I’ve been having fun with spreadsheets. Actually, it’s only one spreadsheet. I decided a while back I needed to be in better touch with my finances. So, I dusted off an over the counter program I’ve used for years and tried to do it, get in touch. It was a less than satisfactory experience. It was just way too complicated, and it was a subscription, and it was too expensive for what I wanted. It worked fine when I was running a small business, but that was then.

So, I dusted off Excel. I already use it to help me with Wordle, but that’s another story. I built my columns, populated my rows, created lookups to select categories and subcategories, and then I built pivot tables to analyze the date. It looks and feels very slick. And a big shout out to YouTube which is full of handy how-to videos. Next up I think I’m going to learn Google sheets, because it’s free for now. I can probably start by importing my latest creation and see if it works.

And this is where I am after starting my career with Lotus 1-2-3, then Symphony and finally Quattro Pro, all good spreadsheet programs for their time. Excel was late to the game because, Microsoft. But eventually, it took over because, Microsoft. It was the same with Word, but again, that’s another story. And that, my friends, is how a retired guy keeps busy and tries to keep his mind sharp, and if you’ve got time, I can tell you how I scrapped the data and got it into the spreadsheet. It’s not magic, but it’s close.