Taking a Few Fridays Off
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
A year ago, commentator Cam Marston was plotting his escape from a job he’d come to hate. This morning, he tells us what changed, and why it’s made these commentaries harder to write. ----- I almost didn’t write this. Again. You see, these commentaries have been hard to write lately. There’s a lot going on. I wake up with work to-do lists in my head, and my volunteer projects, like these commentaries, fall toward the bottom. That’s both a good thing and a bad thing. You see, about a year ago I was so bored with my work that I was contriving ways to stop working. I hated it. That’s...
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Once an Engineer
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Most of us define ourselves by what we do for a living, and that label can stick long after the job is gone. Commentator Cam Marston met a man in Chicago this week who was struggling to let go of his, and the conversation hit closer to home than Cam expected. ----- I was in Chicago earlier this week delivering a workshop on retirement studies. The room was full with about fifty people there and some standing against the wall. When the workshop was over a few people hung around to ask questions. One man lingered until everyone was gone. “Cam,” he said, “I left engineering several years...
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Flipper Did His Best
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam and his wife finally got the traveling life they'd talked about for years. This week he files a report on what that dream actually looks like — from an uncomfortable chair in the Atlanta airport. ----- I’m in hour four of the Delta SkyClub in the Atlanta airport. I have two more hours to go. I’ve eaten two dozen carrot sticks, a couple servings of some sort of mustard chicken thing, a pile of pita chips and so many small cubes of cheese that tomorrow should worry me. And some chardonnay. I’m not sure how much. Enough that the bartender sees me...
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Satan Is a Termite
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin' It Real, Cam sat in a church fundraising meeting and pitched drawing the termites as the devil himself. It did not go over the way he'd hoped. Here's Cam. ------ It was a thoughtful meeting. Pensive. Cerebral. We were all leaning over the table with pens poised over paper for important notes to be taken. The church needs your help, they said, and we have a small role for you. I listened as the issues and challenges were made clear, and then I heard myself beginning to speak and thought, "Don't do it. Don't say it." But it was too late. To help the...
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A Quiet Morning
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
For years, Cam Marston wondered how he'd handle the empty nest once his last kids left home. This week, with his youngest twins dropped off at college, he finally gets to find out. ----- For several years now I’ve thought about my last children leaving home and wondering how my wife and I would fare in our next life chapter of empty nesting. I thought I may like a quiet and neat home, or not being waked late at night with kids coming in from a night out with friends, and many many fewer dirty dishes in the sink. When the older kids came home...
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Lining Up to be Judged
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
This weekend Cam Marston watched 130 girls squeal with joy on Auburn's quad. Here's why his mind went straight to the ones who didn't get the call. ----- We sure love cruelty, don’t we? As refined and as smart and as elevated as we claim to be, we love us some cruelty. We line up to dish it out and, strangely, we line up to potentially take it. Saturday afternoon I watched the culmination of Auburn’s bid day. My favorite youngest daughter got a bid. I watched as she ran from Neville Arena to the quad where she and her 130 some odd new best friends whom she had never met before squealed....
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Climate Battles
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week's Keepin It Real, It's August in Alabama, which means two things: the air conditioner is running non-stop, and somewhere in a house near you, a married couple is fighting over the thermostat. Cam is losing that fight. ----- It’s the time of year in Alabama where when the temperature tops out at only ninety degrees we feel like it’s a crisp fall day. The mercury is so high so often that ninety degrees feels like a cool breeze. And right now, the weather report online says the “feels like” temperature is one hundred twelve, a full twenty degrees higher than the actual...
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I Take Thee, Claudia
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
On this week’s Keepin It Real, Cam Marston insists there's nothing going on between him and his favorite AI — which is exactly what a man in love would say. Here’s Cam… ----- So, my wife has accused me of liking my new best friend and favorite AI Claude more than her. In fact she’s accused me of being in love with Claude more than her. This came about the other week when I was standing in the kitchen working on some project in Claude and I heard the words “I think you’re cute.” I looked up and it was my wife saying this. I thought, “uh-oh. Something’s up.” Apparently, she...
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No Longer Having to Try
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam Marston bought an electric bike last weekend, and this morning he rode it to his writing spot without pedaling once. He calls it the best commute of his life — and that's exactly what's got him worried. Here's Cam. ----- I got an electric bike last weekend. I had ridden my brother in laws a year ago when we were vacationing on the Carolina beaches and thought it was the funnest thing in the world. I left that weekend thinking I wanted one but one of my children’s cars needed attention and my hopes for an electric bike disappeared into...
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Couple's Retirement
Keepin' It Real with Cam Marston
Cam Marston has been digging into what makes retirement happy — and it turns out, part of the answer is that spouses need a break from each other. Here's Cam... ----- My work continues to lead me deeper into retirement studies. My small team and I are creating a non-financial retirement assessment that anyone can take and get a gauge on how well positioned you are to retire. The key here is this is non-financial information. It is not retirement readiness based on what’s on the spreadsheet or what’s in the bank account, it’s retirement readiness based on how well prepared you are...
info_outlineThis year my wife and I added some new blood to break up our spring break routine. Will it work?