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Ken Gracey is long past forty now. Move along; nothing to see here. - Page 3 — Parallax Forums

Ken Gracey is long past forty now. Move along; nothing to see here.

13

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  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2010-12-31 10:18
    I fixed the title. Maybe this thread can slink back into the shadows now. Take it from me, Jeff: forty isn't nearly the big deal that everyone younger than you wants you to think it is! (Nor are those later "landmark" birthdays, for that matter.) The best part about getting older is that you can rely more and more on experience and less on innate cleverness (or making mistakes) every time you have to solve a problem. It's so much more efficient that way!

    -Phil
  • kf4ixmkf4ixm Posts: 529
    edited 2010-12-31 10:46
    The best part about getting older is that you can rely more and more on experience and less on innate cleverness (or making mistakes) every time you have to solve a problem. It's so much more efficient that way!

    -Phil
    I whole-heartedly agree!!!!!
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2010-12-31 12:00
    Would you guys let this thread die? It's starting to depress me.. I'm FORTY in 12 days. It's the LAST thing I want to admit to myself. I'm betting that Ken STILL doesn't "feel" FORTY. :) Heck I still feel like I'm 23. OBC
    When you hit 50, you'll long for the days when you could say 40! :)
  • HumanoidoHumanoido Posts: 5,770
    edited 2010-12-31 12:04
    Even the semantics is a catch-22 phrase. For example,

    you turn 40
    but you reach 50
    and if you're lucky you hit 60.
    and basically stumble into 70s
  • kwinnkwinn Posts: 8,697
    edited 2010-12-31 12:30
    Would you guys let this thread die? It's starting to depress me.. I'm FORTY in 12 days. It's the LAST thing I want to admit to myself.

    I'm betting that Ken STILL doesn't "feel" FORTY. :) Heck I still feel like I'm 23.

    OBC

    20 years and 12 days from now you'll really really wish you were 40.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2010-12-31 14:09
    I'm 68 and things are starting to go wrong - a minor op for a small suspected skin cancer a couple of weeks ago and angina and a minor heart attack just before Christmas. I had an angiogram and angioplasty (stent) in one heart artery yesterday (the other arteries are fine) and am now feeling better than I've felt for months. I've had Crohn's disease since I was 23 (most of my colon has been removed) - the cardiologists thought the CD probably caused the heart disease and the immuno-suppressant I take for it probably caused the skin cancer, if it is confirmed. I'm home now after four days in hospital.

    I should be good for another 20 years.

    Apparently, one in five young people now will live to 100. It'll be OK so long as their brains don't deteriorate - Swift's Struldbrugs in Gulliver's Travels come to mind, their bodies lived for ever but their brains didn't.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2010-12-31 15:25
    Leon wrote:
    ... and the immuno-suppressant I take for it probably caused the skin cancer ...
    Since you live in England, it can't possibly be from too much sun. :)

    Leon, I wondered where you got off to. It's great to have you back in the forums! 'Glad to hear you're home and feeling better. We all hope it continues!

    -Phil
  • ercoerco Posts: 20,260
    edited 2010-12-31 15:49
    68 is the new 40, Leon! Pip pip, cheerio and all that jolly old rubbish!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2010-12-31 16:03
    Thanks, Phil and Erco. I had Internet access in hospital via a bedside console, but Web access to all forums and groups was blocked for some reason. I was able to look after the Yahoo groups I run using email for approving new members and moderating initial posts.
  • sylvie369sylvie369 Posts: 1,622
    edited 2011-01-01 10:44
    I'll be 50 in a little under three months. I'm feeling okay about that.

    Just before Christmas I was reading the paper, and came across an article about the idea that the world is going to end in two years, according to the Mayan calendar. But I'm not worried. Then on the same page there was an article about Hugh Hefner, who, at age 84 just got engaged to a 24 year old blonde. I was thinking about what it would be like to be Hefner (I think about that kind of thing since he and I have so much in common - specifically, that we're both too old to be with 24-year-old girls). I thought about New Year's Eve at the Hefner household:

    Hef: So what are we doing on New Year's Eve, hon? Wanna stay up and watch Guy Lombardo?
    24: Huh? Who?
    Hef: Oh, I mean Dick Clark, of course.
    24: Huh? Who?
    Hef: (Shrugs his shoulders and gives up. He picks up the guitar and sings her a song instead: )

    http://s282.photobucket.com/albums/kk265/psmithalverno/Pauls%20Music/?action=view&current=Twothousandeleven.mp4


    My best wishes, Leon. Stay young in the head.
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2011-01-01 13:54
    Leon wrote: »
    ...

    I should be good for another 20 years....

    Leon,
    sorry to hear you've had a streak of bad luck last year. It's a new year, though, so hope you feel better and, Struldbrug or no, live a long and happy life.
  • $WMc%$WMc% Posts: 1,884
    edited 2011-01-01 14:29
    I've been 40 for the last two years, I'm looking forward to my next 40th birthday in September.
    '
    '
    Leon:
    '
    I wish you the best and a Happy New Year.
    '
    P.S. God forbid but if you have to go back in the hospital,Fly over to the U.S.,Free WiFi and we don't block nothing. You can even watch free $50 $nn $nn $4E on the NET. here in the U.S.
    '
    Happy New Year!!!!!!!!!!!
    '
    '
    Happy Birthday KEN
    '
    I see Your 40 again!
  • RavenkallenRavenkallen Posts: 1,057
    edited 2011-01-01 19:39
    @__Wmc%__ Most of us can translate hexadecimal numbers you know :)

    @Leon...Yeah, i wondered where you have been... Feel better man:)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-01 19:43
    $WMc% wrote: »
    Leon:
    '
    I wish you the best and a Happy New Year.
    '
    P.S. God forbid but if you have to go back in the hospital,Fly over to the U.S.,Free WiFi and we don't block nothing. You can even watch free $50 $4F $52 $4E on the NET. here in the U.S.

    I considered taking my Dell Streak Android tablet with me in the ambulance, so that I could use 3G for full Internet access, but I knew that mobile phone operation was banned on the ward. When I've been to out-patients previously I've checked to see if I could get Wi-Fi access with it, but I couldn't. I could probably have taken my laptop and done some software development, or PCB design.

    Thanks, everyone. I'm feeling a lot better. I had to go back to the hospital yesterday to change one of my drugs, it made my lips swell up slightly when I first took it and I was told to let them know immediately if it happened again.

    It's nice to be able to spend the night without getting woken up by the antics of the old boy in the bed opposite me - he was quite ga-ga and kept getting out of bed and being unable to find his way back to it. He even tried to get into someone else's bed a couple of times. He might be one of Swifts's Struldbrugs, of course.
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-01-01 20:03
    $WMc% wrote:
    P.S. God forbid but if you have to go back in the hospital,Fly over to the U.S.,Free WiFi and we don't block nothing. You can even watch free $50 $4F $52 $4E on the NET. here in the U.S.
    I'd trade in-hospital wi-fi for Britain's single-payer NHS any day!

    -Phil
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-01 20:30
    I had superb treatment and didn't have to pay a penny for it! It does cost a lot in taxes, of course. It's been said that the USA has the best medical treatment in the world, if you can pay for it.
  • $WMc%$WMc% Posts: 1,884
    edited 2011-01-02 09:08
    Theirs no such thing as a free lunch. I can't afford free heath care,I pay way too much in taxes now.
    '
    I'm glad to see that all is good with you Leon.
    '
    Phil
    I have found that when a government runs something, Its fat, waste-full, and very expensive!
    But it sounds like the UK government is running a tight ship in the health care department.
    I don't see the US doing the same.
    '
    Happy New Year All
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-02 12:46
    They definitely don't waste money on food for patients, each meal costs 80p and it tasted like it. Supposedly, prisoners eat better.
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2011-01-02 13:01
    $WMc% wrote: »
    ...
    I have found that when a government runs something, Its fat, waste-full, and very expensive!...

    I agree. That's why we should let the guys on Wall Street run every aspect of our lives. Apparently those guys live without sin and walk on water. Nothing fat or wasteful there, either, that's fer sure.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-02 13:17
    The military could be privatised and run by the arms companies, given that that is where most of the tax payer's money goes. Miltary personnel could be given stock-holdings by their employer, and would be able to demand better weapons. An incentive scheme with bonuses based on body-counts would ensure that they are highly motivated, like bounty-hunters in the good old days.
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2011-01-02 13:57
    Leon wrote: »
    The military could be privatised and run by the arms companies.....

    Better yet: run by oil companies.

    Gosh, what a totally ridiculous idea! Leon, where do we get these crazy ideas? :D
  • LeonLeon Posts: 7,620
    edited 2011-01-02 13:59
    I've always liked satire. I also have a very dark sense of humour.

    I once wrote an April fool article for a computer group's newsletter I edited about a very silly project involving an instrument for measuring the change in the size of the brain ventricles with emotional states. One of the members showed it to a colleague of his, who wanted to know where he could get more information about the project. A year or so later, I found that some researchers in Japan had actually investigated the same effect, and found that there were changes! Their technique didn't involve the subjects being required to have their heads shaved and smeared with butter to provide better coupling for ultrasonic transducers, though.
  • ElectricAyeElectricAye Posts: 4,561
    edited 2011-01-02 16:11
    Leon wrote: »
    ...
    I once wrote an April fool article for a computer group's newsletter I edited about a very silly project....A year or so later, I found that some researchers in Japan had actually investigated the same effect, and found that there were changes!....

    And there you sit, still refuting psychic phenomenon with that same ole boring story about Uri Geller visiting the physics department at Birkbeck College... when all this time you've been virtually awash in same said experiences! Are you blind to your own special powers? or hiding them from the rest of the world so no one will suspect that it's been you all along who's been manipulating the global gold market? or are you just reveling in hypocrisy?!
  • $WMc%$WMc% Posts: 1,884
    edited 2011-01-02 17:23
    Leon wrote: »
    I've always liked satire. I also have a very dark sense of humour.

    I once wrote an April fool article for a computer group's newsletter I edited about a very silly project involving an instrument for measuring the change in the size of the brain ventricles with emotional states. One of the members showed it to a colleague of his, who wanted to know where he could get more information about the project. A year or so later, I found that some researchers in Japan had actually investigated the same effect, and found that there were changes! Their technique didn't involve the subjects being required to have their heads shaved and smeared with butter to provide better coupling for ultrasonic transducers, though.
    '
    I posted an April fools joke on my companies Intrainet, That stated all company employees 40 or over will get an added week of vacation.It actually worked.I received an additional 40hrs of sell-back vacation time.
  • Oldbitcollector (Jeff)Oldbitcollector (Jeff) Posts: 8,091
    edited 2011-02-12 13:43
    Happy 41st Ken! 2/12/11

    Recycling an old thread is a bit like recycling an old card... :)

    OBC
  • $WMc%$WMc% Posts: 1,884
    edited 2011-02-12 15:23
    Happy Birthday Ken
    '
    I sure hope your wife is care-full with all those candles,
    '
    I hope she got a big enough cake to hold all those candles.
    '
    I wish you many more.:lol:
  • kf4ixmkf4ixm Posts: 529
    edited 2011-02-12 15:48
    Happy Birthday Ken!!!
  • Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) Posts: 23,514
    edited 2011-02-12 21:55
    Eh, big deal! But happy 41st anyway, Ken! Forty-one is a prime number. There are some who believe that that makes for an auspicious year. Nothing, but nothing, can hold back Parallax Semiconductor now!

    BTW, I just returned from a birthday dinner for my dad, who's turning 94. Despite a few expected infirmities, he's still going strong. See? You're not even close to the half-way point yet! :)

    -Phil
  • localrogerlocalroger Posts: 3,452
    edited 2011-02-13 16:38
    I'll be 47 on the 15th. Happy Lupercalia!

    And my beloved wife is somewhere in her early 50's (I don't dare keep track).

    Lest you think it won't happen to you, rest assured it will.

    Oh, and Happy Birthday Ken. You made a helluva company.
  • allieallie Posts: 109
    edited 2011-02-14 01:14
    Forty is not bad, I'm 56 and I feel great!
    Happy birthday Ken and have a good one and I hope to greet you again when your 56.

    allie
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