I made it!

So today (Saturday) is my very first day of being TRULY retired! (I retired from the Navy long ago, but that doesn't really count as I still had to work a lot more years). Thursday was my LAST day going in to work, and yesterday was officially my last vacation day. So today, the 1st of February, is the FIRST day I'm well and truly retired (and drawing my pension, which should paying as of today). 

My mind is suitably blown, it just doesn't seem real, and likely won't for a while. I did have an epiphany in the wee-hours of Thursday morning, as I woke up ridiculously early (actually finally got out of bed at 1:15am when it was apparent that the brain woke up and was churning away on the reality of the day). So I got up, turned on the coffee, and sat on the couch. Our bulldog Sophie (always faithful and totally a daddies girl) sat on my lap while I was just thinking about the enormity of the coming day, and likely how hard it was actually going to be for me. It was then that it occurred to me that Monday was when it would really start to sink in...because Monday won't be Monday, it will be Saturday. So will Tuesday, and Wednesday, you get the picture. Also there will be no more Sunday evening 'get stuff ready for work and go to bed early', and needing to do laundry and all my other weekend chores so I have clothes for the week (without reaching down into the pile 'Navy Style' to find something suitably aged and can be flipped inside out where it's still good). I can now do laundry and any other chores whenever I want!

And I wasn't wrong about how huge Thursday was for me. I ended up going in WAY early (I was inside by about 5:15am), but had 'things to do'. The last 2 weeks was slowly ramping up for me in the 'must finish' certain things before I could in good conscious walk away (I'm not one to drop my work on others). I did however complete all the projects I had going, and then in the final few days it came down to 'holy crap do I have a LOT of stuff here'! That's what 21 years does...I'm an 'accumulator', collector, (hoarder?). I know Jeannie thinks I'm a hoarder, and that may be true in a VERY minuscule sense...true hoarders are something to behold. I consider myself 'frugal', as in I HATE to throw away something that I just KNOW I will need some day (I also HATE to have to go BUY something that I threw away, because that's just flushing away money!) So yeah, I had a lot of stuff. 

The Government (Air Force/Space Force) is our Customer, and owns pretty much everything where I work(ed). The buildings, vehicles, furniture, computers, refrigerators, microwaves, etc. Everything. Our gigantic tool boxes (Snap On, probably the finest and most expensive tools you can buy) are provided by the Gov. Due to the expense (and the possibility of a tool being left somewhere it shouldn't be) we need total and complete "Tool Accountability" (and we have several online training courses every year covering the topic). The medical field knows this as "Sponge-count", where surgeons need to account for literally every single thing that goes near/inside a patient (for obvious reasons). We actually call it the same thing, and only go full blown Sponge Count during our 'critical' times (which would be whenever we are prepping for and especially actually moving a spacecraft). If there's a missing tool, screw, zip-tie, piece of tape, whatever, that was taken anywhere in the vicinity of our container or a spacecraft, well, that's a really REALLY bad day. It MUST be found.

So anyway, we the working folk have these 'tool chits' (which are like mini credit-cards, each has our picture, name and employee ID # printed on it) that we take off our little ring 'O' chits and put them inside the tool-box in the spot where that tool was for each tool we take out (so if say a socket comes up missing at the end of shift they know exactly who to go to). In my final few days I hid almost all my tool chits (about 30 give or take) in various 'fun' places. My guys will be finding these in the coming days/weeks/years. I hope each time they find one it will bring smiles..."found another of Matt's chits today" and then everybody will want to know where it was (and hopefully NONE of the chits themselves become FOD which is "Foreign Object Debris", which can cause the other type FOD, which is "Foreign Object Damage". FOD is bad in my line of work. With our huge building and multitudes of large and supremely expensive equipment that we use for our Missions (each Spacecraft Transport is considered a unique Mission), I had a LOT of cool places to hide my chits.

So, going back just a bit, two weeks ago on Tues Jan 14th my people had a pot luck barbecue in my honor, and Jeannie was allowed into the building (escorted by my boss). Our Space Force Commander came over from the Headquarters building where she works and gave a very nice talk about me (she had been provided a copy of my bio beforehand from my boss it turns out). She then presented me with a beautiful wooden 'memento' box with 2 Coins (Challenge Coins they're called...in the last few decades they have become a REALLY big thing for the Military and there are zillions of different Coins out there). The first was a coin from the very first Launch I worked after I hired on (and it also happened to be the very LAST launch of an Air Force Titan IV rocket, which was carrying our Customers spacecraft to orbit). That launch was in October 2005, and my Mom, Dad, Jeannie and brother Greg came up to the base to watch. The other coin was my Commanders Unit coin. Lt. Colonel Ruth being our Commander, she and all her People ARE the NRO Vandenberg group, which makes all of us contractors that work for her part of that group too. And finally she pulled her NRO unit patch from her uniform shoulder and gave me that also. 

Then My people presented me with a beautiful "Flag Box" with a US Flag that was carried on our last transport mission (there are only 2 flags per Mission, one on each side of the Container, and we do anywhere from 0 to 3 Missions per year). So just know that these flags are pretty hard to come by. Also the box has two nice engraved plaques on it, the upper one saying it's being presented to me, and the lower one listing all the Transport Missions I worked over the last 9 years (when I came over from a different division to work in the PTS group, which stands for Payload Transportation Services). I was also presented a framed photo montage of a few launch pictures, a night-time shot of us going down the road in the middle of the night with our container, and also an aerial pic of SLC-6 (which is Space Launch Complex-6, the home of the Delta IV and Delta IV Heavy rockets). All of this really choked me up I have to say. It was pretty difficult not to 'lose it', but I hung in there. Then we had lunch and all was great! (our people REALLY know how to barbecue Tri Tip btw, you can even find it around the country where they call it "Santa Maria Style Barbecue", but NOBODY makes it better than my people!) I even had to give a little 'speech', and did pretty good by not breaking down.

The above picture shows the photo montage, the Commanders Memento Box and her NRO patch, the Flag Box and also my "yearbook" which the company gives to all departing people...got a bunch of pictures of launches and people doing work and company parties and such, and also everybody can sign it at the back. 

 

                And this shot is a closeup of my Flag Box.It's really beautiful, I was stunned!

After that day I still worked another 2 weeks (usually this would have happened on or very near my 'last day', but they bumped it up due to a co-worker who was retiring 2 days after and he really wanted to be at my 'party' (it was a huge surprise to me that he would be there, quite an honor as he was one of our Engineers I worked with long ago, and he was leaving after 41 years on our contract!)

On then finally, my last day of work (last Thursday the 30th of Jan). I brought in Cheesecakes (Jeannie's family recipe which I'm not allowed to give out, I can truly say it's probably the BEST Cheesecake I've ever had) and Jeannie also made me a big batch of her world-famous White Chocolate Macadamia cookies to bring in one last time...and they are also OH WOW! After our morning meeting (where the days work is discussed) I took off in a truck and made the rounds to our other buildings, saying my goodbyes to everybody. I made it back for "coffee break" and all my PTS folk along with a few select others showed up for Cheesecake, cookies and coffee. Then I had to give one last little speech, and this one I was on the very edge of losing it. 

After that it was time...I had an appointment with our Security Manager over at the HQ building at 10am. My boss showed up and came in with me, where I turned in all my badges and signed some forms (NDA stuff...mostly saying I need to forget a lot of stuff that I know which I'm never supposed to talk about, which is pretty easy when you consider that I only have 2 remaining functioning brain-cells). Then my boss took me over to the Command Center (where our Commander works) on our way out. Her Secretary let her know I was there, and she came out and we said our farewells (she is an AWESOME Commander, and I guarantee she will make Colonel on her first time up for it, probably only a few years form now). And that was that...I walked to my car and drove away (that part was actually pretty difficult). 

So this last picture is a selfie I took after leaving my building FOR THE VERY LAST TIME! Jeannie thought I looked happy, but I assured her I was on the verge of breaking down sobbing. The building you see behind me was originally built to be the OMF, (which stands for Orbiter Maintenance Facility). The giant rolling doors (they are closed here) behind and above my head run across nearly the entire lower width of the main hibay, and were made to open wide enough for a Space Shuttle to go in and out. This was where all the maintenance would have been done for all West Coast Space Shuttle launches. SLC-6 (which I mentioned earlier) had been retrofitted to launch Space Shuttles. The original "Enterprise" Orbiter (which never went to space) was flown out on it's 747 transporter jet and fit-checked to the pad, and there are even pictures of the Enterprise inside this very building, which is where I worked the last 9 years. Anyway, long ago after all the preps to do shuttle launches from both Cape Kennedy and Vandenberg, the Challenger disaster happened. After that the Air Force decided the Shuttles were too risky for their ludicrously expensive spacecraft, so they nixed shuttle launches from shuttles and started launching their biggest vehicles on Titan IIIB's and then Titan IV's which happened several miles away at SLC-4, which is where I worked my first 2 years here on base. After that SLC-6 was converted to be the Delta IV pad. So this building behind me ended up housing all our PTS equipment instead of actual shuttles (the Space Shuttles were called SCTS, which stands for "Space Cargo Transportation System", which is also exactly what our giant containers are called).

Anyway, that's pretty much my last 2 weeks. I still can't wrap my head around the fact that I no longer go to work...EVER. That they pay me now to do pretty much anything BUT work. It just doesn't seem possible.

 OK, well, I made it. The light at the end of the tunnel is no longer at the end of the tunnel, it's BEHIND me. I'm out of the tunnel. Holy smokes, I'm done! I have SO much to do, and suddenly SO much time! (or not...I don't really want to go 'there', none of us know how much time we have here, making it so important to live every day to the fullest). Whatever time I do have left is MY time now. I plan to make the best of it! I hope to do at least ONE FUN thing every single day from here on out! Hopefully more than one, but at LEAST one.

And so, Aawaaaaaaaayyyyy I go! 

Game ON!