A Third Event?

My life closed twice. before its close...
--Emily Dickenson

When I first read Emily Dickenson's poem in 7th grade English class, I felt a chill of recognition and sympathy.  Surely she was talking about something I had experienced. 

I don't even remember what the two catastrophes were that I thought had so profoundly affected my young life, but now I once again find myself identifying with Emily's double disasters.

Awakening slowly from my coma in 1976, completely paralyzed and needing to use a wheelchair for ten years... That qualifies as a life-closing event for me.  I did regain some speech and the ability to walk, which led to a black belt in Aikido, a new college degree, and a career as a technical writer.  That led to marriage, fatherhood, another degree in Instructional Design, and a new career: working for eighteen years in a research department on their instructional program.

The end of that relationship came when the whole research department was closed. I have been looking for work ever since, but as the poet wrote...

It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event for me.

100% retired

On November 27, Bonfils Blood Center closed their their Research department.  I had thought I had a safe job since I was working so closely with my boss on a pet project of his. He lost his position at the same time, though.

I supposed this could force me into early retirement, but I'm applying for positions and sending out resumés.

20% Retired

As of today, my employer has implemented my request to base my job on a four-day, 32-hour work week.

I hope to have more time to work on projects like this blog, or my photos.

 All that starts Wednesday.

Blogging

Back in 2002 or so I thought I'd try my hand at cobbling together my own home page on the internet. When all the stuff I had worked so hard to do became available in an automated way here on Blogger, I signed up. Now that all the technical stuff is taken care of by Google, I see that I've been neglecting the content.

Well, I've been exploring 7" tablets and Android apps. Now Blogger has an app, so I may be adding more posts.

So many Scott Heaths

When I thought I'd dig up my neglected blogger.com website, I couldn't recall what I had named it. I tried scottheath.blogspot.com [no, different Mr. Heath], and even scottrheath.blogspot.com [not me, either]. It's actually sheathramblings.blogspot.com that ends up here.

I don't think either of these Scotts is the one responsible for collection agencies often calling me by mistake, but my thick neurotrauma accent usually convinces them that I am not that Scott Heath.

Lately, I've begun calling myself the Scott Heath.

Blogging 2011

Back in 2002 or so I used the web-accessible storage space provided by my e-mail service to cobble together my own home page. Since then, services like Blogger.com have sprung up to automate the whole process. I see that I've not been taking the time to make a lot of entries into this blog, though. Maybe if I just incorporated more controversial phrases, I would pop up in more searches and get some replies.

Paris 2009 soft cover

Click here to view this photo book larger

Starting Over

When I first began my Internet presence, the word 'blog' did not exist, and I used a rather clumsy design for my home page. Eventually, I let the whole issue drop. Now, there are a great many "social network" services out there and I hope to become active in a few, which I'll be adding links to here or on my home page.