I am doing something very similar. Purchased a Yamaha piano for my daughter's Piano lessons and I want to learn as well. I have no music experience and was wondering if PianoForAll is good for learning the very basics?
Congratulations. I will be checking it out as I am a big fan of FIRE. Also my daughter has 2 cockatiels one for each shoulder. But they usually end up on one as they like to hang out together.
oh neat! I was surprised how long their lifespan is -- my fiancé has had ours for over 20 years... although for some reason his allegiance flipped a few years ago, and now he only flies to me, not her.
Wow! You just articulated a feeling I have had but could not put my finger on it until I read that. I grew up in a blue-collar Midwest US city that was decimated by the loss of domestic manufacturing. I went to college and got a CS degree and went on to enjoy 2+ decades of the tech boom and was paid well for it. Thus, allowing me and my family move into a different class i.e. white collar, educated, entrepreneurial, class-fluid. But now at middle age I don’t recognize any of my friends from the “old” neighborhood as I have changed so much, we don’t really know each other anymore. Our views on many things are so different we might as well be strangers. But due to being raised in that blue-collar environment my thoughts and ideas sometimes don’t mesh with the new class of people I find myself socializing with now. Which leaves me in some kind of limbo. I don’t fit in with the people from my past, but I don’t fit in with the people of my present.
Even though I am not actively looking for work I am reading Beyond Cracking the Coding Interview. https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Cracking-Coding-Interview-Succ.... It’s a dense read and I find myself oddly attracted to mulling over the questions and trying various solutions. I would be doing yard work, walking, hiking, biking and thinking about how to best solve the question I attempted yesterday. I feel more interested in solving the problems the same way people work crossword puzzles or attempt those 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles than trying to game the interview process.
I am 53 and I have 2 teenage children and work with mostly Millennials and Gen Z, and I can honestly say I prefer hanging out with people younger than me. I have dinner/drinks with various friend groups consisting of 50-60 yr olds and all they seem to do is complain about the following: Health, Politics, Younger People. And the conversation inevitably turns to telling stories of the glory days. When when I am with younger people, I see there is still hope, ambition and energy. I know it’s all part of the aging process but many of these older friends are reluctant to leave their little domains and try anything new. I feel like a 35-year-old trapped in a 50 year old’s body.
A lot of people over 40 are burdened - kids, soccer practice. My wife and I at 49/50 are empty nesters, I “retired her” at 44 she is pursuing her passion projects, I work remotely and we are always traveling, gone for extended periods.
We are also gym rats. We have friends that join on us our trips when they can. But no one in our cohort has the complete freedom of movement that we have.
The older retired people that have the freedom we have are too (small “c”) conservative and don’t have to deal with us and I am not about to use a filter when I go on vacation or hanging out.
We also have friends where one works remotely. But the other still has to be in an office. We kind of have to live our lives to our own music.
My parents are 80 and 82 and they are independent now. But I realize the day is going to come where we’re going to have to responsibilities for awhile.
I feel the opposite, hahah! I'm about that age, and I feel I relate less and less to people 10-20 years younger than me, and more and more to people 10-20 years older. To make a probably unfair and way-too-broad generalization: the Millennials I know (like the parents of my kid's friends at school) are kind of... aloof at best and self-absorbed at worst. When the kids play together, those parents never make an attempt to socialize or be pleasant. They're either buried in their phones or they just drop their kids off and skedaddle. The grandparents on the other hand are a blast to hang around with. Social, friendly, engaged, and interested. I feel I have a lot more in common with them, too.
I ended up leaving due to a brilliant jerk. The organization believed his output outweighed the misery he created. It did not matter that 3 people out of 10 went to HR to complain. No one sued. Yet. Unfortunately I feel it's just a fact of life in some organizations. As long as someone makes the company money the owners/management will look the other way. If you can't get rid of them, my advice is to find a place where they are not welcome in the first place.
