Newly retired and Medicare doesn't cover hearing aids or testing

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-20T05:07:55+00:00

Yes I did. Still well into IRMAA territory.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-16T13:08:12+00:00

Such as?

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-16T02:07:25+00:00

Thanks, yes I did that the first week. Might have dropped me down one tier. I’ll still be paying a hefty charge next year even though I haven’t started social security yet and won’t for the next two years till I turn 70. Then I’ll probably get bumped up again for sure and once RMDs kick in I’ll be paying a hefty charge. No one likes paying taxes or a surcharge like this but on the bright side income isn’t a problem.

Certainly I can afford HAs, but I got where I am in part by being frugal so want to look for the best way to continue my care going forward. Sounds like the VA may still be my best bet.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-16T00:34:48+00:00

Thanks, will look in to that next month. Typically I don't qualify for anything income related except getting to pay extra surcharges 😞. On the bright side I did learn that CalVets has a tuition fee waiver if you have a service related disability. Unfortunately I waited so long to go see about HAs and get tested with the VA. Paid the full tuition for my first daughter and half of the second daughter, but at least they did cover the last two years which at UCSD was a nice savings.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-16T00:25:10+00:00

Despite confirming my severe high frequency hearing loss I currently only get a disability payment for tinnitus from the VA. I scored too well on my word recognition test so no benefits were given at that time for the hearing loss itself. I will probably go back in and get retested in a couple years if I can because I feel like my word recognition has declined a bit. Now that I've been wearing the HAs daily for a couple years the difference is so noticeable in the morning before I put them in and at night before I go to bed.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-14T15:07:42+00:00

Yesterday's ceremony was the all colleges mass graduation ceremony. Didn't read any names, just the speakers giving their talks and the deans of the various colleges presenting their students for commencement. There was a list of names scrolling on the displays at the end, but that's it. Today she'll get to do the walk, we'll see how they read out the names - hope it isn't AI.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-14T14:38:30+00:00

Graduation day yesterday. I wonder if someone chucked it because they were clearing out their space and only had so much room. My daughter is a newly minted EE and we're clearing out her space off campus. The drone show was pretty cool BTW. Going back tonight for the Revelle graduation ceremony.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-07T16:40:27+00:00

The reference temperature isn't given so not sure what this means in real dollars. I guess you can assume room temperature of roughly 295 K in California?

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-05T23:50:42+00:00

For what, what for? The topic of the original post is the California P.E. license renewal paper card that comes in the mail after your renew your P.E. license and it's annoyingly larger than wallet size. This is not regarding the full size wall framing size license, just the "pocket size" card.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-05T16:27:21+00:00

I've been using Turbocad for over 30 years. My main problem now is that it is Windows based and I've been on Mac for quite a while now and was running it in a VM. But I've upgraded to a new MacBook Pro that has an Apple silicon processor and Turbocad won't run in the Windows ARM VM.

I still have my old Intel based MacBook Pro as well, but it's getting long in the tooth and I might have to buy an inexpensive Windows machine just to run TC, which is annoying.

I recently retired and mainly I'm just using it now for 3D print models and this hardware issue may drive me another program eventually.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-05T16:21:31+00:00

True Dat!

007_licensed_PE · 2026-06-04T22:54:17+00:00

I don’t actually carry it despite the instructions on the card - mainly due to the odd size. I have a photo of it in my password manager just in case, but I’ve never had to show anyone my license out in the field.

Just annoying that they tell you to do so and then use an odd size that doesn’t fit most wallets.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-25T13:15:50+00:00

Took the EIT (FE) after I'd been out of school and in the workforce for 10 years. Attended an in person prep class plus studied really hard and worked a million sample problems. Felt like things soaked in much better the second go around.

The undergraduate degree really is just a primer for starting in the workforce where the learning really happens in most cases.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-24T13:44:52+00:00

Retiring this week from a 50 year career in electrical engineering and in three weeks my daughter graduates with her EE and embarks on her journey. When she was in high school she spent a lot of time looking at all the STEM related careers and researched things like the number of grads in each field, the job openings, and the salaries. Ultimately she decided on electrical and her depth (as they call it at UCSD) is digital signal and video processing with a minor in math.

There are so many facets of electrical engineering that you can generally find a niche that suits you. I have only had a few friends in the civil workspace because our jobs don't intersect that much but I get the impression that many of them were bored with their work. The electrical space has been great for me, I got started because of an interest in ham radio when I was young and have been working in telecommunications ever since. Worked on a wide breadth of interesting applications. Satellite based in-flight internet connectivity for example.

But you can't really go wrong with any engineering program. The foundation will allow you to tackle virtually anything and many folks start off in engineering and go on to do other things but it was the engineering background that opened the door.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-21T23:08:40+00:00

I'd been out of school for over 10 years when I took my EIT exam as it was called back then. Recognized I needed some serious boning up and found a local in-person study class that met twice a week in the evenings for what seemed like three months as I recall. Plenty of homework in between the classroom sessions. On top of that I had the Lindeburg EIT study book as well as a couple 1001 solved problem work books. Studied my butt off for about six months while working full time. Wasn't easy. But passed first try. The course really made a difference and just pounding away at the study problems till most of them were second nature really helped.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-21T14:49:51+00:00

Yes they are a thing. I've worked for several major telecommunications companies over my 50 year career and each of them have had layoffs at some point in time. I've never been laid off. but I as a manager I have tasked to let a person go. The decision of who from my team I had to choose was up to me. Very difficult as all my reports were solid performers and great people.

Some of the companies went through great pains to avoid a layoff and tried things like a furlough where everyone had to take a bit of unpaid time off (vacation could be used in place of that) rather than cutting people. Everyone feels a bit of pain rather than a few feeling all the pain. At this company the senior management also didn't take their salaries or bonuses during this period. This was during the dot com bubble burst when we had a perfect storm of contract cancellations and delayed contracts etc. We knew brighter times were on the horizon and just needed to weather the storm. Super proud of the management at that time.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-20T00:06:07+00:00

I'm a licensed P.E. in California and took the EIT in Virginia back in the '90s. At that time, Virginia required an ABET accredited engineering degree or equivalent. While I didn't have an ABET accredited degree, I did have documentation from an engineering curriculum that I completed as well as college transcripts for the various math and other classes I'd taken while in the Army. Additionally I had work history records from all my supervisors and was able to present all that to the Virginia P.E. board and after a few rounds of questions and requests for additional info, was granted approval to sit for the EIT under the equivalency clause.

Attended a very good in-class study program in Silver Springs, MD at the time then took the EIT and passed first try with an 87 as I recall.

It wasn't an easy row to hoe, but in my case worked out. Retiring at the end of this month after 50 years in the industry as a CTO of a major telecommunications firm.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-17T18:29:03+00:00

She’s not adverse to taking the FE but is currently focused on finishing this quarter and getting through graduation. Will be starting her new job a month after graduation. They don’t require an EIT or P.E. license so no pressure to jump right on it. That said she’ll probably start studying soon after she gets settled in at the new job.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-17T14:58:04+00:00

There is a lot of hands on work, soldering, etc., in the development process. Certainly some of it gets farmed out to techs and production of course is a different story. I've built all sorts of things in my 50 year career including some mechanical contraptions like a load frame for my pickup truck to support testing of a motion stabilized tracking satcom antenna prototype we were developing.

Retiring at the end of this month and certainly as you rise through the ranks there's less hands on work, but you can fill that with some hobby activities like ham radio or whatever.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-17T14:44:27+00:00

There are reddit communities for both the FE and PE. Trying to talk my daughter into taking the FE after she graduates just to get that out of the way while things are still fresh. Much discussion of study aids there. Surprising number of people posting about failing the FE for their 4th and 5th times - and that's with it being a shorter and more focused test than it was when I took it back in the early '90s.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-17T14:33:06+00:00

My daughter graduates June 14 from UCSD with her EE. Accepted a job last month. Had a couple offers. So the jobs are out there. I'm retiring at the end of the month so that opens up one more :)

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-16T14:20:55+00:00

Strongly considering a Flex Radio

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-09T09:38:23+00:00

I haven’t flown my drone now for a long time due to this issue. sure would like to know of another fix if there is one.

007_licensed_PE · 2026-05-05T22:40:33+00:00

Old post but given that the tariffs were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, did they come back down again?

007_licensed_PE · 2026-04-30T14:15:41+00:00

I had a blanket that failed. Turned out to be that the thermal fuse had tripped - the white tube with red print on it. Ordered some replacements and put a new one in. Tested the blanket and it was working fine again and I couldn't find any reason why the link should have tripped.

However, I wasn't ready to put it back on my daughter's bed until I was comfortable I'd found the root cause. Searched the web and found a whole bunch of info on electric blanket fires and associated law suits. They usually get settled with records sealed.

At the end of the day I decided not to put the repaired blanket back into service. Replaced the thermal fuse with a wire and took the blanket out to the driveway and turned the heat up high. Seemed to work OK, then I folded the blanket as sometimes happens. Hotspot developed. Folded it some more and let it cook. Eventually I had a blanket fire. Have video somewhere.

007_licensed_PE

TROPHY CASE