2024 Birthday Post

I'm 67 today. Won't you help me celebrate?

 

I've been retired for over a year now. 

After last year's misadventure with the motorhome, I was certainly surprised this year.

The Mrs and I were staying with friends in Lexington MI on Lake Huron for the 4th of July weekend.On a misty Sunday morning, we decided to drive to Port Sanilac, where we had a vacation home, which we sold about 10 years ago.

 

Among the reasons we sold it were that we weren't using as much as we thought, we had no view of the lake and it was a matter of out of sight, out of mind; and we had some setbacks. The pipes froze one winter and burst.The water main in the park had also ruptured... directly beneath our unit. It wasn't the optimal experience.

We sold the place and paid off our primary home with the proceeds. It turned out to be good timing for that, because I was laid off from a job a few months later.

Anyway, we went to look at the old place. While driving around, I noticed that there was an open house that was just shutting down. My wife and I asked if we could see the place and so we did.

It was pretty nice. It's less than 500 ft from Lake Huron and there is a nice view of the lake from the deck.

We thought we might just have happy eyes, so we asked the people we were staying with to meet us and take a look. The husband is handy, so he might see some flaws that I missed.

They thought it was quite a place too.

We said our goodbyes to the owners and went to meet up with some more friends at a local bar in Port Sanilac. 

After a couple of beers, my wife said, "why don't you go back and make them an offer."

I did. They took it. We bought the place. Once again, life changes.

 

The vacation home is keeping me pretty busy. We took possession in August and have been spending our time about 50/50 between there and our primary home. 

My habits and routines are out the window, which is a little stressful. I know that I'll fall into a rhythm, once the place is set up the way my wife wants it, but right now, I'm really hopping. It's all good. I'm accomplishing a lot.

In other news, I have a retirement job. Sort of.

A handful of times a year beginning about a year ago, I've been working at trade shows as a "booth babe" for a small software company. The money has been great, the venues are all top shelf. I'm accumulating loyalty points for hotels and airfare. It's all good.

Unfortunately, the company recently hired a full time salesman who will be working future shows next year. My only opportunities will be when they want a presence at two shows that happen to be taking place at the same time, in different location. It's been a good run.

Being retired, my taijiquan practice has been flourishing. I've been reading a lot (even with the time demands of maintaining two places). I'm walking a lot. Losing a little weight. My health is good.

My wife and daughters are all doing well. 

Life is good.

Let's finish with this: 

 

 

2023 Birthday Post

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me celebrate?

 

 

 

I've had my share of changes in the past year, but the biggest one is that I'm now retired.

This is what happened. Full retirement age for my cohort is age 66 and 6 months, which would have taken me to April of next year. Since I would have had to work the first quarter anyway, and the commission payout for the first quarter occurs in May, I was planning on retiring at the end of May next year.

But the best laid plans of mice and men are proverbial the same and my well laid plans to sign up for this and enroll in that were crushed down to a single point as if they had met a black hole in outer space by the machinations of my latest employer. After an abysmal 2nd quarter, I was among those who were laid off.

Overall, it's not a bad thing. There has just been a lot of short term chaos to manage.

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.”

The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.”

The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.”

 

 

My wife and I had purchased a motor home earlier this year, anticipating another year's income and commissions. With the abrupt change, the RV had become a source of anxiety to my better half and so we have it up for sale.

I'm not about to get upset about losing it after only have had it out a couple of times. It's just a thing, and there is no use fighting about a thing. Besides, if she's not comfortable, how am I going to be?

 

 

Most of the aforementioned chaos stems from having to rapidly getting my Social Security, Medicare and unemployment (since I was laid off) all lined up. It's getting there. 

I always have something to do. I'm still married and have so far not discovered that I've been smothered in my sleep with my own pillow.

My retirement plan had been to mow the lawn every morning at precisely 7 AM, then sit on a lawn chair in my driveway to make sure no one steps on it. I haven't been able to realize that just yet.

I have been working out more, lost about ten pounds (so far) and have increased the pace of my reading (from a baseline of about 50 books a year). 

In addition to the taijiquan practice I have been almost religious about, I am slowing adding in other practices I have learned from yiquan, xingyiquan and baguazhang to my morning.

One thing I am immediately thankful for is not having to toe the line every morning at work. 

Something else that I've been doing is helping out a friend with a medium sized businesss by working at trade shows with him. My expenses are covered, I get a nice check for my time and talk to strangers about technology. I have a blast. The only downside is being on my feet all day in dress shoes on concrete.

The long and short of it is that we should just roll with the changes.

Birthday 2022

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me celebrate?

 

I have successfully completed another trip around the sun. 

I have just completed 1 year at my present job. Of course, something had to happen along the way. 

As I was nearing the one year anniversary at work, I received an email from HR (I have come to hate emails from HR). Between my age and my years of service (1), I was eligible for an early retirement incentive program. 

Great. The plan has been to retire in another 18 months (when I hit full retirement age), but with crazy inflation and a recession, it looks like I'll probably want to keep working until I'm 70, if I can. Now I was looking at taking the incentive and rolling the dice that I could find another job, not taking the incentive and rolling the dice that I don't get laid off (as there is obviously a reduction in force program going); and hoping I can get back to work in the event I do, or nothing happens.

Just in case, I made contact with a former customer who is the CEO of a competitor now. I have a lifeboat with him. I'd have to agree to work until I'm 70 and to justify my salary, I'd have to wear many hats; but it's a lifeboat.

My wife and I sweated this out over a long weekend, going over all the scenarios. When I spoke to my boss, he tells me that I wasn't supposed to get that email. Our part of the company was newly acquired and the corporation's intent was to leave the newly acquired companies alone for them to get their legs under them.

It was a relief that I wasn't getting pushed out. But we are in a recession and there is a workforce reduction taking place. I expect anything to happen.

One of my daughters was married this summer. It was a beautiful wedding in northern Michigan. She had one of the best weddings I had ever attended. They did a great job putting that together.

Unfortunately, my other daughter has just been laid off. She's busy looking for a new job, but is also enjoying her time off.

I am practicing the best taijiquan of my life right now. I've had many breakthroughs over the past year. As far as my practice goes, I am in a good place.

I've decided to keep track of how many book I've read this year. I'm on track to read 50 books.

Everyone's health is good. Although we all expect some rocky times ahead, due to the economy, we're all in a good place.  

2021 Birthday Post

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me celebrate?

 

What a year, huh? 

I worked from home most of the year. I have had a great view of my yard, which I really enjoy. Sometimes deer or wild turkeys walk through.

I returned to the office starting in June and was laid off in July. We had a new VP of Sales who wanted a young, hip and cool sales team; and as a grumpy, old, expensive dinosaur, I didn't make the cut.

It all worked out though. I was given a generous 2 months severance and they paid for COBRA coverage for that time.

I made 113 applications, received over 40 rejection emails; which I appreciated because I knew where I stood with those companies. I had a handful of interviews I had two job offers and could have had a third but I backed out as I learned more about that third company.

So before the 2 months expired, I started a new job as a Sales Engineer in an industry I've enjoyed before. What I made on unemployment turned out to be a bonus. 

 And I'm working from home. Permanently.

God willing, if all goes according to plan, I'll retire in a few years.

I had stopped training in iaido in May, because my wife and I become very busy, socially, during the summer and I would have missed a large number of classes; for which I would have had to pay anyway. The dojo has moved on to mostly practicing aikido now. I have to see how this new job is going to work out for me timewise, before I commit to training in a dojo again.

Having said that, my taijiquan practice is flourishing. Life just works better when I practice everyday.

Besides getting a ton of reading under my belt, in this last year I've taken up archery and shooting. A neighbor have me a mountain bike. I have to get a new rear wheel because it was bent. Tracking one down because of supply issues in the current nut to crack.

 

Birthday post

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me celebrate?

 

 It's been quite a year, hasn't it? Life comes at you fast. 

There was a point this year that I could have said that: in the previous 18 months, we've had seven deaths in the family; I changed jobs twice within 8 months and I bought and sold a house, then moved with the last two months.

Of the seven deaths, five of them were old and in poor health at the time. Of the remaining two, one was a cousin who was about to turn 50. He died suddenly after some post surgical complications. The other was my sister in law who passed at 52 with brain cancer. 

 

The two job changes happened this way - two jobs ago, I could see the writing on the wall that my position was going to be eliminated where I worked. I wanted to leave before I could be laid off, so I started looking.

I went back to a company that I had worked at some 10 years previously. It was not my first choice but they met my salary requirements and the position suited me. 

For the company sales and engineering were two distinct silos. I floated between them being a sales minded technical guy who could support salesmen when they were talking to their technical customers. It was good enough.

Then one day, there I was just sitting there at my desk, minding my own business, when I received a call from a recruiter I had known for many years. Did I know "X" company and would I be interested in an account manager position with them? Heck yes!

I went to the interview and spoke to the hiring manager. It turned out that we had worked at similar places in similar positions for a long time. It was a wonder that we hadn't crossed paths before. It was like speaking to an old friend.

So I hired on and was on boarded just everyone was told to lock down on account of Covid. 

 

For years my wife and I had talked about downsizing. Our house was too big for the two of us. We lived there for 23 years and soon would have to put money into a new furnace and windows. Putting that kind of money into the house would pretty much mean that we'd have to stay there. Also, the value of the houses in the neighborhood were pretty topped out; all we could expect in the future was that the value of the homes would rise at the rate of inflation.

We've been wanting to downsize and buy a ranch. Climbing up and down stairs was getting old  (as are we). They are really hard to find.

But - one day we were driving and saw a ranch with a sign in front saying "move in in 30 days." The realtor couldn't show it to us because of Covid, but she could open it up and we could look around ourselves. 

I said to the Mrs "I could see us living here." The next thing you know, we bought the place, listed our own home, sold it in 5 days (sight unseen) and moved two months later.

We moved from  a 2500 sq ft 4 bedroom colonial to a 2000 sq ft 3 bedroom ranch. I love living in the new house and neighborhood. I have several friends who already live out this way, and it already feels like home. 

The only thing wrong with the house is that there isn't a lake directly behind my patio.

 

I still continue to practice taijiquan every morning before I go to work. I noticed a karate school not far from me that hosts an aikido class, so I signed up for that. 

Two evenings a week, I'm going to aikido again. It's not the beloved Yoshinkan of my youth, but a different style and organization. I'm starting again from the very beginning and having a lot of fun.

Actually, we're not really doing aikido yet because of Covid. Because of distancing, we're working on Toyama Ryu Iaido after doing aikido warm ups and break falls. I'm having a blast.

I've also taken up (western) archery. I'm on the lookout for a used fitness bike. The neighborhood is filled with bike trails and I want to make use of them.

As a result of all of this, I've lost 25 lbs since the beginning of the year. 

The Mrs and I will be celebrating our 37th wedding anniversary this month. I remember at our wedding, we let the band select the song for the bridal dance. It didn't seem appropriate:

 

Both of my kids are doing great. 

I've been blessed.

Birthday Post

Months pass, days pile up

like one intoxicating dream

an old man sighs.

- Ryokan

 
Today is my birthday. Won’t you help me celebrate?



Today I am celebrating another successful trip around the sun. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for all of my loved ones. 2019 has been a rough year on the family.

We lost my father in law and a brother in law due to old and and extended illnesses. There were a couple of distant relatives who passed as well.

What was harder to take was the passing of my sister in law whom I wrote about last year. She had Glioblastoma, the brain cancer that afflicted Sen McCain. She passed 14 months after her diagnosis, which is about average for the general population.

Her life was never the same since the day she felt that she needed to see a doctor. I’m sure that she had her private moments, but we never saw her complain. We never saw her ask “why me?”

Instead she was thankful for the time she could spend with her family and friends. She only showed endless gratitude.

The day that will stick with me the most was Opening Day for the 2019 Detroit Tigers baseball season. She was a great baseball fan.

My wife and I stopped over to see her. It was a beautiful day. She was watching the game with her husband. The window was open and it was as pleasant as it could be.

Unplanned, several of her closest friends stopped over as well. Her husband and I retreated to the garage to sit outside, enjoy a beer and listen to the happy chatter and laughter coming from her bedroom. She had a great day.



A few years ago, the company I worked for decided to close the division that employed me and I ended up with a job at a small trade association. We had a staff of four and a board of directors made up of members to provide oversight.

I leaned that November that the board of directors wanted to “shake things up.” When you have a staff of only four people, any shaking resembles an earthquake. I knew that I needed to begin looking for another job.

It’s not easy looking for another job when you’re in your 60’s. At least doing a job search while I had one helped, but it was tough going. I had plenty of interviews and a few offers, but I typically low-balled. It was discouraging.

I finally began talking to two companies in particular in Spring. I had worked for one of them before, about 10 years ago. I knew them. They knew me. It would be easy to slide right in there. The office was actually closer to home than the trade association.

The other was a European based company with a small staff in the US. I’d work from home. I’d have to prove myself all over again, but there was the allure of going to Europe a couple of times a year.

Around the fourth of July, the board of directors eliminated the position of one of my colleagues. I knew that I was next, so I needed to close the deal with one of these two companies, but which one?

My Dad once told me that in a situation like this, I should flip a coin and see how I felt about it. I decided to do Dad a few times better and throw three coins, six times. This seemed to be a perfect question for the I Ching. Whatever came up would have to be interpreted by me, which would help me to clarify my thoughts and feelings.

The hexagram I threw was #24, Return, with all the broken lines moving. This resulted in the final hexagram #1, Creative.


I chose the company that I used to work for. I began my new position as a field application engineer around the end of July. I am enjoying myself a great deal. They didn’t have this position before and I am having an impact. All the signs say that this was a good move.

 


I wrote a year ago that I had reconnected with my original taijiquan teacher who was a student of Cheng Man Ching in New York, back in the 70’s, Carol Yamasaki. I showed up just in the nick of time. Due to some health issues, Carol has recently turned teaching over to one of her senior students, who is well regarded teacher in his own right, Bret Hall. Unfortunately, I only seem to be able to make it out to class is once or twice a month.

For the last year, I’ve also been supplementing my practice with exercises and drills from another branch of the CMC lineage which can be found at Adam Mizner’s Youtube channel, along with renewed focus on the standing practice, or zhan zhuang. Mizner also has a distance learning course that is well thought out and presented.

Practice continues to go well. I’ve found that life just works better when I’m practicing regularly.

I would normally wake up an hour before I really needed to get ready for work to drink my coffee at a leisurely pace, watch the news, catch up on social media, etc. For the past several years I have been getting up an extra hour early to either run (which I since dropped but may return to) or practice taijiquan.

I’ve recently begun making that an extra 90 minutes early to make certain that I can consistently work on all of that material I want to practice.

I mentioned that I had dropped running. At my previous job, I didn’t have either short or long term disability insurance. I began to worry about doing damage to my joints that would require some sort of medical intervention after messing up my feet the previous year. Fine, I stopped running but put my focus into taijiquan.

Recently the Mrs has been wanting to find a health club with a real track that we could both go to for the winter. She likes to walk, and I could begin running again on a surface that would be much better for my joint health than the streets and sidewalks. So far, we haven’t turned anything up, but will keep looking.



Writing of the Mrs, this month we are going to celebrate our 36th wedding anniversary. Somehow, I think that we must be doing something right.

I have come to the conclusion that the secret of a long, happy marriage is this: Every morning I look my wife in the eye and tell her: “I’m sorry, I was wrong and it will never happen again.” Then I leave the house for the day.

My two daughters are healthy, happy and prosperous. As I write this, the younger one is a few days away from running a half marathon with a broken little toe.

2018 Birthday Post

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me celebrate?




Life IS a circle sometimes and that can be appropriate.


Over 35 years ago, I began learning the Cheng Man Ching (Zheng Man Qing) version of Taijiquan from Carol Yamasaki, who was a direct student of CMC from his New York days during the late '60s and early '70's. After a year or two, life took me in other directions as it sometimes does.

A few years ago, I decided that dusting off that form practice and polishing it was a worthy pursuit of a man my age, and so I began practicing again, to the best of my recollection and with whatever references I could find.

Earlier this year by chance I made the acquaintance of a current student of hers. It turned out that she had a class in the evenings during the week that was not all that far from my office! In May of this year, I started learning from her and my practice has blossomed.




Running was a bust this year.

I like to run but I draw the line in certain places. Since I usually run in the dark, at least during the beginning and end of the seasons, I don't like to run when it's wet or slippery out. I don't like dodging puddles and not being sure where I'm stepping. At my age, healing from injuries takes longer these days.

I also need the temperature to be at least in the mid 40's before I'm going to step outside. I've run when it's colder, but that's something I'm not really fond of.

Winter had hung on for a long time. Where I would normally get started around the end of March, we were heading into April before conditions were leaning my way. But before I could get on the road, I had three weeks in a row of work related travel.

I find that it's hard enough to maintain any good habits when I'm traveling, much less running, so we were into May before I could lace up my shoes and get going.

I dove into it, running perhaps a little too far, too quickly after not having run since last October or November. But wait! There's more to it.

For some stupid reason, I decided to may last year's shoes last a little longer before using my newer shoes. I don't know what I was thinking, but the result was that I badly bruised up the soles of my feet.

I tried letting them heal up and trying again, but it became very clear, very quickly that they needed to heal up over a longer period.

I decided to let it go for this year and to pick it up again next spring. In the meantime, my taijiquan practice has benefited from the break.

-

You take the bitter with the sweet.

One of my sisters in law was diagnosed earlier this year with brain cancer. There is no known cure yet.

She's relatively young (51), in otherwise good health, and is neither overweight or a smoker. She's got those things going for her while she endures the year long chemotherapy regimen.

She's had a great attitude in facing the long odds against her.

Her husband has been remarkable in how he's been all over everything and has been finding options for her, for any eventuality.

The support that they are getting from family and friends is heartening.

I hope that I will be able to report next year that her cancer is in remission and a cure has been found.

-

For the rest of us, we have no complaints; how could we?

My wife works three days a week which allows her to help care for her sister two days a week. This year she and I will be celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary.

To celebrate her 60th birthday, which is the day before mine, She and I, together with our two daughters took a look weekend trip up to Mackinac Island. We had a great weekend.

The older daughter has visited a number of national parks this year. 

My youngest daughter is going to Iceland on vacation next spring.

And I am just fat, dumb and happy at age 61,

Books that I enjoyed over the last year:

Birthday Post

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me celebrate?



Today is not only my birthday, but my third running of the Detroit Free Press International Half Marathon. If you are reading this, today, before approximately 11 AM EST, I am probably still on the course.

My daughter is running the full marathon and my wife did the 5K yesterday.

I'm running not only for myself, but to help raise money to fight human trafficking. The Detroit area is the second worst in the nation.

Last year my running group raised over $350K, of which something like 80% was spent locally. It's not too late to donate if you like. My fund raising page is here.

UPDATE **

This past year was not without a few funny bounces.



In January, after my most lucrative year ever, by far; I was laid off. The company was changing direction and the group that I worked for was being severely downsized and eventually shut down.

These things happen. I wasn't angry about it. Between vacation time that they owed me and a small severance, I was ok for a couple of months; plenty of time to turn up something else.

The only real monkey wrench was that I got experience the Health Care exchanges, in order to get myself some health insurance until I started a new job. That part wasn't so much fun.

Anyway, the funny bounces: I had been contacting everyone I could think of who might know of a new position for me. One guy whom I had worked for before and since moved to another company, wrote back and said that he had an opening.  Why not work for him?

A couple of months later, I became the Technical Manager at the Equipment and Tool Institute, a trade organization that represents the interests of companies who make tools for the after market automotive industry.

It's a good job. It's a lot less stressful that my previous several positions. I still travel, but a bit less and with a lot more forethought.

I'm pretty happy here.

In a couple of weeks, the Mrs and I will be celebrating our 33rd wedding anniversary.

At our wedding, we left the choice of a song for our wedding dance to the band. This is what they came up with:



I wonder what they were trying to say?

Birthday Post

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me celebrate?





Today I turn 58. In two days, I run a half marathon. In January, I will be running a full marathon at Disney World in Florida.

I'm running to raise money to fight human trafficking. It turns out that the Detroit area is #2 in the nation for human trafficking, after Las Vegas.

You can read more about what I am doing here. Any donation is welcome and will be put to good use.

I have been extremely busy with work this past year. I've traveled quite a bit and have always found myself having to try and catch up with what wasn't getting done at home. Consequently, my training in BJJ became derailed over the summer. I just couldn't make the time to consistently train.

I work from home, which is great and I have time to get small things done during the day, but my company is headquartered in CA and I find myself frequently working on emails and calls past 8 or sometimes 9 in the evening when I am not traveling

Catching up around the house (and cottage) has come first, then getting in my miles for the long runs.

What I have been doing otherwise is zhang zhuang practice, a taijiquan short form (because it's short and I could fit it in) and xingyiquan Five Elements forms (again because they are short and I could fit them in).

Perhaps I am meant to be a forever beginner. I could do worse.



Earlier this month I attended (and helped plan) my 40 year high school reunion. I went to Cody High School in Detroit. Although many of my closest friends are from that era, it was a lot of fun catching up with people I hadn't seen since the last reunion; although Facebook has become a great help in keeping in touch with people.



In about two weeks, my wife and I will be celebrating our 32nd wedding anniversary.

When we got married, at our reception, we left the choice of the song for the wedding dance up to the band. This is what they came up with.



So good, so far.

Speaking of weddings, earlier this year in May, the Mrs and I went to a wedding in southern Florida. A friend's daughter was getting married and we were invited.

All of that traveling does come with a perk: points at hotels and miles on airlines. We didn't have to pay for the hotels or flights. We extended our stay for a few days, then drove down to Key West and spent a couple of days down there.

I knew it was going to be a good stay in Key West when we pulled up to the Marriott Seaside Resort. Someone from the lobby came out and handed me a glass of champagne while the Mrs was checking in.

Because of my points level, we got a free upgrade. As this was off season, the Presidential Suite, the best room in the place, was ours.

3 bedrooms, 3 baths, a full kitchen with granite and stainless steel, overlooking the pool and beach; we could have had another two couples in there an never have seen them.

We had a lot of fun on Duvall Street, I had my key lime pie, and a couple of beers at Sloppy Joes.

I can't lay my hands on it right now, but I have a picture of my dad from back in the 30's at the original Sloppy Joes in Havana. He owned a bar at the time and was down there with some friends.

At the cottage, half of the beach in underwater. With the past two snowy cold winters, where the Great Lakes froze over, they tell me that Lake Huron has recovered 31 inches. That's a lot of water.

BTW, we just sold the cottage; closing earlier this month and moving out before the end of October. That's been another item that has taken up a lot of my time.

Books. I've read some pretty good books this year. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt, The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday, The World Beyond Your Head by Matthew Crawford and The Undefeated Mind by Alex Lickerman.

I would be remiss if I didn't post this music video.

Birthday Post

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me to celebrate?

 Months pass,
days pile up, like one intoxicated dream -
An old man sighs.

- Ryokan

[from 'One Robe, One Bowl', translated by John Stevens]


When I began the new job about a year ago I also began working from home. Sure I had to travel, but when I was home I was completely home and I liked that a lot.

Ironically, I also found that I began to feel a need to get out of the house! I also started to put some weight on from the traveling and noticed that some of my good habits were eroding.

I started kicking around the idea of getting out the house by beginning training in aikido again, and/or perhaps judo.

I found two dojo located fairly nearby. The first one only trained on Saturday afternoons, which is absolutely the worst time for me; plus what they worked on was sort of a mash up of what the teacher put together  of aikido and judo.

The second seemed ideal on paper. Aikido followed by judo (or vice versa, I can't remember), twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Unfortunately they wouldn't return emails or phone calls. It seems that they have closed.

While I was kicking around my options, the Mrs reminded me that a friend of hers has been going to an MMA gym for years, has a great time and is always talking about what a great bunch they are there. I decided to attend the free conditioning class and see what it was about.

I immediately signed up. I thought that I was in decent shape before but found out rapidly that I was mistaken.

The general schedule is a conditioning class Mondays through Thursdays at 7, followed by kick boxing at 8. On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, they also have Brazilian Jiujitsu from 6 until 8, overlapping the condiitoning class.

I am certainly the oldest guy there. My wife's friend is a year or so younger than I am and her sister is a year or two younger still. There are a handful of guys in their 30's or 40's who show up, but almost everyone is in their 20's including a handful of young women.

The young guys are pretty good to me. They tend to hold back enough to where I'm not getting my block knocked off, but I found that there is a wide range of interpretation of the instructions to "take it easy on the old guy."

In fact, a few weeks into it, I picked up  my first black eye.

I simply can't keep up with the gap between my reaction time and those of they young guys. I also noticed that my knees were chronically sore from the kickboxing too.

One of the assistant instructors suggested that I take up BJJ sooner rather than later, which I was planning on. He said that it would be easier on my body and that a lot of my disadvantages would be somewhat mitigated. In fact, having some patience would probably be to my advantage.

Then I saw this clip.



A 74 year old black belt in Brazilian Jiujitsu.

I don't know if this old bag of bones will stay together long enough to achieve that, but it is certainly a worthy goal. As a rule of thumb, it takes a "regular" young person about 10 years to get to black belt level in BJJ, so maybe it will take me 20. 

Besides being older, I travel for work and I have other responsibilities that simply doesn't allow me to put the time in that I would have as a young man. It's on the edge of the realm of possibility. You have to be somewhere and you have to be doing something. Why not? I'm game. A realistic shorter term goal is to still be doing this when I'm 60.

I've had a couple of pulled muscles and BJJ is a whole new kind of sore, but it's been six months now and I've stuck with it. I'm still among the least of the grapplers, but I do improve every day and have a blast, which is what it is all about.

One of my regular training partners has developed type 1 diabetes. She's trying to raise money for a Diabetes Alert Dog, which can sense when her chemistry changes and indeed save her life. A type 1 diabetic can slide into a coma while sleeping and simply die. The dog would sense the change and wake her. 

I don't want her to die. Maybe you can help her.

I'm 57 years old and I'm not a runner. I haven't run since I was a teenager and 5 miles was the longest I ever ran back then. I have found that running leaves me with sore ankles and knees. It's uncomfortable for me. I'd rather do just about anything than run.

A few months ago I found out that nearly 800 million people don't have access to to clean drinking water. They drink out of mud holes, out of water holes shared with animals; from wells that are so distant that the women and girls going to fetch the water are subject to assault, abduction and worse.

I live near the Great Lakes and can go out to the middle of Lake Huron and be surrounded by fresh water as far as the eye can see. To lack water is a concept that is kind of hard for me to wrap my head around

As I said, I learned that so many people are living in such desperate conditions and I also found out that a group named Team World Vision is raising money to address this.

For $50 a person can have clean drinking water for life.

By running.

And so I run.

This 57 year old non runner has signed up for the International Half Marathon to take place during the Free Press Marathon on October 19th. I am taking part in a fund raiser organized by Team World Vision. TWV distrbutes personal filter straws, builds filtration systems, digs wells, etc.

I showed up at the informational meeting held after the service at church, expecting to simply lend support to one of my daughters who had been talking about signing up for a marathon. The next thing I knew, I was filling out a form and was one of the first to hand it in.

Every dollar counts. Won't you please donate? You'll change, maybe save someones' life. My goal is to raise $1300.

 Won't you sponsor me?

Between running and BJJ, I think that NOW I'm in pretty decent shape. I guess that I'll find out in a few days.



I've been at the new job a year now. Both the company and I are pretty happy with each other. I've advanced the relationships they already had from first discussions to several development programs which should see production ramping up either later this year or early next. I've found them some some new customers which whom they've had no contact before.

The travel seems to be pretty seasonal. From autumn to spring is the traveling season. As my boss is in Chicago, I expected to go there quite a bit. As it turns out I've gone to San Diego more times than anywhere else. Not a bad place to visit.






There is a local charitable organization named Life Remodeled. They raise money, organize volunteers and go into areas that need a lot of work and get it done. The last several years they have concentrated on the City of Detroit, which needs a lot of work.

This summer they organized 10,000 volunteers over a week's time to renovate my old high school, Cody High in Detroit, and 100 surrounding blocks in the neighborhood.



That was my neigborhood. I grew up there. I know those houses. I played in those yards. My childhood home is within those 100 blocks.

Between conference calls and what not, I wasn't able to get down there to help and I was quite disappointed. However, even without me, by all accounts everything turned out great.








This month, my wife and I will be celebrating our 31st wedding anniversary.

Time flies like an arrow.

My oldest daughter finished a master's degree and is advancing her career. My youngest daughter completed her college degree and is working in her field. Everyone is doing well.

Birthday 2013

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me to celebrate?



I've written before about funny bounces and life has just taken another one.



I was just sitting at my desk, minding my own business. Management was away at a trade show. I had been invited to go along with them, but it's inconvenient for me to work away from my desk and if I'm away too long, everything just backs up.

So I get an email. It's from a competitor. They are making a new position and have been asking around our common customers at the trade show that I wasn't at, whom should they hire? They answer they kept getting was... me.

We had some telephone discussions and it was agreed that I should fly out to the company HQ in San Diego to confer, converse and hobnob (as so wonderfully put in the Wizard of Oz) with the company big shots.

Before those plans could be cemented however, there was an emergency with a customer and someone, me, would have to fly to their HQ in Rome to help smooth things over.

What this meant for me was this: The Mrs and I had a wedding to go to on a Saturday. On Sunday, I would get on a plane and fly to Rome, arriving Monday. I would stay there for the week returning Friday night. On Saturday, we had tickets to see the Eagles. On Sunday, I would board a plane for San Diego. Interview on Monday and take the red-eye home Monday night, getting home Tuesday morning.

Work is work. The place I was visiting in Rome was near the outskirts and nowhere near the city center. I spent all day until late at the office. There really wasn't time to see anything until Thursday night when I went out to dinner with the head of the IT dept and the head of the Engineering dept. We went down to the city center (picture above) and had dinner at a restaurant that had been in continuous business since 1906.

 

The Eagles were great.

In San Diego, I spoke to 8 different people altogether and felt like I was hitting them out of the ball park  all day long. They made the offer, I took it and now will be Director of Sales for Novatel Wireless' M2M (machine to machine) Telematics Enfora Divison.

I start on the 21st of this month.

I've read a lot of good books recently. I've begun The Song of Ice and Fire, completing The Game of Thrones and a Clash of Kings. This series is just so huge that attempting to start has been daunting, but I finally took the plunge. It resonates with many of my other favorite books: The Lord of the Rings, The Asian Saga, The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, The Once and Future King, The Baroque Cycle the Foreworld Saga and so on.



I've also read The Dao of Capital by Mark Spitnagel who is a colleague of Nassim Taleb. Also, David and Goliath by Malcolm Gladwell. I recommend The Dao of Capital, Taleb's last book, Anti Fragile and of course, Malcolm Gladwell's new book, David and Goliath..

Three other recent reads that I enjoyed very much:



At home, everyone is doing well. My wife and I are going to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary in a couple of weeks.

I'm working out and feeling good.

Everything is good.

Birthday post 2012

Today is my birthday. Won't you help me to celebrate?





I'm 55. 60 is within sight. I'm halfway to 110.



The oldest daughter is doing well. She's been working for the same company for nearly two years. Some months ago, the division of the company she works for was sold to another company. There have been some changes, and her position was eliminated. They kept her on though, and let her look for another position within the new company and she found one. It turns out to be a promotion to boot!

The youngest daughter is a senior at the university. She had a summer job with a Michigan based insurance company. They liked her so well that they kept her on part time once she went back to school and have told her that they plan on making her an offer for a full time job once she graduates in April.

The Mrs keeps me on my toes. She was inconsolable when we had to put out dog Annie down after having her be a part of the family for 16 1/2 years. We got a puppy we named Isabella (Bella) soon after and she helps to make our days brighter.

We are going on 29 years of marriage this month.



We still have the place up north, just off of Lake Huron. In fact, we were just up there for the weekend. The kids asked me what I wanted for my birthday and the answer was a family weekend at the cottage.

It was rainy that weekend, so we mostly stayed inside. We watched movies, played board games and ate. It doesn't get much better.

For Father's Day, I wanted both daughters to come up to the cottage with the boyfriends. The older one has a boat, which he brought with him. It was the weekend of the Port Huron to Mackinac Sailboat Race. We were out on the water surrounded by hundreds of sailboats of every size and description.

Also for Father's Day, my family got me a new Kindle Fire, to replace my aging Kindle 2. I love it.

I have recounted before how I used to train pretty diligently in Yoshinkai Aikido under Kushida Sensei as a young man. When it came time to raise a family and build a career, I hung up my dogi for a while always knowing that I would come back to martial arts training in some form. Martial arts practice is a lot like gravity in that once it gets hold of you, you may think you can escape it for some time but eventually it pulls you back in.

When my late mother was in an assisted living home, then later a nursing home, I got to see and spend time wtih a lot of human trainwrecks up close. The criteria I would apply to determining how I would go forward with excercise in general and martial arts training in particular began to crystalize.

I would want to practice something that I could physically carry into my dotterage. It had to be intellectually engaging. I wanted to do something I could practice effectively as a solo practice and have no need of special equipment or location; that is, self contained and portable.

About 12 years ago, I began some of the fundamental exercises of Yiquan. The standing practice really resonated with me and I have continued it in one form or another to this day.

Five years ago, I began studying Wu style Taijiquan. Beginning 3 years ago I began to focus on the small frame square form from the Wu style.

This was all a very Yin practice though. To burn some calories, keep up some cardiovascular capacity and muscle tone I felt I needed to supplement this. Along side those practices I also used a treadmill (which I wore out and replaced with an ellipical machine) and weight machine (which I eventually set aside in favor of body weight exercises; the weights made my joints sore).

From my youth in the 70s's from reading the books of Robert W. Smith, one of the martial arts that I have been fascinated by was Xingyiquan. A year ago (on my birthday) I started learning the Five Elements forms from some videos to add some Yang flavor to my practice.

I've always felt that when we adopt a practice, we should allow it to shape us. I wanted to see how Xingyiquan would shape me, so I dropped the elliptical machine and the body weight exercises to see what would happen.

Aside from my "soft" practices, the only other regulary physical exercise I get other than Xingyiquan is the stuff I do around the house (and the Mrs has no shortage of Egyptian Pyramid slave labor projects she'd like to see me complete) and of course, walking the dog.

I've always had quick results when I've done physical exercise. My usual development would be a big blocky chest, biceps, thighs and calves. I've never been successful in building size or definition in my forearms.

The regular Xingyiquan practice has changed that. My chest is flatter, like a boxer and well defined. I still have strong biceps but the muscle seems longer than big. My forearms are getting meaty (for me) and are not only picking up definition, but the insides of my forearms are getting defined as well. Like my biceps, my thighs and calves have a longer quality to them. My lower back, the area that would be covered by a weight lifting belt if I wore one, DOES feel like I'm wearing one of those support belts. Finally, I am becoming aware of a lot of little muscles in my shoulders and back.

We went to a wedding last month. A couple of weeks before the wedding, the Mrs suggested that I try on the new suit I bought last spring. The jacket was too tight. The jackets of all my old suits were too tight. I had to buy a new one.

At 55 I feel like I am in as good shape as I was in my 20s when I was going to over a dozen aikido classes a week. I am nearly as strong as I've ever been and I can't think of a time when my stamina has been better. I had already lost most of the weight I was going to lose from my peak three years ago by the time I started learning the Five Elements, but my weight is generally a few pounds lighter than a year ago. Altogether, over the last 3 years, I've lost between 35 and 40 lbs.

My mind is clear and I feel great. Life is good.