A Father's Day Gift

Written by Melissa, Bob's daughter:

Dad is officially retired from his daily grind as a civil engineer. That is, until he decides to get his hands on another project. But until then, he's officially retired. He spends his days doing what everyone wants to do - living the good life.

Mornings usually start with a 5k row on his Concept 2 erg. He religiously keeps track of his spm (strokes per minute) and time. He's doing great in his age group, which happens to be the most competitive. A bunch of 70+ year young guys with hours to spend pushing their endurance limits. Most of them are also living the good life - rowing around a lake or in an ocean basin during the day.

After his erg workout, he rides his bike to the gym where he runs a few miles, does some gym rat stuff and then pedals to his favorite coffee shop where he reads the NYTimes.

Afternoons are either another bike ride, tooling around the house, or his favorite... throwing his kayak on some river or lake for a few hours. Then it's usually dinner with Mom or being dragged to some social event. He doesn't mind tagging along. As long as they have beer, he's happy. (by the way, he can fluently say 'beer, please' in a few languages.)

In the past few years he's been criss-crossing the globe. When he drove cross country last year, he would send updates to us with his GPS location and musings of what he saw on the road and how great of a country we live in.

Seriously, how can this not be the good life?

Now it's time for him to add 'blogger' to his repertoire and to share his daily (or weekly.. or 'whenever I damned well feel like it) musings.

Here's to you Dad, Happy Father's Day.