I accumulate EPD for its distribution. I haven't recently looked at my posting that listed my holdings (in a general sense) and investment strategy, so I can't remember if I mentioned EPD at the time, but I'm sure I did. I won't link that commentary and won't direct folks to it. It should be relatively easy to find, but I don't want folks to think I'm pumping my holdings.
During my "working years" (which, by the way, never felt like work), I had discretionary income with which to invest. In retirement, I don't have discretionary income, and I tweaked my investment strategy to include high-distribution and high-dividend payers for cash for reinvestment elsewhere.
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The rest of this posting is purely reminiscing. Skip it unless you want to read a bit about my background.
Speaking of my "working years." I was in the Air Force for thirty years (you can see that at my profile, I think; I haven't checked my profile in months, but the photo shows me in uniform). During those thirty years it never felt like work. I missed three days of work in those 30 years due to illness -- due to the nature of the illness, absolute bed rest was mandated. It was in my fourth year with the Air Force. Never missed a day of work after that.
One day, I had a fever to 102 degrees or something like that, and felt quite ill with the "flu." I was walking into work (we were deployed at the time) to let my boss know I probably wasn't going to be too useful that day. We had no phones, so I couldn't "call in sick." It was a mile or so from billeting to the flight line and most of us had no cars. On the way in, the base commander picked me up and offered me an opportunity to fly backseat in a high performance jet, an opportunity I could not pass up, and so I ended up not "calling in sick." He never knew how ill I was. (The "flu" turned out to be a mild pneumonia.)
[Funny things about coincidences. I posted this about 12:00 noon on Friday, January 14, 2011. A couple hours later I was surfing the net and ran across a headline story in Wired.com on the F-15, the plane I flew in that day referenced in the preceding paragraph. Funny how things happen.]
As a rule I went in to work seven days a week except when I was on leave (I never took my full allotment of leave [vacation] days -- in fact, many [most?] military folks don't use all their leave in any given year, particularly when deployed).
Early on in my career, I was responsible to my unit 24 hours/day every other day (alternating with 12 hour days), and then starting about 15 years before retirement, responsible to my unit 24 hours/7 days a week (except when on leave). And yet it never felt like work. The mission was exciting, the travel was phenomenal, the feeling of camaraderie is impossible to share or articulate.
The worse years of my Air Force career were the last seven years in which I had a Monday-Friday, "9-to-5" job with minimal responsibilities after hours.
My experience was not unusual. I think the vast majority of folks in the military never think of it as a job or work. Most look forward to going into "work." At least that was my experience. Probably rose-colored glasses. Now I wear oily-colored glasses. Smile.
Just reminiscing.
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