A meme that's going around

[bunrab]

How many times has someone on your friends list posted about something and you were really confused, but you didn't want to ask because you knew you should know? How many times have you felt guilty asking an LJ friend a question that should be obvious?

Well, here's your chance.

If you've missed a few things, missed an entry and are confused, ask me anything. Even something extremely basic, like where I live! I'm not allowed to get even slightly irritated at any of the questions - we've all missed things before.

(Some of my answers may be emailed to you rather than posted here - I'm willing to share with my friends, but not necessarily with the world at large and its brother.)

Comments

[the-gwenzilliad.livejournal.com]

It took quite a lot of reading before I realised that you're older than I am (I think). You also mention being retired. What position are you retired from, and when did you retire? :)

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

I'm 52. I'm retired from several things; the one that pays me a pension is the Texas Department of Insurance. What I did for them (prepare to fall asleep before you finish reading this sentence) was financial analysis and solvency monitoring of property-casualty insurance companies.

I also taught beginning computer courses at St. Edwards University part time, as adjunct faculty, for 6 years - teaching HTML and logic to Theatre Arts and Kinesiology majors, teaching Microsoft Excel including advanced functions most of the world doesn't know it has, to the business/accounting/marketing majors. I loved teaching, but I never quite managed to finish getting a Ph.D. so I could teach full time, and once I got diagnosed with heart failure, I wasn't going to be able to work full time anyway - that's when I retired from TDI. (For four years, I was working for both TDI and St. Ed's, and loving it, but getting more and more exhausted. Then for the next two years, I just taught 9 hours at St. Ed's, little enough that I still qualified for disability.)

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I should mention that the main qualifications for the financial analyst job were a CPA license and an MBA degree. It was a job that required a lot of math and accounting knowledge; use of statistical techniques, ability to spot trends in columns of numbers, and also the ability to write reports about what I saw in financial statements, that could be understood by people who did NOT know as much about accounting, statistics, or insurance law as I did. I was very, very good at it. I served as an expert witness in court in several cases involving shutting down crooked and/or flat-broke insurance companies. I happen to also have the personality to deal calmly with aggressive defense counsel. And court reporters love me; I've got a strange but VERY clear speaking voice, and no one ever has to ask me to repeat what I said. Aren't I modest? My most technical specialty was medical malpractice insurance companies; monitoring their long-term reserves for claims that might occur 20 years after a doctor did something, which happens in medicine, is an arcane art.