david's doodles

The Tao of Retirement

These days I feel completely energized. In part, it may be due to the spring-like weather we are enjoying. More likely, though, it may be due to my new hobby of web design.

This may not be immediately obvious. It has been a while since I made my last post here. Instead, I have been caught up with helping others with their web design projects.

In September, I took a train trip across the USA to Washington DC. Since returning, I have been inundated with requests for help with other web sites. Not only has this given me an opportunity to learn a lot from other’s mistakes, some have actually paid me for the help.

When I took up web design five years ago, I had two motivations. One was to have a vehicle to develop hobbies I enjoyed in my youth, namely, drawing and photography. The other motivation was to earn enough that I could afford the photography, as well as survive on a government pension. For, while my pension is quite adequate for now, the signs are clear— that pension will not be worth much twenty years from now.

At the time, I had no idea how interesting a hobby this would turn out to be. Far more than a source of (occasional) income and a vanity forum, it has given me an active social life and has introduced me to many subjects of interest I may have never considered examining. For not only are aspects of design absorbing of themselves, there is currently such an interest in the Internet from such a diverse set of folks that I find myself spending a lot of time over cups of coffee or a long lunch or dinner sharing interests and discussing how to put up a web page.

One recent project involved helping a pretty young artist create a portfolio of her paintings and drawings. It’s not what I imagined I’d be doing in my retirement, but it sure is fun. Another project involved helping present a set of delicious recipes on a web site. From that I got to eat a lot of samples of the author’s cooking, as well as an invitation to lunch. It turns out that her husband is a jolly entertaining and knowledgeable fellow. Also present were others from my web class, who also happen to have a rich store of highly entertaining jokes and anecdotes. A good time was had by all.

At the moment, I am still considering whether to get a film camera, or to “go digital.” It seems to me that film is far more permanent and flexible— after all, you can always scan film to create a digital image. But photography is still not my priority. My interest right now is in typography. While some agree that Web Typography Sucks there is still a lot that can be done with the limited number of font faces available.

This site will be getting a bit more attention in the coming weeks. The computer lab where I have been helping out has moved to a temporary location far away, and will not move back to a more accessible place until February. I am busy learning the ins and outs of the software that runs this blog. After that, I hope to create my own design for it and post on a greater variety of subjects.

One feature you may like to use is one of the news feeds, which will alert you to new content without the need to visit this page first. In the meantime, please feel free to post a comment. I’d love to hear from you.