5 Years ago today. The US and World went into total shutdown.

2 weeks to flatten the curve

Yup. Things were somewhat strange. WTH was errbody thinking. Life ain’t like the movies. Allan Jackson told us that.

The fast food & restaurant industry ain't been the same since. Lots of other things changed too & not for the better.

The whole world figured out they can jack the prices up and leave it there and get away with it. Pisses me off.

I hate to even say this, but Covid (even though we both suffered from actually having it) turned out to be a blessing for both of us.

We were on a business trip to Biloxi and our companies called us and told us that no one could come back to work. Fortunately for us we had finished our cabin up on the mountain and had internet up here, so we finished our business in Biloxi and headed back home to Trussville to get some stuff and head up to the cabin to ride it out. We thought, "Cool, we'll just ride this out for a few weeks at the cabin, work from home up there and it will all blow over in a few weeks and everything will be back to normal."

Well... A few weeks turned into a few months and we hadn't spent the night in the house at all. So we talked to my Dad who was a widower and convinced him to sell his house and move into the house in Trussville so he could live cheap and we would have someone living there. That worked out really good, because not too many months later Dad was diagnosed with brain cancer. We were able to keep Dad at the house and bring in sitters and nurses to take care of him and he never had to be moved to a "facility" and was able to die comfortably at the house.

It didn't take us long to realize we loved living in a small 1,100 SF cabin in the mountains more than we liked living in a neighborhood. So once Dad dies, we fixed up the house and put it on the market, sold it in a week and that was the last debt we had.

In between moving Dad into our house and him dying, our company was going to make us take the vaccine in order to stay working there. Now I'm not a big conspiracy theorist, or an anti-vaxer, but I'm a Libertarian and I don't like feeling like I'm being forced to take an experimental drug as a pretext for employment. So I built an elaborate retirement spreadsheet showing all the money we had, the money we had coming in and what our expenses would be. Well... It turned out that we could actually get a raise if we retired.

Lo and behold, our company relented at the 11th hour and I didn't have to give them the middle finger, but I couldn't get the idea that I cold leave, do what I wanted for the rest of my life and not have to work for anyone. I loved the people I worked with, I loved my job, and I was damn good at it, but the stress of managing something like 70 Civil Design projects a year was a lot... So I was torn, but I knew I wanted freedom.

So one day I had one of those performance reviews with my boss and of course everything went well, I got another big raise and at the end he asked me if there was anything that I was unhappy about or anything he needed to know, (He and I were friends outside of work) so I told him I had built this financial spreadsheet and that I could leave the company today and actually get a raise and not have to work. He looked at me for a few minutes, processing everything I just said, and said, "What do you mean by that?" I said, "We probably need to start training my replacement..."

He suggested a guy that I've known since he was 18 years old and I whole heartedly agreed (I think he a member on here.) and so for the next several months I did just that and retired in the spring of 2024 and have never looked back.

So Covid was pretty good to me, other than the week I spent on the couch and couldn't taste any food.

It was Fri, 3/13/20 for me.

Had worked the week in Mobile staying in a hotel. Went to check out that morning and lady said 'be glad yall are checking out today because looks like we're closing next week'.

Things went to pot shortly after.

You beat me to it

NEVER FORGET !

All I know is my Mom died in an assisted living facility thinking nobody cared anything about her, we tried to communicate with her thru a window with her not being able to hear or see us.

That’s terrible

Covid was a blessing and a very sad time in my life.
I was one of those IT Consultants that traveled every week to different Client sites and "helped" them with their technology problems. I actually loved doing it and we made good money for the past 20 years, saved a ton and was looking forward to retirement. Along comes the shutdowns and now I no longer have to get up on Monday at 3 AM to catch a plane to somewhere and then try and get home on Thursday night. Now it is all Skype and Microsoft teams virtual meetings and I was a big fan of this technology. It worked for me like a charm and never missed a beat with the Clients. I did miss the face to face interactions, however the offsetting ability to be at home and sleep in my bed and be with my wife and not spend endless hours traveling was awesome. (She might have an entirely different opinion of all this!)

We both got Covid several times and to us they were just like severe colds and we got over them quickly, stayed home and keep on doing our thing.

My father, an army veteran, in his mid 80's succumbed to the effects of Covid, while living in an assisted living facility that had taken great precautions, however one little slip and it went through there very quickly. He is interred in the Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly Michigan. I do miss him and he would have loved playing with his great-grand children and being a general pain in my ass. ;-)

Fast forward to last year, I was planning on retiring about March 2025 anyway, the Company comes out and offers a "Early Voluntary Retirement Program" for those meeting certain service and age requirements that I fell in with. The words "Early Voluntary Retirement" in the email were repeated about 50 time so I read between the lines and we also did the big spreadsheet and realized that retiring a year early was a huge opportunity for us and we accepted it on a Friday. On Monday, we got an email that I was a "critical" employee in my current role and they needed more time to find a replacement. I extended my end date by 3 months and was able to get a person trained up to take over on the project I was on and it all worked out.

I did spend the last 2 days of employment and the first day of retirement in the hospital with Heart issues and that has really changed my whole outlook. Now I am exercising and walking a lot more, eating less, losing weight and getting into better shape than I have been for a long time. Quit drinking about a year ago and have to say that I do sometimes miss a fine bourbon over some ice every now and then, however the benefits outweigh the negative effects on my body and my relationships.

I am truly blessed by how we managed through this crazy time and looking forward to many more good days ahead. Please make sure to take care of yourself and your loved ones and keep praying and moving forward.

Kelly123

Good to hear that Kelly!

The good Lord has a way to turn bad events into blessings when we even halfway follow His plans for our lives and just go with the flow.

I learned more about my fellow man during that time than I did in my 50 years previous. I knew my government was crooked but I had no idea just how many sheep I lived amongst. Going back and reading some of the threads during the first months of covid is hilarious and horrifying at the same time.

This. Definitely opened my eyes to how many people I know will blindly follow the MSM narrative and how they will react when you challenge that narrative. If chit ever really hits the fan it’s good to know who can be trusted and who to keep distance from.

On the bright side of things, the whole ordeal did help me to place my priorities straight and not take too many things so seriously. Life is short, best get to living and not worrying so much.

My ex wife's dad did the same

The happy that can from covid for me. My daughter was working the NICU at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, called me saying dad it’s getting too crazy out here l’m coming home.
Her and my SIL moved back to the farm and decided to stay in Alabama. Thank the Lord!

The start of 3 years of bad times for me. I got a atrial fib diagnosis and went into the hospital two days before they shut everything down and spent 8 more days in there with a wife going out of her mind. Spent the next year basically making nothing because I work on a fee split and then another 6 months wondering why work was not coming in. Then I found out. The POS I had worked for for 34 a years had decided to do something else with his son and basically strung me along for over a year. Little later I noticed my getting canned coincided perfectly with when the govt stopped covid payments to employers so the guy I made millions for cans my arse 3 years before retirement after leaving me in limbo for probably 9 months so he could put the Covid money in his pocket. Remember he ain’t paying me anything cause I work on a split. My second job choice was horrible and after 9 months that almost killed me went I back to work for one of my old bosses competitors, but the spark for my work, which I had always enjoyed, was gone. My Mom and I got into a bad bad disagreement to the point I really thought the relationship might be over which tore me up badly and then our dog, who I was just stoopid about died suddenly. Wife and I said to heck with this crap, sold the Florida house and moved to my place in sweet home Alabama where thank goodness things have eased up some.

The sheep are all around...over 80% took the first shot!

fear mongering, the need to be employed, and support a family is a strong driver