Month: August 2010

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Around the Homestead…

RJ Walters

Let’s use this post to show some pictures of my current homestead. Since we live in the country we have a variety of critters who visit us regularly. We also have plenty of room for flowers (although weeding them is another story).  We don’t get out in the gardens much this time of year as it is just so darn hot out there! I wish we could move our homestead to Maine in the summer. That reminds me I need to show some of my Maine pictures too :) . Continue reading Around the Homestead…

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Retirement Investment Advisers…

RJ Walters

  I think most investment advisers are actually in the “anti”  retirement business as they scare us out of it by insisting that the you need as much income in retirement as you did before! They actually seem to be discouraging us from thinking about actually retiring!  But then again they make their living taking a “small” percentage of your money in the process of  fixing your mistakes and getting you ready for your retirement years! I guess that needing as much money after retirement as before might be true to some who have maxed out a bunch of credit cards, failed … Continue reading Retirement Investment Advisers…

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Books on Retirement Living….

RJ Walters

Yeah, I’m probably pretty typical of a retiree in that I have read several books on what to do in my retirement years. To be quite frank none of them have been terribly useful to me! But that does not mean they were not worth reading. They did incite me to think about various things. Most retirement books are pretty generic: Get a hobby, enjoy the simple things, adjust your spending…. But there are tidbits of useful information out there. Just don’t expect a paradigm shift as a result of reading a retirement book. One of the things that retirement … Continue reading Books on Retirement Living….

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Wild Turkey!!

RJ Walters

No this post is not about hunting or eating but about drinking!  We visited Wild Turkey distillery during our stay in Louisville in April 2010. The large buildings, there are scores of them in the area,  in one of the pictures is where they age the bourbon. The present factility is very old but they are about to move to a new one.  I’m not sure that is a good thing? I’m not a big bourbon drinker but I do enjoy an occasional Manhattan. :) Continue reading Wild Turkey!!

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Laverne & Shirley???

RJ Walters

  My wife Yvonne was born in a small town in northern Wisconsin in the 1940s. When she graduated from high school she decided it was time to move to the big city. Milwaukee that is. After spending some time housed at the local Y she ended up sharing an apartment with a girl friend from the same small town. From the stories she tells they had quite an adventure together and some of those adventures included some big city boys. Anyone over fifty or so should be now saying that sounds like the old TV show called  Laverne & Shirley? … Continue reading Laverne & Shirley???

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Starry Starry Night…

RJ Walters

When I was young I guess I was sometimes a pretty serious guy as I often thought about what the future would be like. I enjoyed sitting out in the dark of night looking at the stars and thinking about what my life would be like “x” years in the future. I would lie down on my back in the grass and look at the stars for hours at a time. One time I thought I was meant to be an astronomer but I learned that looking at stars and really knowing them are two different things. One requires just … Continue reading Starry Starry Night…

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Small town life for me….

RJ Walters

As mentioned in the last post I live just outside a small (population 1200) town in the Midwest. I enjoy the small town life immeasurably more than the big city stuff. Yes, I have spent a considerable amount of time in both. I am not one to insist that I be able to walk to a dozen museums or see a different Broadway play each week. To those kind of people where I live would be called a “cornfield with lights”. My Dad moved us from the big city to a small rural area when I was in the eighth … Continue reading Small town life for me….

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The Redwood Forests…

RJ Walters

I have always been a big fan of the songwriter Woody Guthry and especially his song “This land is your land”. Of course one of the places he mentioned in the song was the redwood forests. These pictures where taken in June 2009. We took a mile and a half hike through the Lady Bird Johnson Grove of redwoods in northern California. These pictures can’t really convey just how awesome they really are! Continue reading The Redwood Forests…

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I Believe…

RJ Walters

With this post I am going to start a new Sunday thing related to what I believe in regards to spiritual matters. I spent the last sixty years trying to understand just who God is and why he put me on this earth.  I have also spent the last four years diligently studying about one hundred books on theology and of other faiths beliefs. At this point in my life my beliefs and understanding of God are finally somewhat solidified. In these posts I will only tell you what I believe. I am in no way trying to persuade you one … Continue reading I Believe…