55, 1st grandkid on the way. Got the fob, not on the keyring. Just in case MURC dies I did create a MURC subreddit which has 2.5 members and is less active than this forum. I do check in at least weakly I think. Still play and suck at chess but I found a game I am even worse at: League of Legends.

Who died? IIRC, Greebe is no longer with us?

Hey Umf, I hope you are doing well. Always liked your Crabby Smurf status Yes it was Greebe, RIP. Sorry, my memory doesn't improve with age.

[Fat Tone]

Good to see you come back. I finally started saving and investing during the times of the plague but I'm still far from retirement. I never got the key fob but I did meet and had some beers with some MURCers over the years.

I can imagine psychologically going through chemo must be hard. Best wishes.

Hi! Best of look with the saving. I'm not quite as close to retirement as I would like to think (I mean I could, but waiting a while will be very much worth it financially at least).

Yeah, the chemo has been a real mental health journey, It was a lot worse on the run up to getting the diagnosis confirmed, and much better since starting treatment. 6 sets of 3 week cycles and then the odds are I'm done with it, so trying to stay really positive.

All the best.

[UtwigMU]

So do you still do psychology?

[SteveC]

This place still pops in my mind more often than it probably should too I'm 45 this weekend, but I only have the one kid, a daughter who's 10. I'm doing alright, I work from home full time (American company but I'm in the UK) in my shed. I have built my own mini museum in my shed - currently set up around me are my 'work' and my 'play' desk PC workstations, but also:

IBM Aptiva - K6-450 - Windows 98
IBM PC330GL - P200 - Windows 95
iMac G4 - OSX 10.4.11
BBC Master
IBM PS/1 - 286 - DOS 5/Win3.0
IBM PS/2 P70 - 386 - Dos 6.22/Win3.1
Atari 130XE

Plus a bunch of consoles - Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Megadrive, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii and a few handhelds

All plugged in and working, ready to be played on!

A few weeks back I found a bunch of photos from when I went to CeBit courtesy of Matrox in 1999 - I found pics of Haig, Maggi, Hellmut amongst others which brought back a lot of memories (but I was rather drunk that trip ).

Best of luck with the chemotherapy Tony! The C word is popping up all over the place at the moment with my family too...

[Fat Tone]

So do you still do psychology?

No more than I ever did. I was Principal Computer Officer in the School of Psychology at Leicester Uni. When an Academic set up Cappfinity 16 years ago I left to join him. There were 6 of us then, now there are 200. I am Head of IT, Compliance and Facilities and spend most of my time looking after InfoSec and being audited by clients. We largely do volume recruitment so have a lot of PII to keep safe.

[Fat Tone]

This place still pops in my mind more often than it probably should too I'm 45 this weekend, but I only have the one kid, a daughter who's 10. I'm doing alright, I work from home full time (American company but I'm in the UK) in my shed. I have built my own mini museum in my shed - currently set up around me are my 'work' and my 'play' desk PC workstations, but also:

IBM Aptiva - K6-450 - Windows 98
IBM PC330GL - P200 - Windows 95
iMac G4 - OSX 10.4.11
BBC Master
IBM PS/1 - 286 - DOS 5/Win3.0
IBM PS/2 P70 - 386 - Dos 6.22/Win3.1
Atari 130XE

Plus a bunch of consoles - Dreamcast, PS1, PS2, Megadrive, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii and a few handhelds

All plugged in and working, ready to be played on!

A few weeks back I found a bunch of photos from when I went to CeBit courtesy of Matrox in 1999 - I found pics of Haig, Maggi, Hellmut amongst others which brought back a lot of memories (but I was rather drunk that trip ).

Best of luck with the chemotherapy Tony! The C word is popping up all over the place at the moment with my family too...

That's quite some museum you've got there Steve! There used to be a proper one in Leicester but it closed a few years ago.

And yeah that C-word is well deserved. I guess as we all get older we are more likely to be affected in some way. I lost my Dad to it at Christmas after a very short battle. I wish your family all the best.

[TransformX]

I'll turn 50 soon.
3 kids from the first marriage (18, 17, 14), 2 from the second (4, 1).
Still changing jobs, still driving an old Lancia K, still gaming on my PC.

Best of luck with the chemo and hopefully soon enough good riddance with the issue completely.

[Umfriend]

Always liked your Crabby Smurf status

So did/do I. I don't actually remember how I got it but I do remember Sasq forgot to move it over to a new update or server or something and that did make me crabby so I got reinstated.
Get well!

[VJ]

A late reply as I was somewhat off-grid.
Great to hear from you, best of luck with the chemo!

I'm approaching 49, no children, became professor (now in 2 research institutes), still working in Warsaw. Still flying but not as much as I'd like, no diving - it has been 15 years or so since my last dive.

Both my wife and I are feeling we will need a change in our life: too much stress at work, not enough job satisfaction: the topics, the administration, not enough possibility to enjoy free time, etc. Add to that that many people around us started having health issues - one close friend died of Alzheimer's (he got euthanasia), two others underwent life-saving surgeries - so we have decided to re-evaluate things by the end of the year when our current research projects will have finished (they are quite prestigious projects so we decided to see them out). The colleagues are also very nice, so we don't want to be the cause for the projects not succeeding, as that will have quite an impact on everybody. (I posted a thread in political and religious, not going to repeat it here) We are too young for retirement, and still need quite some more working years to qualify for the minimum retirement (mainly in Belgium), and then still we'd need to bridge the gap to the retirement age - which tends to be a moving goal post. But we both have good diploma's and experience, so we should be able to find some suitable solution. :-)

[Fat Tone]

A late reply as I was somewhat off-grid.
Great to hear from you, best of luck with the chemo!

I'm approaching 49, no children, became professor (now in 2 research institutes), still working in Warsaw. Still flying but not as much as I'd like, no diving - it has been 15 years or so since my last dive.

Both my wife and I are feeling we will need a change in our life: too much stress at work, not enough job satisfaction: the topics, the administration, not enough possibility to enjoy free time, etc. Add to that that many people around us started having health issues - one close friend died of Alzheimer's (he got euthanasia), two others underwent life-saving surgeries - so we have decided to re-evaluate things by the end of the year when our current research projects will have finished (they are quite prestigious projects so we decided to see them out). The colleagues are also very nice, so we don't want to be the cause for the projects not succeeding, as that will have quite an impact on everybody. (I posted a thread in political and religious, not going to repeat it here) We are too young for retirement, and still need quite some more working years to qualify for the minimum retirement (mainly in Belgium), and then still we'd need to bridge the gap to the retirement age - which tends to be a moving goal post. But we both have good diploma's and experience, so we should be able to find some suitable solution. :-)

It sounds like you have had successful lives and careers. Getting the balance right between working and the rest is the perennial challenge. I always say its better to regret the things you did than the things you wish you had done. Like most investments the longer I can leave my pensions before touching them the better, almost exponentially, but at what point is there Enough so that I can enjoy whatever life is left to the standard I would like? That is the big question.

Good luck with your next projects

[VJ]

It sounds like you have had successful lives and careers.

Doesn't always feel that way... Perhaps because of the bad work-life balance...

Getting the balance right between working and the rest is the perennial challenge. I always say its better to regret the things you did than the things you wish you had done. Like most investments the longer I can leave my pensions before touching them the better, almost exponentially, but at what point is there Enough so that I can enjoy whatever life is left to the standard I would like? That is the big question.

Yes... that is the big question... I realised that having worked in multiple countries complicates things so I started checking the administrative side of retirements: work within EU is counted towards working years in EU member states, but I'll need to prove those working years in each of the countries I've worked... I already noticed that the Belgian retirement system does not know about me working abroad, even though the tax system does. Now that I still have contacts everywhere, it may be easier to figure out what documents I need to prove it all.