REFLECTOR: sabbatical

Terry Miles terrence_miles at hotmail.com
Sat Feb 17 13:29:52 CST 2007


Well said.  Where are you located, Doug?

Terry

 

  _____  

From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] On
Behalf Of Douglas Holub
Sent: Saturday, February 17, 2007 12:41 PM
To: reflector at tvbf.org
Cc: susie.holub at tx.rr.com; Leigh Klettke
Subject: REFLECTOR: sabbatical

 

I bought my third-hand, 50% completed Velocity kit 7 years ago. I became
self-employed 6 years ago, partly so that I could have more time to work on
the airplane. It turns out that I had been getting more done while working
an 8 to 5 job than I was getting done while being self-employed. Years went
by with nothing getting done. Then we had that Velocity symposium in Sherman
last year and that got me motivated again. I've been working at least a half
day on the airplane every week since last March.

 

And now it occurs to me that I am due a sabbatical. I've worked hard as a
self-employed electronics engineer for 6 years, and I'm not getting any
younger. (I'm 51.) So starting next month, I'm taking a year off from work
to try to finish building this airplane. Wish me luck!

 

You know, you can always make more money, but how much do you really need?
It seems like no matter how much money you have, you don't feel very secure
unless you're always making more. But I'm not falling into that trap. I want
to build this airplane, and I'm going to build it. And if my net worth when
I die is $50,000 less because I took a year off to build an airplane, so be
it. Who cares? Not me. 

 

How does my wife feel about this? (We have 3 kids: two in college and one a
junior in high school.) She is actually very supportive. She enjoyed
traveling around the country when we owned a Tri-Pacer 15 years ago, and is
looking forward to being able to do that faster and in more comfort. And
I've convinced her that the Velocity will be worth about $50,000 more when
it is certified than it is as a collection of parts. So that, even though
there is no cash flow benefit, I will still be doing productive, profitable
work this year. Plus we have some residual income from the work I've been
doing so that we shouldn't need to dip into our savings too much as long as
we keep our expenditures down. 

 

Carpe diem!

 

Doug Holub

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