Hello World!

 If I were to take any advice about retirement it would be from a fellow fella who, as my father would say, "makes a living from the luft." 

From the air, for those of you who don't speak German or its less rigid cousin, Yiddish. 

Steve Lopez, LA Times columnist and author of the book Independence Day (as previewed yesterday and thoughtfully given to me by Ms. Muse), is a good candidate for the job. Like me, he has spent years observing life's oddities. And for years he has penned those observations. To the delight of millions, for Steve. 

To the delight of 8 loyal readers, for me.

Unlike me, Steve plied his wares with the LA Times. I poured what little writing talent I had into the more whorish industry of advertising. 

I had always dreamed of being a newspapermen, like Art Buchwald, or a magazine man, like PJ O'Rourke. But then found myself rooming with a news reporter in college, and thought I'm not going through life living on a pittance and finding 18 ways to prepare Macaroni & Cheese.

I still have twenty or so more pages in the book. I'm a slow reader. 

Plus, it turns out the leisurely life of a widower is not so leisurely at all. This big house, 2400 square feet of it, always needs something cleaned, scrubbed or de-grimed. 

But I can tell there will be no surprise ending to the book. Steve finds himself on the same fence I find myself impaled upon.

I don't want to work anymore. But I don't NOT want to work anymore.

As one of his interviewees told him, "You're a writer. You can't just turn that off."

And so, rather than taking the risk of hanging up my writing cleats and boring myself to death, I've decided to bore you, dear reader. 

It'd be nice to be able to monetize this blog, you know, other than populating these pages with Google's programmatic advertising from orthotics makers, Salon Pas and ED pills. But after 14 years of cranking out these blogs, that's probably not going to happen.

So now I'm wondering if I could redirect my efforts to something that would marry my limited ability to make people laugh and the need for hoteliers, resorts, parasail operators, airlines, tuk tuk drivers, etc. to make people fork over their money. 

In other words, maybe bring a new voice to the world of international travel reviews, thereby affording me the opportunity to keep clicking and clacking, while enjoying exotic blowfish sushi, yachts, and deep tissue massages on the other side of the world. All on someone else's dime.

A semi-retired, professional schnorer, if you will.