Let’s close out the month with a quote by one of my heroes, Woodrow Wilson. If you want to make enemies, try to change something. Woodrow Wilson Change, even though it is coming at such a fast pace in the twenty-first century makes just as many enemies today as it did one hundred years ago when Wilson made this comment. Continue reading Closing Out the Month with Woodrow….
Source: Leaders of deficit panel say public’s confidence at stake – USATODAY.com. Since this is an optimistic post and I am short of optimism lately it will be a short one. In these times of total political gridlock it is nice to see at least some conciliatory words from the members of the “super committee”. These are the members of congress who have been assigned to come up with a plan for deficit reduction by sometime in November. Maybe, just maybe some in Washington are beginning to “get it”. With less than one in five citizens thinking they are doing a good job they certainly need to get … Continue reading "Plays Well With Others"….. maybe??
In honor of my fellow blogger, Bob Lowry over at Satisfying Retirement, who is visiting the island this week I wanted to bring up a picture of my bride taken on our honeymoon there in 1986. We haven’t been back since but I expect that Bob will see a much different island than we did. Have a good time buddy…. Continue reading Maui Hawaii – 1986
Source: Post office turns to small-town mini-mart for savings – USATODAY.com. There is an old saying “What goes around comes around” and that seems to apply to the much beleaguered Post Office. According to the above article they are starting to move small town post offices out of their specialized government owned building and back into local retail establishments. I am old enough to remember that when I lived in a rural community while I was growing up the post office was in the general store/grocery. According to the article above they are planning to close around 3,700 offices and move them elsewhere. If they had … Continue reading What goes around…(The Post Office)
This is probably one of the most famous barns in America. Continue reading Hancock Shaker Village – 1998
The average consumer carries over $16,000 in credit card debt. And there is usually a mortgage and probably a car loan in the pile too. They say the total personal debt of U.S. consumers is over $11 trillion. Unfortunately many of those are middle aged and moving into their retirement years. With all this debt they are obviously not putting away much for their later life. It is quite startling how much debt many seniors today carry into their retirement! Four out of ten carry a mortgage with them into their golden years. Almost five out of ten carry a … Continue reading Living Debt Free….
Going back a way in my portfolio to pull out this picture of the Duck Pond in Central Park NYC. It was taken during our last visit there before moving back to Indiana in 2000. Continue reading Central Park NYC – Duck Pond 1999
This picture is obviously a digitized one of a picture I took almost forty years ago. This was a newly erected office park on the north side of the city. Continue reading Indianapolis – Pyramids 1973
Discourage litigation. Persuade your neighbors to compromise whenever you can. As a peacemaker the lawyer has superior opportunity of being a good man. There will still be business enough. Abraham Lincoln The advice in this quote is needed more today than it was even in Lincoln’s time. Most of the people in Congress are, as Lincoln himself was, lawyers by trade. A few posts ago I lamented about how we need a true leader during these trying times. Lincoln was definitely a leader during even more trying times than we find ourselves in now. If only the members of … Continue reading Quotes — The Wisdom of Lincoln…
This is the second of two posts about my experiences with recently joining the Medicare System. The first post gave you the types of plans that are offered to those who turn 65. There are a number of decisions that have to be made during this enrollment process. I have to warn you up front that this is really pretty boring stuff. I put it off as long as I could and if you are not that close to Medicare I would probably advise you to just skip this post ;) The first decision I had to make was to … Continue reading Medicare Here I Come … (Part 2)
I will soon move onto the Medicare roles. It has been quite a journey to get here so that is what this and the following post will be about. I hope the post might help some of you out there who will be going through the same thing in the coming months or years. I want to make it very clear that I am not by any means an expert in this area so what you will be getting is an ordinary guy’s view of these plans. In this post I will try to explain the options. The next post … Continue reading Medicare Here I Come…. (Part 1)
Here is another picture of Pleasant Hill Shaker Village near Lexington KY. The fall colors are absolutely beautiful there. Continue reading Pleasant Hill Village – Lexington KY October 2005
O God, be Thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth’s treasures shall seem dear unto me if only Thou art glorified in my life. Be Thou exalted over my friendships. I am determined that Thou shalt be above all, though I must stand deserted and alone in the midst of the earth. Be Thou exalted above my comforts. Though it mean the loss of bodily comforts and the carrying of heavy crosses I shall keep my vow made this day before Thee. Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me ambitious to please Thee even if as a result … Continue reading Getting Beyond Ourselves….
This picture has meaning beyond its reality. I have been pondering the road ahead probably too much lately. In today’s environment that can indeed be very depressing. When I came across this picture of the beautiful sky at the end of the road it made me think of a possible silver lining in the days ahead. If all of us would just stop and think beyond ourselves to our creator maybe we could put aside some of our bitterness and political divide and come together for the common good of our nation, our world, and the human race. I can only … Continue reading The Road Ahead….
This is one of my favorite places to visit and it is only a four hour drive. I haven’t been there lately so I will have to visit again soon. Continue reading Pleasant Hill Shaker Village – April 2003
This picture kind of fits my mood lately. A little weary; a little aged. Continue reading These Old Barns – Wisconsin – 2010
None of them from any party are going to purposely ruin the country. They will all do the best they can. -July 8, 1928 Will Rogers If I had run across this quote ten or maybe even five years ago I would have undoubtedly agreed that it applies to our times. But given what has occurred since then I am just not so sure anymore. There just seems to be so much mistrust, I might even call it hate in some circles, that I am just not sure now. It seems that one party is more willing to see the country fail rather … Continue reading Where Are You When We Need You??
I started out my adult life as a Republican who voted for Richard Nixon in 1972 but after Reagan became president in 1980 I was pushed into the Democrat party by all his radical and anti-people policies. Things like “trickle down” and “cutting taxes to increase taxes” just made no sense to me and ended up being total nonsense in its practice. He was probably the original modern day deficit king. I’m not sure who I voted for in 1988; neither candidate seemed to be really qualified. It was a boring election. In 1992 I voted for Clinton and then for him … Continue reading I Just Don't Belong….
Let me start of by saying that I am by no means an investment professional but that doesn’t keep me from having an opinion. And I will also admit that looking backwards is a lot easier than looking forwards, especially in money matters. That being said there is something to saving for retirement the old fashioned way and that is to save the money while you are in your income earning years. Fortunately I retired just before the dot.com bubble burst. I had already moved much of my savings into more, some might say very, conservative areas that were somewhat unaffected by … Continue reading Do Retirement Savings the Old Fashioned Way…
Source: Many U.S. schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks – USATODAY.com. I am a techie at heart; always have been. So it did my heart good to see this article about how many schools are now moving away from hard bound books to electronic versions. It is about time we moved into the twenty first century in some of our educational processes. From the personal interactions in the past I have found that some teachers, like so many others, shy away from technology. The educational training academics just did not have much room for forward looking things. This trend is similar to the one taking … Continue reading Many U.S. schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks
I recently read a post by a fellow blogger Bill Birnbaum about being knowledgeable on the topic of music among other things. His post got me to thinking about how I seem to be less interested in maintaining or increasing my knowledge of the world around me lately. I am a person who never got out of the habit of asking “Why?” I do continue to do it even in my senior years but it seems that I am just not as driven to find the answers that I once was. Why is that? (ok, that is another “why” that I will … Continue reading Knowledge Is a Good Thing, But….
RJ's Corner - Having My Say 