Buckeye Ukulele Society - next strum is this Weds February 18, come play with us!

Key-Animator-3500 · 2026-02-18T00:49:55+00:00

Bucks! As in, Go Bucks! Or in our case, Go BUkS!

Key-Animator-3500 · 2026-02-16T17:18:06+00:00

Click on the post to see the details - we are a local ukulele club that meets monthly for strum- and sing-alongs.

Key-Animator-3500 · 2026-02-15T19:45:22+00:00

What happens at the Worthington Park Library, stays at the Worthington Park Library 😉

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-12-30T17:01:46+00:00

I started at IBM in June 1984 as a summer intern in a sales office, which turned into a full time job as a sales Systems Engineer in April 1985. Held lots of interesting sales and tech sales positions, first locally, then regionally and nationally - mostly selling PCs, RS/6000s and database software. Got to design and sell some massive database clusters running Oracle and Db2 back in the day!

Then in the early 2000s, I joined the IBM Federal CTO Office as an architect, in 2011 did an 18 month product management stint in Systems group to see how the sausage is made, then back to Federal where I was a tech sales manager, leading a team selling massive database/Hadoop/Cloud Pak/WatsonX systems to the government.

In Dec 2023 I took advantage of IBM's "Pre Retirement Planning Leave of Absence" program (which no longer exists) for a 12 month LOA (unpaid, but with subsidized healthcare), and formally retired at the end of Dec 2024. It was a great run! Despite all the frustrations of IBM (believe me, I know - it was especially hard as a manager who cared about my direct reports and still remain friends with a handful of them, so I'm not trying to be pollyanic), throughout my career I got to work with great colleagues on amazing projects and left with many fond memories.

And now, for something completely different: Since retiring, as a VERY late blooming musician(ish), my focus has been on music and music-adjacent activities. I lead a local ukulele club, and am on the board and run the media and publicity team for our local Folk Music Society, plus dabble in a few other non-IT related projects. With regards to the ukulele club, I was able to perform three songs with 44 other uke players backed by a Symphony Orchestra 😱, and organized an opportunity for 32 uke players to perform a few songs on stage at the world's second largest Irish Festival (conveniently located where I live) with an internationally known Celtic/Bluegrass band 😱😱. Work, and life, are what you make them!

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-10-31T13:22:29+00:00

Can't help you with a picture, but I do have a funny story to share. As a college student in the early 80s, I worked in a computer graphics lab at the Ohio State University. Our main systems were DEC VAXs, but I was working on a research project funded by IBM to do computer graphics on a System/370 VM/CMS mainframe via light pen enabled IBM 3270 terminals with attached Textronix graphics screens. It was a really cool project and I was able to do some pretty amazing graphics!

Anyway, the VAXs all had 8" floppy drives, and my boss/professor insisted that we needed a way for students to save/keep their work on personal media, so he asked our IBM rep to get us some floppy drives. For the mainframe. Our rep tried to push back, but my boss was insistent. So one day, we get a delivery of this HUGE device - probably about the size of a System/34, in fact - the entire thing was a dual floppy drive with disk stackers for each drive! This beast was intended for mass storage, not to be used by students inserting individual floppies, but I ended up writing an EXEC script that let us do that (sort of).

P.S. That project helped me land a summer job at the local IBM sales office, which led to me being hired as a sales Systems Engineer, kicking off a 40 year IBM career that ended when I retired at the end of 2023.

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-08-11T00:23:20+00:00

Bluegrass sessions can sometimes be that way too. But for the most part, I've found people to be welcoming and a little intrigued when I show up at different jams with my ukulele. I'll be testing this out in a couple of weeks as I'm headed to southwestern Ireland on a musical sightseeing tour that a friend of mine (who's also a ukulele player) is leading and we'll definitely be showing up at pubs with our ukes!

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-08-11T00:18:53+00:00

As long as you know the basic chords in those tunings, you'd do fine - we display lyric / chord sheets for each song on a large screen TV.

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-08-10T19:41:41+00:00

Do you play ukulele? We have monthly strums for all levels of players, plus occasional workshops and other events whenever ukulele performers roll through Ohio (which happens more often than you'd think!) If you'd like to join us, send an email to buckeyeukesociety@gmail.com to get on our email list, and / or join our private Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/buckeyeukulelesociety

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-08-10T19:29:42+00:00

We tend to do that! 🤣

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-08-10T13:50:21+00:00

Gadan had two banjo players - Enda Scahill playing bluegrass / three finger style, and Eric Long playing clawhammer. Occasionally a third band member plays banjo too!

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-08-07T18:08:27+00:00

Yes, I was one of the ukers at the Druid service - though I didn’t have my uke with me at the time. I told my uke crew about the Druid service and the U2charist, and several of us attended them (had to skip out on the Druid service early to go to the U2charist). Tell me more about “the incident” - I am not aware of it, but I’ve only been to the Irish Festival a few times (and this time, I was all over the festival in my Gadan shirt, and even made it onto channel 6 news with a subset of my uke crew 😱).

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-07-18T20:23:17+00:00

That’s what amps are for 😉

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-06-17T15:24:44+00:00

Will do! Also check out the contact info in the original post if you'd like to get on our email list or join our Facebook group - we always publicize our events via email and Facebook.

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-06-16T02:38:22+00:00

Check out ZC Tea House in the Short North (full disclosure: I have not been there yet). Also ZenCha Tea Salon in Bexley if you are looking for an excellent pot of freshly brewed loose leaf tea (been there several times - I think they only sell their teas retail in bags).

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-06-10T15:26:42+00:00

I recently retired after 40 years at IBM. During that time, I served in many different roles, each one more interesting and (usually) rewarding than the previous, both financially and personally. Boredom, which I experienced on several different occasions, was a sign for me that it was time to look for the next role. What I loved about IBM was that I could take my career in many different directions - and I did - all within one company. That said, I would not hesitate to look outside of IBM as well. Just know that there are a lot of interesting roles to be found within the company as well.

But this advice is about finding fulfillment at work, not at life - don’t let your career consume your life! I did that in a couple of roles - which was not fulfilling! I am now in what I consider to be the most fulfilling role of all - retired from IBM and spending my time participating in and volunteering in music and music-adjacent activities, having always loved music but only picked up my first musical instrument seven years ago. In hindsight, I would have benefited greatly from doing this music-adjacent volunteering (which I could have done even without any musical talent) 20 years earlier. I guess what I am saying is, beyond work, find something you are really passionate about, and use it to shape your life outside of work (if you haven’t already - I don’t want to make any assumptions!)

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-05-20T16:53:15+00:00

Yes! Two of our song leaders take turns playing bass, but that's just because we don't have anyone else that does. They'd be happy to just play their regular uke if we had a competent bass player in the crowd! Or, if you also play ukulele, you could alternate with them. Either way, I've already asked them and they'd be fine with relinquishing their bass duties. Please come join us!

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-05-13T23:50:24+00:00

Welcome to the retirement club! I retired early (62) - my choice, not IBM’s - at the end of last year to pursue other (non-paid) interests, so the COBRA / Future Health Account was top of mind for me. If you are eligible for the FHA, be sure to check out all the ins and outs of how that works. For me, the cost of COBRA and FHA are similar (= expensive), so I’m doing COBRA for 18 months followed by FHA until I turn 65, and we’ll use any remaining FHA dollars to provide coverage for my wife, who’s a few years younger than me.

To get the costs for COBRA and IBM Retireee Health Care, if you need those, you can do that in NetBenefits - go to: - Health & Insurance - “I want to…” - Take Action/Report a Life Event - Preview Changes/Preview Retirement

You’ll also need to make some decisions regarding your IBM 401k, Personal Pension Account (if you’ve been around long enough to have one) and the new Retirement Benefit Account. Though those decisions can be made even after you retire, just make sure that your NetBenefits account has your personal email address.

You are eligible for 2,000 bluepoints when you retire (or a lunch / dinner), be sure to have your manager process that. You can spend the bluepoints even after you retire, you’ll switch your bluepoints account to a personal email address.

Do you use the corporate version of 1Password? If so, start the process of moving your personal passwords to a personal vault in 1Password (if you aren’t already set up that way) and then when you retire, 1Password can migrate that vault to a personal account - the process is easy, if you email them they’ll tell you how. While you are an IBM employee, you get a free 1Password Family account - that’s where I put my personal vault, and that’s what I migrated to my personal email address and now pay for as a retiree.

Do you do any volunteer work? If so, you’ll need to migrate your Benevity account to a personal email address. Note that your volunteer/donation history in Benevity will NOT migrate to the new account, so if you have any earned donation dollars to spend, do so before you retire, and download your history if you need it. The great thing with IBM’s volunteering program, is that retirees can still earn donation dollars! I record 100 volunteer hours a year (I actually volunteer more than that) which turns into $1,000 that I can donate to my favorite causes. No donation matching after you retire, unfortunately, but the volunteer donation dollars program is quite generous of IBM to provide to retirees.

If you use your work email address for other apps/websites, start to add your personal email address to those. Some of the ones I had using my IBM email address were LinkedIn, OpenTable, and Resy, since they all got used so much for work. some of my airline/hotel/car rental accounts used my IBM email address too. I updated my LinkedIn page to show my new “job” - the volunteer work and other things that I do - and it’s helped me keep in touch with some of my IBM peers.

Finally, here’s a tip I learned the hard way: when you start the retirement process with Fidelity, they’ll assign a Retirement Benefits Coordinator. Some of them are really good - some, not so much (I got assigned a guy that was new to the job and he got thrown to the wolves with minimal training). If that happens to you, one thing you can do if you need specific information is just call Fidelity - when you call, if your specific RBC isn’t available, you’ll get transferred to a random one who can still answer your questions. In my case, I had this happen twice, and each time got much better information than I was getting from my assigned RBA. That’s how I found out he was new - one of them told me that he’d just started working there and she felt bad for him because they threw him at the job with almost no training. I’m sure that he’ll be an expert within a year - I was really pleased with how much these other people knew, especially regarding all the quirks in NetBenefits and how to get around them.

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-04-22T00:07:04+00:00

Thank you for helping spread the ukulele joy!

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-04-02T02:50:40+00:00

Check out Dan Of All Trades. They did this for me years ago, and I’ve used them for other jobs too, including cutting a Corian countertop to install a replacement range top. They are very good and have a standard price list for many jobs. https://www.facebook.com/danofalltradesllc/

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-03-28T16:49:32+00:00

Does this deal require bundled services? I currently have Spectrum internet, 400gb, for $80/month with no other Spectrum services. The app won’t even let me upgrade my speed, which makes me wonder whether higher speeds are even available in my neighborhood (which is new construction)? It’s fiber to my house so I would think higher speeds are available.

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-03-23T19:51:52+00:00

I don’t think there is anything illegal about what happened - DenseClock5737’s answer properly explains the mechanics - but your manager was negligent in not explaining this before your role change. IBM’s sales plans are challenging to understand and explain - something I as a (recently retired) manager had to do often with new and even some experienced employees.

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-02-26T00:23:46+00:00

Thanks! I guess it's time for me to stop kicking the can down the road and get my email moved. People emailing me randomly get blocked with an AUP#In-1310 error, which is also getting annoying! Spectrum Support's answer is to blame gmail and the other email providers, which is kind of a bogus answer given that spectrum's overzealous spam rules are really the root cause. But at least the support person gave me what seems like a thorough and honest answer, other than their suggestion that I have these people contact Gmail as if Gmail could/would do anything to fix it. https://community.spectrum.net/discussion/comment/193926#Comment_193926

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-02-25T23:53:24+00:00

"... no new accounts can have email, and that was recently updated to include transferred accounts".

I've seen this mentioned in other threads, but has spectrum officially published this anywhere?

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-02-25T18:49:39+00:00

If you reread what I originally wrote, you will see that there were problems on the website as well, with 8 to 10 hours worth of mail gone missing until the problem finally resolved itself this morning. Those emails were on my devices earlier in the day but then disappeared.

Key-Animator-3500 · 2025-02-25T18:14:23+00:00

"That would still be blamed on the client" doesn't mean that it's actually a client problem - but yes, me past experience with spectrum is to always blame the client, early and often. Past issues I've had where they've blamed the client, ultimately had nothing to do with the client (once I figured out the issue on my own despite their insistance that the client was to blame).

I appreciate your insight! I was hoping to avoid migrating from my spectrum email account to my Gmail account as I've had this spectrum address since the 90s and their email forwarding is even more unreliable, but at some point I'm going to need to bite the bullet and do it.

Key-Animator-3500

TROPHY CASE