u/mauthor619

Carlsbad village is significantly less crowded than previous years. The beach is crowded, but the village is at normal Saturday levels. We were able to find parking at 1pm no problem. Unheard of. The waits on state street were also normal Saturday levels. Tourism is definitely down. Also, there was way more maga / MURICA type folks than usual. So it seems the non-maga crowd is staying away? Foreigners are missing? It’s a lopsided mix.

I hand wrote this, but my handwriting sucks, so I turned it into type. This was eye opening when I really honest with myself.

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NAME leaves his wife NAME (44) and two children NAME (19) and NAME (17)

NAME enjoyed movies and swimming at the beach. He dropped out of high school at 19 to work full time at UPS, where is spent 10 years before being fired for inflating numbers on a report to meet unrealistic production expectations. After stints at COMPANY and COMPANY NAME ended up at COMPANY for the last 16 years. In that time he created thousands of Excel spreadsheets, Powerpoint decks and SOPs to support the business and INCREASE SHAREHOLDER VALUE.
Over his time at the company he was compensated an average of $120,000 a year. For perspective, in 2015 alone he spent 32 weeks on the road and made the company $13.8 million dollars by establishing the entire Canadian expansion network. He did the jobs nobody wanted and fixed problems for people who sucked at their jobs. The company called him a “utility player” and bounced him from roll to roll to FIT THE NEEDS OF THE COMPANY. He was almost let go in 2023, but was able to keep his job by learning project management skills. He took over the department with no promotion or additional compensation and made it successful. NAME passed waiting to see if AI was going to replace him and his department as part of the COMPANY INITIATIVE to REDUCE HUMAN CAPITAL and increase ROIC, profit margins and free cash for the company’s private equity ownership group.

Outside of work he and WIFE had been married for 21 years, relocating from the east coast to the west coast in 2015. The family enjoyed trips to Hawaii, California, baseball games and local spots. Having WIFE and the boys made his life worth living.

Knowing it wasn’t long for him, NAME said prior to passing that he would have liked to see more of the world, spend extended time out of the country and not focus on making other people money. He would have liked to focus on writing books, screenplays and short stories. He wanted to be more creative in general, a trait his job actively discouraged. He said the day to day took his energy and left him in survival mode most of the time.

Overall NAME liked his life, and loved his family, but like most full time corporate middle managers, he wished he had more time and energy to put into things he actually cared about.

I’m turning 50 in January, I’ve been a King fan all my life, but I’ve never read all of his books, and I’ve certainly never read them in order. I started at 13 with The Stand, then IT, and then I’m not sure the order. I never did read Carrie or Cujo because I had seen the movies so many times.

So now, I’ve started at the beginning, and I’m going to go book by book until I’m done. I’ve finished Carrie for the first time and I’m on to Salem’s Lot. I’ll keep this thread updated as I go with thoughts. Has anyone else here done an in order re-read? If so, how did it go?

Carrie
The first arc sodium lights. The core story was shorter than I expected, but I found the papers and news clippings interesting. I liked it better than the movie, though the movie is a classic.