My older daughter, who has been teaching in mainland China for over ten years, is coming home next weekend for her 6-week summer vacation.
My older daughter, my wife, and I are members of the California State Teachers' Retirement System with over a million active and retired teachers. Per STRS Spring 2024 newsletter:
Of 234,479 retired members, 431 are over 100 years old of whom 357 are females and 74 males. The oldest being 108 years.
The average active member age is 45.1 years with an average annual salary of $90,481.
Of the 10,369 members who retired in 2023, the average annual final compensation was $105,672 at an average age of 62.9 years and an average 24.6 years of service.
The average retirement benefit was $61, 692 although I know of retired teachers who are getting more than twice that much. The basic retirement formula is the average of the last 3 years' income times twice the years you were teaching. STRS retirement income increases automatically 2% a year, and COLA will automatically increase benefits to stay at 85% of the initial retirement benefit.
The salaries of all active and retired public employees in California are available at
Transparent California
If I remember right, California and New York are the most expensive states to live after Hawaii.
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Happiness is walking with my pups at sunrise and sunset when the air is full of wonders. Now that the "June gloom" ocean fog is gone where I live, the daytime temperatures are getting close to 100 in the shade; but SoCal has a desert climate with low humidity, and you don't really feel the heat that much. (I still remember humid New York City in 1965 where, without air conditioning, I felt like lying in the bathtub all day long.)
Happiness is having 3 pups who give you their unconditional love and loyalty 24/7. Just one of thousand stories: this morning I walked near our supermarket. A perhaps 7-year old girl wanted to pet my pups, and I let her pet one. When I told the girl that all my pups are strays that I adopted, then the girl gave me a chewing gum. But when she came too close to my 95-pound big guy (below right) then he snapped at her (Ross has the self-appointed duty to protect me from all imagined evils.) Thereupon Otto (left bottom) attacked Ross to tell him to behave himself (and that was certainly not the first time.) Well, I could write a book about the behavior of my pups. I dearly love them all.
By 3 p.m., I bet, it will be 100 degrees outside in the shade ... Under the double carport it's 94 degrees
with 32% humidity. Because of super house insulation, the air condition probably won't kick on till late
in the afternoon, maybe by 4 or 5 pm.
The temperature peaked today at 98.4 degrees at our place. Three years ago, it topped 119.8 degrees.
Humidity in summer is usually below 20% and often below 10% The nights are cool.
, and it was stacked so high that I had to get a step ladder to get boxes down. They were pretty heavy so I just knocked them to the floor and figured I'd worry about it later
Now I need to work, work, work.
