Boomer Randomness

Over the past few years I’ve made tremendous progress with the few personal issues I have, but I’m still not comfortable revealing my age. That is almost my only remaining issue. If you’ve known me 35 years or more, then you know the number. If you’ve known me less than ten years, you probably don’t know it; I’ve made one exception to that and sometimes I regret that. Sorry, it’s complicated. I’m usually the first to point out that age is just a number, but age discrimination runs rampant in our society, in my opinion, and that is especially true in my profession (media). Of the hundred or more full time employees in my division of my company, only five or six of us are over 50. The very top boss isn’t out of her 30s yet. People make too many assumptions, wrong ones, about age and I refuse to be caught in that trap. Sadly, age paranoia is something I learned from my Mother. She wouldn’t even tell me and my sister her age; we found out when she was in her 50s because of something wr...

OK, I admit it: I’m a bit of a geek about old movies, especially Bogart movies. I was in a film club in high school and we spent time analyzing movies. Movies made in the Bogart era, mid 1930s to mid 1950s are stylistically different from movies made in the mid and late 1960s, which are much different than movies made today. Each style has its merits and represents in some way the general social tone of its era. Today’s films show off technology and often seem made for sequels, with endings that tease another chapter in the plot line. Many movies made in the 1960s do not have happy endings; Cool Hand Luke is a pretty good example of that. Movies in the Bogart era mostly made some point and most ended with some hero winning some kind of battle or walking away into the sunset, metaphorically at least; Casablanca comes to mind. That is simplistic analysis but you get my point. Casablanca is my all time favorite movie. I’ve seen it at least twenty five times and have read many books an...

I made a mistake in my previous post. The primary is Tuesday.

I was tempted to post this after hearing the results of today’s Florida primary, but why wait? In case you hadn’t figured this out yet, I think Newt is a ridiculous phony who would be dangerous for the country if elected President. One part of me actually wants him to be the Republican candidate because that would guarantee Obama’s re-election. But another part of me wants the election to be about fair choices between two decent candidates. You also know I voted for Obama last time and although it is not a certainty, it is likely I’ll vote for him again. My biggest disappointment with him has been his lack of standing up and fighting. However, it looks like he’s warming up to that idea. I read this earlier in the week (sorry I don’t remember where): Obama also pushed back on Gingrich’s oft-repeated “food stamp president line,” saying, “I don’t put people on food stamps. People become eligible for food stamps. Second of all, the initial expansion of food-stamp eligibility happened...

It has taken me ten minutes to navigate the "new" Google/Blogger/Gmail/YouTube login just to get to this page ... and it would have been longer if I had the time to read all the new allegedly simplified policies.  All I wanted to do was see if a friend was successful in posting a comment; she has had trouble getting to that part of my blog.  Now I know why. I am not resistant to change.  I don't have a problem with the same company owning most of my online life ... i.e. Google, Blogger, Gmail and You Tube ... I have some kind of presence on all of those ... BUT I want simplified things to be simple . Google People ... in case you don't know this, there are other search engines, other blog sites, other email services and other video posting sites.  You own a lot but you don't own it all.  If I was trying to make money using any of your products, I would be seriously exploring other options right now.  Just saying.

All the art of living lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on - Henry Ellis 

And the last in this series ... Do you care who wins the Super Bowl this year? Do you follow any teams? Why? City pride? Sexy athletes? I follow some teams and mostly for city pride. I've lived in six different cities so sometimes it is tough to pick one over another. My current faves are Washington DC teams, partly because that's my current home town; or more like home region. I still like the Cowboys, the Packers and of course the Saints, my original hometown team. I lived in Chicago too but not long enough to love a team. I like the Baltimore Ravens too but they came into existence after I moved away (a whole 35 miles). Teams tend to have interchangeable players and sometimes interchangeable cities. Before Baltimore had the Ravens they had the Colts, who are now in Indianapolis. The Washington Nationals used to be the Montreal Expos before they became DC's first major league baseball team since the Senators became the Texas Rangers decades ago. So who is your team??