Friday, December 23, 2011

Joys and Activities After Retirement

Front Yard Landscaping of the Main House
My first activity after retirement was to write an article on the Joys of Retirement on one of my blog sites. I described in [that article](http://chateaudumer.blogspot.com), my feeling of getting lost and useless after working for three years in the Philippines and 37 years in the United States. My feeling of uselessness completely disappeared after my wife and I started babysitting for our grand daughter, Carenna Katague Thompson. I commented that we loved more our six grandchildren than our four children, because our children are considered only our capital investments but our grandchildren are already our profits.

After retiring from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2002 as chemistry team leader from the Center of New Drugs, I realized that I have plenty of free time. I decided I had to learn more about computer technology besides just emailing and word processing. Through trial and error, I created and designed my own website, http://www.chateaudumer.com. My goal was to advertise my beach resort business worldwide. As a result of this endeavor, I was able to attract clients from Europe, Canada and the United States.

Our first guests at the beach resort, Chateau Du Mer Beach Resort and Conference Center, were two couples from Southern France. The two men were physicians. Their wives were a psychologist and an English/French teacher. I was a bit disappointed with the prospective clients' response to my website. My goal of advertising the beach resort through my website did not result in a lot of traffic and clients. I have more traffic from my nine blog sites than from my website above.

I also discovered the joys and challenges of blogging. I did not realize that today there are over 8 million bloggers in the world and it started in 2003. At present, I have nine blog sites on topics ranging from personal experiences, travel to the Philippines, politics, education and other miscellaneous topics and news of the day. I wanted to concentrate my blogging activities on the beauty and tourist attractions of Marinduque. My goal is to promote Marinduque as a world tourist destination not only on Easter Week (Moriones Festival) but also whole year round.

On August, 2008, my wife, Macrine and I received a Letter of Appreciation from the Office of the Governor of Marinduque as a results of my blogs promoting tourism in Marinduque. The letter reads as follows:

---

Dave and Macrine Katague

Peaceful Greetings from the Marinduque Provincial Government.

Having read your messages through the official website of the province, we are very thankful and overwhelmed for promoting Marinduque as a tourist destination not just in the country but also worldwide.

Indeed, Marinduque is a beauty not just because of its scenic spots but also because of people like you who support and promote this province and considers it their home. Hearing beautiful comments from people like you enthuse me more to serve my people and gives me the strong will to develop the province into a first class tourist destination.

On behalf of the people of the province, thank you very much and I salute you for making us proud of our province.

Jose Antonio N. Carrion
Governor

For the Governor: Signed by() Atty.Lord Allan Jay Q. Velasco, Provincial Administrator

---

Macrine (my wife) and I had also been involved with the distribution of relief goods (rice and canned foods) through the Roman Catholic Dioscese of Boac to victims of typhoon Reming. Typhoon Reming devastated about 90% of the homes in the island of Marinduque about 3 years ago.

At present, Macrine and I are still devoting our free time and resources to our favorite humanitarian project in Marinduque—the Marinduque International Medical Mission of Love. For the last 15 years, we have been involved with the medical mission in Marinduque held every two or three years since 1996. For details about the medical mission, visit http://www.marinduqueinternational.org.

After retirement, I also started paying all our household bills online through electronic banking. I discovered shopping online, chatting online and playing games online, specifically duplicate bridge, my favorite game since I was in college.

Today, I find writing and blogging relaxing and very enjoyable. I had my first article, Marinduque-Ecotourism Capital of the Philippines published in 2009 by www.huliq.com, making me a citizen journalist. This was followed by my two other articles on US National Parks and Monuments and The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant revival in the Philippines.

Today, I am also writing for ViewsHound, a writing site based in the United Kingdom and I also have a page on Squidoo.

May I reiterate that the joy one gets from retirement is very specific. Some enjoy their free time by learning new activities, getting involved with humanitarian projects or spending more time with their grandchildren. Others hate retirement. They missed their coworkers and interaction at work. Others with no children or grandchildren spend their free time on traveling, turning their hobbies into small business or more community involvement. Those that retire and hate it are believed to die earlier than those who enjoy their retirement years.

I suggest you plan your retirement as early as you can. The happier you are on retirement, the longer you will live.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Linkwithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...