What’s It Like to Be 110?
Unless you were paying close attention, you might have missed this recent story: “LONDON (AP) – Florence Green never saw the front line. Her war was spent serving food, not dodging bullets” reads a recent story in USA Today (click here to see the original story). “But Green, who has died aged 110, was the last known surviving veteran of World War I. She was serving with the Women’s Royal Air Force as a waitress at an air base in eastern England when the guns fell silent on Nov. 11, 1918″ Wow. The last surviving veteran of World War 1. Think about that for a minute. The Great War, the war to end all wars. Think what it must have been like to have lived 110 years, to have been born right before the Wright Brothers made their...
Starting Over Sucks
What do you do when you reach the point at your life when you should be getting ready to retire to a life of leisure and you find that you’re probably not going to be able to? What if you’ve got every penny of your life’s savings in a small business that probably isn’t going to survive the next couple of months? Or maybe you invested your entire savings in some sort of Real Estate partnership that went “underwater” when the Economy tanked? What the hell are you supposed to do now? Start over. Yeah, I know it sucks. Big time. Read my post titled “But What Are You Gonna Do?” and then ask yourself, “What am I gonna do?” There’s only one answer: you pick up the pieces and start...
Hitting the Big 6 – 0
Today, Dec 20th, is my 60th birthday. Wow. Sixty years old. The big 6 – 0. I feel exactly like the character Anthony Hopkins played in the movie “Meet Joe Black” when he says, “Where did it all go?” When I talk about “getting old” with my mom or my aunts, there’s one comment that almost always comes up. One of them inevitably says, “But inside I don’t feel old. It’s just my body that’s gotten old.” Exactly right! Like the picture to the right says, I’m not 60, I’m 18 with 42 years of experience! Still, hitting a benchmark like 60 is cause for reflection. Exactly where did it all go? What have I done with all those years….and more importantly, were...
Hitting Your Physical Limits
About two weeks ago, I was in my martial arts class paired up with a teenager roughly 1/4 my age. We were practicing various self defense techniques against a variety of wrist grabs. Being a 3rd degree Black Belt, I had no problems performing the techniques. I’ve been doing them so long that they’re almost second nature. But then it was his turn. “Go slow,” I said as he struggled to get his hands in the right position. However, when the Instructor yelled, “Begin,” he didn’t go slow at all. He increased the torque on my wrist from 0 to 110% faster than I could tap out and before I knew it, I was on the ground hollering and holding my newly-sprained wrist as the searing pain subsided. “What...
Ever Have One of Those Days?
Today was one of “those” days. Although the weather outside was beautiful, inside was a different story. Everything that could have gone wrong, did – more than once. I’ve got several blogs that I try to keep updated as often as I can. However, I often find that technology isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Wasn’t technology supposed to make our lives simpler? I ended up getting caught in the “upgrade” doom loop. WordPress, the “Microsoft” of blogging platforms, issued a software upgrade. That outdated some of the plug-ins that are used to perform various tasks so they either stopped working or they started doing some crazy stuff. Since each one of my blogs uses around 20 plug-ins, finding out which...
But What Are You Gonna Do?
I was with my grandson at a department store last Sunday afternoon. We weren’t really shopping for anything, just spending time together and looking around at all the bright shiny (and expensive) stuff on display. We were telling each other jokes and kidding around as we walked around just having a good time. Since it was Sunday afternoon, he started thinking about school the next day. What he said next was so full of wisdom, yet so hilarious, that it made me burst out laughing – right before I totally agreed with him. He was having such a good time that he didn’t want it to end. But yet he knew it eventually would. He said, “I don’t want to go to school tomorrow. I wish I could stay here longer.” Then he let out a...
About Me
Join me as I try to cope with the effects of age and become "better, not older."