My Story

No Hurry No Worry – The Golden Years

New Beginning

My last job was at Beckon, Inc in San Mateo, California in 2015. It was a Silicon Valley startup. We were developing cutting edge marketing analytics technologies. It was very exciting. The promise and expectations were huge. We were hoping to be either acquired by a big player like Microsoft or Adobe for big money, or go public on our own. There were about 40 employees in the company. We were all dreaming of becoming millionaires in a couple of years, at most. Then quit the rat race. Things move fast in silicon valley. Instant riches. That was the dream and whole mantra of the startup culture. It had worked for quite a few, but not all.

The days were long. If you couldn’t work 14 hour days, it was hard to cut it. I was also 62 years old. The next oldest person in the company was 20 years younger than me. I was not getting enough sleep. I had to get up at 5 am or earlier in the morning to field conference calls from various international regions. Often three from different theaters for 45 minutes each and 15 minutes to get ready for the next one. Then hurrying to get to the office from my home in Redwood City to San Mateo, about 10 miles away in heavy traffic on highway 101. It often took 20 minutes just get to the highway from my home due to heavy traffic and traffic lights. It was brutal.

My wife was getting worried. She was noticing my stress and declining health. Then, all of a sudden, we got the news one morning that the company was folding. We were not generating revenue fast enough. Investors were losing patience and we were not getting any more funding to carry on. The company was going down in a fire sale. We were all being laid off.

First it was a shock, and then relief. The uncertainty was over. We can finally get off this horse. I tried to get another gig but it didn’t happen. There were several factors. I was getting old and didn’t have the energy. Also, technology was changing too fast and it was hard to keep up. And finally, I was getting burnt out.

So, I did a lot of soul searching. It was time to make a change. My wife is from Wisconsin. I went to school there before moving to California. We decided to pack up and go back home. My wife still had a lot of family there and the cost of living was much lower also.

We left California on October 16, 2016, in our Highlander, for a long drive to Wisconsin.

Janesville Arrival

We drove for over 2,000 miles from Redwood City, California to Janesville, Wisconsin over five days, stopping in various places on the way. It was a beautiful drive. We both like road trips, and this was the longest one we had ever done.

There were no deadlines any more. No Monday blues. No plans. Future was a mystery. We were looking forward to the change and hoping for the best.

When the decision was made in around May 2016 to move, we began to planning for it. There was a lot to be done. We had lived in California for 20 years and had accumulated a lot of stuff. We had to figure out what to take and what to leave behind. Also, we had to decide where to go.

My mother in law, Irene, was still living alone in Wisconsin in her own home. She was 92 years old. My father in law, Don Hoague, had passed away a few years earlier. My wife called her and explained the situation to her. She asked her we could temporarily move there to begin with. She agreed. We really had no idea what we were going to do going forward, whether we will even stay there or move somewhere else.

We arrived in Janesville on October 21, 2016 around 6:00 pm