So Baby Boomer: Life Tips

Where will You Retire?

The prospect of a new second life locale is enticing.  Why not seize the moment and settle in the destination of your dreams: the mountains, the beach, the city—even overseas.  Baby Boomers in particular, who begin turning 65 this year, seem ready to do just that.

"The Baby Boomers have surprised everyone at every phase of their life cycle," says William H. Frey, a migration expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C.  "Now that boomers are becoming seniors, they're much more likely to move than their parents."

But what happens when spouses don't share the same dream? How do they resolve their differences? In short, where's the middle ground between South Africa and Manhattan?

Interviews with dozens of couples, therapists, educators and marriage counselors across the country make it clear that the answers are rarely easy. Compromise is great—when it works. More often, though, couples describe an awkward mix of clashing ideas, sudden revelations and silent standoffs.

In fact, a surprising number of would-be retirees say they may wind up living in different places to pursue their own interests—while remaining married. There's an abbreviation for this: LAT, living apart together.

If any single tactic can ease the strains, it's to start the conversation early—years before actually retiring.  Avoid an 11th-hour bombshell at all costs.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2011

Blogging Boomer Carnival #199

Come to the carnival where approximately a dozen participating blogs focus on Baby Boomer issues from health to midlife crisis to finance and travel. 

As the boomer generation's 60s become the new 40s, this week's boomer-centric articles document newsworthy happenings in their lives.  Be sure to visit SoBabyBoomer's tent at the Accidental Locavore by Anne Maxfield.

Protecting Your Loved Ones from the Risks of Alzheimer’s

By Guest Author Jim Nalley of EmFinders

The Baby Boomer generation is quickly aging, with all boomers reaching 65 years old by the year 2030.

At that time, the number of people aged 65 and over afflicted by Alzheimer’s will reach roughly 7.7 million, a significant increase from current numbers.  As this number increases, it is increasingly important for caregivers to set ways to best protect Alzheimer’s sufferers from injury.

A very serious issue for many Alzheimer’s patients is wandering away from their home or managed care location.  More than 60 percent of all sufferers attempt to wander away at some point. Such patients are at a grave risk of physical injury as they may no longer be capable of crossing streets or avoiding other hazards.  Being lost is also emotionally devastating to both the patient and loved ones.

Thankfully, some early signs exist to warn caregivers about Alzheimer’s sufferers who may be prone to wandering away. Knowing these signs can be step in proactively preventing issues. The urge to wander away from home or a care center can be spurred on by a sense of restlessness or anxiety. Some patients might express desires to go back to work, or to visit relatives that live far away.

Exercising and other recreational activity can burn some energy and significantly reduce restlessness.  A good diet is important, especially for patients that have low blood sugar who may become confused without frequent snacks.  Exterior doors can be painted or covered with artwork or adorned with “STOP” signs to discourage usage.  Electronic chimes or alarms can also be installed to alert caregivers to all individual exits and entrances.

Despite caregivers’ best intentions and preventative measures, wandering will still occur. Once a patient is missing, the focus then shifts to finding them as fast as possible. Increasingly, caregivers can utilize sophisticated technology to help keep track of loved ones. Several wearable GPS and cellular-based devices are on the market which aid in safely finding missing persons within minutes. It’s important for caregivers to choose a wearable device that works not only quickly and accurately, but is comfortable and unobtrusive to the wearer.

Keeping Alzheimer’s patients away from all risks is a challenge, but the right combination of risk mitigation and the latest tools can give caregivers peace of mind and patients the safety they deserve.

Baby Boomers continue to personally evolve; setting new trends along their wake.  This carnival, the 197 of the BBC series, is just a small piece of the microcosm series that was developed to record the boomer generation's evolution.  Come to the fair and observe interesting segments of trend-setting happenings that seek life's meaning through passionate living:

Be sure to visit SoBabyBoomer's tent at the Blogging Boomer Carnival #197 hosted this week at Vaboomer.com

Concierge Medicine Men

We never seem to see Lady Gaga or Brad Pitt sitting in a crowded, sneezy-cough group clinic waiting room.

So, where do rock stars, pro athletes, actors and politicians go for their health care?

The rich and famous, of course, have always had access to private doctors, but many are now taking advantage of a new service called The Concierge Package at Executive Medicine of Texas in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Celebrities and business barons fly in from all over the world to get first-class personal attention.  Staffers at Executive Medicine of Texas arrange airport transportation and security if needed, and the patients are guaranteed complete confidentiality as they are treated to a suite of medical services, from blood biomarker testing to virtual colonoscopies, from nuclear medicine imaging to wellness and lifestyle assessments.

Patients measure their face-time with the doctors not in minutes, but in hours. Most get a half-day for the first full work-up, then follow-up visits and phone access to medical staff 24/7. When was the last time you heard a doctor say, “You can call me any time”? Patients at Executive Medicine of Texas can have their doctor on speed-dial and available whenever needed.

Dr. Mark Anderson and Dr. Walter Gaman won’t reveal the identities of any of their patients, but they say Executive Medicine of Texas isn’t just for celebrities.  They see patients from all walks of life, as long as they can afford the fees – which aren’t all that expensive by today’s standards.  The Concierge Packages start at $2,500 when added to a physical exam.

“We like people to look young and healthy.  We also understand that our patients are their own biggest asset.  If their health deteriorates, so does their career” said Judith Gaman, health and wellness expert and part of the Executive Medicine of Texas staff.  “Starting with health on the inside and working out means long-term success and a better overall result. We even work with a world-renowned nutritionist, cosmetic surgeon and dentist to give inside/out makeovers. Lasting results – that’s what matters.”

Dr. Anderson and Dr. Gaman were both honored as “Best Doctors in Texas 2010” by Newsweek Magazine.  They, along with Judith Gaman, co-host “The Staying Young” radio show, which airs Sunday mornings on three Texas radio stations and streams internationally.

They have also co-authored two books, Executive Medicine: Optimizing Your Chances for a Longer Life and Stay Young: 10 Proven Steps to Ultimate Health (George House Publishing, 2010).

 Mark J. Anderson: Stay Young

Shop Globally, Buy Locally

Mark Hodesh, owner of Downtown Home & Garden in Ann Arbor, MI says the "buy local' movement has been going on for five years.  “It’s huge,” said Hodesh, who first became involved with the business in 1975. “Sometimes the only qualifier is what’s made locally.”

But the definition of “local” is different for everybody, he said.  Sometimes, merely being made in the United States is enough to qualify.  For example, notice General Motors' new Chevy advertisements spanning the U.S. and featuring the American history of the company.  Perhaps, this relatively new buy locally consumer meme is one of the reasons investors from China (where GM sells more cars than within the U.S.) and the Middle East have accumulated a large amount of ownership shares in the new GM's IPO this month.

As the holiday shopping season takes hold, retailers are jockeying to grab a greater share of online sales, which are expected to rise 16 percent to $52 billion in 2010, according to Forrester Research.

But the influence of the Web is far greater than just direct purchases. It’s also giving consumers the ability to conduct extensive research - sometimes on their smart phones while standing in the aisle of a store - and ask their friends about products on social networking sites like Facebook.

“One of the trends we’re seeing is every purchase has been a more considered purchase, more researched,” said Larry Freed, CEO of Ann Arbor-based ForeSee Results, which conducts some 1 million surveys a month for its online retail clients.  “At the end of the day, the consumer is smarter than they’ve ever been before. They’re more in control than they’ve ever been before, and they’re holding retailers accountable for a great experience.”

In online retail, the gap between the massive global players and the small, niche sellers is widening. The big guys are battling for customers by aggressively discounting goods and offering ubiquitous shipping discounts, or even free shipping in some cases.

That competition intensifies on Cyber Monday, the Monday after Thanksgiving - in this case Nov. 29 - in which retailers often compete for business by offering huge discounts for web-only purchases.   Amazon.com is the go-to-place for online purchases.

    

Who's e-reading?

Makers of e-books are stingy with their numbers, and industry watchdogs disagree, but some say a large proportion of early e-book owners - up to 66 percent in some surveys - are older than 40, with a "sweet spot" in the 35-to-54 range.

Smythe of Sony said that "as of now, the whole e-book industry was trending older," and Tony Astarita, vice president of digital products at Barnes & Noble, said that "our initial adoption was skewed to heavy readers and an older demographic." Astarita expects, however, that as e-book prices moderate, "we're going to see a more general audience."

Risa Becker, vice president of research operations for GfK MRI, reports on a survey released in May: "We're not finding the more-mature trend, and only a very slight tendency for men to own e-readers more than women." Yet for certain readers, such as the Kindle, early users are more frequently female. Smythe said, "We're seeing a greater percentage of women than men; a lot of women are taking to this."

Becker said, "Women were 11 percent more likely than men to say they read an e-book, and men were 20 percent more likely to have read a magazine and 19 percent more likely to have read a newspaper."

E-book users, Becker said, tend to earn more than $100,000 a year, be college-educated, and be very Web and social-media savvy: "These people do everything on the Web. They spend more than 20 hours a week on it."

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 5, 2010

What we want our cars to say about us

I confess that my license plate expresses what's important to me. 

A lot of people, like me, must care about the message they send out or there would be no such thing as vanity license plates and bumper stickers that zoom by us on highways or inch along with us in commuter traffic.  But the overwhelming majority of signals sent via license plates and bumper stickers almost certainly float unnoticed into the ether for the simple reason that nobody much cares.

However, it turns out that someone does care or at least has: Jack Bowen, who teaches philosophy at Menlo School in Atherton, CA.   In a recent book called: "If You Can Read This: The Philosophy of Bumper Stickers," he not only thinks about bumper stickers but takes them seriously, evaluating the underlying worldviews they express.  He says he takes issue with about 70 percent of the broader conclusions implied by the many bumper stickers he evaluates. 

When Bowen appears on radio call-in shows and the like to promote his book, he has learned that "people are really fired-up about bumper stickers."  Probably no one thinks about the signals sent along the highway more than those sending them.  Bumper stickers and vanity license plates are all about announcing judgments of the vehicle's driver...and...have little to do with the accepting of the message by the people reading them.

Source: New York Times Magazine, June 6, 2010

 Jack Bowen: If You Can Read This: The Philosophy of Bumper Stickers

Future Sustainable Lifestyle of Boomers?

Whatever Baby Boomers are doing, people want to figure it out.

Just how many of the boomer generation, who have sent their kids out into the world, want to downsize is the subject of debate among an array of groups, including auto makers, home builders, environmentalists and federal policy makers.

Encouraging more people to live in neighborhoods close to their workplaces is an element of President Barack Obama's broader effort to cut U.S. consumption of fossil fuels.  Today, the average American emits 19.8 tons of carbon dioxide per year---since the tendency of Americans is to live miles from their workplaces.

Home builders have been watching consumer preferences shift toward smaller houses the past two years.  Put the turmoil in the home mortgage market and the worst housing price collapse in decades aside--demographers and economists have predicted that many aging boomers would opt for smaller, easier-to-manage dwellings once their children left home.  Those predictions helped spur a surge in loft and condominium developments in many U.S. cities, as well as efforts to develop so-called walkable communities.  So far, the bet hasn't paid off.

Someday, millions of boomers may well want compact, elegantly designed, multipurpose four-cylinder cars to match their luxury loft lifestyles.  But first, someone will make a killing renting boomers trucks to haul away the debris of their consumerist lives.

Source: Joseph B. White in The Wall Street Journal, October 28, 2009

Why do boomers read blog postings?

Independent, publicly traded American newspapers have lost forty-two percent of their market value in the past three years, according to the media entrepreneur Alan Mutter.  Few corporations have been punished on Wall Street the way those who dare to invest in the newpaper business have. 

Public trust in newspapers has been slipping at least as quickly as the bottom line.  A recent study published by Sacred Heart University found that fewer than twenty percent of Americans said they could believe "all or most" media reporting, a figure that has fallen from more than twenty-seven percent just five years ago.

"Less than one in five believe what they read in print," the 2007 "State of the News Media" report, issued by the Project for Excellence in Journalism concluded.  Vastly more Americans believe in flying saucers and 9/11 conspiracy theories than believe in the notion of balanced mainstream news media.

Getting what you want to know from blogs

Thirty-nine percent of Internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs.

Most bloggers don't think of what they do as journalism.  37% of bloggers cite "my life and experiences" as the primary topic of their blog.  Politics and government runs a very distant second with 11% citing those issues of public life as the main subject of their blog.  7% are into entertainment-related topics, 6% sports, 5% general news and current events, 5% business, 4% technology, 2% religion, spirituality or faith and 1% each for a special hobby or a health problem/illness.

If you really want to know "what's happening now" searching blogs is the place to go.

Here are my blogs: www.CoachingTip.com  www.SoBabyBoomer.com  www.WhatCanItBe.com

Here are specialty blogs and social network sites that I regularly check out: www.WomanLeadership.com  www.BigHouseBlog.com  www.CareerTips.us.com

Boomers Spending Less

Baby Boomers were responsible for a 78% share of GDP growth during the bubble years of 1995-2005. 

Many companies, like Mercedes, saw themselves as the quintessential boomer brand.  Drive down an American highway, and odds are good that the person piloting the Benz was born between 1946 and 1962.  Back in 1980, when the first Baby Boomer turned 40, Mercedes sold 99,000 cars in the U.S.  In 2006, when those boomers hit 60, the automaker moved almost 250,000 vehicles, a fifth of its global total.

This year, Mercedes will sell a third fewer cars in America and sales won't recover for a long time because boomers, history's wealthiest generation, are taped out.

When 79 million people--nearly a third of Americans--start spending less and saving more, you know it won't be pretty.  According to consulting firm McKinsey, boomers' conversion to thrift could stifle the economy's hoped-for rebound and knock U.S. growth down from the 3.2% it has averaged since 1965 to 2.4% over the next 30 years.

When Life was a Picnic

"Picnic Day" written by an unknown author was published during pre-Baby Boomer days in the October 1945 edition of The Yarn Spinner, a monthly newsletter by and for employees of the Broadalbin Knitting Mill in Broadalbin, NY.  Picnics were commonplace in those days and a trip to the city or a summer resort was a special occasion.  Sacandaga Park (along the Great Sacandaga Lake) in Upstate New York was a very special place.  For the entire village to travel there for a picnic was a very special occasion indeed.

If you recall--some years ago, there was a day that we all know.  When all the churches in the town, a picnic planned--of vast renown.  All the clergy toiled and worked, no one shirked.  Their respective flocks did make salads, goodies, pies and cake.

The village fathers, everyone, went together for the fun.  The village band did strut and play, in suits of Black and Gold array.

No one stayed in the town, everyone was picnic bound.  We kids were put into the tub, washed, scoured, cleaned and scrubbed.

Then we would don our Sunday best be it cotton suit or silken dress.  And sit right down upon a chair while our elders would prepare.  They, like us, would soon appear all slicked up--the time was near.

With picnic baskets in our hands, we started for the promised lands.  Down the street we went so gay, everyone was on their way.  The train was in--right on the track.  No one now could hurry back.

The whistle blew so hard and shrill, we hurried down the Beimus Hill.  People standing all around.  Bundles, baskets on the ground.  Old No. 9 would wheeze and puff, with all that crowd--goin' was tough.

While in the coach, we made big plans of what to do--clapped our hands.  Sacandaga Park--all safe at last--right from the train, we hurried fast.  To see the Bear--so big and black.  We gazed at him and he gazed back.

We had so many things to do, we must go on and hurry too.  We see the donkeys in the shade, ice cream, candy and lemonade.  The Roller-coaster--House of Fun--Shooting Gallery--we shoot a gun, roller skating and swimming too.  Everything we kids could do.

Merry-Go-Rounds and don't disdain, Sport Island and a Tiny Train.  The mornings gone and we must climb, back up the hill covered with pine, to picnic tables and what a feast fit for King and Queen at least.

Eating is over and then more fun, away we go upon a run.  Ball games, swimming and if you're slow, you can go to a Picture Show.  The day is running out of time and soon again we get in line.  Hot dogs, candy popcorn, too.  We're ready now--to break in two.

Our elders eat and laugh and talk, while we lie down or feebly walk.  Back to the train, we're homeward bound, tired as a hunting hound.  We squash balloons and cinders fly.  Someone had one in his eye.  All this goes on until we're back.

We leave the train and cross the track, and look up that old Beimus Hill.  It looked so steep--we got a chill.  We're tired out, our moneys spent, yet we're not sorry we went.

Both young and old can gladly say, it surely was a Picnic Day!

Source: The Lamplighter, Broadalbin Kennyetto Historical Society newsletter, June 2009