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Wish you all A Very Happy Thanksgiving. Hope you will have a wonderful meal with family and friends.

Oh! by the way, have you ever wondered about how and when the turkey became the symbol of Thanksgiving celebration? or did you know that Thanksgiving celebration is not unique to just America? as is commonly thought; but has a long tradition of celebration. If this interests you, you may want to read this excellent primer on Thanksgiving celebrations from a wonderful website, howstuffworks.

Enjoy reading and again Wish You A Very Happy Thanksgiving and hopefully a good Black Friday shopping :~) from all of us at Boomer411.com.

In our series on people, we feature the work of those that have made it their cause to improve the lives of aging people, help improve their health or other areas related to elders. Today let’s learn a little bit about Ronni Bennett. Ronni is working hard to champion the cause of those that are aging in two basic ways in my understanding. As you learn more about her, you may find out there are more ways. But for this brief introduction, let’s stick to these two. And they are…

1. To improve,change the image of those aging to a one of respect from the current common perception of aging is bad and to be avoided. To treat them with respect and dignity. To value their contributions to the society
2. To help in the development of elder-friendly technology tools

Both, very noble causes in my opinion. Thanks Ronni for all that you are doing.

 A former television and radio producer, Ronni Bennett currently authors a very active and lively blog, aptly titled ”‘Time Goes By’ - What it’s really like to get older”. Ronni championed the use of the term, ElderBlogger. She recently presented at the Gnomedex conference in Seattle and you can find more details about it here (a blog post article by Chris Pirillo), including a video clip of her demonstration about ‘technology and elders’. You can also find a very nice introduction to Ronni Bennett’s work in Chris’ posting.

At a time when the medicare part D plan enrollment for 2008 is now open and there is a plethora of choices to be made and a lot of information that could easily confuse many, Ronni summarizes her hours of research into this wonderful and timely blog post, that is informative and could potentially save you time and may be some dollars as well. Please be sure to read her blog post to make sure you can quickly take action in the right direction.

Coming Soon: Interview with Ronni Bennett

Occassionally we will highlight a quote that would hopefully trigger our thinking in a new direction…

Today’s quote is from none other than, Albert Einstein:

“As our circle of knowledge expands, so does the circumference of darkness surrounding it.” -Albert Einstein

Hmm…

How profound? Since the beginning of the previous century, there is so much advancement in technology, civilisation, etc. Yet, everyday we are discovering how much more we don’t know or don’t understand. I find it applicable in my life as well. Through the days, I am learning new things that I didn’t even know existed. To put it in otherwords, I don’t even know what I don’t know. Very humbling, indeed…

Have a great weekend.

Here is a unique, by no means a run-of-the-mill story about how some retirees are attempting to own a vacation home in the middle of the waters. As the opening quote in the attached article indicates, this is definitely not for the weak-hearted. But sounds interesting none the less.

The U S Coast Guard that owns most of the lighthouses doesn’t need them anymore as the GPS (Global Positioning Satellites) and signal-buoys powered by solar cells have rendered most of the 300 Coast Guard lighthouses obsolete. So the government is auctioning off these lighthouses (some of them for as little as $30,000) and some adventurous retirees are snapping them up and turning them into vacation homes with some additional spending.  Check this out.

This story raises the question, How do you know if it is a good option for you? The answer would be, it depends on your idea of a vacation. Affordability or low price is definitely one of the criteria, but cannot be the sole criteria. I would first ask myself what is it that I want in my vacation home? Once I have defined my criteria for my ideal (or good) vacation home, then I can evaluate the available options and see if there is a good fit. For example if say, access to good medical facilities or vacation resorts defines a good vacation for you, then this option may not be for you. However, if ocean and adventure are your requirements for a good vacation and you are healthy then this may be a good fit. So it all depends on your idea/criteria for a good vacation.

As we get older and get busier in life, sometimes life becomes so mechanical and in the process we lose sight of our priorities; priorities such as our health, our families, etc – the aspects of our lives that are so crucial. Considering that as we age, we are at increased risk for developing health related issues, it seems that we should be more disciplined to work out regularly to maintain our health. Yet, it has been reported regularly that many people don’t exercise or if they do then they cannot maintain the discipline over long periods of time. If you do not share in this experience, congratulations and wish you all the best to keep up the discipline and thereby your health. If you have difficulty motivating yourself to either begin or maintain your workout plans, don’t lose hope. You can probably help yourself by trying the imagination technique. If this interests you, read below…

(Caution: If you are so scared of bad health that if thinking about it makes you sick or if you are a heart patient, this technique may not be appropriate for you. You should probably skip the next paragraph)

The imagination technique to motivating yourself: Take a piece of paper, draw a horizontal line about half way and list out the illnesses or health complications (across the page) that you are at risk to developing. For each health issue you listed, imagine if you did get it how it would affect your health, your abilities and your lifestyle. You can be creative here and imagine having a bad case of these illnesses. The more vividly you can visualize these situations, the better. Think how it would limit your activities, affect your independence and the people you love and care about.  Now below the line (or the bottom half of the page), list out what you could do, starting from now, in terms of exercising, playing sports, etc.  Again get creative and imagine the best now, list out what benefits or gains you can produce for yourself by regularly following your plan for workout.  If you listed any activities that involve a group of people, be sure to list out the social benefits of the activity such as networking, or hanging out with people you like, etc. Again the more creative you are and the more vividly you can imagine yourself living healthy and well, the better this technique will work for you. Hope this fun, little exercise motivated you to take that next step.

Here is another story to help you get motivated to hopefully take those crucial steps toward maintaining your health. The New England Boomers covered in this story have come up with a unique way to commit themselves and keep them motivated to work out regularly by way of playing their favorite sport, soccer. By forming over-the-hill soccer leagues and having fun playing their favorite game and at the same time working out physically, may be they are heralding the beginning of a new trend. Do you have a soccer league in your place or may be you love another sport and can gather around a few friends to regularly play and have fun.
This story shows us that we can come up with creative solutions to our problems if we are really serious about it and are open to opportunities. So let’s get creative and resourceful. What are you doing to keep yourself fit and healthy into your old age? What do you do to keep yourself motivated? What works and what doesn’t work for you? Please share your thoughts/comments.