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It Was Fifty Years Ago Today…

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

When you’re 70 it’s hard to imagine what life was like when you were 20. As David Crosby said famously – if you remember the 60s you probably weren’t there.

In 1967 I was in my 2nd/3rd years of my university undergraduate degree. For the summer I worked on a construction gang poring concrete for bridges on Highway 401 east of Kingston. And I listened to music. Lots of it.

The Summer of Love marked the convergence of a lot of trends in music – rock became mainstream, the stereo LP took over from the 45 (at least for me it did.) AM top 40 ruled the airways but FM underground broadcasting was a growing trend. And over it all was Psychedelia – pot, LSD and rock n roll.

Let’s go back and look at some seminal LPs from 1967. I owned some of them (they are in bad shape today.) I repurchased a few as digital remasters on CD. And they are available in all their streaming glory on Spotify right now.

Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles

If there is one LP everybody who was young in 1967 would remember – well, this is it. Sergeant Pepper marked the evolution of the world’s most famous rock band from popsters to serious musicians. We often hear of other groups who made their “Sgt. Pepper” LP – like Beach Boys (Pet Sounds), the Stones (Beggars Banquet) or even U2 (Joshua Tree) – but the Beatles did it first.

SP was also one of the first “concept albums” – it introduced the fictional Lonely Hearts Club Band, Billy Shears, and Ringo as front and center vocalist. It was designed to be played start to finish. It featured the Mellotron and all sorts of novel recording effects. It’s a masterpiece.

My personal favorite cut – “A Day in the Life.” This one isn’t for beginners though. You need to warm up by listening to “A Little Help from My Friends” and “Lovely Rita.”

Buffalo Springfield – Again

Buffalo Springfield are arguably more popular now then they were in 1967. At the time they had made a couple of LPs and they were in the process of self-destruction – you know the story. These days BS are more famous as the starting point for Stills and Young, plus Richie Furay who went on to Poco and the country rock scene.

Buffalo Springfield as a group didn’t do much on this album – it’s largely individual solo efforts by Steven Stills and Neil Young, backed up by a bevy of their musical friends and the great LA studio musicians known as the Wrecking Crew. What’s notable is how psychedelia was creeping into the Buffalo Springfield straight ahead folk-rock. It’s well worth a listen for history’s sake.

My favorite cut – Young’s “Mr. Soul” – a minor hit in the summer of ’67. Neil still plays it in concert. Dark and powerful.

Disraeli Gears – Cream

Now we’re talking. This LP was playing everywhere I went on campus back in ’67. Every one of my artsy friends had it, and a few of my more serious science buddies.

Named after a mispronunciation of the gears on a 10- speed bike, Disraeli Gears was the ultimate underground LP. It got limited airplay on prime time AM but it was a staple of late night underground shows and FM rock.

Baker, Clapton and Bruce feuded all the time but they really had their musical act together here. Pure psychedelia – it sounds as great today as when it was recorded. Clapton’s guitar licks sound rather mainstream today but they were a revolution in 1967.

My favorite cut – I bet you thought I would say “Sunshine of your Love,” but no. “Tales of Brave Ulysses” is the one I always liked best. Still do. Listen to Bruce’s powerful bass and vocals, Clapton’s wah wah artistry, and Baker’s drumming that ties it all together.

Insight Out – The Association

Gotta put one in here for the progressive rock/ easy listening fans – and in 1967 nobody personified that any better than The Association. This six man group was ostensibly a standalone band, but on their studio albums they did the vocals and most of the background music was provided by the fabulous Wrecking Crew. Hal Blaine of the Crew played drums on something like 40 #1 pop hits – amazing!

Anyway this album is a great listen – wonderful harmonies, great arrangements and flawless instrumentation. And some great radio hits. Get the remastered version if you can. It never sounded as good as it does today.

My favorite cut – “Windy” without a doubt. Heard it so many times in the Summer of Love.

Surrealistic Pillow – Jefferson Airplane

Gracie Slick is 77 now – but she was something else in 1967. When Gracie joined Mary Balin on lead vocals the Airplane really took off.

In fact when they did concerts, the guys in the band would warm up the audience without Gracie. Then she’s make a grand entrance right through the crowd, and get up there and sing “White Rabbit.” Left the audience breathless.

As the Beatles were to UK Psychedelia, the Airplane was to the West Coast pop scene. Surrealistic Pillow is the best of the best. Maybe it hasn’t aged as well as Sgt. Pepper but that is because a lot of the Airplane sound has become a ’60s cliche – so identified with the boomers as to lose its power. But try it again in the remastered CD or on Spotify. It’s still where it’s at when it comes to Psychedelic Rock American Style.

My favorite cut – there are a couple of dynamite hits here, but I personally like “She has Funny Cars” – with its Bo Diddley beat and Balin/Slick duet.

The Doors – Debut Album

I wasn’t a big Beatles fan back in ’67 – they grew on me. But The Doors blew me away from the first time I heard them on the radio. Maybe it was because each of them was a great performer in his own right:

  • John Densmore – steady as she goes with the sticks.
  • Robbie Krieger – classically trained, slow hands, master of the blues riff or the power chord.
  • Ray Manzarek – in my view the best keyboard player in rock.
  • And what can you say about The Lizard King – artist, poet, anarchist and primal scream.

The Doors never had a bass player – Manzarek did the honors on stage with key bass – but a number of pros filled in the studio. Larry Knechtel helped out on this album.

They were such a tight ensemble, probably because they had spent so much time as a bar band before they hit the big time. Only Densmore and Krieger are still with us now. But The Doors were everything I loved about 60s rock. Still love them and they live on today on every classic rock station I know.

My favorite cuts – got two here – the rollicking, upbeat “20th Century Fox” and Morrison’s Oedipal masterwork “The End.” Ridiculous and sublime.

So there you go. Maybe you remember the 60s, and you were there. I certainly was, even if it was Fifty Years Ago.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Long and Winding Road

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

 

This past week I received the first payout from my Registered Retirement Income Fund. It marks the end of a 44 year history of accumulation and marks the decumulation and taxpaying phase of my personal pension savings. It’s the end of a long and winding road to be sure.

A RRIF is what you get when at age 71 or earlier you transform your RRSP to pay out regular annual payments. An RRSP is Canada’s equivalent of a US 401(k) or UK SIPP. I got started with an RRSP as early as 1973 – when I was 26. The “other” private retirement instrument – TFSA – wouldn’t exist for another 45 years, so it was never a part of my retirement plan.

An RRSP is tax deferred – you deduct your contributions during your working life and hopefully pay less taxes when you take out the income in your 70s. The taxman is still hanging around though waiting to get a cut of your income.

Today we see a lot of criticism of Millennials as being financially illiterate, economically challenged and risk averse. But looking back at what I knew then and the mistakes I made, I can hardly claim any better knowledge. For example:

  • I started out my RRSP by setting up an endowment insurance policy (gah!) and later on converting it to some brain-dead mutual funds which I eventually sold.
  • I did not stay long enough with any employer in my early years to get vested in a good Defined Benefit plan. Mind you it wasn’t like today when 2 years is enough to “vest” the employer contributions. In fact one of my employers didn’t even deduct anything for pension plans – and as a result I got nothing. At least a couple of the other companies gave me back my contributions with interest.
    One would think I didn’t lose anything with the employer who “funded” the pension plan for me – but I lost valuable headroom in my RRSP that I never got back – as a result I contributed less than I would have liked.
  • When I had to invest my own returned pension money in an RRSP I went to the bank and bought bond funds at a time when interest rates had started to climb and the value of the funds fell. No advice back in those days, or at least I didn’t pay attention if there was.
  • Eventually in my mid 30s I got a financial advisor and my RRSP was somewhat straightened out. However I didn’t listen to him all the time and at least once gave in to emotion and converted all my equity assets to fixed income for a while. Eventually I came to my senses before it was too late.
  • My advisor was a pretty good guy but looking back on it I am not sure every decision he made was in my best interests and that his interests were secondary.
  • I never consolidated my retirement and non-retirement savings with the same financial advisor so I missed out on some holistic tax structuring that could have been done.
  • Fortunately for me I did get a job with Unilever and had close to 20 years in a decent Defined Benefit pension scheme. My RRSP grew over that time – I was careful to maximize my contribution every year – and during my retirement years I didn’t collapse it to a RRIF until this year. But at the end of the day I probably could have done better if I had been smarter.

Today I would likely use a robo-advisor and start off maximizing my TFSA. And no insurance thank you.

In spite of all my stupidity, my RRIF can provide us with some useful inflation protection and possible chronic health insurance as we get into our dotage. So at the end of the long and winding road I’m glad I did something positive with what I knew at the time. Hindsight is sure 20/20 though.

 

 

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Good China

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

Probably there’s nothing in this modern world that labels you as quaint, eccentric, old school, a dinosaur – nothing quite as much as admitting you are a collector of fine china. That in fact you have a set of “good” china. Alas, we do.

We started back around 1975 – that was the time I got some money back from a Thrift Investment Plan I had to cash in when I left General Foods. We thought we’d start on a set of good china, and so we went to Birks in Pointe-Claire and got our starter four place setting of Royal Worcester Evesham.

Evesham was an old style pattern back then but we liked the fruit and veggies on the plates and the gold trim. We asked for pieces for Christmas and birthdays, put in a bit more of our own cash over the years. Now we have a 12 place setting with a bunch of baking and serving dishes. Even have some egg coddlers (don’t ask.)

And does this “good china” get used? Well – not much. The gold trim precludes heating the dishes in a microwave, and we are a bit queasy about dumping everything into the dishwasher.

This past Christmas we had a large family gathering and the good stuff stayed in the cupboard again. We used our everyday plates and cups and for extras we also have a complete set of 1980 vintage Johnson Brothers crockery that is dishwasher safe. Maria picked it up for a song at the charity shop where she works.

As a guess I’d be surprised if you could get 20% of what we paid for our Evesham set in an auction. Folks just do not set out good china, or entertain at home with it nowadays. Our daughter says she likes it so maybe it’ll be a reluctant heirloom for her in the not so far distant future.

Now everyday china – that’s a whole ‘nother thing. Sarah would take this stuff in a heartbeat – but that won’t happen any time soon.

This robust set of Royal Doulton Mayfair Lambethware is something we started to collect after I went to work at Lipton in the mid 80s. It replaced a couple of cheap Japanese stoneware sets that I ended up taking into the lab to use in product showings. It’s probably not worth much either but it gets used and abused everyday. After more than 30 years it’s still going strong

The classic Evesham pattern is still produced by Royal Worcester’s parent company and I believe in one of the last operating potteries in the UK. The Royal Doulton Lambethware is out of production but again you can pick up used pieces on the cheap if you need to replace anything.

And besides these three sets of English china we have a complete set of German crockery that Maria’s parents bought for her before we got married. And that doesn’t even count a bunch of Paragon teacups and Gibson teapots and Royal Doulton figurines that hang around our place. Dinosaurs and proud of it.

 

 

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Job…Profession…Vocation

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

Soren Kierkegaard famously said that life must be lived forward but understood backward. And there’s no better place to do that than in a person’s working career. I can look back close to 48 years now – more if you include my work in high school and university summer jobs.

Work in my dad’s store or as an office boy or construction laborer – those were jobs. Getting my degree and a couple of qualifying years enabled my profession as a chemist  and food technologist. I suppose there were days when my work life seemed like a Vocation – like the interview at Queen’s in 1968 that got me started at General Foods Research. My whole life seemed to turn in that one hour when I talked to Keith Torrie.

I think the whole concept of how you label your career is tied up in our old pal Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. A job gives you the basic necessities – or at least it used to. Having a profession – even though it might not be a doctor or lawyer type with social and individual responsibility – gives some status and sense of belonging. And a Vocation brings out the self-actualization and self-giving parts of a working life.

When I felt I was making a difference in the lives of my customers – internal or external – that’s when I had a Vocation. When I used my math and science skills to create a new product it was certainly a profession. But when I had to deal with corporate politics, dumb projects, Theory X based performance management – well… that was a job. All part of the same career. Towards the end there was always more job than Vocation – so I got out as early as I could.

BTW this lovely little pilot plant above was in Baltimore and I had quite a few professional moments working there. It became a victim of corporate re-organization shortly before I retired. The plant it was located in is closed today as well. Jobs, professions, Vocations – all gonzo.

After 12 years of retirement about all I have left now is some elements of professional skill and the concept of Vocation. I use that concept to try and keep my friends out of computer trouble. And of course there’s the ongoing Vocation of Grandpa. I get plenty of opportunities to practice that. Saved the best for last.

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Spotify

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

 

Do you remember the very first bit of recorded music that was “yours?” That you paid for out of your allowance and could play when you wanted? This was it for me – 1958 I believe.

The McGuires were probably in their 30s by then – as I recall one of them dated a mobster. But they were a sweet looking and sounding group. My mom loved them too. I guess my heavy rock days were some time in the future.

And how did I play “Sugar in the Morning, Sugar in the Evening”…etc? On a punishing, skip-prone portable record player that my parents owned and my grandfather used from time to time to play his Vernon Dalhart and Chuckwagon Gang 78s. (You can look them up.) Click, pop and skip – the sounds of my youth.

Later on I graduated to my own grind it out record player – I think it was an Arvin or Silvertone. At that point I went on to mono LP 33 1/3 RPM vinyl. From there I moved to stereo LPs, reel to reel tape, cassette tape, CDs, MP3s and finally some 60 years later to Spotify.

And after decades of pop-click, tape and cassette recording, CD duplication, MP3 ripping and encoding and countless players, audio components, recorders, boom boxes, computers,Walkman units, iPods I have gotten to the point where there’s nothing at all except the cloud image of music.

Right now I’m listening to Atlanta Rhythm Section’s “Imaginary Lover” – a song I have never owned in any form but quite like – the digital concierge in Spotify chose it for me based on other digital choices I made personally.

If you haven’t run across Spotify it’s a multiplatform music streaming program. It works on PCs, Macs and Linux, iPads, Android and iOS smartphones, Roku boxes – you name it. It’s free if you don’t mind the ads and costs less than a CD per month if you want to go full on music. You can search for music you want – there are about 30 Million titles available so you won’t be disappointed.

At home I play Spotify music on my desktop units, I stream it to my TV with Roku and I plug a mini-cable into my stereo receiver and let my Android tablet be the music machine. I suppose if I had a smartphone I could get Spotify anywhere.

The best thing of all about Spotify? It’s brought back the unadulterated boomer pleasure of listening to a whole “concept album” from start to finish. If you want to experience “Disraeli Gears,” “Every Good Boy Deserves Favour,” “Beggars Banquet,” or “Pet Sounds” in all their remastered glory they are there for you.

And it’s not just boomers. My Gen-X son-in-law listens to Spotify at work and he’s working his way through Rolling Stone’s top 100 albums of all time. It’s hard to imagine him listening to “Music from Big Pink” or “Highway 61 Revisited” but he’s learning something.

I have to admit that – although I’m not a playlist sort of guy – I do like the one put together for me by the digital concierge that Spotify features. It hasn’t guessed wrong yet today – everything from James Taylor to Steely Dan to J. Geils to .38 Special. With 30 million choices I guess it can’t go wrong.

Spotify – give it a try. It’s too good to be wasted on the young.

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Psst…Wanna Buy a Monitor?

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

This is the last post I’ll make on computers this year…I promise! But I thought if you were ever in the market to buy a monitor for a new PC or upgrade the one you have now, this might save you some time and effort.

Of course if you have a laptop or tablet or smartphone the display you see is the display you get. It’s a bit more flexible to have a desktop unit. But then you have some choices to make.

And the number one choice is…don’t cheap out. A monitor isn’t the most expensive piece of kit to buy – just look at video card prices – but this is a purchase where $30-40 more will make a huge difference in satisfaction over a few years of use. Trust me – I have been there.

A second point – don’t get caught up in all the specs – the huge contrast ratios, the nits and response times. The most important thing is what you’ll use the monitor for and where you’ll sit while watching it.

That said there are a few things to look out for:

  • Size – you can get ultra wides up to 38 inches but in my world 24 inches is plenty. That’ll fit on your average desk and give you room for speakers and a printer. A 27 inch screen would be my absolute maximum.
  • Aspect ratio – I like 16:9, as that is the same as your typical HDTV and the monitor could work as a TV in a pinch if you hook it up to a cable box or DVD player.
  • Resolution – I do not see any reason to go higher than 1920X1080 (full HD) unless you have a huge screen. You can always get another monitor and set it beside your current one if you want to have multiple applications on screen at once.

So assuming you want a 24 inch full HD screen there is one more critical choice you have to make. That is the type of LCD panel in the monitor. There are three basic types out there.

  • TN – this is the oldest and cheapest technology and if the specs don’t say anything chances are you have a TN panel. In addition to lower cost, TN has a very good response time so for gamers TN can be the way to go.
    There are tradeoffs though. TN has a very low viewing angle so if you are looking at it from the side or above/below the colors can fade and look washed out. You have to get the monitor exactly at eye level for best results. A TN panel can drive you nuts if you don’t get the eye level right.
  • IPS – now we’re talking. IPS gives the best viewing angles so you never see colors fade. Also it displays the most accurate colors so photographers and graphic artists use IPS monitors.
    Disadvantages include cost – although that has come down a lot – and the fact that IPS isn’t the speediest unit in refresh time or frame rate. Gamers might want a faster monitor. That said I use an IPS monitor all the time to run train simulator games with no problems at all.
  • VA – this monitor is pretty fast, almost as good as IPS in viewing angle, and has the deepest blacks and best contrast of the three monitor types. The disadvantage is that it isn’t quite as good as TN for speed and IPS for color fidelity. It can make a nice compromise though if you like lots of contrast. VA monitors are not as common as the other two so it might take some digging to find a good one. Cost is about the same as IPS.

My personal recommendation is to go with IPS for general use. You really can’t go wrong and the price premium over TN isn’t much more than $40 Canadian.

As far as brands go, if you choose TN get a good sale item. There’s not a lot to choose from among brands – although I have had good luck with Acer.

In IPS LG is a brand of choice because they make their own panels. ASUS is pretty good as well. Samsung makes its own version of IPS called PLS but I haven’t tried one yet.

For VA there’s really only one maker I’d consider and that is BenQ – who make excellent monitors of all types but specialize in VA panels.

That’s my story for today. If you’ve read this far without dozing off, best wishes for a Happy New Year and all the best in 2017.

 

EconomicsHobbiesLife ExperienceTechnology

The Emerging Monitor

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

It’s been nearly 35 years since I got my first home computer – called a microcomputer back in the day. And for the first few years I didn’t have a dedicated monitor. Both my VIC-20 and Commodore 64 just hooked up to an old color TV I had kicking around. It wasn’t until the late 1980s that I got my first 16 bit machine – an Amiga 500 – and started my dalliance with computer monitors that continues to this day.

One tends to forget how truly primitive computer graphics was in the late 1980s. Most PCs displayed text only on a monochrome display. Macs were around then and had a graphical user interface – but any color display was prohibitively expensive. The 1084 monitor I got with my Amiga 500 featured a 14 inch 640X200 non interlaced color display that showed its rather blocky Workbench icons on its screen along with a mouse controlled cursor. There were a stimulating 16 possible available colors. And you could get up to 640X400 with interlacing – if you could take the flicker.

The whole machine had a total RAM of about 1 MB – about half the size of a typical digicam JPEG photo today. Instagram and YouTube were far in the future at that point.

Fast forward 7 years and we switched from Commodore to PC clones. Our first online machine – which my daughter later took away to university – had a 14 inch 640X480 VGA color monitor. Later on I had  15 inch 800X600 monitor, and by the turn of the 21st century a 17 inch 1024X768 monitor. All of these were CRT units – modifications of TV technology – and the 17 inch one was really heavy and took up a lot of desktop real estate. They were all in the 4:3 aspect ratio common in Standard Definition TVs of the day. Aside from the bulk and weight, CRT monitors were not as bad as one might think – color rendition was actually pretty good and accurate.

Just before I retired from Unilever the QC lab in Rexdale was getting new PCs and they featured the first “flat screen” LCD monitors I had encountered. They were 17 inch 1152X864 displays and were notably light and thin. Very nice but not in my price range yet.

In fact it was 2008 before I purchased my first LCD screen – an Acer 17 inch 1152X864 unit. It was still in the 4:3 format and had the old school analog (D-sub) connecting cable. So it was new but not so new.

A couple of years after that I got my first widescreen 22 inch 1680X1050 monitor. This one featured a DVI (digital) input and was pretty nice even though the 16:10 aspect ratio was rather weird and didn’t last long in the marketplace.

Finally the industry settled on the 16:9 aspect ratio similar to color HDTV and the full HD 1920X1080 resolution became ubiquitous for desktops. To me this is the sweet spot in desktop monitors to this day. Oh sure you can get ultrawide monitors up to 38 inches in size and 4K resolution but you need a very powerful graphics card to make it work. Oh yes and the connections are now HDMI for the most part. Some folks use 2-3 screens if their video card will take them.

A 24 inch monitor in 1920X1080 resolution is what I’m using now. I find that one 24 inch monitor is just fine.

I have two models on my two main machines today – an LG IPS unit and a BenQ VA monitor. Both screens give wide view angles, excellent color and the VA model has darker darks and whiter whites on screen. The older PC I use in the storage room to play music has a 24 inch monitor as well but it is older and the colors aren’t as vibrant.

Well like everything else in tech. the monitor or display screen has evolved a lot from that early Commodore 1084. In addition to getting larger and wider with with more pixels, the displays have also shrunk down to laptop, tablet and smartphone size. Plus they are responsive now; you can tap and swipe on them to your hearts content. But at the end of the day it’s still what you see that counts.

 

 

 

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Hanging In

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

I retired early – at age 58. I am not making any apologies for my decision.

Hindsight is 20/20 I guess. I probably could have worked longer. But at the time my mental health was none too good and I had a history of physical problems to contend with.

The reason I bring this up is because I  recently read a couple of articles about not retiring early – in fact not retiring at all. These are US articles but I imagine the Canadian stats wouldn’t be grossly different.

It seems that 64% of US Boomers, 79% of Gen Xers and 84% of Millennials expect to keep working past 65 and into their 70s. The actual number who do this right now is 17% in the US. Something wrong with this picture?

The second article was a Boston College study that ranked over 950 professions in terms of their potential for post 65 endeavour. At the top were human resource workers and librarians. At the bottom (not surprisingly) were professional dancers. I guess Fred Astaire was an anomaly.

Rankings were based on the mental and physical capacity to do the job, so roofers and bulldozer operators probably won’t be working at the same job post 65. Neither will airline pilots. In general blue collar jobs are tougher to do in old age.

My own profession (chemist) rated in the 35th percentile which isn’t bad for hanging in. Anyone in the top 50% has a shot at least – all things considered equal.

There’s more to the story though than just physical and mental capability:

  • Some people save well enough either through pension plans, RRSPs, and/or basic investing so they achieve financial independence. At this point they may not see the need to keep on working for the man. Some extremists manage to do this in their 40s, let alone 60s.
  • Illness – either mental or physical – may be a factor regardless of what your job is.
  • Your employer may find creative ways to get rid of you. Not many Unilever R&D managers survived past their 60th birthday. Golden handshakes are still around in spite of anti-age discrimination laws.
  • Technology is taking away a lot of semi skilled blue collar and white collar jobs. Those that remain might as well employ younger and cheaper workers.

Let’s be honest – the reason a lot of folks think they’ll just keep working past normal retirement age is because they haven’t prepared for retirement – either financially or emotionally. Chances are slim that they’ll continue on as (say) a professional scientist or IT guy into their 70s. Maybe if they are self employed – but how many are? I bet a lot of Boomers will have to adjust their expectations.

I’m beginning to see the evidence in my little town – where more and more graybeards and older ladies are manning the checkouts at Walmart or standing behind the counter at McDonald’s or Tim Horton’s. If they are doing this because they just love to get up at 6:30 AM and do the Walmart shuffle, or work the midnight shift at Tim’s more power to them.

Forgive me if I don’t see it as a desirable way of life in my dotage.

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Traveling with Electronics

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

In this age of convergence I suppose it is possible to travel with a smartphone and have it take care of your electronic needs on the road. I don’t see this working for me because:

  • I don’t have a smartphone. Maria has a Motorola flip phone that routinely makes phone calls but that’s it.
  • I am a dinosaur. No excuses.

No, my idea of convergence is cramming a bunch of stuff into that red backpack shown above and stuffing it under the seat of the aircraft. Here’s what went with me to Europe recently:

  • Laptop and mouse. I have a 10 inch netbook that runs Linux and has a solid state drive. It’s pretty old but it has a real keyboard and can work for email and backing up digital photos. And yes I want a mouse to go with it.
  • A real camera. I am no Instagrammie and I want low light capability, plus a good long lens. You won’t see me using an iPad out on deck trying to photograph the Rock of Gibraltar in the twilight. I want flash capability too. I don’t carry a heavy DSLR and multiple lenses but my Panasonic Lumix does a fine job.
  • 7 inch tablet. Its camera sucks but it’s great for e-reading and connecting in an airport if spouse is using the laptop. Plus it worked well to pick up Air Canada Rouge audio streaming on the flight home.
  • An ancient iPod just in case I want to listen to some music in an airport waiting area.
  • Noise canceling earphones. Mine are Sennheiser,. They fold up in a jiffy and work great with airline audio jacks, the iPod and the tablet. Even have their own case.
  • Battery chargers and batteries galore. AA, AAA, specialty camera batteries, even hearing aid batteries.
  • A 220 volt adapter for the European hotels.
  • Hearing aids and case. Don’t need to amplify airplane noise but it’s nice to hear when you get where you’re going.
  • Ethernet cable. I have checked into a hotel where the wifi is terrible but they have a wired connection. You never know.

By the time I get all this stuff into the backpack it’s pretty full – and heavy. I usually find a spot though to carry a plastic folder with some paper documents I’ll need – copies of our passports, hotel reservations, airline tickets, cruise documentation.

It’s still not a paperless world folks – although I hear some of that stuff might be able to go on a smartphone. Hmmm….

 

 

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12 Years On

Posted on by Ray MacDonald

First day of winter – again. Another year of retirement over and hopefully a few more ahead. I never mind the Winter Solstice when it marks such a nice anniversary.

12 years of retirement – you don’t think of it in career terms I suppose – but I’ve been retired longer than anywhere I worked with the exception of Unilever. It was definitely early retirement when it began, but I’m well past the fossil stage when it comes to employment now. Probably even the fast food places wouldn’t want me – not fast enough any more.

Even since 2004 there have been big changes in where I used to work. The Lipton Bramalea plant and laboratories are history – they were demolished earlier this year. The Rexdale R&D lab was changed after I left and I think it’s the lunchroom today. Who knows where the “deployment” troops work now – they don’t develop new products in Canada any more as far as I know. Recently I heard that Unilever was even closing down the fabled Vlaardingen R&D center in the Netherlands – more jobs lost or shifted inland to Wageningen.

Of course all this pales with the changes seen since the start of my career – it’ll be 48 years in 2017 since I graduated from Queen’s.

Every plant I used to work in has been closed with one exception. The paternalistic HR departments that managed all our defined benefit packages have been outsourced. All that paper and pen based notebook writing we used to do now probably gets tapped or spoken into a smartphone. Analog based activity has gone the way of the dinosaur – no more secretaries, typewriters, index cards, bound science journals, blueprints, slide rules, instruments with dials and gauges.

When I started a computer was a batch oriented behemoth that occupied a few rooms. Today it is an iPhone or Android device.

Maybe as a STEM graduate I’d get a job today, although I’d need a Master’s degree probably. My colleagues from the factory aren’t as fortunate. In 1969 things were heavily mechanized but not automated. A grade 10 graduate could have a decent life. Today automation has swept through the factory floor like a neutron bomb, and less than a third of the workers survive. It’s easier to just close a plant nowadays than invest in new technology – you can just fire the whole bunch, and hire far fewer in a new plant somewhere else.

No where has this effect been seen more than in small town Ontario. When I began in Cobourg / Port Hope the two towns were dominated by branch plant manufacturing. Today it’s public sector work – and those are the good jobs. Everybody else works at Timmie’s or some other job that supports retirement boomers like me. Globalization may be part of it but I bet automation played the major role.

It’s no fun to get old – but at least I had my place on stage before the production wound down and disappeared. I don’t know what I’d advise a young person to do today.

12 years on in my retirement career – I am content to work at it as long as God gives me – though obviously the end is now much closer than it was when I started. Dark views indeed for a sunny but short day in December.

 

 

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