Klaus Obermeyer is a 100-year-old beast
Apologies if you woke up this morning and hoped for a day in which you didn’t feel lame. Because this isn’t going to help: Klaus Obermeyer just turned 100, and he has been celebrating the way a ski legend should, with a daily half-mile swim, long stints in the gym and, of course, skiing. Warned...
Ski North Korea! Also, Again: Climate Change
Yes, climate change is an existential threat to the planet, so you can’t really belabor the point. Yet, there are other things going on in the world. Since we’ve mentioned climate a number of times in the past month (including our last post), it’s probably time to move on. But we aren’t done just yet,...
Indoor Kids: A Contrarian Opinion
Fast on the heels of our last dispirited post—on the reported decrease in the number of Americans willing to venture outdoors, leaving behind the comforts of fridge, recliner and screen—came two stories that provide an interesting nuance to the discussion. And maybe a reinterpretation. The first, from Colorado Public Radio, documents the strain placed on...
We are all the indoor kids
How did it happen that we—a once proud people, with our hands in the loam and our heads in the clouds—have devolved into a herd of shuffling, hunched wisps of digital consumerism? Why did we cast aside our inheritance—some of the most shockingly beautiful natural landscapes on the planet—to become grotesque, tech-necked screen addicts? Apologies,...
Old dogs. Better tricks.
The typical drill here is to pick stumble on a topic, do the minimum of research, then pass it along to you with enough information so you can dig deeper into source material. Every so often, though, we’ll glom onto a single story that offers particularly good insight and just refer you to it. Seniors...
From Vanguard to Vanquished
Retirement is traumatic so this might seem a bit frivolous…but why do so many retirement-related ads and articles show old people living out of a van? Granted, today’s oldsters probably invented van-life. While “KampKars” and “land yachts” have been with us since the start of motorized travel, Boomers made cross-country treks in a small, self-contained...
Ladies: eat, pray and stretch that check
They’re homebodies. And they’re affiliative, depending on social and emotional bonds to get through daily life…or so we assume, because when they travel they like to travel with others. And by they, we mean men. Editors for International Living—the on-line and print publication that encourages retirees to find new adventures and, crucially, save money by...
Worst Beatles song ever?
This is way outside our wheelhouse, but nevertheless worthy of note. After years of uncritically embracing Beatles songs, it has been brought to our attention that occasionally, like all mortals, they could—and resoundingly did—suck. Here’s an example: a recording of John Lennon singing the (deservedly) rare “India India.” No complaints about the quality—it’s a...
Bill Clinton is going to make you a vegan
Bill Clinton is a very persuasive man. He’s persuasive in the way every good salesman is persuasive, which is that you don’t know you’re being convinced of something until it’s all over. There’s a good chance you might not even know then. You might be pretty sure it was your idea all along. Case...
Hot and heavy
Two stories collided last week. First, it was very, very warm, so that the heat map of the United States turned a radiant, stop-sign red—the color of Irish skin after the first day of a beach vacation. So hot, in fact, that the National Park Service had to nag people to stop frying eggs...
Record-breaking round-the-world voyage for 70-year-old
In an extreme case of a nice elderly lady wandering away from home, 70-year-old Jeanne Socrates has become the oldest woman to sail around the world, solo, without stopping. The grandmother from Ealing, west London, completed her circumnavigation last week, when she docked her 38-foot yacht Nereida back in Victoria, B.C., after 259 days...
Badlands glamping in Canada
Canada has badlands. I know. Big surprise. And they look pretty bad. Weirdly capped hoodoos and pointed hills and sharp banded walls where a river has cut through the landscape over the millennia. Also, scorching hot. Plus, as a bonus, Alberta’s badlands come with many, many huge dinosaur skeletons. (Some assembly required.) In...
