Category: Uncategorized

A Robin in the Road on Thanksgiving Day!

I am thankful.

I am thankful for this spectacularly warm and sunny day!

I am thankful that my daughter has healed.

I am thankful that my son perseveres despite a challenging business environment – J. D. – you will overcome!

I am thankful for my partner, who through his deafness has taught me to communicate in ways I never thought possible. I am thankful to have him next to me each night. I am not thankful for his snoring!

I am thankful that my “sort-of-stepson” is now finding his way.

I am thankful for friends – new and old.

I am thankful that as I sit here typing away, my cockatiels happily flap their wings and sing “Yankee Doodle” in rhythm to the clicking keys.

I am thankful for the rambunctious, never-ending joy brought to me by my three Boston Terriers who are actually asleep at my feet as I write.

I am thankful for my dear old, reliable steed, Buzzy who takes good care of me as we amble about through country fields and woods, just the two of us.

I am thankful!

Bell Phones, Cell Phones, Lock Me Up In Jail Phones

I have this “thing” about cell phones and when I came upon this article where the author discusses her “love-hate” relationship with cell phones and her disdain for the 24/7 connection thing, I had to share it.

Unless I am going out at night, or driving in winter or other bad conditions, I often “forget” or leave my cell phone at home. I am not a “texter,” and I just don’t like talking on the phone – be it land, cell, or otherwise.  My kids can’t imagine how anyone could be without their cell phone, and even my 88 year old father gets snarky when he can’t reach me – but this is a broader tale for another day.

Anyway, I go back to the times when the phone was this black thing sans dial that you picked up, pressed down on the cradle a few times until an operator came on and asked for the number you were trying to call. If you didn’t know it, no problem, who were you trying to reach? This was all a bit intimating for a 5-year-old, and soon after, the technology evolved to the rotary dials, and then you know the rest of it.

This is how I feel about it: my life belongs to me, not to a serenading, tweeting, whistling device that is with me 24/7. (Yes, my daughter even takes hers to bed with her).  When I want to speak with someone (text them – not), I will. Otherwise, I won’t.

I guess I wonder how this permanent tethering will affect us all. I think of the movie “Wall-E” where the humans talk 24/7 on video-phones with bodies that have become so atrophied they can’t even walk, all the while missing everything and anything around them.

5 Ways to Get Control Of The Information Deluge!

Way back in 1971 a very wise man wrote:  “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else, … What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.”

The man who wrote this is Herbert Simon, in his article “ Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World.” An accomplished gent, he was known as one of the founding fathers of artificial intelligence, information processing, decision-making, attention economics, and quite a few other business and information concepts that have come to change and define the world. In fact, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 1978.

He is indeed a fascinating man, but my point here is not to discuss his life. Rather, his comment above REALLY resonates with me as I wrestle with making profound and purposeful use of this information aggregate in front of me right now – the Internet.

Yes, I was be-bopping back in those classic 60s and 70s when Simon wrote, which now makes me a Prime-Time Boomer!

I purport that people of all ages and ilk face a challenge in effectively managing the myriad information we face each day.  But might those of us who lay claim to Boom-hood  and have one foot in the world of Flower Power and the other in the Garden of Digital Overload struggle even more?  Do you sometimes feel sucked dry? Or spun into a frenzy? Or completely out of control?

Here are 5 things you can do to get a handle on information, to be in control of it, not it be in control of you!

  1. Keep the focus on yourself:  A wise phrase borrowed from self-help groups, and instrumental in keeping your priorities on what matters to you, not someone else!
  2. Reflect and ponder: Forget technology. Forget social networking. Forget email. Think about the things in life that matter to you, that interest you. Get a handle on your interests, your hobbies, your LIFE!
  3. What do you want from your interests? Simply put – what is your purpose: to research? To learn how to do something? To write? To communicate with like-minded souls?
  4. “Google-it”: Of course there are other search engines, but this is the standard term used for Internet searching. Example: You are interested in learning how to make potato pancakes. Try googling “Video potato pancakes,” to see how to make them, or “Forum potato recipes” to talk with other people who want to make them, or just plain “potato pancake recipes.” Now you’ll have exactly the type of information you want about your subject.
  5. Experiment: The important thing is you’ve identified your passions and you’re beginning to make the Internet work for you instead of against you. Try some different search terms  to see what comes up in one that may not come up in another. Set up some bookmarks for sites that you really like. Subscribe to sites to get automatic updates.

At this point you have a focus on those things that interest you! You have ammunition to get the pounding information elephant off your back and into your viewfinder. Now, you have the secret to controlling information instead of having it control you.

What’s Your Social Media Style?

What’s your social style? And I don’t mean relative to the office cocktail party or neighborhood barbecue. Nowadays, we must all be concerned with our “social media style.” Whether we like it or not, social and business engagement, discourse, networking, book clubs, support groups, and everything that involves what we’ve always known as social interaction is now occurring online.

I admit it, I am of the Boomer generation. But I was a lucky Boomer because I entered a technical field (photofinishing) and worked with the very first computers. I setup and balanced digital printers, I helped fix customer QC problems using a then revolutionary computerized photo system. I developed document on Wang word processors. Anyway, you get the gist.

So, technology came naturally and easy to me – until …

I’ve been struggling with how to become socially adept because right now, I am a social media clod. I have Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and several social bookmarking sites. But I’m all over the map and, to say the least, ineffective with it from both personal and professional standpoints. This, then, has led to frustration (lots).

Frustration tends to make people ugly and angry, and this is where I’ve been, until I started having conversations – offline – and reading – real books, but still about developing a social media style. Right now, I’m still in rags, but I am on an odyssey to develop a purposeful and productive style of my own.

Here are two things I recommend for you if you’d like to know more about this.

“9 People Who Have Influenced My Social Media Style”:

Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, by Howard Rheingold,

Perfect Pen or Holy Grail?

It all depends on the paper – how the pen works, that is. This realization comes from many years and many journeys in search of the “perfect pen.” For me, this odyssey is the search for my personal Holy Grail – that ever elusive thing that promises health, wealth and happiness (and eternal salvation)!

In truth – I have no illusions about health and wealth unless a gliding pen serves as a secondary sort of salve. Makes sense, right? Health as a side effect from the glee of finding and using that pen; wealth from the bestselling novel that follows!

In truth, my lust is about simpler stuff. I search for that perfectly balanced, correctly weighted, optimal tip and a “smooth-as-butter” ink flow that writes “first time every time!” In addition, this, the ultimate recorder of text, must magically transform my unreadable, ugly script into something  beautiful and swan-like. All of this for less than $50.

Does such an instrument exist? No. Well  …. Sort of, and here’s why my equivocation. After many sweaty treks through the hottest days of summer and slippery slogs on the snowiest days of winter, I finally arrived at the answer. And this is it: it’s not just the pen. It’s the symbiotic relationship between pen and paper that makes the magic.

For example – I recently purchased two really wonderful pens – one a Levenger, the other a Lamy – both fountain pens. I then bought a notebook at Staples to use as my journal. I then sat down for a long writing session with my new pens and my new notebook only to be thwarted with tremendous disappointment. First one, and then the other, fountain pen bled right through the paper – seeping through to the other side as well as yielding veritable ink blots  that cut a far bigger swath of spreading ink than I intended.

Back to the original question: is there such an instrument? I have my top  10 favs, but the pen du jour is a shifting sand that balances precariously on paper, type of pen, my coffee consumption, and purpose in writing. In other words, I think I might have better luck seeking the Holy Grail!

 

Willa Cather, My Antonia

My creative juices have been subjugated by grading papers, heat, family stress, heat, financial stress, and more heat this summer. However, I have read some wonderful books with prose as refreshing as the ocean breezes I am yearning for.

So instead of writing for the sake of writing (poorly), I’ve decided to share some of these refreshing breezes with you, all from a lovely little book, My Ántonia by Willa Cather.

From http://www.buffalohillsrvpark.com/local.htm

“I felt motion in the landscape; in the fresh, easy-blowing morning wind and in the earth itself, as if the shaggy grass were a sort of loose hide, and underneath it herds of wild buffalo were galloping, galloping…”

From Become a Healthier You.com

“Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.”

“In that singular light every little tree and shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk and clump of snow-on-the-mountain, drew itself up high and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes out of the fields at nightfall. I wished I could be a little boy again, and that my way could end there.”

“As I went back alone over that familiar road, I could almost believe that a boy and girl ran along beside me, as our shadows used to do, laughing and whispering to each other in the grass.”

Memories of Summer Camp

During this unbearably hot summer, I keep dreaming of my camp days, wonderful, exciting, and challenging days at a place called The Elms Camp for Girls on Keuka Lake. The camp no longer exists, I’m sad to say, but many of the buildings are still there, converted into summer homes that still whisper of songs sung after yummy meals capped with favorite desserts such as homemade puddings and pies. And of course there was the infamous “Bug Juice”: nothing quenched quite like this mysterious conglomeration of fruit-flavored liquids.

Last summer many of us gathered for a reunion and tour of our beloved camp. Magically we stepped through the boundaries of space and time to find ourselves in a dimension where we were delightfully drowned in an onslaught of memories brought to us by ghosts of summers past.

We yakked about the canoe trip down the length of the lake when we got caught in a vicious thunderstorm and had to be rescued by Mr. George, camp owner, in his classic wooden Cris-Craft. How embarrassed we were pulling into camp, all strung together in a long lineup of canoes, looking like human drips. We reminisced about the campfire circle led by Mr. Randall, our tough as nails swim team coach with a subtle gentleness that made us all feel loved. We sang, we played games, and we pondered the meaning of camp life. We laughed about our sailing exploits – coming towards the buoys with our beloved K-boats way too fast, unable to come about to tie up properly, and landing on shore to the chagrin of our counselors. We chatted about water skiing, being mortified as handsome Butch held us as we attempted to get on skis for the first time, or smashing into rough waves, having water shoot up various orifices in our bodies and needing to get to a bathroom — FAST!

The Pagoda on the Point
Finally — the pagoda! This was the enchanted place of the entire camp, the place where we went to watch sunsets and fireflies, the place we went to cry after an argument with a bunk-mate, or a reprimand from one of the counselors on whom we had a terrific crush. It sat stalwart on the very tip of the point that extended out into the lake, a landmark for sailors and boaters all along the lake shore. I was afraid it wouldn’t be there anymore. I was afraid it fell victim to storms, floods, or human hands of destruction. But it was there. I ran to it, alone, to ponder the past and celebrate the present.

So many wonderful memories I could write a book. Perhaps I shall. In the meantime, please enjoy these photos of a day gone past but kept current and alive in the minds and hearts of over 100 former campers of The Elms Camp For Girls.

<img src="http://madmuser.files.w

Canoe Trip
The K-Boats Moored
Camp Logo on Coveted Sweatshirt
All Campers

Guest Blogger John O’Connor

I feel so lucky to have been contacted by John O’Connor who has submitted this well-written and compelling article about hearing loss. Do enjoy!

Preventing Hearing Loss Through Healthy Lifestyles

Some people experience hearing loss from listening to their iPods and MP3 players. Some people know that listening to these players can make them develop hearing loss, but few of them are doing anything about it. Some teens who are advised to turn down the volume on their players, do what teens do — actually turn the volume up!

A study conducted at Colorado University and Children’s Hospital in Boston followed 30 iPod users. Unsurprisingly, they discovered that teens play their music much louder than adults. They also found that most teens were not aware of how loud their music actually was. They do not appear to understand the risk they are placing themselves in regarding potential hearing loss.

It has been shown that listening to ear buds for an hour and a half daily at 80 percent volume is likely safe for long term hearing. However, softer is better. You can, for example, listen safely at only 70 percent volume for four and a half hours daily. According to the study, the risk of hearing damage can rise with as little as five minutes of music exposure at high volume. This level of noise can damage the tiny, delicate hairs inside the ears that translate sound waves into brain signals that emerge as sound.

Adding to the risk of hearing damage that may lead to hearing aids is the fact that today’s batteries allow people to listen to music for greater lengths of time than before. In fact, batteries can play music for 15 hours or longer for many players.

The good news is that most music listeners do not listen to their players at full volume. Only 7-24 percent are listening at levels considered risky. The danger depends upon how high the volume is and for how long.

There are a number of things you can do to help prevent hearing loss and avert age-related hearing loss that steadily grows worse. One thing you can do is be sure your ears are protected in your workplace. The workplace is one of the most common causes of hearing loss. Loud equipment combined with little or no protection can damage tiny hairs in the inner ear and lead to progressive hearing loss.

There are earmuffs that are specially designed to dampen sound or prevent it from reaching the ears altogether. They can attenuate sound or bring it down to a safe level. These earmuffs are made of various materials, like foam or metal. They may contain things like gel to effectively disrupt sound before it reaches the ear and has a chance to do damage to hearing.

Be sure to have your hearing testing if you suspect hearing loss or are concerned you may suffer hearing loss in the future. Your doctor will be able to diagnosis the problem and give you various solutions to protect your hearing or may even suggest the use of hearing aids.  This also will allow doctors to establish a baseline of hearing for you. Then, if there is a deviation from that baseline in the future, you will know some hearing loss has occurred and be able to take preventative measures.

Crayons, Coloring Books, and Maps

It’s no problem to figure out the link between crayons and coloring books, but how do maps fit in?

“My father would call what I was doing ‘coloring maps.’ That was what he called it when I filled in time and wasted effort, in his view, by taking lots of trouble to do something wholly unessential, as when I had colored maps in high school for geography, feathering blue round the shorelines and shading in valleys and hills. But he always said it fondly, as though he knew and understood that there were times when what the brain most needed was to simply color maps.”

This passage from the book I am reading now, The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley came at me like a Mac truck in heat, finally legitimizing the box of Crayolas, 64 count no less, I’ve been harboring for the last year. Summer in my childhood was coloring time. I used to sit on the front lawn, under the shady elm tree, coloring book in my lap, crayons in my stubby-little fingers. I remember how my mind would get lost in the colors in the box and the need to pick out the absolutely perfect ones, the challenge of ‘staying in the lines’ (I was never as good as Stacy Fidler at that), and  the pride engendered by the finished product.

Coloring like that was a process that was pure Zen. I lost myself, totally. I stuck my tongue out, unconsciously, I hummed nursery rhymes, unintentionally. Coloring was about being and it was really cool and vibrant!

My 62-count box of Crayolas is now anxious to be dusted off, opened, and used. Or, shall I say, my brain is anxious for me to dust off my 62-count, find a map, and start coloring.

Anyone care to join me?

Baby Boomers and Hearing Loss

I’m working on a book called The Muffled Echo:  The Silent Health Issue Facing Baby Boomers: Hearing Loss. I became motivated to write this book because I am with a man who is deaf and we are Baby Boomers. I post short selection below and I’d love to hear your comments. I hope you enjoy it.

Recently your family has been telling you that you say “what” all the time. Really? You hadn’t noticed. Last week you went to a cocktail party or some other event where a large group of people is standing, sipping, and chatting away, only – you got maybe, MAYBE, a quarter of what was said. So instead, you smiled a lot, nodded a lot, and hoped you didn’t smile if someone was talking about their dog that just died. Ah, yes, and then there’s the television at home. Do you find that when someone else comes in to watch it, they complain about how loud it is? Do you then try to turn it down, only to become frustrated because you can’t get everything that’s going on? And here’s another one, do you have trouble hearing when you don’t have your glasses on? (This is really for near-sighted folks). People laugh at me when I say, “Hold on, let me put my glasses on so I can hear you.” My theory on this one is that I’m doing a lot of lip reading without even realizing it.

Signals of Possible Hearing Loss

Clearly our Boomer ears are not what they were back at Woodstock or at a Doobie Brothers concert. That doesn’t mean we need suffer in silence, so to speak. The Hearing Loss Association of America presents the following as signs of possible hearing loss.  You:

  • Ask people to repeat things – a lot
  • Can’t hear what people in another room are saying to you anymore
  • Get that someone is talking, but not what they are saying
  • Feel like everyone (except you, of course) is mumbling
  • Really have trouble hearing when there is other noise around
  • Crank up the volume on your television
  • Can hear some people fine, but have trouble with softer voices
  • Find you’re always turning to one side to hear things
  • Need to see the speaker’s face to really get what’s being said
  • Move closer to things or people you want to hear
  • Become frazzled and stressed when you’re in a situation where people are gathered
  • Become exhausted after spending time listening – it’s hard work!
  • Misunderstand things and sometimes respond inappropriately

All of these are things that YOU notice about your hearing. How about what other people notice? Do people tell you …

  • You don’t turn around when there’s a loud noise or when you’re called
  • You turn the television on too loud
  • You talk “too” loudly
  • Your speech is changing

Spend time pondering all these signals and clues and make an appointment with your doctor and ask him/her to arrange for you to get a hearing test. Actually, everyone should start getting screened for hearing loss once they reach the age of 50.