Hello World!
The famous text for all programmers learning a new language!
About Me
I am a retired 69 year old married man now living in Cotacachi Ecuador. I spent the first 65 years of my life going to school (graduating from M.I.T and Duke University with engineering degrees) and then working as an engineer. Mostly doing software engineering - which is very strange as I never studied software formally at all. This is because in my age group there was no such thing as computer science degrees. That came much later!
Anyway - in my working days I was blessed with having good bosses - and fun projects to work on for most of my career. I got to work on software for nuclear power plant simulators (remember “The China Syndrome” with Jack Lemon and Jane Fonda?), and then I moved into working on the software that develops personal treatment plans for cancer radiation treatments. In this field I worked for the last thirty years of my career for several different companies ranging in size from very big companies to a very small startup company. I am very proud of the work I did. And I consider myself very lucky that I was able to earn a good living my entire life doing something I mostly enjoyed. But I am also very happy to be retired now and not have to worry about work schedules and planning meetings, etc.
Of course over 40 years in software I saw a lot of changes. I always joked toward the end that there was no way I could get a job at the company I was already working for because I had no idea how some of the latest stuff worked. And towards the end I never bothered to learn it because by the time I did it had changed again anyway.
On my 65’th birthday my wife and I flew to Ecuador with a one way ticket. That was a little over four years ago and when you look at where we are now it is hard to believe what my wife (mostly) has been able to do for us. We live in an absolutely beautiful home with beautiful gardens all around and we are surrounded by such a great community of friends here in Cotacachi. Busier than when I was working.
I keep busy mostly by working with our local pickleball group here in Cotacachi. I am a lifetime tennis player who has switched to pickleball here just because it is a far more practical game here. (paddles and balls are affordable - and no need to build a permanent court to start playing). And as with tennis - I have made many friends playing the game.
I also adopted the hobby of learning to play saxophone shortly before leaving the US - and I continue to learn here in Cotacachi. Fortunate to have two great teachers - Ben Davis in Roswell Georgia and Gandhy Rubio here in Cotacachi. It is great fun - and it’s good for me. Progress is slow as far as actually getting much better - but as Ben told me on my first day, “Be like a kid who doesn't know they sound awful! You just have to keep blowing into your horn. Don’t ever stop”. Very good advice!
You may not believe it - but in Cotacachi we have a sax player named Gandhy and a guitar player named Socrates. Both good friends of mine.
Sometimes it seems like I have been able to live two lives. My life in the US seems so long ago now - but of course I still am in touch with my two sons who still live there as well as many friends. And the news from the US? The less said about that the better I guess! I’ll just say I am with the side that thinks science is a good thing and facts do matter.
I do not know (yet) exactly what it is that my friend @beelzael has signed me up for! But I do have some thoughts on various subjects that I want to share somewhere besides Facebook. And I look forward to reading and commenting on various subjects here.
“Be well. Do good work. Keep in touch!”. Garrison Keiller.
I've been in Ecuador for five myself... Welcome to hive man!
I thnk you are going to love it here. Did he show you snapie? its a good way to connect easily with other peeps.
What an exciting, yet frightening, thing that must have been! 😮 It's good that you found a compatible community there, though. With the state of the world today, it seems to be harder and harder to find compatible people. You and I are only one year apart in age; I turned 70 a couple months ago. Welcome to the Hive blockchain! I hope you will have fun here while earning a little crypto! 🙂
Small town culture is really nice. So easy to make friends here, and of course the fact my wife speaks Spanish fluently helps me in so many ways
Welcome to the best web3 network ever. Have fun around here!
Good on you for this step< I am in the same boat. Cheers 🤙
He's signed you up to a place where you will meet people you never knew existed with interests you never knew existed. :)
My favourite part of being here is finding content that I would never otherwise read or encounter where it not for the platform.
We shall see!
Welcome on Hive!
Greetings from Austria!
Welcome to Hive @stacyloesch. It depends on how much you trust @beelzael, but no worries, you're in good hands 😉
Ecuador is a bit remote for us (I'm from across the pond, in case it's not obvious from my handle) but the beauty of hive is that we get to learn and connect with so much of this world which wouldn't otherwise be possible.
Hope to see you around!
Hi @stacyloesch welcome to Hive. I'm @palomap3 from Lovesniper OCD team.
Oh, it's an honour to welcome someone who regularly converses with Socrates and Gandhi, hehe. Seriously, it's not that you feel like you've lived two lives, you have! It seems like you're fulfilling the dream of many, to be able to retire after a satisfying working life and rest in a place that feels like paradise. Here you can share everything you want, learn and teach others... Hive is a vast universe! Enjoy this new adventure.
Tips and information as a Hive newbie here: newbie guide.
Communities you might like that are part of the OCD Communities Incubation Program. Important: read their rules and post in the one that fits your content.
Have a good day!
Welcome to hive. I think you are in good hands. I am here for a long time and know my way around (I think)! Please let me know if you need any help. This is just like other social networking but we pay a little bit. We also check each other’s wallet. Well at least I do! :)
I have no interest in the crypto aspect of this platform. Sort of wish there was a way I could just opt out of sending or receiving it.
Well, don’t worry about it then. Maybe you will be interested in future.
So happy that you're here now! You wrote so many interesting comments on my posts via chat, I was always feeling like they should be a real text under the posts - for now on, that's possible! With the length of some of them, though, it could've been a post in and of itself as reply to mine 🤣
Anyway, I hope you'll make it through the first bumps in the road. Let me know whenever something goes wrong, I'll try my best to help!
Here are other Cotacachi folks to follow (though they haven't posted yet, but I hope they will, soon):
@fotosonics
@mariagata
@ryoga1s
@veramos
@senseimbf
@beelzael (😜)
@pandalacotacachi (I post tutorials and things there)
You also might not @mortgagenomad1 , he travels through Ecuador.
Ok...I will connect with these people. None of them are the mayor are they? I don't understand why everyone uses these alias names? I always liked the lyrics from "They call me the breeze", it goes "I ain't hiding from nobody, nobody's hiding from me".
No, none is the mayor :-D Privacy is an interesting discussion that would be worth several posts to write about. Some use it for security reasons, to speak freely without having to fear any consequences in their political system. Others just have an issue with the "transparent" society for philosophical reasons, kind of like the Digital Panopticon, an adaptation of Bentham's prison design made by Foucault to show how we're controlling ourselves. That transparency is, in my eyes, not real, but owned by Google, Meta, and all the other companies. It feels like freedom, but is constantly monetized. And even if I could trust the government with my transparency, can I trust a company that wants to make money? My small community, yes, maybe I can be transparent there. But especially in the world wide web, it's worth thinking about it.
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