Thud!

I have been writing on Blogger since 2003, and it has always mystified me that Blogger/Google has provided storage space free to any moron who can figure out how to post text.  The service does not require the author to make the blog public or to include advertising.  So why do they do it?

For years,  I've been wondering when the next shoe would drop.  Yesterday, I got a message that Blogger "no longer supports [my] browser," which happens to be Microsoft's Internet Explorer.  Hmm.

Somewhere, I heard the thud of a size 12 brogan hitting the floor.

The message suggested that I start using the Google (Blogger's parent) Chrome browser.  And sure enough, I had problems accessing the editing features for blogger posts until I caved-in and downloaded Chrome.

I fear we will be seeing more of this sort of extortion in the future, as the competition between Google and Microsoft becomes more intense and forces users to "choose a side."  This competition may keep the act of blogging to remain free for a while longer, but eventually someone has to pay....

I recall the early years, when Cable providers assured the public that "Pay TV" would be commercial free.  How's that working-out?  Most  cable and "free" TV today is unwatchable - unless you have a DVR and can skip through the commercial breaks.    Even "commercial-free" PBS is loaded with sponsored blurbs - which thankfully are run between shows and not in the middle of them.

I find it unsettling that most futuristic visions from Hollywood and in print literature portray a tomorrow that is either post-apocalyptic ( e.g., "The Road",  "Book of Eli")  or a society dominated by commercial advertising ( e.g. "Idiocracy", "I Robot").    

Don't forget to click on the ad that appears just below this post.  I make money when people click on my ads.
Daddy always said: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em!

No Excuses

Now, faithful fans, you all know that I am not one of those whiner bloggers who make excuses for not writing more often.  I have no excuses. I prefer to spin my excuses as "priorities". Sometimes it happens that there are so many more interesting things to do than logging on the computer and imparting sage thoughts and observations to a largely anonymous audience, for free.



Well, the other day one of the neighborhood mothers accosts me as I am innocently returning from my daily 5 mile walk. She is standing, gabbing with the other doting moms who are waiting for the 3 O'clock school bus to disgorged their pampered kids who can't be trusted to to walk home without getting into trouble.  She practically grabs me by the shirt and demands to know why I don't update the Blog more often.  

I wonder if this so called working mom really understands what being "busy" means.

Heck, she has probably has  nothing to do all day while the kids are in school.  How hard is it to do the laundry and clean house when you have HD TV's in every room?   And, when the kids come home from school you can get them to do all the work you couldn't finish because you were on the sofa watching The View and Dr Oz. 

Whereas, on the other hand,  I have a day of challenges.  On a typical day, I am rousted out of bed shortly after 9am.  I go downstairs, have my breakfast and coffee, read two papers and by then it is 11am.  If I have lunch scheduled, I need to get ready - often this involves a search for relatively unwrinkled clothes and possibly a shower.  If there is no lunch scheduled  then I go through all the take-out menus to see what I feel like and then send out for lunch.  After lunch, I generally spend some time working around the yard  or calling friends and chatting or shopping for dinner.  Perhaps I will have time for an afternoon walk or a nap.  I also cook on the days when my wife is working.  

On the days when the cleaners come, I have to straighten up everything. This includes:

•  Putting old magazines and newspapers away. 
•  Discarding all the junk mail that has been collecting for the past two weeks on the kitchen counter,  
•  Picking up scattered socks and other clothing items that have been tossed on the closet floor and putting them in the laundry hamper.
• Taking empty beer bottles out to the garage.
• Putting music CD's back in their cases and in storage.
• etc.

  I usually go over to the nearest Irish pub when the cleaners arrive - to give them room to work.
 When I get back home, the place looks great, but I am more in the mood for a nap than blogging.


So, you see I have lots of priorities that trump blogging, so get off my case.  OK?

Soft Landings

In today's Boston Globe there was a nicely done essay by Susan Trausch.  You can read it if you click here.  She took a buyout from the Globe five years ago at age 59.  After 32 years at the same company, her transition from work to retirement was "complicated."    She has written a book* about her personal period of adjustment, (which I plan to read if I ever have any free time.)

The op-ed piece titled "Retirement's Soft Landings" offers a bit of tongue-in-cheek advice to celebrities who have publicly announced their imminent retirement (Oprah, Joe Torre, Richard Daly).

Trausch nails it when she talks about the  bitter-sweet transition after waving goodbye to your career and workmates,

" Oh the tyranny of time managed poorly. The tyranny of time at work was so different, mainly because time was in charge and knew what it was doing. There were bosses, assignments, schedules, deadlines, and a gross domestic product to consider. At home there is complete freedom and an easily distracted human being can spend days drifting from leaky garden hose to unread New Yorkers to hunting for the grocery list that must have blown off the counter to e-mail to the daily crossword puzzle that is supposed to keep the mind focused"

As faithful readers of this blog well know, your humble scribe has been wrestling with retirement issues since he escaped from the hellhole several years ago.  As one who has never been bored, I found retirement to be exceedingly liberating.  Suddenly, no one is telling you what to do, where to be, what time to show-up, and how to get there.  You think: This is how life should be!  

I changed the name of the blog from "Hellhole Update" to "Escape from the Hellhole" to celebrate the new found feeling of having emerged from a cage.  I was happy, delighted and at peace.  Now I was free to do anything I wanted to do.  Fishing, traveling, reading, meeting friends for lunch, catching up on the lengthy to-do list... And I did enjoy doing those things.

But having all that freedom is not without it's drawbacks.  When people ask me, "How do you like retirement?" my answer is: "Overall I am delighted to be at leisure.  However, every few months, I get this vague feeling that I am missing something, that I am not doing anything important.  I start to worry (again) that the missus and me will outlive our nest egg." 
I have probably bored my loyal readers with the recurrent observation that most normal adults  do not experience unqualified happiness for very long (and this is well explained by Maslow's theory, The Hierarchy of Needs).     Our brains are creative goal-seeking mechanisms, so we cannot be satisfied with the status quo, because new goals keep forming as long as the brain is functioning.  (Hmmn, maybe this last condition explains why some people are deliriously happy in retirement. )

Fortunately, this "uncertain phase" does not last for very long**.  I usually respond to the vague noodgy feelings of insignificance by looking at part time job ads for high paying opportunities within walking distance of home.  There are virtually no part time jobs, unless you want to become a replaceable part, working for an indecent hourly wage, on the worst shift.  So, I usually get over this phase pretty quickly.  Then, I make some lunch plans or go fishing. 
And, for a time,  all is right with the world.

---------------------------------------------

*Trausch's newly published book: "Groping Toward Whatever Or How I Learned To Retire, Sort Of.’’

** My wife attributes this "uncertainty" to mild seasonal depression. She was an English major in college but feels that she is  fully qualified to diagnose my mental state.

No Country Redux

You probably think that you are one of the two or three people who read this blog. But I have news for you bucko: there are at least four people who read it, not counting me.

I know this because I have received anecdotal evidence from one of the "regulars" that he was talking with a female friend who read my "No Country for Old Men " post of last week.

She thinks I should stick to writing about work issues and leave politics to the pundati. As I understand it, she is a supporter of John McCain's creaking campaign, and she wishes that I would just STFU about how old McCain is.

It makes me happy to imagine that someone would read my musings and actually be annoyed because they are worried that my pearls of wisdom and insight might actually change someones mind - or vote.

Someone should tell her that this wisdom is lost to most surfers, so she needen't become distressed that wandering bubbas might find truth via the Google search engine. I think Google tends to "find" Internet postings that have a lot of commercial appeal. This is a problem for me, since, like John McCain, I do not believe in pandering to special interests. I do not "sell" ad space to gain revenue. I know what you are thinking: No one would advertise on a site that only gets four clicks a week. Maybe so.

Exploring the Internets can be harrowing. We writers frequently attempt to back-up our opinions with actual facts. In the old days, I suppose writers actually went to the library and looked stuff up. Hah, what a waste of time! Nowadays, professional opinionators need go no further than their handy desk top search engine. All Truth is out there on the Internets. If there isn't a Wikipedia entry on something, it probably isn't worth knowing - or believing.

The other day, I tried to see if Google would find one of the blogs that I posted with "tags" I searched "McCain, No Country for Old Men" and when I did not find my blog in the top 200 listings, I lost interest. Instead, I found this obvious ripoff of my previous entry which, remember, was dated two days earlier:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-scheer/no-country-for-old-men_b_99342.html

I would consider a plagiarism lawsuit against this Robert-sheer fellow, but that would involve talking to a lawyer. My daddy always said " Boy, don't never have no truck wit no lawyers. You gots to make you own justice." Well, sometimes justice is trumped by a desire to keep things simple. Besides, as my mother used to say, imitation is the highest form of compliment.

I know what you are thinking: The Sheer piece is so much better, well written and researched. Well, I think my mother would have said mine was better. Nah nah.

Speaking of Mothers, my wife tricked me into making breakfast this morning, suggesting that it was Mothers day. Hey, since I became an orphan, I don't pay any attention to the Hallmark Holidays. By the time I realized that it (Mothers Day) was actually next Sunday, my wily coyote bride of 40 years had already consumed the Land O Lakes Omega3 eggs, Banquet brown-and-serve sausages and buttered Arnold Oat Bran toast, and was sitting like a princess on the Sun-Shield screen porch quaffing her Starbucks Verona with that Mona Lisa smile on her face. (Maybe that will get me some Google hits).

editorial note: After pithy commentary on grammer and pronoun agreement by yet another faithful reader/commenter, I have re-written the earlier version. The comments have been removed to avoid confusion.