Rich Altmaier’s Thoughts on Retirement

Hi Dave,

Regarding retirement, I’ve been such for 4 years now!   I’ve noted several important points

1. Do good planning for savings to generate income, hopefully to maintain ones lifestyle, etc. 
2. There is a loss of mission and purpose which a (good) job brought to one.  You must find another purpose.
3. There is a big loss of contacts and interactions in the daily work environment.  If you are a people person, this is big.  Since I’m not, not so big.
4. One must find mentally engaging things to do and work towards.  Don’t let the brain decay.  This is too easy to do.

I definitely have some purpose around our church and have created a livestreaming service and trained about 4 people to share the workload. This involves engaging with the pastor, staff, and other members.  One doesn’t have to be a big believer to find satisfaction in helping people stay connected in this manner, especially through covid.   You can see our work here:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9d8gUZicn03RI1EjwrpONA.

I’ve kept my brain entertained with some math and programming, and created a few interesting projects, which you can see here:  https://www.thingiverse.com/richalt2/designs. There are some Iowa items in there! 

I will digress with a story around the Johnson County old courthouse.   My models require photos of all sides of a building.  While walking around and taking those photos, a sheriff’s deputy came out and said “I’m responsible for security and I have to ask you what you are doing here”.  The building is still and active court and jail.    I told her I’m working on a 3D printed model, and I have already done the Old Capitol.   She said “that sounds great.  Come inside, I need to show you something”.   We went up to the 3rd floor, and she said wait here, I have to ask the judge for permission to enter his quarters.  She came back and we went in to see a series of prints on the wall which showed the building in a orthogonal view with dimensional information, from the time of its construction!  Such is very helpful in getting my models accurate, and I photographed those prints!  As we left, she introduced me to the judge, who said “It’s so good to hear you are making a model of this courthouse.  That is probably the best thing that has happened in this building in the last 10 years!”.  

When my model was complete I sent a copy to the deputy of course.

You can see on the same site I have also done some flower models.  Believe it or not, those models are entirely mathematically created, composed of 4 Bezier curves.  I’ve created the software to make flower models!

Please do post these thoughts! 

Later, Rich