First day ...

For the record, today was my first full day of retirement. The weekend and holiday don't count.

There's not much to report: I woke up at 5 a.m., went back to sleep and got up at 6:45 (a.m., not p.m.).

And I didn't leave the house until afternoon.

Don't worry. I'm not going to report on my daily retirement activities! I don't have that much energy and don't want to run any readers off.

This retirement -- my second -- is not a stay-at-home-do-nothing affair where I never set foot inside a place of employment again.

Even if I could afford it, I wouldn't do so. I have too many projects to quit now. I'm sure church, the railroad and blogging will keep me busy for some time to come.

But I never see myself not working to some degree.

Retirement number two (the first was my Navy retirement in 1999) is more of a career change. After living in Excel spreadsheets for the past two and one-half years, I'm looking forward to a chance to return to my first career love.

For 35 years -- until early 2006 -- I labored in residential food service. My best memories come from 20 years feeding the U.S. Navy Seabees in Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 17 and the 3rd Naval Construction Brigade (hence, the Seabee Cook moniker).

My immediate goal is to return to my present job (you know, the spreadsheet job) on a part-time basis. That'll give me a few days and evenings each week to work at a local food service.

By next summer, I expect to be immersed in the world of menus, recipes and food production. Smiling faces, the shuffle of pots and pans and the smell of fresh bread is the world I was born into. It's time to return.

More to come ...