Ramblings of a (Re)tired Mind

[Warph]

Received this from a friend of mine:


When I graduated high school in 1970, nearly 40% of H.S. grads continued on to college. It was considered a necessity to finish high school, probably justifiably, and there was already a good bit of propaganda circulating about a college degree being necessary if one hoped to land a "good" job. That 40% is now over 70%. Is that a sign of a more educated society? You be the judge.

The last three years of my public school, I was working for $1.00 an hour, and glad to get it. I worked an average of 50 hours per week, and gas was only about 36 cents per gallon, so I was feeling fairly flush.

Unfortunately (depending upon your point of view), it was the sixties, and free love and Timothy O'Leary got a lot more of my attention than my textbooks. I wasn't terribly motivated during my senior year, and my grades fell dramatically. Any hopes I (my parents, actually) might have had of a scholarship went up in smoke, so to speak.

Still, after getting an extraordinary education, courtesy of the U.S. Navy, I was able to get a decent job after my discharge, and worked my way up to a nearly $250K annual income. Many times, I chuckled about my high school counselors singing their doom and gloom song about my future, if I didn't knuckle down and get that sheepskin.

Finally, though, in the mid-80s, I did hit a wall, and was told that the company just couldn't have a vice-president of marketing with only a H.S. diploma. So I left, and went back to school. Let me tell you, being the only 30-some year old in a college classroom leaves a lot to be desired. I think most of my professors were younger than I was.

That time around, I thoroughly enjoyed the studying, though. So much so, that once I got my BS in engineering, I decided that I'd get a short-term job and go back for my MBA. Surprising everyone, including myself, I did just that.

Most of my bachelor's degree studies were funded by my G.I. Bill, thanks to my eleven years in the Navy. My costs consisted of only living expenses. When it came time to return for my business degree, however, everything was out of pocket, as I'd long since exhausted my G.I. benefits.

Before finishing business school, I already had an offer, starting at $200K, so I felt like I'd wasted a lot of years. If only I'd gone to college right out of high school, instead of a couple of years of vacation in Southeast Asia.  

But my perspective changed, once I found myself in a management role. Young college grads brought nothing to the table but buzzwords and stylish haircuts. Their lack of experience left the majority of them severely lacking the bare essentials for survival in business. And amazingly, when discussing basics with them that I had studied at my university, I found that most of them had been exposed to almost nothing of practical value. Statistical analysis is critical for some positions, but not for those I was trying to fill. Hell, most of those kids STILL hadn't ever learned how to balance their checkbook!

I also found that the majority of them had been forced to take out student loans, usually with their parents as co-signers, in amounts that seemed to me to be intimidating for someone just starting a career. $25K was a typical number, as I recall, and around 5 years to pay it back. Five or six hundred dollars a month was enough to keep most of them in a shared apartment.

I thought then how fortunate I was that between the Navy and my savings, I'd been able to pay my own way, and not be saddled with that sort of debt. In those days, $25K could buy a decent house. In fact, that's exactly what I paid for my first home.

Shoot forward a few years... about twenty. Last year a client asked me to write a feature article on higher education in the U.S. A little research left me reeling in shock.

One resource I stumbled across during that process was the National Inflation Association. I signed up for their newsletter then and still get it regularly. A couple of weeks ago, they announced that they were releasing a documentary entitled "College Conspiracy", and offered a preview. That preview sparked my interest, as it delved deeply into some bits of "common knowledge" that I had long suspected of being fallacies.

Today, I got to view the entire film, and I can't begin to paint the picture as well as their film does, but I will share just a few verifiable statistics with you.

Today, a public 4 year college charges an in-state student an average of $7,020 per year in tuition and fees.
For out-of-state enrollees, add an average of $11,528 surcharge per year.
A private 4-year college charges an average of $26,293 per year in tuition and fees.
In any of those cases, you can figure on spending around $200 per textbook. That's triple what it was a decade ago.
The typical 4-year degree in the U.S. has a total cost of more than $460K. That doesn't include textbooks or living expenses. I know -  that doesn't match the numbers above – watch the film to understand the difference.
I could go on and on, but if you trust my recommendations at all, then please do yourself a favor and watch this movie.... especially if you or someone in your family is planning to attend college. It may be the most educational hour you have spent in a long time.

View "College Conspiracy" now:  

Full movie:

Short version:

[Warph]

One Liners:


I went to a massage parlor, it was self service. -Rodney Dangerfield

It's a good thing that beauty is only skin deep, or I'd be rotten to the core. -Phyllis Diller

Reality is just a crutch for people who can't cope with drugs. -Robin Williams

Childbirth is no more a miracle then eating food and a turd coming out of your ass. -Bill Hicks

I'm a writer. I write checks. They're not very good. -Wendy Liebman

I was at the lake and I saw this seagull, so I walked up to it and said, "It's okay, I won't tell anybody." -Mitch Hedberg

Why do they call it rush hour when nothing moves? -Robin Williams

Belt holds my pants up, but the belt loops hold my belt up. Don't know what's happening down there. Who's the real hero? -Mitch Hedberg

I came from a real tough neighborhood. On my street, the kids take hubcaps – from moving cars. -Rodney Dangerfield

I think foosball is a combination of soccer and shish kabobs. -Mitch Hedberg

The sky already fell. Now what? -Steven Wright

Watching television is like taking black spray paint to your third eye. -Bill Hicks

I'm convinced my cockroaches have military training, I set off a roach bomb – they defused it. -Jay London

I enjoy a Kit Kat, unless I'm with four or more people. -Mitch Hedberg

If I had nine of my fingers missing I wouldn't type any slower. -Mitch Hedberg

Sometimes I fall asleep at night with my clothes on. I'm going to have all my clothes made out of blankets. -Mitch Hedberg

[Warph]

When I was in high school, we didn't have personal computers and our phones were wired to the wall.  I remember when rotary dial phones were the norm and push button was considered advanced.  It was considered cool if your phone cord was long enough to go from the kitchen to another room.

We wrote letters with pencil and paper, and we mailed them with a 15 cent stamp.

We made coffee in a percolator.

We took a typing class, yet now I can't even remember the last time I saw a typewriter.

Heck, we thought cassette tapes were very advanced technology, but we preferred the sound of a real record that we played on our stereo and bragged about the quality of the needle we used.  And yes, we really did take our film in to be developed, never dreaming that one day it would be an outdated practice.

When you pick yourself off the floor from laughing about how old I am, keep in mind, how fast technology has grown in just the last 30 years.

Each decade has brought us somewhere we never dreamed we could go.

10 years from now, will we look back and crack up about all the cables we tried to organize under our desks?  Will cables be a thing of the past?  Wireless on the way?

Will our kids remember what a dial up connection was?

Will we one day insert microchips into newborn babies and wonder how previous generations didn't think it was okay?

Will our grandchildren see pictures of our cell phones and wonder how we got by with such simple technology?

What do you think the technology of the future will bring to us?  Will it add to our lives?  Or, will something be lost along the way?

[Warph]

I read this morning that they have discovered a mushroom that eats plastic, now that is a trip.  You can read all about it here.   
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/this-could-be-big-abc-news/more-mere-magic-mushrooms-154207424.html

Now here is a fungus with attitude.  Scientists are always discovering new and interesting things, and it amazes me, some of the lengths they will go to doing this.  I read of a chemist in Minn. that had been working on a new chemical compound, and not knowing what it was capable of, he decided to brush his teeth with it.

And low and behold, his teeth got much, much whiter and brighter.

Everything was just swell, until he walked outside in the chilly Minnesota weather, and discovered that cold air, turned the chemical coal black.  Oh well, back to the drawing board.

Speaking of creative people and drawing boards.  I got this one over the weekend, you be the judge.  There is nothing more dangerous than a perverted tradesman/electrician with a pen, or an old guy with too much time on his hands ....



I will never look at a power outlet the same way again.


Are you aware of the fact that Denny's puts eight ( pieces of bacon on a BLT?  I found that out over the weekend, that is a lot of bacon.  It is sooooooo good, but so bad for you, one of those "everything I love to eat, is killing me" things.

One thing you can count on in America, good or bad, it will be marketed and given to you in one way, shape, form or manner.  You can now get a "Bacon Shake" at Burger King.... have it your way.  And afterwords, when your arteries choke up and you win the lottery for high numbers on Cholesterol, you can get buried in your own bacon coffin.  I know, I know, you are sitting there chuckling and chortling to yourself, saying this ol' geezer  is making all of this up.  Uh huh ... sure, but you can check it out it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTzKUha7WIs&feature=player_embedded

Well, I see the old bottom of the page rolling up, and I have to make a trip to town for some materials (I am getting low on Peet's coffee and as it is a staple of life, a geriatric vitamin of sorts, it is time for resupply), guess I ought to close this out and get cracking.

One more post, locked down in the hard drive and I am through for the day.  I now leave you to your respective musings.  Think of me fondly, here on the old golf course, and the same time, trying my best to figure out all the wrinkles and crannies of the Internet age.

Pondering important hot button issues and the mysteries of life, for example, how a status symbol of today is one of those new fangled cell phones that everyone has clipped onto their belt or purse.  I can't afford one.  So, I'm wearing my garage door opener.  (I also made a cover for my hearing aid and now I have what they call blue teeth, I think.

If none of this has helped you out, I am truly sorry.  Do you still need more DRAMA in your life this Tuesday?  Good.  I got it.

Watch this:

And by all means, try and remember this one impotent fact of the Internet and blogging ..... This what happens when you reach old age and have decided that old age is  "when you still have something on the ball, but you are just too tired to bounce it."

I am headed to the kitchen for another cup of Peet's... What else do I have to do on a very hot Tuesday?  I don't have $4 million to go to cruising off to Alaska for some R&R, so I'll just sit here and melt.[/font][/size]

[Warph]

My Father's Brief Affair
by Frank Kaiser, Geezer

When someone complains about how "things ain't like they used to be," the "used to be" is often the 1950s.
Drawing from narrow, selective memories, we 60- and 70-somethings remember fondly the sweet innocence of that era. The idyllic domesticity of Father Knows Best. The unsullied humor of I Love Lucy. The temperance of kids, safe and content, wearing and doing as they were told.

Movies didn't swear, TV had no sex, and magazines revealed only the smiling, wholesome side of life.

Sounds boring, doesn't it? It was.

Except for our cars.

This is the story of my father's cars.

My dad was crippled. It's politically correct to say "disabled" or "handicapped," but he was neither. It's just that his arms and legs atrophied when, at age 10, doctors put his limbs in casts for several years, that era's treatment for childhood rheumatism.

In 1940, when Oldsmobile came out with HydraMatic, the first automatic-shift, Dad wanted one. His huge, clumsy, custom-built shoes made clutching difficult. An automatic shift would make driving more pleasant, and driving was pretty much the only way he could get around.

WW II intervened. It was six years before he got his HydraMatic.

By the time I started paying attention, he was on his third Olds, a 1949 "Rocket 88." I learned to drive in that car. It was fast as lightening, and I drove every volt of it.

1949 Olds:


After the war, Detroit discovered branding and artificial obsolescence, two cornerstones of a consumer-driven society. In those days, there were Ford men, and Chevy men, Buick men and Chrysler men. My dad was an Olds man.

Every September, when the next year's car models appeared in showrooms across the country with their sleek new thises and thats, it was a national event.

Unlike today's cookie cutters, cars of the '50s had character. You could tell a Buick by its signature portholes. Oldsmobiles looked like rocket ships, with huge chromed jet intakes and sleek aerodynamic bodies. Studebakers? "They're dangerous," a cop warned me when I was a patrol boy in 5th grade. "You can't tell if they're coming or going."

Artificial obsolescence demanded change for the sake of change. Cadillac's little rear fins of 1948 grew to gigantic proportions by 1959, towering three and one-half feet above the pavement, terminating into multiple taillights glowing like frozen bursts of fire from a rocket on high.

In front, chrome bumpers had morphed and embellished into women's breasts, or "Dagmars," named after an early TV bimbo. Under the hood were 345 horses.

By the mid '50s, the average middle-priced car wore almost 50 pounds of superfluous chrome. God only knew how much Cadillac's boundless jewelry weighed. It was "irrational exuberance" by any measure.

Which takes me back to my dad.

Each September he would drive home in a bright and shiny new Oldsmobile convertible. It was his pride and joy, his only extravagance.

Then, in September of 1959, my father came home in a Cadillac, a yellow and white convertible with enough chrome to make Las Vegas blush. The car was huge. A barge fit for Cleopatra. A ship worthy of Zeus.



Suddenly Trivia: What was the factory price of a 1959 Cadillac convertible? a) $11,650 b) $5,455, c) $13,510, d) $7,860.

He drove up the driveway, honked, and waited for my mother to come out and ooh and ah.

Mom stayed inside. He honked and honked.

She wouldn't budge.

Dad soon realized he was in big trouble. He went in after her. She refused to move. Mom would not have a Cadillac. A Caddy was too expensive. It was ostentatious. It ate too much fuel. And it probably wouldn't fit in the garage.

They were not Cadillac kind of people.

Dad walked out to the car, threw his cane into the back seat, and drove away, returning in a new, more sensible Oldsmobile. The Cadillac was never spoken of again.

You know what I think? Mom tolerated the hair-tormenting convertibles year after year because she loved the man. But for a woman brought up in a world where hard work and self denial were the ultimate satisfactions, the Cadillac was just too much. It was Jezebel — beautiful, sensuous and forbidden, a wanton mistress that threatened the very stability and sanctity of marriage.

It was an affair, and it was over before it began.

Suddenly Trivia Answer: The factory price of a 1959 Cadillac convertible was b) $5,455

[Warph]

[Warph]

Love Making Tips for Geezers


Wear your glasses.

Make sure your partner is actually in bed.

Set timer for 3 minutes, in case you doze off in the middle.

Set the mood with lighting.  (Turn them ALL OFF!)

Make sure you put 911 on your speed dial before you begin.

Write partner's name on your hand in case you can't remember.

Keep the polygrip close by so your teeth don't end up under the bed.

Have Tylenol ready in case you actually complete the act.

Make all the noise you want.  The neighbors are deaf too.

If it works, call everyone you know with the good news.

Don't even think about trying it twice.

(I posted this in large type so us seniors can read it.

[Warph]

                                       Diary Of Man Who Moved To Atwood, Kansas
                                                 I love snow!
                       

December 1
It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!


December 9
We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the whole world? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had! Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplow came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life!


December 12
The sun has melted all our lovely snow. Such a disappointment! My neighbor tells me not to worry - we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.


December 14
Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplow came back this afternoon and buried everything again. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.


December 15
20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska, after all.


December 16
Ice storm this morning. Fell on my rear on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.


December 17
Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room.


December 20
Electricity is back on, but had another 14 inches of the damn stuff last night. More shoveling! Took all day. The damn snowplow came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.


December 22
Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white crap fell today, and it's so cold, it probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to pee. By the time I got undressed, peed and dressed again. I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plow on his truck for the rest of the winter, but he says he's too busy. I think the idiot is lying.


December 23
Only 2 inches of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she, nuts?!! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she's lying.


December 24
6 inches - Snow packed so hard by snowplow, I broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a b*tch who drives that snow plow, I'll drag him through the snow by his b@lls and beat him to death with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shoveling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy watching for the damn snowplow.


December 25
Merry Christmas, my ass! 20 more inches of the damn slop tonight - Snowed in. The idea of shoveling makes my blood boil. God, I hate the snow! Then the snowplow driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she's a fricking idiot. If I have to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to stuff her into the microwave.

December 26
Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.

December 27
Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze; plumber came after 14 hours of waiting for him, he only charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.


December 28
Warmed up to above -20. Still snowed in. This is driving me crazy!!!

December 29
10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?


December 30
Roof caved in. I beat up the snow plow driver, and now he is suing me for a million dollars, not only for the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove the broken snow shovel up his you-know-what. The wife went home to her mother. Nine more inches predicted.

December 31
I set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.

January 8
Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?

[Diane Amberg]

Old, but still very funny. Thanks!

[Catwoman]

LOL