Retired Techie in PDX: The Podcast

About Retired Techie in PDX: The Podcast

I am a retired tech executive of 30 years living in Portland, OR. After 7 startups (and 2 IPOs), I aim to offer insights and reflections on transitioning from a fast-paced tech career to a fulfilling retired life. www.retiredpdx.com (https://www.retiredpdx.com/s/b-sides?utm_medium=podcast)

Publisher

Stephen Pao

Category

news · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Jul 2025

Latest episode

27 Nov 2025

Latest episodes

15 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   27 Nov 2025

   Episode 13 —The People In Our Lives

   This week, my podcast is a few days late, but for the best reason. Our younger daughter and her partner came to Portland for a few days before Thanksgiving. She’s now headed to New Jersey to spend the holiday with her older sister! The past few days have been a perfect mix of family time, including a trip to the Columbia Employee Store, a karaoke night, and a series of cribbage games at home. (Marsha and I are pleased to report we held a strong record against the kids!) But beyond the fun, these few days got me thinking about something important. How profoundly the people physically around us shape our work, our thinking, and our lives. Today is November 26th, and this is episode 13. The science of proximity Like many parents, we asked our daughter how her work was going. She mentioned she was grateful to be sitting in her office surrounded by the more senior people in her group. Marsha and I were thrilled to hear this, and it reminded us of a fascinating study from the Kellogg School at Northwestern (https://insight.kellogg.northwestern.edu/article/sitting-near-a-high-performer-can-make-you-better-at-your-job) back in 2017. The researchers found that simply sitting within a 25-foot radius of a high-performer improved coworkers’ performance by 15 percent. I’m not surprised. I agree that just being near excellence makes you better. This brought to mind one of my favorite stories from The Idea Factory (https://www.amazon.com/Idea-Factory-Great-American-Innovation/dp/0143122797), a book about Bell Labs. Patent attorneys there were trying to identify what the most productive innovators had in common. They discovered something surprising. The most prolific inventors were all people who regularly had breakfast or lunch with Harry Nyquist. Now, Nyquist himself was a famous innovator. Signal processing folks like me know him for the Nyquist rate, the minimum sampling frequency needed to preserve information. But here’s the thing. Nyquist wasn’t giving these people specific ideas or solutions. What he did was ask questions that drew people out and got them thinking. Personally, I believe I benefited from sitting next to people that got me to think differently. In my different roles, I’ve sat on the floor with developers, marketers, and sellers, and each got me to think in different ways. As a manager, I’ve personally seen the influences that people have on each other. I was recently reminded of the kegorator I had next to my cube at Barracuda, which could serve as a gathering place at the end of a workday to foster these types of connections. While I couldn’t find a photo of the kegarator, here’s a screenshot from a humorous internal company video we made, which celebrated this cultural icon. The Cost of Distance This is why I worry about all-remote workplaces. The data backs up these concerns. A major study of 61,000 Microsoft employees (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-021-01196-4) over the first six months of 2020 showed that remote work caused workers to spend about 25% less time collaborating with colleagues across groups. They shifted to more asynchronous communication and less real-time interaction. While focused individual work continued, the spontaneous cross-silo conversations that spark innovation largely disappeared. Then there’s the Nature (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04643-y) study that really hit home for me. Researchers asked 1,400 participants to perform brainstorming tasks both in-person and over videoconference. Video participants generated significantly fewer creative ideas than face-to-face teams. The hypothesis? Videoconferencing focuses our attention on a screen, which narrows our cognitive focus. This matches my own experience. Since retirement, my consulting work has largely been conducted over video. I had one client with a hybrid environment, and I frequently flew out to the corporate HQ because I observed how the “real” meetings often happened off-camera before and after the formal video conferences with all the remote participants. Even in all-remote environments, I have seen how Slack and Slack huddles among subsets of regular meeting participants are just required sometimes to collaborate more freely. Still, for these companies with remote employees, nothing replaces just having folks travel out for offsites, which are expensive but required. The New Reality Here’s where it gets complicated. I can’t be a complete purist about this. We benefited from remote work flexibility this week. Our daughter worked remotely from my office on Monday and Tuesday so she could visit without burning vacation days. And the data shows that hybrid arrangements, where employees work from home two days a week, actually reduce turnover. Some newer companies are still betting on in-person culture. I recently watched an interview with the CTO of Aurasell, an AI-native CRM company founded post-pandemic, who talked about why they chose to build an in-person-first culture despite the talent crunch. “We are social beings. When we work together, we are always more innovative and more productive in the long run. That fundamentally cannot be denied, especially when you’re building an innovative product like we’re doing and with the context that you need to have and the way you need to interact, you need to be working with other people in person. When you’re remote, you’re taking calls only when you need them, not the serendipity of you meeting each other and being able to have those conversations at the water cooler in the hallway. Those are the great moments that actually define great pieces of functionality that eventually land in the customer’s hands.”— Srinivas Bandi, CTO Aurasell as interviewed by @insidethesiliconmind (https://www.instagram.com/p/DRSMKEmjRFm/) My own advice for founders is this. I advocate a default in-office environment, with perhaps the exception of just a few specialists who might be remote. I like the default mode of people working together in an office but offering flexibility at specific times. With too much work-from-home flexibility, it’s no longer predictable when people will be available. I am open to schemes like “flexible Fridays” or specific weeks where people are not expected to show up to the office. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is always a good candidate for this type of flexibility whether people choose to take paid-time-off (PTO) at that time of year. And obviously, as evidenced by my daughter’s visit this week, Thanksgiving week in the US is a good candidate for this, too! Beyond Work The truth is, this isn’t just about the workplace. It’s about life. Right now, we live in Portland, but we’re originally from Seattle and spent most of our adult lives in Silicon Valley. We have family and friends scattered across the country. So despite not loving to travel, we do a lot of it. And yes, we do plenty of video calls in our personal lives too. But the reality is clear. The people who have the biggest impact on our daily lives are the ones we spend the most time with physically. For example, one real surprise is how much I value a friend right in our condo building. We didn’t start by having deep philosophical conversations. We’d go for hikes on weekend days, an occasional lunch, and some other outings (like hanging out with the frogs at a Portland ICE protest and karaoke!) Still, somehow as time went on, we just started sharing more, and I really feel like we experience the texture of each other’s day-to-day lives. Contrast that with one of my really good friends in California. We were former coworkers, and I feel like we’ll be friends for life. (Our horoscopes on “The Pattern (https://www.thepattern.com/)” even reveal past life karmic links!) We still do regular Facetime calls every two weeks that often cover very deep topics, we still send each other goofy Apple Watch text messages, and we have great conversations when we visit. Still, proximity matters even though the intentionality to stay close is strong. Technology certainly helps, but it’s somehow just not the same as being together. How about you? So here’s what I’ve been thinking about this week. My younger daughter is sitting in an office surrounded by people who will make her better just by being there. She gets to have her version of time with Harry Nyquist from AT&T Bell Labs on a regular basis. Here’s a question I’ll leave you with. Who are the people in your 25-foot radius right now, and are you making the most of that proximity? I’d love to hear from you! As I’ve mentioned before, one of the real values I get from this Substack is the conversations with friends both near and far. Even if we’re at a distance, I still have appreciated the outreach. And, for those of you who have been consuming the video content, this is probably the last one of these I’ll do for a while. I tried out this format for a 13-week quarter, but I’ve realized that the time filming and editing videos was taking time away from expressing and formulating the ideas themselves, which is the part I was really valuing from this exercise. I may return to this at some point in the future if you have ideas for me to make all of these better, and I’d appreciate your thoughts on this, too! Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

2. 

   17 Nov 2025

   I Technically Met My Goals

   I technically met four out of four of my New Year’s resolutions this year. So why do I feel like I failed all of them? On Thursday before heading out to beers, one of our friends asked me about my progress on my New Year’s resolutions. After all, she said, we still have over a month to get our goals over the finishline. I wrote a past Substack article (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/new-years-and-smart-goals) on my 2025 New Year’s resolutions. I don’t normally make New Year’s Resolutions, but, in this era of my life, I’m doing quite a bit of reflection (https://www.retiredpdx.com/t/reflections). That reflection was the motivation for this Substack and the associated podcast. When our friend asked about the goals, I replied that throughout the year, I realized I wasn’t actually achieving the spirit of these goals and, like most (https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/studies-show-91-percent-of-us-wont-achieve-our-new-years-resolutions-how-to-be-9-percent-that-do.html), dropped them. However, she came back afterwards and said that the goals could be interpreted in ways that I could meet them. That was also true, and it made me think how in a business-related situation, many employees of past consulting clients could claim to meet their SMART (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMART_criteria) goals or OKRs (https://www.atlassian.com/agile/agile-at-scale/okr) (objective and key results) even when the company didn’t achieve its stated goals. I had four resolutions, and I’ll explain how each of them has played out so far, along with some reflections. Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Why This Matters in Retirement Here’s the thing about retirement goal-setting that I didn’t quite grasp when I started this year. In a company, when an employee games an OKR or technically meets a metric without the company achieving its underlying objective, it is frustrating but ultimately the company’s problem. The quarterly review happens, people nod, and everyone moves on to the next quarter. But in retirement, I am both the employee doing the work and the company seeking results. When I game my own OKRs, the only person I’m fooling is myself. And unlike a corporation that can pivot strategies or restructure the organization, I have exactly one life and a finite amount of time to figure out what I should really be doing. I think what I was hoping for with these New Year’s Resolution was to put some structure around creating more meaning in retirement. How could I translate that meaning into a set of activities that I could perform and metrics I could measure myself against? Instead, I think I came up with a list that looked good to me on the screen, but somehow missed the point entirely. Goal 1: Do my first bartending gig Verdict: Technically yes, spiritually no The first resolution was seemingly straightforward, which was “do my first bartending gig.” I explained in my post that I have a friend that owns a taproom, and he wanted a buddy to do it with him. I went ahead and got my OLCC (https://www.oregon.gov/olcc/pages/about_us.aspx) (Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission) server permit, and was psyched to do it with him. Concurrently, he was in the early phases of a long-distance relationship with his current partner (we LOVE her by the way!), and his schedule was a little uncertain. Not long after, the bar decided to transform from beer and wine only to also serving pre-mixed cocktails, which has a different set of regulations. These regulations involve the requirement to serve hot food on premises (https://secure.sos.state.or.us/oard/viewSingleRule.action?ruleVrsnRsn=297506). So, now the job went from chatting about beer, pulling beers off the tap, and doing some lightweight wiping of counters and tables to the full job of food service. This addition of food service seemed less appealing. My friend and I also never signed up for doing regular shifts, so I consider the spirit of this resolution not really met. I’m not angry about that. The purpose of doing this was a “guy thing” for me and this friend to do together, but I am so happy that he’s found love! Overall, the result was great! Moreover, I think serving cocktails and food is good for that business over just serving beer alone. As a customer, I had my first cocktails with friends at the place for Cinco de Mayo, and after four margaritas in, we ended up the night at another bar doing ad hoc drunk karaoke! I’m not sure that would have happened if we just started the night with beers! So, here’s the rub. I don’t think I met the goal, and I’m happy with the overall situation. However, the way I wrote this was to do the “first bartending gig” and in fact, even though we didn’t ever take on a regular shift, we did actually go to the training calls, participate in the Slack channel, and do an in-person shift at the bar to get trained with customers. And technically, that in-person shift could have counted as a “first bartending gig.” I don’t count it as meeting the objective in spirit, but, in myconsulting gigs with many different companies since retiring, I’ve seen many employees claim credit on OKRs with a lot less substance behind them. Goal 2: Time-based workouts in Q1 Verdict: Met in Q1, but the timeline didn’t test the situation I’ve written before about the progression of my chronic kidney disease and the ongoing management of medications to try to slow the progression of the disease. The short version: medication side effects reduced my exercise tolerance, which meant that workouts that used to feel challenging were no longer possible to complete. I don’t think it was about being out of shape but rather about my body literally having less capacity to process exertion, like trying to run a computer on half its usual RAM. As such, I set a resolution to no longer worry about my overall performance in exercise but to just set goals based on time. The original set of goals were about doing 4 x 20 minute workout days, plus 1 x 40 minute workout day per week. Ultimately, to simplify the program, Marsha helped me simplify this to a cool routine called “Japanese walking (https://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercise/japanese-walking)“. The concept was to do 30 minutes of walking, in alternate intervals of 3 minutes of fast walking and 3 minutes of slow walking. She was doing it three times a week with me, and this was meeting the objective! You’ll notice each week in Q1, there were at least 3 green “circles” of 30 minutes each. I kept the routine up in Q1, so I technically met this goal. I did have an intentional rest from Japanese walking back in late July because of a toe injury (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/when-technology-becomes-my-doctor), but I was still trying to stay active in general at the time. However, the spirit of the goal was to be able to keep up the time regimen even as the drug regimen changed. And, while my drug regimen, with the addition of amlodipine, stayed the same throughout Q1, hormonal changes associated with the progression of the disease caused my blood pressure to creep up again later in the year. By September, I had a new drug regimen with kerendia and torsemide (described also on Substack (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/redux-navigating-health-tech-and)), and my time-based workout routine went out the window. So, again, technically, I made the objective in Q1 2025. I originally set the goal for Q1 figuring that once I did this, everything would become a habit (https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-does-it-really-take-to-form-a-habit/). I did not realize though that what I really needed to do was to set goals that would span changes in drug regimen, not just pure time. My goal should not have been time-based (a quarter), but rather situation-based, which was “through at least 2 changes in drug regimen.” Again, this is another problem I see in goal-setting, which is not setting the goals to survive the right external situations. Goal 3: Find another project Verdict: Did it, but so what? Technically I met this one, too. I mentioned at the beginning of the year that I had space for another thing because I cleared the bigger consulting projects and volunteer assignments. Well, back in August, I did end up taking another consulting project with a friend, so technically I did “find another project.” I am grateful for this project, as it’s very interesting, and I enjoy the people. At the same time, I don’t really feel like this was a “new” thing to do, as it’s more of the kind of thing I’ve been doing for the last seven years. Another friend pointed me to some increased political involvement and the political slant to my communications with others, as potentially another “project,” but I sort of just viewed all of that as part of this Substack, which was an existing project. But here’s what I didn’t write down and probably should have. I wanted to find something that would surprise me. Something that might help me explore or express some other part of myself. The consulting project is good work, and I like it. But when I’m doing it, I’m still reaching into the same toolkit I’ve been using for the last seven years. It’s like if my goal was “try a new restaurant” and I went to a different location of a chain I’d already been to. Sure, technically I went somewhere new, but did I really? The political involvement thing is interesting. However, is that really a new project or just an extension of the same reflection and communication I’ve been doing here on Substack? I’m not sure. And that uncertainty itself feels like evidence that I didn’t meet the spirit of this goal either. So, in spirit, I’m not sure I met the objective of what I was thinking about, but again, I technically met this objective because I didn’t write “Find a new project that would allow me to explore or express a different side of myself in my retirement journey” or something like that. Goal 4: Figuring out what to do with this Substack Verdict: Added a podcast, grew 57%, but still not sure what I’m doing Technically, I think I could call this one done, as I did add podcasts to the blog format, and I do get at least some engagement from different platforms (YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@retiredpdx), Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retired-techie-in-pdx-the-podcast/id1824371642), and Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ga9aCfbulW46O4btvJC8v)). The number of Substack followers has grown 57% since the beginning of the year. At the same time, I am not sure I’ve broken the ground further here on my own internal reflection, and I’m still not sure I’ve created something that is really that interesting to people who don’t know me personally. From an activity perspective, I am kind of still doing more-or-less the same thing, but now with more time doing video-editing and less time sorting through and expressing ideas. The engagement I do get is mostly from people who already know me personally. While there isn’t much commenting in the Substack itself, I continue to enjoy all the out-of-band text messages, emails, and mentions I get in conversations with friends. But I’m still not sure I’ve created something that stands on its own or something a stranger would stumble across and think “this is exactly what I needed to read today.” And while I’m not sure I really ever stated it cleanly as a goal, I realized I was hoping to figure out whether my Substack could, in addition to supporting my own reflection process, help other people navigate similar transitions. So again, I did the activities. The numbers went up. But the underlying question of how I really intend to find meaning or make a difference remains unanswered. And this is sort of the thing I see often when I watch people review their goals. They might technically feel OK about activities and even the follow-on stats, but there is still something missing in terms of the actual results they are trying to achieve. What I Actually Learned The problem isn’t SMART goals themselves. In the right context, such as launching a product, hitting a revenue target, or even training for a specific running race, I suppose they work fine. The problem is that I took a framework designed for organizational execution and tried to apply it to something that’s fundamentally not an execution problem. For me, retirement hasn’t worked like a project with a defined scope and success criteria. It’s more like... improvisational jazz? I have some themes I’m trying to explore, but I’m also responding to what’s happening in the moment and with the people around me. My friend finding love changed the bartending goal. My disease progression changed the workout goal. The actual experience of video editing changed what I thought I wanted from this Substack. I am confident I could probably reword my retirement goals to be more specific about underlying themes and potentially iterate again. The question is whether I should bother! What do you think? I know I tend to be hard on myself when it comes to these exercises, which is likely a reason why I normally don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. Something feels disingenuous about the whole process. In this case, I think I went through the motions of setting SMART goals, did the activities for the prescribed times, and even met the metrics. I think I still missed what I was really after. Looking ahead to 2026, I don’t think I’ll set any SMART goals this time so that I can immerse myself more in the themes. Going back to the analogy of improvisational jazz, one of my friends who was a very talented improvisational jazz musician would often put aside some of the technical practice to just listen to a lot of jazz. To him, experiencing the music was an important part of being musical. Likewise, in this phase of retirement, I believe I should immerse myself more in the themes I’m trying to explore, and to get much more in-tune with what I’m really seeking. In my case, I think my goals were about having a retirement with another guy-friend-activity, being able to stay motivated in exercise even through changes in drug regimen, finding a new experience to explore another side of me, and really hitting my stride with this Substack. However, in stating my journey in the form of SMART goals, I somehow recast the mission. Even though I technically met some stated metrics, I really didn’t achieve what was deep-down in my intentions. Overall, this was just a call to think about this differently! Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

3. 

   10 Nov 2025

   Episode 011 — Financial Response to OBBBA

   After a few weeks straight of posts about politics, I’ve decided to revisit another aspect of this Substack, this time focusing back on the financial side of retirement. Today is November 10, and this is episode 11. While much of the news about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act has been about what the government isn’t doing, I thought this week it would make sense to talk about what we can do as citizens. As 2025 draws to a close, there’s something those of us in the GenX and Boomer generations should be looking at to direct our long-held stocks with unrealized gains more strategically to charities. I’ll be talking about the Donor Advised Fund or DAF. The 0.5% Floor One of the things that the OBBBA did is change the rules around charitable giving to disadvantage those who itemize deductions, which is many of us who live in places like Portland, with high income taxes and high property taxes. Starting next year in 2026, those who itemize deductions can only deduct charitable contributions that exceed 0.5% of adjusted gross income (https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/wealth-management-insights/charitable-giving-tax-changes) (or AGI). For example, with a $200,000 AGI, the first $1,000 of donation is no longer tax deductible. Of course, there are other changes, which enable those with the standard deduction to now deduct up to $1,000 (or $2,000 for couples). And, there is a 35% top deduction rate for charitable contributions, which will impact those at the 37% federal tax bracket. However, the one that affects me and Marsha is the 0.5% floor. While we don’t give to charity to avoid taxes, the current spending by the Federal Government on things we don’t support like an increase of $75 BILLION for funding for ICE (https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ice-funding-big-beautiful-bill-trump-deportations/) makes me want to ensure our dollars to local charities goes further. The recent $200M spend on luxury Gulfstream jets by Kristi Noem (https://democrats-appropriations.house.gov/news/press-releases/dhs-secretary-kristi-noem-spends-200-million-taxpayer-money-pair-gulfstream) simply amplifies this desire. The change for 2026 means that those of us who itemize will lose the ability to deduct smaller annual gifts unless they exceed the new threshold. It also makes 2025 the last year to take full advantage of current deduction rules. Donor-Advised Funds A donor-advised fund or “DAF” allows us to make a one-time charitable contribution, receive an immediate tax deduction, and then distribute grants to charities over time. By contributing a larger amount in 2025, we can “bunch” multiple years of donations into one tax year, maximizing our deduction before the OBBBA changes take effect. Moreover, much like an IRA, 401(k), or HSA fund, assets in a DAF grow tax-free, making more funds available to charity. Most significantly, we can contribute stocks that have a lot of unrealized gains and avoid a capital gains tax, allowing the money to work for the charity and not the Federal Government. The concept is that our investment advisors can simply set up the fund, invest the assets, and direct the money to the charities of our choice. Real-world example We’re planning to use our relationship with Northern Trust (https://www.northerntrust.com/united-states/what-we-do/wealth-management/products-services/wealth-planning-advisory-services/donor-advised-funds) to implement a DAF. In our case, we are holding a number of stocks we’ve had for a long time like Apple, Visa, and Alphabet with unrealized gains. Without realizing a capital gain, we can donate the shares to a DAF, have the DAF reinvest the shares to grow tax free, and use the funds to support the charities we choose over time. For us, this has an even larger impact because Oregon taxes capital gains as ordinary income (https://www.roberthalltaxes.com/news/oregon-capital-gains-tax-in-2025/). With no realization of capital gains, the money avoids taxation in Oregon, too, providing maximum impact to the charity. For now, we’re not planning any significant giving beyond what we give to charities anyway. Instead, we are just planning out the giving for the next 20 years to maximize its impact. We decided to model giving away about $200 per month for the next 20 years. This would be about $30K now, assuming a modest tax-free appreciation in the fund. For us, this amount falls within the deduction limit of DAF contributions of appreciated assets to 30% of AGI. Setting up the fund now will allow us to take a $30K tax deduction now, avoid tax on any unrealized long-term capital gains, avoid future 0.5% floors for charitable donations, and allow the fund to grow tax-free to maximize future donations. Tactically, we also won’t need to track receipts or manage the transactions ourselves anymore! Community impact My intention in the past has normally not been to avoid federal income taxes. However, watching the current cruelty by the federal government in its withholding of SNAP payments to 42 million Americans (https://fortune.com/2025/11/08/trump-snap-recipients-administration-feeding-america-food-supreme-court/) has emphasized an ongoing need to support local charities that are filling in the gaps left by the government. In my case here in Portland, causes we have donated to include: * Portland Rescue Mission (CharityNavigator submission out-of-date (https://portlandrescuemission.org/news/news/new-4-star-rating-for-portland-rescue-mission/)) and Blanchet House (https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/936031009)– Serving people experiencing homelessness with meals, shelter, and recovery programs. * Rose Haven (https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/205922682) – A day shelter and community center for women, children, and marginalized genders. * Raphael House (https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/930710963) – Supporting survivors of domestic violence with shelter and advocacy. In addition, there are some other associations we plan to give to. One in particular is The Peer Company (formerly Mental Health and Addiction Association of Oregon (https://www.charitynavigator.org/ein/931012686)). True to its name, it empowers people with lived experience with mental health and addiction issues to lead recovery and support services. These services fill gaps left by government services. Marsha and I will continue to be intentional about how we want to direct funds. Why 2025 was our year to act While the DAF is not a new structure, the OBBBA changes to charitable giving put more of our background attention on this vehicle earlier in the year. The government shutdown and its impact on members of our community was the straw that broke the camel’s back. For us, 2025 offered the right opportunity to: * Maximize a tax deduction * Avoid capital gains tax * Lock in years of future giving * Support local nonprofits with lasting impact To us, this was both a strategic and meaningful move to shift dollars from the federal government to local charities. Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

4. 

   3 Nov 2025

   Episode 010 - Let’s get rid of the filibuster

   Trump returned from Asia talking about removing the filibuster to pass the appropriations bill and reopen the government. The conflicting desire of Senate Republicans to keep the filibuster was the topic of the Sunday news programs yesterday morning. Here we are, 32 days into the 2025 government shutdown. Ironically, the argument is over failing to break the filibuster on an appropriations bill for the spending resulting from a budget reconciliation bill that bypassed the filibuster process. Not a single Democrat in either the House or the Senate voted for the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (or “OBBBA”. ) so Trump is just asking the Senate to change the rules to approve its spending and finish this. Senate Republicans don’t want to cancel the filibuster. In this one case, I agree with Trump on the process. The News From CNN (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEzsov4MdKo)’s reporting of Trump’s post on Truth Social: President Trump is now calling on Republicans to go nuclear. The president posting online. “It is now time for the Republicans to play their TRUMP card and go for what is called the nuclear option. Get rid of the filibuster and get rid of it.” Now the filibuster requires 60 votes to pass funding to reopen the government. Getting rid of it would mean Republicans could pass the bill with a simple majority vote, but it’s empty on Capitol Hill this morning and senators have left town for the weekend ahead of the critical day. I, for one, want to just get rid of the legislative filibuster. The first thing, as it’s important to note, is that the Constitution called for a legislative branch that actually gets things done. The Constitution was written in 1787 in response to the Articles of Confederation, ratified in 1781, that originally required the Continental Congress to pass laws with a supermajority, or 9 out of 13 states approving a law, and this Continental Congress was plagued with legislative gridlock. In response, the founding fathers set up Congress to pass laws with a simple majority, including even in the Senate, where it was clearly written that the Vice President of the United States could break any ties. This isn’t just my opinion. This is basic history, as even taught on PBS (https://youtu.be/yrSflkh9T-Q?si=D8_gec8oOH5rZPl-): Part of the reason our founders replaced the Articles of the Confederation with the Constitution is that with the Articles, it was hard to get things done. Passing laws required a supermajority. So in the Constitution, its authors only named five things that require a supermajority in the Senate. But everything else was expected to be done with a simple majority. Because in the Senate, they gave the Vice President the ability to break a ton. And I’m not a mathematician, but if one person has the ability to break a tie, then the only possibility is that they’re doing it with a simple majority and not a supermajority. No real protection against partisanship Not everything in Congress requires a 60-40 vote anyway. Because some things just couldn’t afford to be held up in a filibuster, in 1973, rules were changed so that critical measures, including Budget Reconciliations could be passed with a simple majority and without accommodating the rules of a filibuster. As such, the OBBBA was packaged as a Reconciliation Bill and passed with a simple majority 51-50. Vice President JD Vance broke the tie. While I don’t agree with the content of the OBBBA, its passing was consistent with the process as outlined in the Constitution to move business along. Starting in 2013, Senate rules were changed so that things like cabinet appointees could be done without filibuster. This was initiated during the Obama administration, but even today, Republicans benefit from this removal of the filibuster of cabinet appointments. There are multiple examples of current cabinet members that were confirmed with far less than 60-40 votes and without a single vote from Democrats. * Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was confirmed on a 51-50, with a tiebreaking vote from Vice President JD Vance. All Democrats voted not to confirm him, and they were joined by three Republicans including Mitch McConnell, Lisa Murkowski, and Susan Collins. * FBI Director Kash Patel was confirmed on a 51-49 vote, with all Democrats voting against him. Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins joined the Democrats. * Department of Health of Human Services Secretary, RFK Junior was a similar case, where he was confirmed on a 52-48 vote with all Democrats voting against the confirmation, joined by one Republican, Mitch McConnell. Again, in all of these cases, Republicans benefited from the lack of filibuster to push a partisan agenda. Starting in 2017, Republican Senators changed the filibuster to allow for Supreme Court nominations to happen without filibuster. The reason we have Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court is as the result of a simple majority, not a 60-40 vote. Neil Gorsuch was confirmed 54-45, with only 3 Democrats voting to confirm him. Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed 50-48, with only 1 Democrat voting to confirm him. Amy Coney Barrett was the most partisan confirmation, being confirmed with a 52-48 vote, with no Democrats voting to confirm her. One Republican (Susan Collins of Maine) even sided with the 47 members who caucus with the Democrats. Again, all these Supreme Court justices were confirmed without a filibuster. I am not against this procedurally, as the Constitution calls for majority rule. Why do Republicans want to keep the filibuster? Of course, John Thune, speaker of the House, and Mitch McConnell, former speaker of the House are both against getting rid of the filibuster for legislative actions. They claim it’s to prompt bipartisanship and compromise. Don’t believe it. This is speaker John Thune (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcCQz4R8IVY), again repeating lies. You don’t hijack the federal government to try and create a trillion and a half dollars in new spending. free healthcare for non-citizens and you can go right down the list. I mean this isn’t even realistic. Note this isn’t new spending, as these ACA subsidies were already in place as the result of the American Rescue Plan Act in 2021 and were extended by the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022. The discussion was not new spending but whether to extend subsidies. I’ve mentioned before that extending these subsidies is what the American people want, making up 3 in 4 adults who support extending these subsidies, including 59% of Republicans and 57% of MAGA supporters. Moreover, Thune is following an RNC playbook claiming Democrats are trying to push healthcare benefits for illegal aliens (https://www.gop.com/press-release/rnc-statement-on-democrats-shutting-down-the-government/). (This is just false (https://www.npr.org/2025/10/03/nx-s1-5560987/shutdown-undocumented-immigrants-medicaid-obamacare#:~:text=Republicans%20have%20accused%20the%20Democrats,wait%20five%20years%20before%20enrolling.).)And yet, Thune says “they’re not serious people.” Even while supposedly negotiating, the leadership is not doing so in good faith, both lying about new spending and falsely claiming benefits for illegals, and calling the Democrats “not serious people” over an issue supported by the majority of Americans. While I remained hopeful at one point that a filibuster could promote bipartisanship, these players have not hesitated one moment to promote a partisan agenda in other realms, including budget reconciliation, cabinet appointments, and for Supreme Court justices. They have also not hesitated in allowing the Trump administration to write executive orders. Rather than letting Congress do the work of writing laws, the Republican members of the House and Senate have chosen not to go about the business of bipartisan negotiation and compromise, instead defaulting to Trump to write executive orders right out of the gate. So why do Republicans LIKE the filibuster for legislative actions? Why are they even letting themselves get bungled up by this appropriations bill? There are two reasons. * In the short term, they are trying to divert attention from the unpopular pillars of the OBBBA bill itself, and they are instead trying to shift blame to Democrats for shutting down the government (https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/01/shutdown-agencies-hatch-act-00590757). * In the longer term, they don’t want to be in the position of doing things that are popular with the majority of Americans, much like with these ACA subsidy extensions. Historian Heather Cox Richardson (https://lincolncountydemocrats.com/filibuster/) sets some historical context with the filibuster originally being used to block Civil Rights legislation, then by Southern Democrats. “But pretty famously, we get the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 by Southern Democrats, and then you’re going to get a major filibuster by Strom Thurmond, which is one maybe many people remember in the 1950s trying to, I’m sorry, the 1950s and the 1960s of the Civil Rights Act by people trying to guarantee that we’re not gonna get civil rights legislation.” In more recent times, the use of the filibuster in the Senate has exploded. Here was a statistic cited by Joe Biden (https://youtu.be/J_2kyrEBA4g?si=r4GYkh-4tLiFsIsW) at the beginning of his presidency to outline just often the filibuster is used to block legislation: I had a card on this, I was going to give you the statistics, but you probably know them, that it used to be that from between 1917 and 1971, the filibuster existed. There were a total of 58 motions to break a filibuster that whole time. Last year alone, there were five times that many. So it’s being abused in a gigantic way. It’s basically used as a strategy or a game theory to block legislation and bring the government to a halt. Barack Obama explained the problem (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbw_N3un1Ho) during his presidency. Public service is not a game. It is a privilege, and the consequences of action or inaction are very real. The American people deserve better than politicians who run for election telling them how terrible government is, and then devoting their time in elected office to trying to make the government not work as often as possible. And in more recent times, the tool has specifically been used by Republicans to target legislation by Democrats. Heather Cox Richardson (https://lincolncountydemocrats.com/filibuster/) provides some analysis: So what that means is the Republicans are perfectly happy with the filibuster the way it is. because they can then turn around and filibuster the legislation that Democrats want because we’re at this extreme point in American politics where the Republican party really would like to stop the federal government from doing anything. That’s the idea. They want to go back to a system from before the time of Eisenhower and Teddy Roosevelt, back to the time before the liberal consensus. And they’re pretty open about that. This has an interesting impact on democracy, essentially giving the minority position undue power. She continues: Because rather than there being the weight on the minority to have to take a big stand to stop something, to talk all night, for example, or to try and change people’s minds, the weight of trying to get legislation through falls on the people who want to pass it, who actually have a majority. So it’s much harder for the majority to actually get legislation than it is for the minority to stop legislation. While in the short term, many progressives may want to use the filibuster to slow down the Trump administration, GOP operatives know that removing the filibuster will allow progressives, fresh off a Blue Wave responding to unpopular Trump administration policies, will come back on a mission to create new laws to reform the system itself. The system can work better I believe the system can work better without the filibuster. By making it easier to pass laws, we can make each one of them simpler and smaller. With such a high bar to pass any individual legislation, we get these big omnibus trillion dollar bills that contain so many issues that even our congresspeople can’t keep track of them. This year, for example, we didn’t get the opportunity to review simple laws around healthcare, Medicaid, immigration, and other issues independently. Heather Cox Richardson (https://lincolncountydemocrats.com/filibuster/) discussed how, in the absence of widespread filibuster use, legislation was more of a daily, incremental action And so let me tell you why some people now argue that we need it. And that’s that they say that it forces the Senate to be bipartisan. That is, I cannot emphasize how wrong that is. And I’m a scholar of Congress. So believe me, I have read literally dozens, decades of congressional debates. And the answer is that if you have to pass things by a simple majority, It’s understood that you’re gonna make changes largely incrementally and that if you get egg all over your face, you’re gonna pay for it. So people say, we’re gonna whip lash back and forth, but that’s not all that happened when you actually had things passing by a simple majority. Things did change and certainly people argued about things, but there was much more sense of legislation being a daily process and you would, if you really screwed up, you pay for it at the next election. But there weren’t these giant sweeps back and forth that we now have where you have to have a super majority to get something so the legislation So, with this appropriations bill, I am OK with the “nuclear option” to set a precedent to remove the filibuster for all legislative actions. Let’s let the Republican leadership take responsibility for their partisan OBBBA and continue their appropriation. Ideally, a few rank-and-file Republican senators could get a conscience, depart from their leadership in the absence of the filibuster, and side with the 47 Democrats to to extend the ACA subsidies in a smaller bill. For the longer term future, I like what Obama said about the future (https://youtu.be/zbw_N3un1Ho?si=pvp6gEskIHWoXTt2): We know that there are folks there, Republican and Democrat, who want to get things done. And frankly, privately, they’ve expressed to me their recognition that the system in the Senate had broken down and what used to be a sporadic exercise of the filibuster had gotten completely out of hand. He continued on how everything should work: And if there are differences in the Senate, then debate should be had. People should vote their conscience. They should vote on behalf of their constituents. But they should vote. That’s what they’re there to do. And ultimately, if you’ve got a majority of folks who believe in something, then it should be able to pass. I call on us as Americans to demand this basic set of priorities in the legislature so we can start passing better laws, fix our system, and return ourselves to a functioning three branches of government. Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

5. 

   27 Oct 2025

   Episode 009 - Strikes and boycotts

   This week was another one where I suspected that my phone was listening to my conversations. My feeds were just full of discussion about strikes and boycotts. Today is October 26th, and this is Episode 9. Chicago has become somewhat of a sister city, like Portland, it has become the target of Trump’s regime. Its mayor, Brandon Johnson, called for a general strike. I wanted to share the coverage of his speech in Chicago, an explanation by political commentator David Pakman, as well as commentary by history professor Heather Cox Richardson. Then, I wanted to share some of my own questions. This week, I’d like to invite discussion with all of you, too, as this is definitely an issue that I’m still forming my opinions on, and I’d like to hear your thoughts, too. Call for general strike from Chicago mayor First a disclaimer. I don’t totally agree with what’s being called for here. I’m pasting in coverage on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/reel/DP-HqvQDDdz/) from Breakthrough News, a news source known to be extremely left-leaning. Still, they were the ones who published the most relevant footage from the #NoKings rally in Chicago, where Brandon Johnson literally called for a general strike. “If my ancestors, as slaves, can lead the bravest general strike in the history of this country, taking it to the ultra-rich and big corporations, we can do the same today. I’m calling on black people, white people, brown people, Asian people, immigrants, gay people who are around this country to stand up. to the upper rich and big corporations. We are going to make them pay their fair share in the country. To run our schools, to run jobs, to run healthcare, to run transportation, democracy who live on because of this generation. Are you ready to take it to the courts and to the streets?” The Instagram clip also featured clips from people in the crowd. “It’s going to be hard, right? We’re seeing just the depth of the attacks that are happening, trying to roll back all those games that were won through past struggle that you were talking about. And they’re not going to win. They’re not going to do it. This crowd out here is showing why they’re not going to do it.” “It’s our money. It’s supposed to go to us. And so when we go on a general strike, we’re basically saying we want our money to go back to us. We want our power to go back to us, not to these fascists.” This was the first public statement by the Chicago mayor calling for a general strike. These remarks were not previewed in official city press releases or pre-rally interviews. What we don’t know is whether the call to speak about this was a strategic surprise or a last-minute decision. Still, what we do know is that the footage shows that some protesters showed up with signs prepared with this messaging, and we don’t know whether groups like The General Strike (https://generalstrikeus.com/), with 395,00 signatories, or The People’s Union USA (https://thepeoplesunionusa.com/) (known for the “economic blackout” events) coordinated with the mayor. It’s also important when looking at this Instagram post to note that the editing was very selective. Despite it appearing from the footage that the crowd was all for a general strike, the relevant fact is that Brandon Johnson’s approval rating is rock bottom at 26%, with a 58% disapproval rating, according to a University of Chicago Manu institute poll (https://abc7chicago.com/post/chicago-mayor-brandon-johnson-sees-low-approval-ratings-poll-university-mansueto-institute-urban-innovation/17550271/). So, even in very Democratic Chicago, Johnson’s approval rating is lower than Trump’s is nationwide, so watch the editing here with some skepticism. David Pakman analysis But still, we see that the actual words suggesting a general strike are raising real questions among political commentators. Progressive political commentator David Pakman (https://youtu.be/aGcLbWSjPbY?si=rEPyLR38bTRsFnO2) explains the rationale well. A general strike is when workers across a lot of industries, not just one, all stop working at the same time to protest or to demand change. It’s not one company. It’s not like just tech workers. It’s not only teachers or only nurses. The idea is everybody strikes together. In a sense, the U.S. has never really had a true general strike. So imagine if transportation, workers, school teachers, power company workers, if everybody joined together, the systems that keep the country going would very quickly grind to a halt. It would be impossible to ignore. And the idea is that by being impossible to ignore, it would force the people in power to come to the table to negotiate. Now, what would it be about? Well, it would really be about collective power. The idea here is Trump, through his authoritarianism, has taken control of so many areas of our lives. No one seems to be able to stop him. And so the point would be people showing up and showing that they can shut the country down when the government oversteps. And the goal would be proving you can’t run the country without us. You can’t just sit in D.C. doing all of your authoritarian nonsense and have things continue to function and have the systems from which Trump and his cronies make money continue to spit out money for them. So, for those who viewed the large participation by 7 million people in the #NoKings rally as a good show, with little impact, a general strike might sound compelling. However, a general strike is far from a no-brainer. Pakman goes on. Now, as you can probably imagine, it’s very difficult to organize something like this. Many workers are not legally protected if they strike for political reasons. That’s what I mean is, as opposed to striking for a specific workplace issue, if you strike for political reasons unrelated to your specific job, you can be fired or replaced. Union membership is at historic lows and many industries are deliberately structured to prevent collective action with temporary and gig or independent contractor workers. The whole point being to make it difficult for them to organize. And so under Trump, striking workers could face retaliation. They could face police crackdowns. They could even potentially face prosecution under the laws that are framed as anti-riot or critical infrastructure protection. So there is risk to a general strike. They’re also difficult to coordinate. I mean, getting millions of people across industries and states to act together requires a huge amount of organization and trust and communication. And it’s very difficult, especially when you’ve got social media disinformation campaigns and highly polarized politics. Workers could lose jobs, income or health care, get arrested, get blacklisted. There could be violence. There could be counter protesters in an authoritarian climate. Leaders of such a movement as a general strike could be targeted personally. They could be sued, investigated, harassed. So all of that is true. But we do find ourselves asking the question, is this the time? If not now, then when? What would it take for people to realize this must stop? And the question is whether the American people are ready, desiring and willing to do something like this right now. My honest assessment, my calculation is that the answer is “no. “ I would emphasize Pakman’s point about the lack of clear legal protections for participants. The reason that air traffic controllers continue to work right now is that they are considered essential workers that aren’t allowed to strike. Back in 1981, Reagan fired 11,000 workers after the last air traffic controller strike, and those workers got a lifetime ban at the time from future civil service. Twelve years later, in 1993, Bill Clinton reversed the lifetime ban but by then, the move was largely symbolic. What Pakman doesn’t fully explain is what groups like The General Strike are calling for, which I don’t agree with. For example, they are advocating for a Constitutional Convention to readdress many rules of the Constitution at once, and I disagree with this. I believe a Constitutional Convention would simply result in mayhem with partisan groups like those behind Project 2025 would make it a free-for-all. And even beyond the specifics of the proposal, I believe a general strike - or a nationwide withdrawal of labor and economic participation - could severely impact essential services and vulnerable populations. I believe this tactic risks unintended harm. Heather Cox Richardson on targeted action So, for those of you who’ve seen my recommendations on Substack, I’ve always appreciated the opinions of Heather Cox Richardson, a history professor at BC, who has a Substack (https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/) with literally millions of followers. She recently spoke with Scott Galloway (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVV1rZUw-jI), whom I’m also a big fan of, and she made a historical reference back to the Pullman Strike in 1894 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike), causing a national railroad boycott. But general strikes in the United States do not historically tend to work well for the simple reason that we are so interconnected that when you start to issue a general strike, that means that people don’t get their medicine or people don’t get food or whatever. And it’s really difficult, especially in such a large country where people have so many different interests. to say to somebody whose kid needs an operation or to somebody who needs food, well, this is for the greater good. And so when the country has tried national strikes, weirdly, it has turned against, it had people turn against them that you would think would have been on their side. For example, In the late 1890s, there was an attempt at a general strike. It wasn’t really called a general strike, but a lot of stuff got shut down. The railroads essentially got shut down. And one of the people who came out against that was Jane Addams, who was really strongly in favor of workers’ rights. But she’s like, I’m watching kids not have food around me. I can’t be part of this. So I tend not to support the idea of a general strike. People look at it and they say, “Oh, you’re gonna show how important we are to the economy,” but you’re also gonna show people who should be on your side that you can’t be trusted because you don’t care about their need for basic necessities. So I tend to be against that and very much for targeted boycotts, targeted strikes, because that enables people to have a workaround for those sorts of emergency situations. Now, like I say, I am not a specialist in where strikes pressure people, but I know in our past, general strikes have tended to split the movement rather than to create unity behind it. So, the net here is that even from a historical perspective, general strikes don’t work in the US, but targeted boycotts do. This leaves us with the question. Which targeted strikes or boycotts should we participate in? I think you may remember from this podcast that I didn’t participate in the Disney Plus boycott in response to the Jimmy Kimmel suspension. Perhaps I’m on the wrong side of history on that one. What other actions are there? Probably the biggest successful boycott we participated in has been against Tesla to protest the political activities of Elon Musk. As much as I believed they had the best tech and value for an emission-free vehicle, we didn’t buy a Tesla. Despite that I had an old gas car, we held out as the tech got better and ultimately bought a Toyota RAV-4 plug-in hybrid this year, opting to be a one car family instead of just adding a second, all-electric vehicle. With this one vehicle, we can buzz around town all-electric on a day-to-day basis but still have the range for the occasional road trip to neighboring states. Followers of this Substack know that we just took the car to California. In any case, we know that many others did the same thing, as Tesla sales are way down worldwide, and Toyota sales are up 15.9% here in the US year over year. Outside the US, I’m familiar now with the boycott of Spotify (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/12/spotify-boycott-artists) because of its founder’s investment in AI drone technology. I did the one-step migration of my Spotify playlists to Apple Music (https://support.apple.com/en-us/118249), which was pretty painless. As an Apple One family subscriber, I’m going to cancel our Spotify Premium once I give my adult kids the opportunity to migrate their playlists, too. In this case of Spotify, there’s been enough user inertia and change has been slow. It doesn’t seem here that the boycott has had much effect on the company at all. Similarly, I participated in the one-day Economic Blackout on February 28th earlier this year organized by the People’s Union USA. The impact was minimal. (https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2025/03/04/did-feb-28-economic-blackout-work/81191601007/) So, even though I appreciate the talking points, I know, like with the Spotify migration I’m doing, that future participation is more symbolic and mental than impactful. So, as a citizen, I don’t know where to take it from here. With the recent demolition of the East Wing of the White House, there are a whole set of contributors (https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/whos-paying-for-trumps-300-million-ballroom) to this project that some groups have talked about boycotting (https://www.facebook.com/groups/50501movement/posts/1177912670612727/). However, I’m not sure how in the modern era, I can boycott Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google? And I’ve been a T-Mobile subscriber for years. I continue to voice my opinions with legislators, through town hall attendance, and through this Substack. Are there economic actions I can also take here? I don’t think a general strike is the answer, but I’m also not sure if there are any other concrete proposals for targeted actions. Any thoughts? Please leave me comments on the Substack, or DM me! That’s it for this week. See you next week! Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

6. 

   21 Oct 2025

   A Long Drive Home

   Today’s post is a day late. After 11 hours in the car yesterday, I wasn’t in the mood to write or record. But now, with some distance, I want to share reflections from my road trip back to the Bay Area—a place I called home for 21 years across two different chapters of my life. Why the Bay Area Still Amazes Me I burned out twice in the Bay Area. Eleven years the first time, ten years the second. And yet, I have to admit: it’s still such a cool place. The weather is consistently beautiful. It’s home to two elite technology universities: Stanford and UC Berkeley. Graduates actually want to stay. I remember when I graduated from MIT, many of my classmates came west to pursue graduate studies here and stayed! The companies are world-class, attracting brilliant people from everywhere. I was lucky to land here after MIT, recruited by Oracle, then staying for Silicon Valley startups, then recruited back years later. During this trip, we reconnected with coworkers from both periods. The medical research is exceptional too. Beyond Stanford, there’s UCSF, which is why we made this trip in the first place. I made my biannual visit to the UCSF Memory and Aging Center (https://healthyaging.ucsf.edu/) for an observational study. Old Friends Seeing old friends was the true highlight. It’s been nine years since we moved to the Pacific Northwest, so every friendship here is at least a decade old. The longest? Thirty-five years. We had a reunion with people from my first job at Oracle, which I started in 1990. The group included one of my original interviewers and even a judge from our new hire training competition. (I won an Oracle watch in that contest!) One of the funniest memories that came up: the “celebration” when we shipped Oracle Data Browser 1.0 (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/before-ai-and-the-data-intelligence). Larry Ellison’s chief of staff threw us a little ice cream party in the Oracle Fitness Center. We thought it was incredibly lame. So we decided to throw ourselves a proper party at Dal Baffo (https://www.paloaltoonline.com/morgue/2003/2003_01_31.boffo31.html), a very nice restaurant in Menlo Park, where we proceeded to absolutely abuse the expense account with expensive wines. It got so ridiculous that our boss actually left the dinner and closed the check to stop the tab from accumulating! We were all laughing about it decades later. This Oracle get-together actually set the timing for the entire trip. One former team member was in town for Dreamforce, Salesforce’s big conference. Another who lives in Boston decided to vacation here that same week. Others drove in from Santa Cruz, the coast, and the Peninsula. We spent hours reminiscing, catching up, and sharing thoughts about retirement and what’s next. Looking back, it amazes me how Oracle was a launchpad for so many interesting, successful people. One friend who couldn’t make it sent each of us a commemorative book about the House of Nanking (https://www.amazon.com/House-Nanking-Franciscos-Favorite-Restaurant/dp/1419777874), the Chinese restaurant we used to visit together. It was such a thoughtful gesture! Beyond Oracle, I saw friends from Latitude, my second startup. Regular readers might recognize their names and faces from my Sedona trip (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/how-guys-trips-change-as-we-age). We used to run together every Sunday (https://www.fatherly.com/love-money/the-20-year-running-club-that-made-me-a-better-dad) at 7am at Rancho San Antonio. Over the years, we’ve gotten together in Seattle, Portland, and Sedona too. I also connected with friends from Barracuda Networks, my longest stint at a single company. Those friendships remain incredibly meaningful. In one case, we connected with friends, and their adult daughter joined us, too. We all remembered when she was just a little kid. In another, we were connected with a couple earlier in life, along with their three-year-old son. That day, we actually skipped the #NoKings rally, something regular readers know I’m very passionate about (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/my-experience-at-a-very-peaceful). But I wanted to prioritize time with friends What We Actually Talked About Given our stage of life, common themes emerged: aging or deceased parents, what our kids are doing, adult sibling relationships, our own self-actualization journeys. I’m not sure if it’s our life phase, the length of these friendships, or broader societal trends, but I was deeply moved by how rich and personal our conversations have become. What strikes me is how work became the foundation for decades-long relationships spanning multiple life phases. I don’t envy young people starting careers in fully remote environments. There’s something about being in the office late at night together, in the trenches. Those shared experiences formed the basis of truly lasting relationships. Cognitive Testing at UCSF The “main event” driving this trip was my biannual visit to UCSF. As I’ve mentioned before, my dad died with dementia. My mom’s brother is experiencing its effects now. I carry an APOE-4 gene, which increases my dementia risk. So I signed up as a cognitively normal subject in a long-term observational study at UCSF. I’m one of about 500 participants. The program evaluates biomarkers through fasted blood draws and MRI brain scans, combined with cognitive testing. Right now, I’m wearing a Fitbit so they can associate physical activity with biomarkers and cognitive performance. Some tests were basic. They are the same things Trump brags about scoring 30/30 on. They asked where I was, the date, the day of the week, to draw an analog clock set to a specific time, naming certain animals, and other simple tasks. Others, while familiar, remained difficult. I’ve participated since 2019 and watched the testing evolve. One test involves hearing a list of about 15 words and reciting as many as I can remember. The challenge? Then hearing a second list and distinguishing which words were in the first list versus the second. Other tests involved reciting sequences of digits (beyond seven got pretty hard for me), then reciting digit sequences in reverse. I’m always worried that my brain function has been declining since my youth. I used to pride myself on an excellent memory. Now there are things I do that I don’t remember doing at all. Before this trip, I thought I needed to add our new car’s license plate to our Bay Area FasTrak account. When I logged in, I discovered I’d already done it back in August, with no trip planned. Despite that it seems like something I would do if I got new license plates, I have zero memory of doing that! Some of these cognitive tests seem so difficult that I honestly don’t know how I would have performed even when I was younger. Is this normal aging, or something more? That uncertainty sits with me. Some tests felt easier after previous exposure. One involves hearing a detailed story and repeating it with maximum accuracy. Another requires redrawing a complex line diagram. The test where previous exposure helped most? Naming illustrated items. Through this testing, I learned two new words: trellis (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/trellis) and yoke (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yoke). Maybe it was growing up with immigrant parents, but before 2019, I couldn’t have named those items. I’ve had examiners (Asian and Latin American) admit they didn’t know those words before administering these tests either. The most surprising were newer cognitive tests on iPad or PC. One required remembering faces paired with each person’s favorite vegetable or animal. Another involved tracing back a circle’s path across a matrix. It was easy for me to remember the last two positions. Remembering the last three, four, or five? Pretty hard to impossible. All of this fascinates me. I hope the study yields meaningful insights. One friend we saw—a neuroscientist who told me about this study—mentioned promising research on GLP-1 receptor agonists like Ozempic and their potential role in preventing or delaying Alzheimer’s progression (https://www.healthline.com/health-news/ozempic-alzheimers-risk-diabetes). She also mentioned the shingles vaccine may help prevent Alzheimer’s onset (https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/03/shingles-vaccination-dementia.html). Marsha and I both plan to get vaccinated. We just got our COVID and flu shots, so shingles is next. The Long Drive: 11 Hours and 40 MPG This was our first Bay Area drive in our new car. Two years ago, we took a driving vacation in my 23-year-old Audi TT (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/saying-goodbye-to-my-audi-tt-after). This time, we wanted to test our new RAV-4 plug-in hybrid on a real road trip. The decision to drive was partly practical. I had Zoom calls to work around. However, this was mainly about flexibility. With the government shutdown, we didn’t want potentially absent air traffic controllers or TSA agents to create uncertainty. It’s about an 11-hour journey. We broke it into two days going south: four hours to Ashland, Oregon on day one, then seven hours the next day with a stop at the Shasta Cascade Welcome Center in Anderson, California. Coming home, we pushed through in one day with stops in Vacaville and Medford. I loved the Dynamic Radar cruise control, set to keep us three car lengths behind the lead vehicle. The Lane Tracking Assist provided automatic steering to keep me centered. These features significantly reduced the strain of long-distance driving. The gas mileage impressed me too. While we started with a full charge, we didn’t charge again on the road, relying entirely on hybrid mode. We got close to 40 MPG actual, with four fill-ups of typically nine gallons or less. Having CarPlay on a large screen made a huge difference navigating. I think about how we used to clip an iPhone to a heat vent in my Audi TT, playing sound through a Bluetooth FM transmitter. We’ve come a long way. Marsha asked if we saved money driving. If we paid ourselves for time, absolutely not. But comparing gas, lodging, parking, and food versus airport parking, plane tickets, and a rental car? We probably saved a bit. The tradeoff was 11 hours of transit each way versus about four hours for flying (including airport time). Of course, we’re retired so we have the time. This was a completely different experience from why we originally bought the car: bopping around Portland on electric-only. The 42-mile electric range means we almost never use gas around town. It was fun experiencing our new car in a different context. Finding a Home for Marsha’s Vinyl There was another key motivation to drive. When I posted on Substack about potentially selling or donating Marsha’s old vinyl records (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/cleaning-an-old-family-home-room), a friend down there volunteered to take them. He offered to pay for packaging and shipping, but we realized hand delivery made more sense. (Though to be honest, the vinyl idea came up after we’d already decided to drive.) Giving these records a good home felt important as we continued cleaning out Marsha’s family home. Just like I wrote about Marsha’s stuffed animals in a previous post, these albums served a meaningful role in her life. At our friend’s house, we played two records on his turntable. First, New Order’s “Blue Monday (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Monday_(New_Order_song))“ 12-inch (45 speed). My friend loved how the album cover looked like an old floppy disk. Then Information Society’s “What’s On Your Mind (Pure Energy) (https://www.discogs.com/release/9563296-Information-Society-Whats-On-Your-Mind-Pure-Energy)“ 12-inch (33 speed). I specifically chose this one because his other vinyl records were all albums, and I wanted to show him how these 12-inch singles could have multiple extended dance mix variations, something the “Blue Monday” single didn’t have. It closed an interesting chapter. Surprisingly Good Food As Portlanders, we’ve sort of become food snobs. While Michelin-star quality exists in many cities, it often comes at a steep price. One reason we moved to Portland was all the cool little bars and restaurants. Our best meal in the Bay Area? The South Indian food our very good friends cooked. My stomach feels satisfied just thinking about it. I’m only bummed that Ozempic means I can’t eat as much anymore. Generally, I’m not a huge fan of eating out in most cities. Portland restaurants are just that good. But this trip surprised us. In Ashland, check out Cocorico (https://cocorico.kitchen/) in the little downtown. In San Francisco, with a fasted blood draw the next morning, I needed to eat immediately. We stayed at a vacation rental in Potrero Hill and discovered Destapas (https://destapas.com/), a wonderful Spanish neighborhood restaurant. Even the little Italian place our friends took us to in Santa Cruz, Tramonti (https://tramontisantacruz.com/), was quite good. So while I wasn’t expecting much, there was genuinely good food. Coming Full Circle Overall, this was a really nice trip. So much felt familiar, yet everything looked different. Marsha asked if I miss the Bay Area. I miss the people, but I also recognized that when we lived there, we didn’t see the same people constantly anyway. Our visit actually brought them together. Everyone across various phases of my life was also living in a different “present” state. This trip weaved together many threads: nice weather, old friends, my research visit, good food, experiencing our car in a new way, and closing the chapter on Marsha’s vinyl. It was, quite simply, an overall good time. Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

7. 

   13 Oct 2025

   Episode 007 — Dancing frogs and grounded helicopters

   We’re now two weeks into the 2025 government shutdown, and the impacts are rippling through every corner of our lives. For us, we’re seeing delayed projects, uncertain travel plans, and we’re watching healthcare for millions hang in the balance. While much the government is shut down, we’re still watching the ICE facility continue to operate, and the federal government spending a lot of effort trying to bring in troops from out-of-state. At the same time, our own condo building sits in limbo waiting for furloughed FAA workers to approve and supervise a critical repair. But first, let me address the elephant, or rather, the frogs, in the room. The real story in Portland By now, many of you have likely seen the TikTok video (https://www.tiktok.com/@nowthisimpact/video/7558139136939511053) of ICE agents attempting to pepper spray a person wearing an inflatable frog costume. It’s absurd, it’s surreal, and it perfectly captures the disconnect between the narrative and reality here in Portland. Our community continues to protest the actions of ICE. We also reject the false portrayal of these protests as violent. On Thursday night, a friend and I took an evening walk to the ICE facility, just three miles south of our condo building. Here we are with those famous frog people. The frogs were joined by a polar bear, a raccoon, and a shark. They were all dancing to music outside the facility. It was more street festival than confrontation. Of course, that didn’t top ice from making threatening announcements over their loudspeakers. I was humored by the ICE agents’ periodic emergence to face the crowd. They would then retreat again without incident. This has become a nightly ritual. Protesters show up consistently and peacefully. The response remains disproportionately aggressive. Peace March on Sunday I returned to the site today to participate in another small peace march. What struck me most was the sheer ordinariness of it all. No radical organizations. No professionally printed signs. Just regular people who felt compelled to show up. After some brief speeches, we took to the streets: My favorite sign captured the moment perfectly: “Fight Ignorance, Not Immigrants.” It’s an apt description of what we’re witnessing right now. Instead of someone carrying a portable speaker like the last time I was there, we had a brass band marching with us. Fellow protesters danced along to the music. It was a joyful expression of dissent and was about as non-threatening as you can imagine. While the Trump administration would like to justify the expense and showmanship of putting federal troops here to Portland, doing so would not only be a violation of the law, it would be a tremendous waste of resources. Delayed project: Helicopter grounded Now onto the shutdown. This shutdown has real, measurable costs that are hitting us directly. This Tuesday (October 14th), our condo building was scheduled for a helicopter lift to install new HVAC equipment on our rooftop. With the shutdown, the FAA teams responsible for final approvals and on-site supervision have been furloughed. Our $37 million HVAC replacement project is now at risk. This wasn’t some hastily planned operation. We’ve spent years preparing for this tight six-month window between October and April. The timing was critical. We live in a 28-story glass tower that functions as a massive solar collector. Many units, including our own, become uninhabitable in summer without HVAC. For winter, we have fireplaces and temporary electric heaters. However, there’s no comparable solution for cooling in the summer. We’re replacing a defective system, and the schedule was carefully calibrated. Our team is now scrambling to reorder project phases to minimize delays. We built contingency funding into our capital budget for unexpected events, but we never anticipated signing contracts in early 2025 only to face an indefinite government shutdown. We recovered much of the cost for this HVAC replacement project from responsible parties. However, that is done. here’s a part of me that wants to sue Congress for the shutdown-related costs. This is just a small example hitting us personally. I can only imagine how many other projects across America are facing similar delays. What is the economic ripple effect of this shutdown? An unforeseen roadtrip The shutdown forced us to rethink smaller personal plans too. As some of you know, I participate as a cognitively normal subject in a long-term observational study on dementia. Every two years, I undergo an MRI, beta-amyloid scan, lumbar puncture, and cognitive testing. Marsha gets interviewed about my ability to recall recent shared experiences. We were scheduled for our Bay Area appointment and planned to fly down. Then came news of impending airline delays. Add to that the Trump administration’s illegal posturing that they won’t provide back-pay to essential workers, and we decided flying might not be the most predictable option for travel. So we pivoted, and we turned this into a short road trip. We have a new Toyota RAV-4 plug-in hybrid, so we decided to give it a go. This change also allows us to transport some fragile vintage records we’re giving to a friend. Still, both Marsha and I hate driving, so we’re half-blaming Congress for even introducing this uncertainty into our lives. Healthcare Despite the real costs and inconvenience we’re facing, I support the position Democratic senators are taking. As I detailed in my Substack post last year on healthcare (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/early-retirement-and-healthcare-coverage), Marsha and I purchase insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. Our 2025 premiums for a high-deductible HSA plan for the two of us are $1,500 per month. Our 2026 premiums will be over $1,700 per month. I’m not complaining for us personally. With my pre-existing conditions, I’m grateful we can access health insurance at all, and we don’t apply for tax credits given our financial situation. At the same time, I recognize this level of cost would be completely unaffordable for most Americans. I understand why even Marjorie Taylor Greene is complaining (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/marjorie-taylor-greene-gop-obamacare-premium-hikes-rcna236068) that her adult children can no longer be covered on her plan. The numbers are stark. According to the nonpartisan healthcare research group KFF, without premium tax credits, recipients would see premiums jump from an average of $888 this year to $1,906 in 2026—a 114% increase (https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/30/aca-premiums-to-more-than-double-without-enhanced-subsidies.html). I buy many conservative arguments that these tax credits perpetuate a broken system. Our healthcare costs are double those of other developed nations, with worse outcomes. But simply allowing the tax credits to expire without structural reforms is reckless. I oppose much of what’s in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA): cuts to SNAP benefits, removal of clean energy incentives from the Inflation Reduction Act, increased ICE funding, and tax cuts for the wealthy. There was more to object to than just healthcare. But I understand why Democrats chose healthcare as their single bargaining issue. It’s the one issue where Americans overwhelmingly agree. Not Democrats vs. Republicans Over three-quarters of Americans believe we should extend these tax credits. That includes 59% of Republicans and 57% of MAGA supporters. When you have that level of consensus across party lines and across ideological divides, the path forward is clear. Congress, do the deal. Projects like our $37M HVAC replacement project are being stalled by this shutdown. Families are losing healthcare access. We’re improvising road trips because we can’t trust our own transportation infrastructure. And we’re watching resources go into ICE and federalizing troops where they’re not wanted or needed. On my end, I am responding to this shutdown by directing my energy toward calling my legislators (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/call-your-legislators), attending town halls (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/good-town-hall-with-our-representative), participating in peaceful protests (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/my-experience-at-a-very-peaceful), and trying to spread the word on this Substack. Please join me in voicing our opinions! Again, this isn’t Democrats versus Republicans. It’s getting our country to work right. What’s your shutdown story? How has this impacted your life? Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

8. 

   6 Oct 2025

   Episode 006 - Political leaders and dementia

   Today’s post is not written by AI. This week, rather than spewing into the camera, I chose to write more detailed notes, and I’ve included them here. Quick Update on ICE in Portland Here in Portland, the President’s announcement of sending troops into Portland sparked conversations across the political spectrum. Here in Portland, it’s pretty clear that the majority of us, independent of our political leanings, agree on free speech and federalism. We agree on the right to protest peacefully. We agree that the local authorities, accountable to their communities, should handle assault and property crimes unless civil rights are violated. There was no need for federal law enforcement or a federalized Oregon National Guard to intimidate protesters. Federal Judge Karin Immergut ruled against Trump’s troop deployment (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/us/trump-national-guard-california-oregon-newsom.html), despite his “war-ravaged” description of Portland. As my video last week (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/episode-005-ice-and-pdx) showed, Portland isn’t “living in hell.” Consistent with my own findings, Immergut wrote that “The President’s determination was simply untethered to the facts.” This isn’t partisan. Judge Immergut has been a registered Republican since 2003, appointed circuit judge by George W. Bush, and given a lifetime district judgeship by Trump himself in 2018. In fairness to the Judge, she’s also earned strong support from Democratic Senators Wyden and Merkley. Today, I attended the District 1 town hall meeting in Beaverton, hosted by Congresswoman Suzanne Bonamici. It’s important to note that the ICE facility is in Bonamici’s district. Citizens packed a full house at today’s Town Hall voicing their concerns about the possibility of federal troops here in Portland. No one in attendance raised their voices in support of the Trump administration’s threats. Personal Reflections on Dementia The post on this Substack that sparked the most offline conversations was about my dad’s final years with dementia. (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/dementia-is-hard) I believe modern medicine has had the unexpected impact of unprecedented levels of dementia. My dad had a heart condition, and a quadruple bypass surgery extended his life. However, his life after recovering from his surgery was one of cognitive decline. Medicine extended the life of his body, but not of his brain. He likely had vascular dementia from heart disease, but his death certificate listed heart disease, not dementia. This under-reporting has skewed statistics massively. A 2025 NIH-funded study from NYU, Johns Hopkins, and other institutions now reports that 42% of middle-aged adults will develop dementia (https://nyulangone.org/news/united-states-dementia-cases-estimated-double-2060). This is as common as high blood pressure or high cholesterol, but we don’t talk about it the same way. At a personal level, I worry my kidney treatment might similarly extend my life, leaving me vulnerable to dementia in my later years. I have a family history of dementia on both sides, and an APOE-4 gene. Dementia is happening frequently, and it’s affecting the families of almost everyone I know. We just aren’t comfortable discussing it. Lessons with Joe Biden We all watched something happening with Joe Biden’s mental state during the end of his presidency. Whether it affected his decision-making was debatable, but it clearly impacted the performative aspects of the presidency. Ezra Klein argued exactly this (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/opinion/ezra-klein-biden-audio-essay.html). He agreed with Biden’s policies but acknowledged that Biden’s inability to handle the performative requirements of the presidency should disqualify him from re-election. Remember Dean Phillips? The one congressman willing to sound the alarm, who ran against Biden in the primaries. He wasn’t debating policy—just saying Biden was too old and wasn’t polling well despite shepherding the infrastructure bill, CHIPS Act, and Inflation Reduction Act. After Democrats lost, Phillips was vindicated personally, but he didn’t celebrate because of the party’s losses (https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/12/28/dean-phillips-congress-exit-interview-00195232). Remember Robert Hur? The district attorney handling Biden’s classified documents case. As a Republican, he chose not to prosecute because of Biden’s age, calling him a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. (https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-impossible-role-of-robert-hur)” Initially, Hur’s statement was dismissed as a political hit job, but the released audio tapes of Biden’s interviews proved the merit of Hur’s assessment. He wouldn’t have won the case in front of a jury, and he needed a bold statement to justify dropping it while Trump’s documents case proceeded. The Democratic party suffered from not trusting their instincts about the presidency’s reality. We’re Here Now with Trump I won’t argue about Trump’s overall intent. Despite many disagreements on his methods, I agree with elements of his base assertions. We all want more efficient government, lower healthcare costs with better outcomes, and reduced reliance on others for key manufacturing needs. But solving these issues requires sophisticated management, leadership, decision-making, and communication across a complex ecosystem. I understand a significant portion of the population—maybe a third—loves Trump. I loved my dad deeply toward the end of his life too. The question isn’t about love. It’s whether we wanted Dad controlling finances, driving, operating the stove, or running a country at that stage. During Biden’s time, people in visible positions made their case. The signs are there with Trump too. Less than a week ago, on September 30th, Rep. Madeleine Dean stated that Trump was “incoherent” when speaking to the country’s top generals and admirals at a meeting in Quantico, Virginia (https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2025/09/trump-hegseth-speech-incoherent/684421/). A week before that, his September 23rd UN speech was disrupted—Trump claimed by three “sinister events” including a frozen escalator, broken teleprompter, and quiet sound system. He acknowledged the teleprompter wasn’t working and spoke without it, delivering remarks rambling enough to prompt front-page coverage questioning his mental acuity. (https://newrepublic.com/article/200841/trump-angry-unhinged-tirades-un-rattle-experts-really-crazy) Trump frequently boasts about passing the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Cognitive_Assessment)—a basic screening test for dementia that involves simple tasks like drawing a clock. In April, the White House released a physical declaring him in “excellent health,” but we’ve seen this playbook before. I know medical diagnosis isn’t for the general population, and these are private matters. But we should scrutinize whether our leaders’ presentation strengthens us or puts us at risk. Ezra Klein, Dean Phillips, and Robert Hur did the brave thing—they didn’t take the easy path. They spoke the truth. We’re in the Trump era now. Who will come forward? Personally, I think it’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment. Just as I have many issues with Trump, I also have many issues with positions that JD Vance has taken, too. However, at least JD Vance is of sound enough mind to do the job, even if that proves more effective and dangerous for the left. I get that this won’t happen now. The first two impeachment attempts proved Republican congressmen will fall in line to win primaries. Our job as citizens is to appeal to the right instincts and establish objective standards of mental acuity for the presidency. The Problem with Google Too many Americans have stopped thinking for ourselves. We accept CNN or Fox News and social media feeds that reinforce one-sided opinions. What’s happening with Trump (and happened with Biden) is apparent to anyone who’s experienced dementia in their families. Yet we rely on narratives. AI could have been the savior here—objectively analyzing data. But fearing political blowback, Google Search AI has punted. The Verge (https://www.theverge.com/news/789152/google-ai-searches-blocking-trump-dementia-biden) documented Google Search AI’s omission of Trump and dementia from AI Overviews. Other publications picked it up, too. Watch what happens: Google Search AI provides a balanced overview on Joe Biden. It summarizes historical figures like Ronald Reagan, later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. But for Donald Trump? No AI overview. Just search results. Google has the data. Digging into Google Gemini reveals what Search AI won’t: signs of decline, White House counterstatements, ethical considerations, and this conclusion: “In summary, there is no confirmed medical diagnosis of dementia or cognitive impairment for Donald Trump. However, his public behavior and speech have led several independent mental health experts to raise concerns and suggest he exhibits signs consistent with cognitive decline that warrant a more comprehensive medical evaluation. These claims are countered by the official medical reports released by the White House.” What would be wrong with Google Search AI providing this summary? Google Gemini offered an answer citing political sensitivity: “News reports have noted that Google’s AI Overview has explicitly refused to generate a summary for some searches concerning the mental acuity of one political figure while providing a cautious summary for a similar query about another. This suggests a specific, highly sensitive filter is applied to certain individuals or controversial topics to avoid political backlash or being forced to take a position.” The Impact The Democratic party still suffers from what Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson called Original Sin (https://www.amazon.com/Original-Sin-President-Cover-Up-Disastrous/dp/B0DTYKCJC9). But this wasn’t just about losing an election—history will show how it enabled a presidential term where legal, judicial, and Constitutional violations became normalized. Republicans would be wise to recognize Trump’s very low approval numbers and that freedoms are good for popularity. Why do you think the NFL chose Bad Bunny for the Super Bowl halftime show (https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5537599-bad-bunny-super-bowl-halftime-nfl-snl-trump-maga-republicans/)in four months? Supporting diversity and international appeal is good for business. Imagine that. My point is simple: highlight what most Americans agree on. Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

9. 

   29 Sept 2025

   Episode 005- ICE and PDX

   This summary was written by AI. Episode Summary In response to Trump’s announcement ordering military troops to Portland, I took my camera on a 6.83-mile evening walk from Northwest Portland to the ICE facility and back through downtown. This video documents what Portland actually looks like on a Saturday night—spoiler alert: it’s not the war zone being described by the administration and social media. 🎥 Best viewed on Substack or YouTube (audio-only listeners will miss the visuals) What You’ll See The Walk: * Peaceful riverbank esplanade from North Pearl District to South Waterfront * Clean, well-lit paths under bridges and highways * Tourists, joggers, and families enjoying the waterfront * Active businesses: Saturday Market breakdown, Powell’s Books, Pips Donuts pop-up The ICE Facility Protest: * A couple dozen ordinary people peacefully gathered (not “radical left” extremists) * Post-march crowd at Elizabeth Caruthers Park wrapping up 4 PM event * ICE loudspeaker warnings and officers deployed—but no violence or chaos * Overhead helicopters documenting the scene Downtown at Night: * Safe streets with people walking alone * Running public transit * Pioneer Square activity on Saturday night * The real issue: homelessness and people sleeping rough, not violent protests The Bottom Line Portland needs social workers and economic support, not military troops. The city is safe and has the situation under control. If the federal government wants to stop ICE protests, they should stop arresting people on their way to immigration hearings. This episode aims to counter the propaganda using 5-year-old footage to justify military deployment with current, first-hand documentation of what’s really happening in Portland. 👉 Subscribe, share, and join the conversation on Substack, YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@retiredpdx), or your favorite podcast app (Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retired-techie-in-pdx-the-podcast/id1824371642), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ga9aCfbulW46O4btvJC8v), YouTube Podcasts (http://youtube%20logolisten%20on%20yt%20podcasts/)). Links at https://s.pao.name (https://s.pao.name) Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

10. 

    22 Sept 2025

    Episode 004 — Navigating Tech, Health, and Home

    First, my greatest apologies for the video quality this week! I didn’t notice the transcoding errors causing a warbling effect and audio drift until editing, and unfortunately, after I recorded the raw material, it was too late to for me to fix it! I’ll figure it out for next week! This summary was written by AI. Steve returns home to Portland and previews a mix of personal stories, tech reflections, and family thoughts from the week. Home for the Animals:All of Marsha’s childhood stuffed animals were donated to Jubilee, a nonprofit that will give them to children in need. Vinyl Ripping Project Complete:The project to digitize Marsha’s legacy vinyl collection is finished, with highlights and a few “trash” tracks preserved for history. Medicine Titration Woes:A new medication regimen for kidney disease led to fatigue and high pulse, requiring a pause and dose adjustment. National Cheeseburger Day (No Beers):Celebrated National Cheeseburger Day with friends and root beer, sampling Portland’s burger deals while skipping alcohol due to health. Microsoft Passkeys Frustration:Reflections on the inconvenience of Microsoft’s passkey system compared to Google and Apple, plus a quick Apple Watch upgrade. Politics – Not Cancelling Disney:Thoughts on free speech, recent controversies, and why Steve isn’t canceling Disney+ despite disagreements with ABC’s decisions. Family Issues:Conversations with millennial friends highlight the challenges of modern family life, career choices, and economic pressures. Finance – Alaska Atmos Card:A review of the new Alaska Atmos premium credit card, its perks, and why Steve and Marsha decided to stick with their current card. 👉 Subscribe, share, and join the conversation on Substack, YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@retiredpdx), or your favorite podcast app (Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retired-techie-in-pdx-the-podcast/id1824371642), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ga9aCfbulW46O4btvJC8v), YouTube Podcasts (http://youtube%20logolisten%20on%20yt%20podcasts/)). Links at https://s.pao.name (https://s.pao.name) Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

11. 

    15 Sept 2025

    E003 — Old Friends, New Stories

    This summary was written by AI. 🎉 Top 10 Takeaways from My 40th High School Reunion * Big Turnout, Big Energy:Over a quarter of our class made it—nostalgia and connection are still strong after 40 years! * Question: What’s the most surprising thing about the turnout at your own reunions? * Old Faces, Old Stories:Seeing classmates brought back memories I hadn’t thought of in years—some hilarious, some awkward! * Question: Has reconnecting with someone ever brought back a forgotten (or cringeworthy) memory for you? * Early School Bonds:Classes and programs from elementary and junior high created friendships that lasted well beyond high school. * Question: Did you have early school experiences or groups that still connect you to people today? * Cliques Are Less of a Barrier:While we’re still closer to some people than others, old social groups don’t keep us apart like they used to. * Question: Did you find that cliques faded or just mattered less at your reunions? * Universal Conversations:The big topics: aging parents and retirement. We’re all navigating similar life stages. * Question: What are the most common themes you hear at your reunions or gatherings these days? * Who’s That? Recognizing Classmates:Women were easier to recognize than men—hairstyles and “brand” matter! . * Question: Have you ever failed to recognize someone you once knew well? How did it go? * Yearbook Comments Don’t Age Well:Reading my old yearbook messages was a lesson in how times—and language—change. * Question: Have you ever looked back at something you wrote years ago and cringed (or laughed)? * Changing Demographics:My old schools have gone from a handful of Asian students to majority Asian—reflecting big shifts in the community. * Question: How have the demographics of your hometown or school changed since you graduated? * Spouses Add to the Fun:Bringing spouses to reunions adds new stories and perspectives—plus, it’s just more fun! * Question: Do you bring your spouse or partner to reunions? Why or why not? * Nostalgia Tour:Visiting old schools, homes, and favorite fast food spots made the experience even richer. * Question: What’s your go-to nostalgic spot when you visit your hometown? 👉 Subscribe, share, and join the conversation on Substack, YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@retiredpdx), or your favorite podcast app (Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retired-techie-in-pdx-the-podcast/id1824371642), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ga9aCfbulW46O4btvJC8v), YouTube Podcasts (http://youtube%20logolisten%20on%20yt%20podcasts/)). Links at https://s.pao.name (https://s.pao.name) Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

12. 

    8 Sept 2025

    Episode 002 – The Epstein Files, AI Music, and ATM Scams

    This summary was written by AI. 🔥 What’s Inside This Week’s Episode: * Politics:“Start with Epstein, but don’t stop there.”Steve dives into the renewed buzz around the Epstein files, Massie’s viral poll, and why bipartisan outrage should lead us to bigger, systemic issues. * Technology:“My podcast theme was made by a robot—and it slaps.”A first-hand look at AI-generated music, how Producer.AI works, and the wild world of viral TikTok tracks made by machines. * Finance:“We thought we were investing in ATMs. Turns out, it was a Ponzi scheme.”Steve shares a personal story of investing in a fund that promised 20% returns—and ended in a $770M fraud. * Business:“Bundle or unbundle? Barksdale was right—but it’s complicated.”From Microsoft Office to airline fees, Steve explores why bundling works in theory but often fails in practice. * Health:“I have stage 4 kidney disease—and most people wouldn’t know.”A candid reflection on Chronic Kidney Disease, life-extending meds, and why early testing matters. * Pacific Northwest Spotlight:“The Seattle Great Wheel: better to look at than ride.”A quick travel tip from Steve’s recent visit to Seattle, and why the view from the ground might be the best one. * Reflections:“Sometimes the best conversations start solo.”Steve shares thoughts on the future of the podcast, the joy of unscripted reflection, and how you can join the conversation. 💬 Takeaways: * Don’t let headline scandals distract from deeper bipartisan issues. * AI creativity is here—and it’s surprisingly accessible. * Always vet your investments, even when they sound familiar. * Bundling isn’t always the golden ticket. * Kidney disease can be silent—get tested. * Not all tourist attractions are worth the hype. * Solo podcasts can spark meaningful dialogue. 👉 Subscribe, share, and join the conversation on Substack, YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@retiredpdx), or your favorite podcast app (Apple (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retired-techie-in-pdx-the-podcast/id1824371642), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ga9aCfbulW46O4btvJC8v), YouTube Podcasts (http://YouTube LogoListen on YT Podcasts)). Links at https://s.pao.name (https://s.pao.name) Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

13. 

    31 Aug 2025

    Episode 001 – Let's Start Some Conversations

    This summary was written by AI. 🎙️ Episode 001 – Starting Conversations in Retirement Stephen Pao launches his podcast with reflections on life, tech, and culture from Portland, OR. This episode spans personal insights, family finance, tech skepticism, and burger adventures. 🔑 Key Topics Covered: * 🎤 Why a Podcast?Stephen shifts from blogging to podcasting to preserve his authentic voice and escape the constraints of writing mechanics. * 💍 Wedding Planning ReimaginedA “start your life” fund replaces traditional wedding financing, giving both daughters agency and flexibility. * 🍏 Apple Event AmbivalenceUpgrades driven by hardware obsolescence, not innovation. Apple Intelligence and Vision Pro fail to excite. * 💼 Business Culture ShiftThe lost art of “eating your own dog food”—why companies should still use their own products and understand their value firsthand. * ☕ Health & HabitsMorning coffee might be sabotaging energy. Steve explores hydration, circadian rhythms, and Huberman’s 90-minute coffee delay. * 📺 South Park as Political SatireNot just a cartoon—South Park delivers sharp, historical commentary on politics, media, and culture. * 🍔 Burger Week in PortlandFive burgers, five venues, one delicious week. A celebration of food, community, and local flavor. 💡 Key Takeaways: * Authentic storytelling matters more than polished prose. * Empowering family members with financial agency can reshape traditions. * Tech upgrades often reflect necessity, not excitement. * Internal product use builds credibility and insight. * Small daily habits may lead to long-term health benefits. * Satire can be a powerful lens for understanding politics. * Local events like Burger Week foster connection and joy. ❓ Questions to Follow Up On: * Is podcasting a more digestible format for you than blogging? * Have you tried alternative approaches to wedding or life-stage financing? * Are you still excited by Apple’s product launches—or feeling the fatigue? * Does your company “eat its own dog food”? Should it? * Do you wait before having your morning coffee? Why or why not? * Are you a South Park subscriber? What episodes stood out to you? * What’s your favorite burger spot in your hometown? 💬 Join the conversation.Leave a comment on Substack, DM Steve, or share your thoughts with friends.Subscribe on your favorite podcast app (Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/4Ga9aCfbulW46O4btvJC8v), Apple Podcasts (https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/retired-techie-in-pdx-the-podcast/id1824371642), YouTube Podcasts (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQwSeUXZK24&list=PLbNtN8dK31nNaFWY4dp-x3EMqyQW1jsGX&pp=gAQB)) or via video on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeeXDcPARdQ)! Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

14. 

    7 Jul 2025

    From Blog to Video using AI, Part II: Microsoft CoPilot vs. Google Vids

    After testing Google Vids' AI video creation in my previous post (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/from-blog-to-video-using-ai), I wondered how Microsoft's approach would compare. Google's "Help Me Create" feature had impressed me with its ability to generate video directly from existing content, but it left me curious about alternatives. So I decided to put Microsoft CoPilot and ClipChamp (https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/how-to-create-video-with-copilot-7586329a-64e0-4ae9-9444-0da5b1c2b848) through the same test, using the same blog post (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/breaking-free-from-the-capitalist) as source material. I was impressed with the technology.. Microsoft's Different Philosophy Unlike Google Vids, Microsoft CoPilot doesn't let you simply point the AI at a cloud drive and say "make this into a video." Instead, I discovered two distinct pathways, neither of which matched Google's straightforward approach: Option 1: PowerPoint as an Intermediate Step The first option involved converting my blog post into a PowerPoint presentation, then creating a video from that presentation. This seemed like it should work, as Microsoft CoPilot provided a button to “Add a PowerPoint file,” but it didn’t allow for any other type of document. What I got was a disaster. In PowerPoint, CoPilot generated a 29-slide presentation that looked like it came straight from corporate hell: formal title slide, agenda slide, multiple section headers, and a conclusion slide—all packed with dense text. The resulting video was essentially an AI voice reading through each text-heavy slide. While technically functional, it provided a stark reminder of the worst corporate presentations ever. Microsoft had made it frighteningly easy to produce professional-looking garbage in minutes. Option 2: Direct Video Creation The second option was to write a prompt directly in Microsoft CoPilot to create the video. Here's where things got interesting. After watching how CoPilot responded to different prompts, it became clear this direct approach was the way to go, despite the initial limitations. Finding My Voice The good news is that I was able to paste in all of my text into the CoPilot prompt. However, to keep the video short, I indicated in my prompt specifically that I wanted a 3-4 minute video. In doing so, I recognized that much of the summarization didn’t quite emphasize what I wanted it to, and it confabulated other details I didn’t write. To inject some of my writing back into the video, I gave CoPilot specific instructions to include key quotations from my original post: * "One of the luxuries of retirement is the ability to just wake up and enjoy a walk. But somehow, I turned my peaceful Forest Park stroll into a 'Walking Workout Record.'" * "I think my capitalist conditioning can make me feel like I should be continually trying to accomplish something or improve myself on some metric." * "I'm recognizing that being truly retired allows me to just 'be' without necessarily having anything to show for the time." * "My answer to 'what do you do in retirement?' - Dicking around. I don't have a metric for that!" I also included in my prompt requests for specific types of stock video clips. This level of detail made a significant difference in the final output, but it required considerable effort to get right. The Documentation Problem Here's where Microsoft's approach frustrated me most: I can't easily reproduce what I did. There's no clear history or log of my CoPilot sessions. According to a quick Google Search AI query (https://www.google.com/search?q=How+do+you+see+the+exact+prompt+history+for+CoPilot+for+M365%3F&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS1101US1101&oq=How+d&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgYIARBFGDsyBggCEEUYOTIGCAMQABgDMhAIBBAAGIMBGLEDGIAEGIoFMgcIBRAAGIAEMgcIBhAAGIAEMgYIBxBFGDzSAQgzOTA4ajBqNKgCALACAQ&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8), accessing these logs in Microsoft 365 requires compliance tools that end users can't access directly. As such, I can’t share with you exactly how I achieved the final result. Worse yet, I can’t really iterate and improve on how I create videos with this tool. The Narration Challenge One area where Microsoft's solution felt less polished was custom narration. Google Vids provides an intuitive interface for recording voiceovers with proper timing synchronization for each slide. While Microsoft's ClipChamp does offer custom audio capabilities and includes a teleprompter feature, it didn’t automatically select clips and populate the teleprompter. I had to put in the text and place the audio clips myself. Getting the timing right with each generated slide and its corresponding transcript proved time-consuming. For my test video, I ended up recording only a brief personal introduction and letting the AI handle the rest of the narration. It worked, but felt like a compromise rather than an optimal solution. The Verdict: Power vs. Simplicity After working with both platforms, each has clear strengths and weaknesses: Microsoft's Advantages: * More interactive AI that responds well to detailed prompts * Greater AI-based control over stock video selection and customization * Ability to create content that feels less templated and "corporate" (ironically, given my PowerPoint experience) * More flexibility in tone and style when there is a willingness to invest the time Google's Advantages: * Seamless integration with Google Drive and existing content * Significantly easier custom narration workflow * Less overall time investment required * More straightforward process from start to finish The Bottom Line If I were producing videos regularly, I'd probably choose Google Vids for its efficiency and streamlined workflow. But if I wanted to create something more polished and was willing to invest the extra time, Microsoft CoPilot combined with ClipChamp offered me more overall control. For me, it wasn’t about which tool was "better” in every situation. Sometimes I want fast and good enough. Sometimes I want to spend the time to craft something with a bit more polish. The best part? These are both solid options that seem to be a lot less work than creating these videos from scratch! Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

15. 

    3 Jul 2025

    From Blog to Video Using AI

    After my recent experiment with Claude.AI (https://claude.ai) to rewrite a blog post (https://www.retiredpdx.com/p/rewriting-a-blog-post-with-claude), I've been thinking about AI's role in content creation more broadly. While written posts work well for some audiences, I know many people prefer consuming content through video. This led me to question whether AI could help bridge that gap by transforming my written Substack posts into video content. Enter Google Vids and its new AI-powered "Help Me Create (https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2025/03/new-capabilities-for-google-vids-help-me-create.html)" feature, which promises to automatically generate videos from existing content. As someone with limited experience creating videos from scratch, this seemed like the perfect opportunity to test whether AI could lower the barrier to video content creation for me. Why Google Vids? Google Vids is primarily designed for workplace use cases—customer support, project management, and marketing according to its website (https://workspace.google.com/products/vids/#vids-use-cases). However, the feature that caught my attention was its ability to work directly with content stored in Google Drive. Since I already draft my blog posts in Google Docs, the integration seemed seamless. The tool is included with Google Workspace business plans and accessible at workspace.google.com/products/vids (https://workspace.google.com/products/vids/). The AI Video Creation Process The workflow is surprisingly straightforward. Google Vids can import content directly from a Google Doc, then automatically: * Creates a storyboard based on your written content * Suggests video templates that match your content type * Generates a script adapted for video format * Selects relevant video clips from stock footage * Produces default narration using AI voice synthesis The entire initial video generation took less than five minutes—remarkable considering I started with just a text document. What Worked Well The interface should feel familiar to anyone who has used Google Slides. The AI did a decent job of identifying key points from my blog post and structuring them into a logical video sequence. The automatic script generation was particularly impressive, taking my written paragraphs and adapting them into streamlined, video-appropriate copy. Where AI Fell Short However, the automatically-generated video felt a bit impersonal to me. I felt that the AI struggled to capture my personal tone. The stock footage selections, while technically relevant, didn't capture the specific context of my original post. Three specific issues stood out: * The AI voice narration lacked the conversational tone I try to convey in my writing * Stock video clips were too generic and didn't match my personal experiences * The outline seemed like a corporate slide presentation and not a personal narrative My Customizations To address these issues at least in part, I made three manual modifications: 1. Recorded a personal narration: I replaced the AI-generated voice with my own recording. I hope this made the rest of the video feel just a bit more authentic. 2. Added a custom intro video clip: I filmed a brief intro segment to at least set the stage that this was my creation. I did disclose in my recorded introduction that this video was done by AI, as I always try to disclose when I am using AI. 3. Chose alternate stock footage: I replaced one of Google's chosen stock clips with different footage that better conveyed “dicking around.” These last three steps took a bit of work on my part, but I think they at least got the video to the point where I felt comfortable to share it. Key Takeaways This experiment revealed both the promise and limitations of AI video creation for me. The Good: AI can dramatically reduce the technical barriers to video creation. The automatic storyboarding and script writing saved me hours of work I would have spent figuring out how to get this down to a 3½ minute piece. The Challenging: AI might not be the most appropriate for personal storytelling. I think the technology is well-suited for informational content but needs to be tweaked to capture personality. The Practical: For content creators who have avoided video because of technical complexity, I think AI tools like Google Vids provide a viable starting point. However, I would recommend setting aside a good amount of time to customize generated videos to personalize them. What's Next I'm planning to compare this experience with Microsoft Copilot's video creation capabilities, as I also have access to Microsoft 365. I'm particularly curious whether different AI platforms have varying strengths in making content feel more “personal.” My wish list for future AI video tools includes: * Better understanding of personal writing style and tone * More sophisticated stock footage selection based on context, not just keywords * Storyboards that feel less like corporate presentations For now, Google Vids has shown me that AI can be a valuable collaborator in video creation—not as a replacement for a good human video producer, but as a tool that can streamline some of the technical groundwork. For me, it’s possible that tools like this might reduce the barrier enough for me to create videos. I’ll keep playing with this stuff! Have you experimented with AI video creation tools? If so, I’d love to hear your comments! Retired Techie is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Retired Techie at www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe (https://www.retiredpdx.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4)

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