PSA-240409-Things to Ponder

Posted on 09/04/2024 by Grumpa Joe

           Things You Learn if You Live Long Enough!

I choked on a carrot this morning, and all I could think of was, “I’ll bet a doughnut wouldn’t have done this to me.”

Nothing spoils a good story more than the arrival of an eye witness.  (Mark Twain)

It only takes one slow-walking person in the grocery store to destroy the illusion that I’m a nice person.

It turns out that when asked who your favorite child is, you’re supposed to pick out one of your own.  I know that now.

It’s fine to eat a test grape in the produce section, but you take one bite of rotisserie  chicken and then it’s  “Sir, you need to leave!”

One thing no one ever talks about, when it comes to being an older adult, is how  much time we devote to keeping a cardboard box because it is, you know, a really good box.

I can’t believe I forgot to go to the gym today.  That’s seven years in a row, now.

If you drop something when you were younger, you just picked it up.  When you’re older and you drop something, you stare at it for  just a bit contemplating if  you actually need it anymore.

I like to make lists.  I also like to leave them laying on the kitchen counter, and then guess what’s on the list when I am at the store.

Ask your doctor if a drug with 32 pages of side-effects is bad for you.

I just read a book about marriage that says treat your wife like  you treated her on your first date.  So tonight after dinner I’m dropping her off at her parent’s house.

The best way to get back on your feet is to miss two car payments.

I love bacon.  Sometimes I eat it twice a day.  It takes my mind off the terrible chest pains I keep getting.

As I watch this generation try to rewrite history, one thing I am sure of is that it will be misspelled and have no punctuation.

Driver:  “What am I supposed to do with this speeding ticket?”  Officer, “Keep it. When you collect four of them, you get a bicycle.

I asked a supermarket employee where they kept the canned peaches.

He said, “I’ll see,” & walked away.  I asked another & he also said, “I’ll see,” & walked away.  In the end, I gave up & found them myself, in Aisle C.

I told my physical therapist that I broke my arm in two (2) places.He told me to stop going to those places.

I put our scale in the bathroom corner & that’s where the little liar will stay until it apologizes.

When I was a kid, I used to watch the ‘Wizard of Oz’ & wonder how someone could talk if they didn’t have a brain. Then I got Facebook.

 Do you ever get up in the morning, look in the mirror & think, “That can’t be accurate!”

I want to be 14 again & ruin my life differently. I have new ideas.

Apparently RSVP’ing to a wedding invitation with “Maybe next time” isn’t the correct response.

A guy walks into a lumberyard & asks for some 2x4s.  The clerk asks, “How long do you need them?  The guy answers, “A long time. We’re gonna build a house.”

I just burned 1,200 calories.   I forgot the pizza in the oven.

Who knew that the hardest thing of being an adult is figuring out what to fix for dinner and doing it every single night for the rest of  your life until you die?

I hate it when people act all intellectual and talk about Mozart, when they’ve never even seen one of  his paintings.

Never trust an electrician with no eye brows.

So my neighbor knocked on my front door at 3 am.  3AM!!!  Luckily I was already up playing my bagpipes.

Instead of cleaning my house, I just watch an episode of “The Hoarders,” and think, “Wow!  My house looks great.”

Filed under: Aging, Humor, Seniors | Tagged: , , | 5 Comments »

The Biggest Time Waster On Earth

Posted on 19/01/2024 by Grumpa Joe

It would be interesting to know how many internet users are criminals. The constant need to invent passwords that are long enough and complicated enough to deter thieves is tiring and unproductive. Even with all the password managers that have been provided to help bypass this problem I seem to suffer from an inability to use them, understand them, and I cannot get the logic in my head that will help me solve the problem.

It may be just me, but since the New Year rolled over, many of the websites I frequent, even my own, require logging in with passwords. I thought I was in the clear when the new Mac I bought featured a touch control for passwords. Even though I like the feature, all it seems to protect me from is me. Over the past fifteen years I have invented hundreds of passwords of complexity that makes them hard to remember, and easy to mis-type. One of the biggest problems I encounter these days is a secure site that tells me it is time to change my password. Then, when I want to use a password I’ve used before to make it easy for me, it tells me that it won’t accept it because it has been used before. In my password manager, I have as many as a dozen passwords for the same user name, all because of the incessant need for using passwords that thieves cannot break. I fully understand the need for passwords that are long, complicated, and impossible to remember in order to take more time for a computer to read and discover the key. Even thieves have rules regarding what is worth the time and what is not. All the banter about artificial intelligence is making me wonder if AI will be smart enough to learn passwords easily. If AI can do that we are screwed. No one will be secure from hackers who use AI.

Even with the rapid advancement of computer development, we are still in the stone age of security. If human development is a model, it will be hundreds or even thousands of years before this problem is resolved. All the benefits we accrue by using the internet will be offset by the loss of energy being expended fighting off hackers.

At this point, I have only one solution for reducing the need for passwords: don’t use or visit the internet.

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A Wordy Post About Stuff

Posted on 27/11/2023 by Grumpa Joe

One problem with writing a post everyday is finding themes. In that regard I admire Daniel Greenfield who writes for his blog called Sultan of Knish. He posts several times a week and each time it is an academic essay on some aspect of politics or world affairs. His posts are between 1200 and 3200 words each time. On the other hand, when I am in good form I will post about three times a week and average about 600 words. Lately, my posts are about four times a month, and I am having difficulty thinking of stuff to write about.

I wouldn’t be surprised if someone labels me racist again, because when Obama was president he did so many things I disagreed with that I couldn’t stop writing negatively about him. When Trump was president, I didn’t want to fan the fires of those who were against him because the press didn’t need any help from me. Biden on the other hand hasn’t done anything I like, and I believe he is destroying the country. Biden is making Obama look like an amateur when it comes to stupid policies and stupid governance. I don’t want to waste my time repeating what the daily news is already doing. Besides sleepy Joe is an old timer like me, and I won’t pick on someone who can’t help himself because his brain has stopped functioning. There is nothing sadder in life than watching a person who was a fireball while younger, and who has lost it to Alzheimer’s. I saw what happened with my wife, and it is truly saddening that so many people end their time on earth by slowly losing their memory to the point where they forget how to breath.

One memory invoked by Sleepy Joe is the era of Jimmy Carter when inflation kept rising and the Federal Reserve couldn’t do anything but raise interest rates to 16%. It was a great time for people with cash who could buy Certificates of Deposit earning a 16% return for a five year period. They advanced the size of their savings dramatically. The high interest rate eventually worked, and the economy adjusted so the rates began to drop, and about the time the 16% CD’s matured the rates were back to a paltry 3%. So for anyone looking at how long this pain will last history says it will be at least five years after the current rates rise to 16%.

For the past twelve years we have enjoyed an economy that was operating on free money. Loans were down to the low 3.0% range and that allowed many people to buy the house of their dreams. Those who had cash in the bank were sadly only making 0.1 % on their savings. Most people invested in stocks to make decent money. My retirement has been happy because of the earnings I have received, but I’m not so sure I will be happy moving forward as the economy begins to falter. My advisor continues to admonish me to look at the long run, and not the short term. Excuse me, but just how much longer do I have? Ten minutes, ten days, ten months, ten years? I worry that my paltry portfolio will not be strong enough to keep me going for the duration.

Last week I went into a McAllister’s deli for a sandwich($20 for a cup of soup and a six inch sandwich), and I swear the lady who took my order was older than me. I had a vision of me behind the counter making sandwiches, and that is not appealing. I’d rather spend my time standing in the middle of busy intersection dodging traffic with a bucket in my shaky hand collecting money for my Lions club.

In the good old days everyone was a farmer who worked until he died. It was only after the industrial revolution, and the Great Depression that people began looking at work as a forty-five year duration. Pensions, vacation, and medical insurance all became perks for workers. These benefits were being offered by companies desperate for help. With Trump’s economy we saw a huge shortage of help, but I didn’t see anyone offering huge new benefits to lure workers to their factories. About the most extreme benefit I saw was the work from home model which came because of Covid. Let’s hope things get better sooner than later.

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Filed under: Aging, Conservative, economy, Government, Memories, Seniors | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Mysterious Creature of WWW

Posted on 27/03/2023 by Grumpa Joe

During the last week my computer has been altered internally, and not by me. My entire file system has been lost. My picture files have disappeared. Everything, even the lower tool bar is not working properly. What, who, why?

It is my habit to organize photos by subject in order that I can find pictures quickly. Apple seems to think differently. Every time an update is downloaded the computer is different, and not always for the better. All my pictures are still in the drives, but I can’t access them because my file system is lost. Searching the internet supports the fact that this is not just my problem, therefore, I blame it on Apple. They employ thousands of people who are under the gun to make the computers better, but in their wisdom they screw things up. Guys like me were brought up on logic and order, and so have the Apple guys, but the difference is that their logic is not mine, and their idea of order is from another planet, or at least a few generations away from mine.

Like Microsoft, Apple income depends on getting people to buy their software. When they can’t sell me a new computer they revise the existing software and call it an upgrade. Millions of us take the bait, and the result is mayhem. I predict it will take the rest of my remaining life to get my files straightened out to a point where I will be able to understand how to use this damned stupid machine.

Thank you Apple. GRRRRRR.

Filed under: Aging, Cartoons, Seniors | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

PSA-230323-What Some People are Famous for Saying

Posted on 23/03/2023 by Grumpa Joe

“To get back to my youth I would do anything in the world, except exercise, get up early, or be respectable.”

Oscar Wilde

“The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.”

 Will Rogers

“We must recognize that, as we grow older, we become like old cars –more and more repairs and replacements are necessary.”

 C.S. Lewis

“Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you are aboard there is nothing you can do about it.”

Golda Meir

“I’m so old that my blood type is discontinued.” 

Bill Dane

“The older I get, the more clearly I remember things that never happened.

Mark Twain or Joe Biden

“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes, age just shows up all by itself.”

Tom Wilson

 “Always be nice to your children because they are the ones who will choose your retirement home.”

Phyllis Diller

“I don’t plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet.”

Rita Rudner

“I’m at that age where my back goes out more than I do.”

 Phyllis Diller

 “Nice to be here? At my age, it’s nice to be anywhere.” 

 George Burns

“Don’t let aging get you down. It’s too hard to get backup” 

John Wagner

“First you forget names, then you forget faces, then you forget to pull your zipper up, then you forget to pull your zipper down.”

 Leo Rosenberg

“Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life.” 

 Kitty O’Neill Collins

“Old people shouldn’t eat health foods. They need all the preservatives they can get.” 

 Robert Orben

“It’s important to have a twinkle in your wrinkle.” 

Unknown

“At my age, flowers scare me.” 

George Burns

“I have successfully completed the thirty-year transition from wanting to stay up late to just wanting to go to bed.”

 Unknown

“At age 20, we worry about what others think of us… at age 40, we don’t care what they think of us… at age 60, we discover they haven’t been thinking of us at all.”

Ann Landers

“When I was young, I was called a rugged individualist. 

When I was in my fifties, I was considered eccentric. 

Here I am doing and saying the same things I did then, and I’m labeled senile.”

George Burns

“I complain that the years fly past, but then I look in a mirror and see that very few of them actually got past.”

 Robert Brault

“The important thing to remember is that I’m probably going to forget.”

 Unknown

“As you get older three things happen. The first is your memory goes, and I can’t remember the other two.”

Sir Norman Wisdom

“It’s paradoxical that the idea of living a long life appeals to everyone, but the idea of getting old doesn’t appeal to anyone.”

Andy Rooney

“Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest.”

 Larry Lorenzon

“The older I get, the better I used to be.” 

Lee Trevino

“You know you’re getting old when you can pinch an inch on your forehead.”

John Mendoza

“I was thinking about how people seem to read the bible a lot more as they get older, and then it dawned on me—they’re cramming for their final exam.”

 George Carlin

“I don’t feel old. I don’t feel anything until noon. Then it’s time for my nap.”

Bob Hope

“I’m 59 and people call me middle-aged. How many 118-year-old men do you know?”

Barry Cryer

“I don’t do alcohol anymore—I get the same effect just standing up fast.”

 Anonymous

“By the time you’re 80 years old you’ve learned everything.  Then, you only have to remember it.”

George Burns

“Old age isn’t so bad when you consider the alternative.” 

 Maurice Chevalier

“Getting older. I used to be able to run a 4-minute mile, bench press 380pounds, and tell the truth.”

Conan O’Brien

“I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.”

 Albert Einstein

“Grand children don’t make a man feel old, it’s the knowledge that he’s married to a grandmother that does.”

J. Norman Collie

“You know you are getting old when everything hurts, and what doesn’t hurt doesn’t work.”

 Hy Gardner

“When your friends begin to flatter you on how young you look, it’s a sure sign you’re getting old.”

 Mark Twain

“You know you are getting old when everything either dries up or leaks.”

Joel Plaskett

“There’s one advantage to being 102, there’s no peer pressure.”

Dennis Wolfberg

“I’ve never known a person who lives to be 110 who is remarkable for anything else.”

Josh Billings

“At my age ‘getting lucky’ means walking into a room and remembering what I came in for.”

Unknown

“Old age is when you resent the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated because there are fewer articles to read.”

 George Burns

“The idea is to die young as late as possible.” 

 Ashley Montagu

“You know you’re getting old when you stoop to tie your shoelaces and wonder what else you could do while you’re down there.”

George Burns

“People ask me what I’d most appreciate getting for my eighty-seventh birthday. I tell them, a paternity suit.”

George Burns  

“Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.” 

Anonymous

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