It’s one of those events in life that we know approaches, but never quite hits us until “‘the big day.” At least, that’s what I thought until (to my surprise), one month before I was scheduled to pass over the cusp and enter that graceful decline, our obnoxiously youthful postman delivered my membership card and application to join AARP!

It’s now official. I’m all grown up! And not just another “adult,” but a part of that dubiously distinguished organization known as the American Association of Retired Persons.

What I’m mostly struggling with is the word “retired.” It’s something I could never imagine being - so how could I possibly join a group about which retirement is a de facto component? Sure, my (much), older cousin tells me that the magazine is wonderful. Great, just what I need, yet another glossy magazine to not get around to reading every month. And sure, they claim to have wonderful savings on travel services - and that’s one thing I spend a lot of time doing - traveling. But could they really be much better than the deals I get on-line with Expedia and Priceline? They also claim to provide health-related benefits. It should be interesting to see if these compare to the magnificent savings I receive through our PEO organization!

After I received the traumatic mailing, I called my sister who’s been a proud member for 3 years and asked her what she thought? She told me that I should “celebrate,” being a member of AARP and share this with everyone. So, thanks to Bonnie, I’m going to take her suggestion and say here that anyone who is a member of AARP and would like a 10% discount (in addition to any other discount we offer), on purchases of ArchiOffice software - please call our sales department and tell them you read my blog and would like the special AARP discount. Since my 50th birthday is actually March 3rd (no condolences please), this offer will expire on March 31st, 2008.

My apologies for having any sort of commercial flavor on the blog site - but any complaints should be directed to my sister Bonnie who suggested this celebration. And while I’m now a proud member of AARP, I have no intentions of retiring. Instead, I’ll just pretend the “R” stands for Responsible.

I was so pleased that Michael Tardif, a Contributing Editor for AIAchitect and author of the book Financial Management for the Design Professional, offered to write an article about ArchiOffice. Not only did he interview me for an hour, but he talked with a number of firms using ArchiOffice to learn about their experiences.  The result is a flattering article titled Tools for Practice published on November 16. 2007. (click here to download the article in printable format)

It seems that a lot of people read the  online magazine because we had a record number of visits to our website the following day!

If you read the article carefully, you’ll learn that we’re hard at work on some major changes and improvements to ArchiOffice. I can’t wait until May 15, 2008 when we’ll be able to share these fabulous new tools with you at the AIA National Convention in Boston.