Back to Niagara Falls

The last time I came to the famous cataracts was on October 13, 1971; that’s quite a long time ago. My memories were quite vague and I am glad that we returned here today. Not quite satisfied to watch from a distance, we decided to literally get to the “bottom of things” and went for the “Maid of the Mist” cruise. As Evelyne said, we just paid the boat ride to get wet, but the experience was definitely worth the spraying. Our hotel room sat 14 stories above the Canadian Horseshoe Fall, the view was terrific and at night we all enjoyed a great pizza!

Chacha’s graduation

It was great to be back in Ithaca, New York for Charlotte’s graduation. We were really grateful that my rather fast recovery allowed us to jump in a plane and come over.
The ceremony has been very intimate and we were lucky to meet a lot of people, including faculty and support staff that worked closely with Chacha, other students and their parents including those who came all the way from Europe to cheer their “LLM” graduates. The first and last time we were in Cornell was in June of 2003. The place is as hard to navigate as ever, but again, the experience was priceless!

No strings attached!

Last fall we attended a huge clothing and accessories sale at Rossignol, here in Park City. We bought a backpack that at $30, seemed like a good value. I used it a few times this winter when I volunteered at the Race Department, stuck my lunch and water bottle in its main compartment and that was it. Yesterday, as we were packing up for our New York trip, I asked Evelyne to find a padded pocket in that backpack for my car GPS. She located an area a bit more padded than the rest, opened the zipper, and pulled... a woman’s black string. Guess what, I suddenly had a lot of explaining to do!

Gizmos and me

Back in February 1975, at the ISPO Ski Show in Munich, Germany, a Japanese co-worker gave me one of the first small hand-held calculator available (the size of today's smart phones), with LED display if you are old enough to know it means. It had no memory but could extract square roots. I was so happy with my new possession that I couldn’t find enough things to figure out. Without a doubt, this wonderful little gadget was what made me fall in love with computers and all of our modern gizmos.

38,000 Service

This is just a euphemism for my medical examination by Dr. Morgan, on Day 38 following my surgery. After waiting for more than one hour, my surgeon finally showed up. His first reaction was to look for my crutches… that weren’t there! He said that I was doing just fine, in fact better than most and said that after another two weeks I’d be out of the “boot” and can start physical therapy.

He also gave me a protocol to measure the exercises that I would undergo at that time and use it as a benchmark towards my actual progress. Last, but not least, he also told me to remove some of the huge wedges off my boot so I could walk on a more even keel.

Back behind the wheel

Do you remember the feeling when you first got your driver’s license? Well, this is almost what I experienced yesterday when I got back behind the wheel. What an excitement! I first drove to the nursery where Evelyne wanted to check out some plants, and then to the post office to pick up the mail. Later that day we drove again all the way to Salt Lake and shopped at a couple of places. All went well. My right leg and tendon perfectly held together and pressing on the brake and the gas pedal was not hard at all. This was Day 46 after the accident and Day 36 after the operation. Life is good…

Just do the math…

In 1881 Germany's Emperor, William the First envisioned workers' retirement. In 1889, Bismarck began its implementation for those reaching the age of 70, which was later reduced to 65. At that time, the average life expectancy was only 47 years. With negative financial exposure, that move made perfect sense! In the USA, the Social Security Administration premiered its program in 1935, with a retirement age set a 65, while the average life expectancy had grown to about 67 years. Today, in the USA, our retirement age has advanced from 65 to 67 for the spoiled baby boomer generation, but their average life expectancy has leaped to 82.5 years.

Something is wrong with that picture. The number of folks over 60 years keeps on increasing. The United Nations says that by 2050 it is projected to reach two billion, about 22% of the world’s population. If the trend continues, most retirement systems in the U.S. and everywhere will go bust unless our politicians have the courage to make some tough decisions. Those are simple, but highly unpopular: We can keep on advancing the retirement age into a worker’s seventies, reduce the amount of benefits received, or significantly raise the contributions paid by the working population.
Just do the math…