I Need How Much To Retire?

by Tom Hays

I've flunked "Retirement 101" four times. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. Maybe I have a low boredom threshold. I have plenty of hobbies and I enjoy all of them. But maybe when I am trying "retirement" I have too much time to think about what "might" occur in my future instead of what "is" going on at the moment.

I think about my father, mother and all my other ancestors who lived to very ripe old ages. I can see the financial world changing every minute, the cost of living increasing and the cost of medical care spiraling onward and upward. With only a "comfortable" sized nest egg, it is enough to scare anyone to an early grave!

Point is, I'm just not sure how much is enough. In a perfect world, my wife and I would spend our last dollar on the day we passed on. But, no one can tell me when that will be, or what our cost of living will be between now and then. And, heaven forbid, one of those illnesses comes along later in life that creates huge medical expenses and long-term care costs.

I may have enough. Several times in the past I have thought I did. But each time I eventually realize I have no idea how much of a nest egg will be enough to sleep comfortably every night. (I'm sure Bill Gates does not have this problem.)

So, I go back to work, and I feel better physically and mentally. Besides, making money is fun. I enjoy the game!

Give me your thoughts.

Welcome To Your New Life!

You are invited to join countless others who are coming together in Platinum Pearls®.com . . . . sharing ways to enjoy the rest of their lives, becoming more satisfied, more secure through self discovery and self actualization. The secrets are there, to be discovered and utilized. Shared, they will become a positive force for an entire generation.

Who are you??? There’s a new person born every eight seconds. One of them may well be you! We’ll help you nurture and educate that new person you are becoming. Ahead is a different road, and it will take you where you want to go only if you use the right map. Stop and ask directions.

Not for babies only! While we deal primarily with life factors and life styles of those persons born during the so-called “baby boom” years of 1946 to 1964, the fact is, a lot of people on both sides of those years face those same challenges and opportunities too, and we welcome your participation in Platinum Pearls® programs and membership benefits.

We can all enjoy a longer and happier mature life if we resist becoming “old”. We’d love to have you join the organized resistance!

Please add your thoughts, ideas, methods and experiences. We are all in this together!

My Volunteer Vacation! Building Hiking Trail In The Colorado Rockies.

The cool, thin mountain air stabbed my lungs with each breath as I lumbered up the trail at over 10,000 feet elevation, carrying the weight of my daypack, loaded with lunch and snack provisions, water for the day plus a little extra, raingear, binoculars, plus a slew of extras for "just in case", and, I was carrying a Pulaski, with which I would work all day, building a stretch of the Colorado Trail.

The morning sun and the physical activity was beginning to warm me, and I removed layers of clothing as I, along with around 20 other volunteers, progressed from our campsite at 9,800 feet to our work site at nearly 11,000 feet. Through clearings in the trees, traversing a small meadow, the view stretched out for miles and miles, and I felt like this mountain was the very top of the world, and I was on it. "This", I said, "is a vacation!"

Being a flatlander from Oklahoma, adapting to the thin air at this altitude took some time. But I had come up to Breckenridge, Colorado two days early for my week long stint as a trail builder. I had read about the Colorado Trail, a 490 mile stretch of hiking trail which roughly follows the continental divide from Denver to Durango in southwest Colorado, and I was impressed that it was built primarily by volunteers, with the support of the U.S. Forest Service. The Colorado Trail Foundation was formed to build and maintain the trail, and it was through that organization that I signed up for a week-long "trail crew".

My fellow crew members were from all parts of the United States, along with two people from Great Britain. Each were volunteers, and each brought their own tent and sleeping bag, their own eating plates and utensils, some good hiking/work boots, plenty of sunscreen for the high altitude sun, and a good attitude. We each paid thirty-five dollars to join the Colorado Trail Foundation, and the foundation provided the food for the week, which we cooked as we each took turns doing kitchen duty. The Forest Service hauled in potable water for us.

Setting up camp on Saturday was a team effort as we dug a latrine and erected the kitchen and community tents. On Sunday we learned to use the trail building tools properly and safely. We worked on the trail Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday was a free day for hiking, fly fishing or just resting, and Saturday morning was spent tearing down camp and restoring the site as best we could to lessen the effect our presence for a week had on the environment.

All in all, we built nearly a mile of fresh trail to the exacting specifications of the Forest Service. It is proud work, something that countless hikers and backpackers will enjoy for years to come.

For more information on this volunteer service contact the Colorado Trail Foundation website.

Help fight FCS. Is a cure at hand?

Picture yourself. You are very high up in a tree top, in a wooden container with a rounded bottom, perched precariously on a slender branch. The container teeters back and forth, side to side, as the wind blows. You are so afraid, not daring to move a muscle. Suddenly, without warning, the bough breaks and you are falling and falling. You crash to the ground and the cradle lands squarely on top of you.

Terrifying isn’t it? How can you go to sleep imagining that? But that’s the story that was repeated night after night to millions of babies, including me. It was called “rock-a-bye baby” time. I called it “torture” time.

That’s why I, along with countless others, suffer from Falling Cradle Syndrome (FCS). FCS needs your help. It has been proven that the more money we have, the better we sleep at night. Please send a generous contribution now. Send your check directly to me, and you’ll know you’ve done your part in the fight against this horrible affliction. Thank you for helping fund the cure.

For more information click on http://www.platinumpearls.com/.

Barking Frog Music Group - How It All Began.

The Story of The Barking Frog Music Group


"The mind will play funny tricks on you. One minute you’re in a business meeting or hard at work on the job, and then, something will hit you that brings back a familiar taste, or smell, or feeling, and the next thing you know, you’re remembering those times years ago, sitting around a campfire after a big camp meal, with friends or family. I remember we’d pull up logs and sit around . . just poking the fire, swatting bugs, swapping stories and singing songs, a lot of them made up right there on the spot. We’d pass around the guitar and those that could play would. Those that couldn’t would tell a joke, or a story, or recite a poem. But we’d all join in with something, and it’d go on ‘til the moon was way overhead, and the fire had burned down to red hot coals.

There’d be plenty of laughing and kidding around … and sometimes we’d get to laughing so hard that a “different” noise would come from somewhere around the campfire ... and everyone would look around at all the other faces in the smoke to try to guess who the guilty party was. Sooner or later, it would be agreed that it must have been just a big frog . . barking at the moon.

Those “barking frogs” earned quite a reputation in our part of the country, and it was hard to have a camp-out where you wouldn’t hear at least one or two. So, it came to be generally known that anyone who would come, and maybe join in and play, or sing, say a poem or tell a joke, was automatically a member of the Barking Frog Music Group. And back then, we had meetings just as often as we could.

Now, it’s a gathering around a virtual campfire. We call it the bfmg Café, and nearly every night it’s a new group of members sitting around playing their songs, and singing, and telling stories. Maybe you’ll join in, or maybe you’ll want to just sit back and listen. Either way, we hope you’ll have so much fun you’ll come back often. Click to the bfmg Café, put a beverage in your hand, put that work day behind you, and drag up a log! You're a member of the Barking Frog Music Group!

P.S. You might want to have a souvenir of your visit to the bfmg Café, or proof that you are a proud member of the Barking Frog Music Group. You’re invited to drop by the store to look over the bfmg collection. Cool!"

Plein Air, Painting the American Landscape - Alaska Episodes

One of the most fun aspects of searching out and providing content for the Platinum Pearls® web pages is the opportunity to recommend sources that I personally know to be good.

In the case of this DVD, I have worked with two of the three featured artists, Matt Smith and Kenn Backhaus. Both have taught at the artistically prestigious Scottsdale Artists School.

I studied with each of them there, both in the studio and in the desert surround. I can heartily recommend the experience and their instructional abilities.

The first three episodes of Plein Air, Painting the American Landscape feature artists Matt Smith, Jean LeGassick, and Kenn Backhaus as they paint in Alaska. The trio paints Mt. McKinley on a rare, glorious September afternoon complete with a visit from a blonde grizzly.

Next our three artists tackle the Tongass Rain Forest, renowned for towering old growth cedar, hanging moss and incessant rainfall, proving that it takes tenacity, good gear, and considerable know-how to paint in a rain forest.

The last stop is beautiful Resurrection Bay, gateway to Kenai Fjords National Park. With the towering Chugach Mountains as a backdrop, the artists paint in a derelict boatyard.

Historical perspective is provided through the Plein Air paintings created by George Brown while climbing Mt. McKinley as a member of the 1974 Bradford Washburn Mt. McKinley Expedition, and an introduction to Alaskan Plein Air artists and adventurers Eustace Ziegler, Ted Lambert and iconoclastic painter Sidney Laurence whose paintings from the early 1900s have come to epitomize the Alaskan landscape. I can enthusiastically recommend this DVD Plein Air, Painting the American Landscape - Alaska Episodes.

Please visit the Visual Arts pages at http://www.platinumpearls.com/ for more information about painting, photography or your favorite creative outlet.

If I Had a Dollar For Every Time I Have Used This Book, I Would Be Writing This in Napa Valley

Pat Pattison is a professor of music and songwriting at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, where he developed the curriculum for their degree in songwriting--the first of its kind anywhere. He was a regular contributor to Home and Studio Recording Magazine. He lives in North Hampton, New Hampshire.

I first met Pat in Nashville. I was living and writing there for awhile, and Pat would come down from the Boston area and spend his summers in Nashville, working with some of the great songwriters in the area, as well as teaching seminars. We had mutual friends, and soon I was visiting his summer house on a weekly basis, at the foot of the master. He is a joy to work with.

In this book, Pat presents a unique, in-depth approach to the process of lyric writing. Apprentice songwriters will examine 17 extraordinary songs and learn the distinct elements that make them so effective. Pattison then presents more than 30 lyric-writing exercises designed to help them achieve the same results. From generating lyric ideas and managing repetition to developing verses, it's all here. Songwriters will:

* find warm-up exercises that revolutionize songwriting imagery

* use a rhyming dictionary and a thesaurus to generate ideas and find snappy rhymes

* create meaningful metaphors and similes while avoiding clichés

* develop verses by using or by breaking conventional rules

* experiment with point of view in every lyric to make a song stand out.

Buy Now - Writing Better Lyrics

For more music tips, visit http://www.platinumpearls.com/ and search out the "Music Picks" page. Or, if you are really into songwriting, click on http://www.barkingfrogmusic.com/. In any event, keep listening, keep writing, keep it fresh.