Time passes on, and on, until it doesn't. So why not enjoy the time we have, eh? Sage advice, if only we'd pay attention.

I have decided to retire from the Harris County Sheriff's Office at long last. It's actually a couple of years earlier than I'd intended, but events have taken place that just made me think, "Why? Why should I wait?" The answers I kept coming up with were a bit lame, and did not justify staying so I have set a date of November 30th, 2013 as my retirement date. In all honesty, the date may have to have some flexibility to it as things may not go as smoothly as I'd like, or other considerations may push it to after the first of the new year, but my intention is to be out by December 1st.

To that end, I'm going to try and make this a retirement diary of sorts. I've utterly failed to keep any kind of journal over the many years of my career, both in police work and the military, so I'll have to try and remember stories from my adventures and list them here as I document the day to day adventure of becoming a retired sheriff's deputy / peace officer.

I do not intend to pick up another career in law enforcement. Hopefully I will not need to wear a gun belt ever again, unless I am teaching firearms safety, marksmanship, etc. Not sure what I want to do but I intend to do something. The short term plan for now is to travel a bit, spend some time with old friends who've had to put up with my absence and neglect over the years, who deserve better. After that phase, I'm headed out to Las Vegas where I intend to stay with my brother Shawn and his lovely bride Julie for a while, the pair of them having had the poor judgment to offer me a place to stay, lol. So there is no telling what kind of trouble I will find myself getting into out west, but there is no telling where I'll wind up or what I'll wind up doing. Time will tell.

I shall try to post here daily, or at least to remember to come in once a week leading up to retirement to put my thoughts down, and try to update it daily once I am actually retired to reflect on the process and how I feel about it. Who knows, it might be worth the effort to be able to look back on it one day and see what kind of chills and thrills, ups and downs, and ins and outs I go through during this transition.

Then again, it might not be worth the electrons it takes to type it out....lol.

Stay tuned, it can only get better, or worse, or stay the same.

Mac