What I did after Visiting Billy

So with Billy ill in the hospital, i ended up going to Austin Beutner's home and visiting with him. Austin is one of if not the smartest people I have had the pleasure of knowing. Google him if you want to know more abut him, he is a fascinating human being to know and call a friend. I went to his house and spent a couple of hours catching up with him. He is currently running the LA Unified school district and is doing the best job anyone can do with such a challenging post. He is the last publisher enjoyed working with at the LA Times. Here is a funny story. In April of 2015 I had it with work. We had just completed another layoff and this time i didn't feel any empathy for the employees impacted. That meant to me I was done, i no longer had what it took to work. So I spoke with my wife, talked to my investment guy and decided to retire at 55. So, went into a 1 on 1 meeting with Austin and in this meeting told him I was retiring in the next six weeks. His reply was interesting and confusing to me He said "How can your retire if your living in San Diego?" I said, I am not, I will be living in Wisconsin. He said "but you have to live in San Diego." I said why? He replied "If your the publisher you must live in the market". Well, that ended my thoughts of retirement. For a guy like me, this was an impossible dream come true. I had a lot of ideas after working in the industry for 40 year but never thought i would get a chance to use them. So more on my time in San Diego later, but I didn't retire in April 2015 like I thought I would. Thanks to Austin for seeing potential where others had not.