What happened 28 years ago today?

This is not a quiz, as very few of you would have a chance to know the answer.

Before I get to that, though, I am still getting used to the intricacies of this site. I just found out that there is one button I can click on to see all the comments that have ever been posted here. That's nice to know. I though I had to look at them one by one.

Just finished my taxes. They will be mailed tomorrow. I transposed two digits when I did them before, so I owe about $270 to Uncle Sam instead of $150. (Hey, I am only a mathematician; I am not perfect. There are brilliant mathematicians who have trouble adding a column of numbers.) I owe Ohio (sounds like a song, doesn't it?) but Rita owes me. All in all, I'm down a few hundred.

Still better than what I'm used to. In recent years, most of my income has been of the 1099 variety, and I didn't withhold or pay estimates. So this time of year, I would have to make out a rather large check.

Anyway, speaking of income, 28 years ago today, April 18, 1983, I started my first job in the field of pensions. That field and I have had our go-rounds in the time since, but here I am, still in it. (Sometimes I feel very deep in it. LOL.) Of course, now I am an actuary, so I'm supposed to know what I'm doing. (Seriously, if you do pretty much anything for 28 years, and people still want you to work for them, I think you must have done something right.)

I remember that first day. I was 24 going on 25. (Cue "The Sound of Music" soundtrack.) I really didn't know what to expect, although I was confident I could do the work. But I was self-conscious about what others might have been thinking about me, so I wrote a couple mathematical formulas on the pad on my desk, so people wouldn't think I knew absolutely nothing. That seems *really* silly now.

A lot has happened since that day. I recall in the early 90's, I think, when my friend Dan Plonsey and I were sitting on washing machines in a Berkeley laundromat, and we were comparing notes on our careers. I felt as though something was missing-- that I wanted to create things. And not too long after that, thanks in large part to Gary Veverka, the opportunity to do sports writing for the Star Beacon fell into my lap. And I have been in that field for more than 17 years now. It does give me the constant opportunity to create. And of all the things I do, it gives me the most pleasure, and everyone, including those I work for and have worked for in pensions, knows that.

Still, I remain in pensions. There are a lot of things I like about it, including the fact it challenges me. There was a time --from 2003 to 2005, to be exact-- when I had lost most of my interest in it and thought I was going to go into teaching. That took a detour, though, but at about the same time, pensions became interesting to me again. As a friend of mine suggested, maybe I just needed some time to step back from it. But I have never left the field.

Well, Happy Anniversary, pension field. You and I have had our ups and our downs, but there are a lot of good things about our relationship, and I hope it does continue for many more years.