Author: RJ Walters

I am an Independent thinking, highly functional person who is deaf and has some unique views and challenges in life. Like all of us, I am a person who is composed of all my life experiences and that is what I write about here.
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Quotes — The Wisdom of Lincoln…

RJ Walters

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…

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Medicare Here I Come … (Part 2)

RJ Walters

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)

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Medicare Here I Come…. (Part 1)

RJ Walters

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)

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Getting Beyond Ourselves….

RJ Walters

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….

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The Road Ahead….

RJ Walters

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….

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Where Are You When We Need You??

RJ Walters

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??

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I Just Don't Belong….

RJ Walters

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….

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Do Retirement Savings the Old Fashioned Way…

RJ Walters

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…

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Many U.S. schools adding iPads, trimming textbooks

RJ Walters

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

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Knowledge Is a Good Thing, But….

RJ Walters

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….

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A Slice of Life….

RJ Walters

I have been in an artsy mood lately so have been playing with my photo portfolio. I have decided to make the header picture here into what I call “A Slice of Life”.  This will be where I select a picture from my portfolio and take a narrow slice out of it. In some cases the picture will make sense; in others it will be hard to tell what the origin of the slice really means. In some cases I will tell you what the picture are about and sometime I will just let you guess. :) If you don’t … Continue reading A Slice of Life….

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A Tribute To….

RJ Walters

This post is a tribute to all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 and everyday since then: To the 3,000 who lost their lives because of the terrorist attacks. To the 100,000 Coalition Soldiers killed and wounded in Iraq. To the 13,000 Coalition Soldiers killed and wounded in Afghanistan. To the 400,000 Iraqi Citizens who have been killed or wounded. To the 410,000 U.S. citizens who have lost their lives to drunk drivers since the attacks. To the 11,000,000 who have died as a result of starvation and lack of good drinking water since the attacks. I mourn each and every … Continue reading A Tribute To….

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Looking Back On My Favorite Personal Posts….

RJ Walters

Occasionally I look back over some of my previous posts and discover that they defined a milestone in my life. I wanted to bring this one forward again as one of those moments. This was the point in my life where I discovered I really am a “senior”. Somewhat disturbing at the time but an accepted norm today. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> January 2, 2010 By RJ  As you know I have been spending much of this holiday season scanning in photo albums from the past. It has been quite a journey so far and I have not yet gotten into all the wedding photos yet  . This has … Continue reading Looking Back On My Favorite Personal Posts….

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Be the change you want to see in the world. [Gandhi]

RJ Walters

  Be the change you want to see in the world.  — Gandhi These words from Gandhi have great meaning to me. They are a big part of who I am. As evidenced by  the vitriolic atmosphere in the world today we have so many tools that allow us to complain, I would even call it ranting, about anything we disagree with. Just look at the bottom of any on-line news article and you will see very concrete evidence of this fact.  It is just so easy today to let the world know what we are against. But in my mind … Continue reading Be the change you want to see in the world. [Gandhi]

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Taking Naps….

RJ Walters

  I enjoy waking up and not having to go to work.  So I do it three or four times a day.  ~Gene Perret I don’t know anything about the author of this quote but the message strikes home with me :)  One of the first things I did when I retired was to take off my wrist watch and shut off the alarm clock. I had spent so much of my life to a slave of the clock I couldn’t get away from it fast enough. As it turns out I have never put the wrist watch back on … Continue reading Taking Naps….

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All I Know – A Destructive Race…

RJ Walters

I recently finished watching the re-make of the old film The Day The Earth Stood Still. That is a story about how an advanced race of aliens came to save the earth. The way they were going to save it was by eliminating the inhabitants who were destroying it. That being us!  One of the statements made by the other world visitors was that we who inhabit the earth are a destructive race! He said we readily kill each other and are destroying the earth in the process.  The logic for starting over was that there are only a very limited number … Continue reading All I Know – A Destructive Race…

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Stopping wars….

RJ Walters

I have a scheme for stopping war. It’s this – no nation is allowed to enter a war till they have paid for the last one. Will Rogers This goes in line with a previous post about paying for wars. We seem to always be ready to point out other countries problems to them and part of our solution is to teach them how to do it right. Bullets seem to be our most frequent teaching aid. It is widely acknowledged that we have spent over $1 trillion on our latest wars.  The way Mr. Bush funded them was to … Continue reading Stopping wars….