Silent killer called Cancer

Dear Bloggers,

In my life there is an other person that struggles with the horrors of a partner who is dying of cancer. I guess that most of us know someone either closely related or far away like someone at work. But the feelings and the thoughts are turning around your stomach. Maybe you can imagine that someone you love will die slowly from cancer this disease is taking him or her out slowly.

Text : Stand hiker and read, who's remains are lying here, just remember that sooner or later this fate will hit you too

As a young kid, I have always had this naïve idea of what death was. Especially the kind that is preceded by illness. Hollywood portrays it as some thing that actually draws people together around some common cause – that of helping the ill one ease their last days here/ Wow, have I found that to not be true. One, what if you don’t die right away? All these people come together with that one cause, which doesn’t really exist for weeks, months or maybe years.

I know of one person’s husband who had cancer, and was “dying” of it for 2 years! That is a long time for someone given two months and what about the rest of the family, these must be though times. How many times can you say goodbye? Furthermore, as the ill one, how long can you go on being teased by death with the promise of all it brings in the afterlife, only to continue to have to endure earthly pains, joys, struggles, and all that? For example he was given 2 months to live initially. At that 2-month mark, he had been through a terrible bout with chemo, and actually looked forward to more, if it was going to make me better in the end. Well, it didn’t and wouldn’t. I respected this Though decission of him: “I will have no chemo any more, or any other treatment”. The goal is to keep me comfortable as long as possible. “Hey, I am not in pain”. However, we have experienced some bodily changes that caused me to see and experience you differently – and the treatment for each of these, has proven to be helpful in accepting all the discomfort.

The docs were surprised at how “well” you were doing. Your spirits are high – no, you are not awaiting a miracle or some other magical cure. You are not going to Mexico for alternative treatments. It is simply just waiting. Had a great discussion tonight with my partner about how life gets us to decisions. Do we make several “perfect” decisions that get us to the right place….or is life really just a serious of millions of smaller decisions that move us all over creation to get us to where we are. In truth, I have always fancied myself to have the “right” answer – eventually. Yet, when I look back on my life, I see a set of random, spontaneous decisions that have given me the richest set of experiences. Not goal oriented at all! And the ones that I have tried to carefully orchestrate have been the most frustrating or forces. Then there are those things about which I have actively made the little and big decisions to NOT deal with. Those are the most frustrating and disappointing in that they always come back to bite you. They are the lessons that life keeps giving you over and over until you hopefully learn them. I am just not that bright.


Shocking news when they tell you that your time is nearly up

I knew years ago that my father had control issues with me. That is fine as a youngster. But, not as a 43 year old, otherwise successful, man. I still let myself get manipulated, shamed, guilted and yes, controlled, by him as I am still the youngest of the family. I am a strong, smart, successful person in most walks of my life, and plenty independent overall. Yet I cave at the idea of having to stand up to my father as everything I did was out of line, not really structured or at least not steady as a family income. At least my life has not been boring at all. I know that he is afraid that I would make more funny moves like going back to sea again. Strange as I have no fear of dying at all.



I guess it all gets back to those dying days. Or my friends dying days. He said: “I am not yet dead, and have a chance to continue living – with all of life’s challenges – until I get a few of these left over lessons right. And I won’t get it right once. I have to get it right many times, over and over, and I will still mess up. I can apologize to all those I have hurt. It may or may not be enough. I can own my part in what has gone wrong – that through my inaction I caused. It may not be enough”.



You have the “gift”, he was told, of knowing that he was going to die imminently, but nobody knows how long that will be. “Honestly, I felt cheated that I had to live longer than my expected 2 months”. He told me one day these words made a deep impact on me. We are so used to getting the right answers that we expect 2 months nothing more and nothing less. After he got over the fact that he had “beaten” that deadline, I realized that he had fully geared up to leave.



But, I have time left to really tie up some loose ends, to say heartfelt goodbyes, to try to repair some of the behaviors I have resented in myself – those which have unintentionally hurt others around me that I love. Can I do that? We’ll see. It’s totally up to me. Will the loved ones accept it from me? We’ll see. If it would hit me than I don’t have a lot of time or chances to get it right this time.

The Old Sailor,

My mobile teenage kid

Dear Bloggers,


Today I am going to write about my “mobile hooked” teenage daughter. A few years ago we gave her a mobiole phone so she could reach us whenever it was needed. And yes stupid us (the parents) did not change her account as she was not using it for anything else yet. When I got the last phone bill I nearly got a heart attack. I explained to her that everything she does is costing us money and yes she could have asked us if it was ok that she was using internet on her phone and that she was texting a lot with her friends.



We had a tough conversation with the three of us. (my daughter, my wife and me) I explained to her that she had been using her phone so much the last month and in cash she used what I would be doing in a whole year. We agreed that we should look for a more suitable contract and a different phone that can log on to the modem at home. Further the phone will be used only during the day and at bedtime it will not go to the bedroom. I will not have a teenager in my house who is on call 24/7. As I have met already several teens that are completely hooked to their cell phones. And yes I understand that living in the countryside as a teenager is bloody boring. Is there anything that you can do in their empty life?


Lack of sleep gives this effect

Teenagers! Always on call. Especially here in this small towns with “nothing to do”, where many of them—we’ve come to discover thanks to the good old fashioned local newspapers —sleep with mobile phones under their pillow. Important texts (“Seeing if you’re awake”) simply cannot be missed!

Teenagers are texting all the live long day and continue to do so even when they enter their Twilight-covered sleeping chambers for what sounds like the most restless, unproductive, vibration-under-the-pillow sleep I’ve ever heard of:

At home my nearly twelve year old daughter did the same she slept with her mobile phone under her pillow so she doesn’t miss “emergency” texts – “like if a friend broke up with her boyfriend.” Her schoolfriend is doing the same and is also available for urgent overnight correspondence, such as, “Hey, seeing if you’re awake.” My daughter produced and got as many as 100 texts while in bed. “I just don’t feel like myself if I don’t have my phone near me or I’m not on it,” she said. (We did not know it and explained her that there is more in real life.)



This semi-sleep is being dubbed “on call” by teens, parents and doctors at the local Hospital in Heerenveen, where they are seeing an alarming number of inexplicably exhausted children admitted for evaluation. Yes, you read that correctly! Kids these days are texting so often they’re actually disrupting Stage 4 REM sleep. This is the same stage of sleep that’s important for processing the day’s learning experiences so, yes, in this case mobile phones literally are affecting children’s brains and making them dumber.

And lest you think this is just that I am trying to create a trend out and that I am a grumpy old and irritated bus driver than I can tell you, it’s not! The Central Bureau for Statistics, which is an organisation in the Netherlands that researches things, reports that in a 2010 study on teen mobile phone usage, four in five teens reported sleeping with their bedazzled Blackberrys and iPhones or other kind of Smartphones next to their beds. Some even reported falling asleep with the device still in their hand. Can you imagine how that last one went down?


Application called Data Counter

“Dear Jenny, it’s Kelly. Can you believe Rob? I mean OMG WTF!1!. Did you see how he was looking at…” Zzzz…

Holy crap, Kelly! Wake the fuck up! We need to know what Rob did with what’s her face! Stop sleeping! That’s a sign of weakness! And yes, weakness was purposefully chosen, by me, for that sentence, for this reason:

Sometimes teens answer late-night calls and messages less out of excitement than fear. In focus groups convened by the CBS, some teens related stories of friends or acquaintances who became angry or insulted when text messages or phone calls weren’t immediately returned. “As a result, many teens we heard from said they feel obligated to return texts and calls as quickly as possible, to avoid such tensions and misunderstandings,” the report said.


Application Kiwi to keep track of mobile usage for € 0.99

The data only gets worse from there. A medical centre study found that teens average 33.5 emails and texts per night and are often woken from a sound sleep by a message.They discovered that teens sending more than 120 texts per day were more likely to get less than the recommended eight hours of sleep per night and doze off in class.

I’l end this little tirade with what must be the saddest quote from a teenager I’ve read in a long, long while, take it away:

“When I’m texting someone I don’t feel alone. When you don’t have your phone, you feel incomplete.”

OMG (omg means Oh My God) what the hell is happening. You know another way you can not be alone? By standing next to a real, live person and talking to them. Also, where the heck are the parents?



The names I used are fictive just to give you an idea of what teens are chatting about, as I do not like to see anyone being harmed by their parents as they might read this blog. And that is absolutely not the plan. I think that we as parents should learn and read more about how our kids are growing up in a fast and dangerous mobile and internet world. Our lives were in that case a lot simpler those days. At least try to keep track of what your kids are doing and try to keep track of their costs. I made a plan with provider KPN to keep track of data and text usage with some simple to install Android apps and of course we have changed her contract which can be adjusted every month.

Try to be a good mobile parent and explain to your teenager kid that things you do cost money. In Dutch we would say: “De zon komt op voor niks en gaat zinloos onder.” I will try to translate The Sun rises for nothing and will go down useless.

The Old Sailor,

The day that I nearly lost everything.

Dear Bloggers,

So here's the scenario. About a year ago I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and I did get the the Talk. The doctor in question gives a lot of these talks, and is determined that we shouldn't miss a single word. We are shown a figure with red dots for the trigger points, and she begins to describe what's happened, in mind-numbing detail. I mention that I'm a guy that learned some Latin and Medical terms had my interrest for a long time, and I knew about Rheumatic problems already quite a few things as I have been strawling through medical books and of course on the internet. We have to listen. To all of it. She is, she tells us, the expert, and no-one for miles around knows as much about Rheuma as she does (My doc at home does probably know nothing at all at least I share that opinion).

I kind of loose my temper a bit as I realize that I am stuck on this bloody sickness for the rest of my days, The doc ignores me and disappears for a short while. We might need her again in the future whispers my wife and I am ashamed of myself. Due to the fact that there will be not much progress in the coming year, I will definately lose my job and have less income. My boss is giving me notice and I can sense that this is difficult for both of us. I had so much fun doing this job but my body decided in a hard way that this was not going o work any longer. I hated myself for quite a while and had to get my feet back on the ground and suite myself with a new style of living. A slower and more balanced life would do myself good. I will compare to someone that is stuck in a body of an eighty years old man who has been working hard all his live but now his worn out body is holding him back due to pain all over. Accepting it is not that easy, the pain is something you learn to live with. My wife told me one day that no one is getting happier when I am complaining, I guess that she was right so I stopped doing that.

The doctor returns, I apologise very nicely (as I have been instructed by my wife), and we proceed. We are told again that we need to come back for some more tests on Monday. We are given some booklets to read ourselves and that was it. Totally devistated we leave the doctors room. All of a sudden some horrific pictures of the worst case scenario run through my brain (a man like me with what looks like a wheelchair and his head is hanging down on his chest; I'm still not sure what that was supposed to be).

In the time being at home, I worked myself back up to certain level and got back to work. I started a job to become a bus driver on a commuters bus for the summer season. If it would not work out with my body and brain, I could simply pull the plug as I am hired through a temps office. In the beginning it was hell as I had to stick a lot of information into my brain which was still foggy due to the amount of medication that I have been using to settle the pain level. I look at it as a drug user that becomes clean, that also takes a couple of weeks before the brain is clear again. 

The money is coming back in although the amount is lower and deducted from my dole money of course. Our holiday? we can simply skip as I am hired for the summer season. Again I feel tears burning as I cannot spend money on my loved ones. That's ok, says she and my kids are fine with it, I still feel like that I am failing somehow. We cannot go on our holiday, maybe next year. Whe sat down one evening when I was still home, we decided to sell this beautiful house and buy something a bit smaller as cleaning and doing the garden became to much for me and for my wife it is too much too handle on her own. Certainly we like to get a reasonable price for it, but still it is not been sold. But what about the housing market after the recession banks do not dare to take any risks anymore. In the mean time we are still living here and although the garden is getting more and more a mess. I mow the lawn and my eldest daughter is helping me with it. The rest of the garden is not in a great condition. Ah, That's ok, because we can sell it for abit less and move on. Hmmm......sounds like my wife gave up on it too. We have seen a nice house on internet with enough space for all of us and with a suitable garden. We would get on a lower mortgage and we could save a few euros to go out for a long weekend. That would be at least long enough for me. 

Well, at least we can sit at home and read... 

The Old Sailor,

When people stop talking.....it is awfully quiet on the bus

Dear Bloggers,

As the common readers know that I am driving commuters busses from town to town in the Northern regions of the Netherlands. During one of my journeys as a bus driver it all of a sudden came to me, I looked in the mirror to overview my passengers and even this ride is more than 40 kilometres absolutely no one was talking to any of the other passengers. I really started wandering what these people were doing during this long journey. I decided to observe each passenger closely for a while. Several are having earphones in and listen to music, others are pretty busy typing messages on there smart phones. Only one young lady was reading a book and two of them were dozed off into better dreams as they had a smile on their faces. One girl in the mirror stared back at me and had a bit of a gazed look in her eyes, problem was that she was sitting half way the bus otherwise we probably had chit chatted about the things that bother us in life. To me it occured that she was kind of disappointed in her fellow travellers or maybe she wanted to talk to someone but simply did not know how to start a conversation?



Twitter is cool. Wikis are neat. Hyves is, hmmm, good? And email is email. Facebook is also pretty usefull when friends live hundreds of kilometres away from you. These tools are all useful in helping us communicate with each other when we’re separated by great distances. They help us bridge the gap by providing fast, efficient means of communication. It doesn’t get more efficient than Twitter’s 140 character limit. But take a close look at these tools. They all share a common characteristic. They’re all based on written communication. Okay facebook has a chat option but I do not use it that much. While the written word may be very efficient for transferring information, it is not very effective at persuading people or making a real impact. And there is a tremendous difference between being effeicient and being effective..


Sure, we transfer the information that something is wrong and needs to be corrected. But that’s all we do, transfer information. Emails, Tweets, Wikis, and Hyves don’t help us move others to action. Action, not information, is what moves us toward continuous improvement and success. And nothing moves people to action more than the spoken word.

The written word is the information channel and speaking is the action channel.

Speaking is like a multichannel Surround Sound experience, in which dozens of channels simultaneously feed information to the human mind. These various channels communicate a richly textured, multilayered message from speaker to listener. These channels consist of :

· Posture

· Facial expression

· Energy level

· Eye communication

· Vocal inflection

· Vocal intonation

· Volume

· Gestures and other physical actions

· And more

All of these non-verbal cues help transfer not just the information of the narrative, but the emotion and urgency of the message. They do so more effectively than any number of !!!‘s or URGENT‘s in an email can ever do. And it’s this emotion, this passion, this energy of verbal communication that motivates and persuades others to action. When you come to understand this basic premise, you then understand why communication, VERBAL communication, is essential to the success and improvement of any organization. Success and improvement require action, not just information. It requires that people in the organization are motivated to action to do the things that need to be done to improve the organization and their products.


I’ve written about the different levels of communication mediums, and I’ve also provided a solution for the human being “Simply talk to every stranger on the bus.” I know that this world has become crazy and there are many nutcases out there but if the world is getting quiet than we are losing the dialogue to the human rase. To help shy youngsters to communicate more effectively, my generation should start the conversation to keep the dialogue going and I hope it will help.


But, please don’t misunderstand me as I meet young people every day that do talk to me and thank me for the nice journey. Tools like twitter, google, e-mails, hyves, facebook and even old fashioned newspapers are good second alternatives for transferring information. But, when you need to transfer emotion and move people to action, don’t rely on these tools for communication. Remember how to talk to each other and remember that face-to-face communication is the real power behind the most successful organizations and teams. So, the next time you find a moment in your life and you think that this could be done more effective, don’t send an email to your manager about the problem. Walk into his or her office and use your verbal skills to persuade him or her that something needs to be done, now. Move him or her to action today!!!


If you want to communicate than don’t be afraid and talk to all kinds of people around you as you never know who is sitting on the other side and his or her opinion might change your mind. Eventually it might bring you closer to a solution of whatever is happening in your life. Or you might learn something completely new about an other culture or even about yourself. Don’t worry I am not a shrink or a preacher, I am just a free mind who loves to talk about all kinds of subjects that are occurring in our lives. Whatever is on your mind you can discuss with me and will try to give some decent answers.

The Old Sailor,

Can you retire early?

Dear Bloggers,

First of all let me say sorry that I had you readers waiting but my body was together with my mind more inspired by getting the flu. And of course there was no chance to get sick according to my common sense. So I had a bit of a struggle to get to work this week and therefor I negletected my readers a bit.

This weeks blog I will spend on retirement. I have quite a few colleagues who are in their 60’s and will be retiring in a few years. At this moment the talks are about raising the age that you will get on a state pension. I just have my visions about retiring on 55 years of age. When I calculated what that would cost me I was pretty surprised about the outcome. Early retirement can seem so appealing that you don't consider the details. Take a close look at the personal and financial factors first, and then decide whether early retirement is right for you.



Take this job and …

Everyone, at one point or another, has had this thought. If you're working to support yourself, you've undoubtedly daydreamed about early retirement. This vision may come to mind once a year, once a week, or once an hour, depending upon how you feel about your job and career.

The thought of early retirement has always been tempting for workers, but it's all the more tempting now that our view of retirement has changed from a few decades ago. We no longer see retirement as a time when our productive life is over, when we spend our remaining years reminiscing about the past. Now, retirement is viewed as the time when we finally get to enjoy all the things we would love to do, if only we didn't have to work.



The problem with early retirement is that it's often so appealing that it becomes easy to make the decision before you really consider the ramifications. And if you do leap before you look, you may be leaping to an early financial death.

Will you run out of money?

Many experts estimate that a huge percentage of future retirees will have to cut their expenses dramatically once they stop working if they want to make sure they don't go broke. The real answer to the question, "Can I retire early?" is: "Of course you can, but you may run out of money."



Questions to ask yourself are:

Is retiring early too risky?

How to make your money last in early retirement?

How to get yourself a dream job ... at age 55.

How can I avoid common retirement mistakes?

How can I retire on a wounded portfolio?

If that happens, the best scenario would be running out of money while you were still able to work, but chances are you would get a mediocre job at best. The worst circumstance would be going broke when you're no longer able to work, so your only options are to live on whatever monthly benefits you have (such as Social Security and a pension) or to turn to your children or other relatives for help.

When thinking about retiring early, there are two issues to consider:

· Can I afford to retire early?

· Do I really want to retire early?

Depending on how well your day went at work today, or how your career is progressing in general, you might think the second question is absurd. But if you look at how long you will be retired, you might want to rethink that second question.

The reality is that if you retire early, you may be "retired" for as long as you were in the working world. Based on actuarial tables of how long Americans actually live, if you retire at age 55, you can expect to live to age 83. If you retire at 65, you get another year's reprieve to age 84. And if you keep working until age 70, you're expected to live to age 86. Couple that with the fact that if you're married, one of you is likely to outlive the other by four to six years or longer, and you can see how early retirement requires serious financial planning.


Plan for how long you expect to live

To be practical and conservative in your financial planning, you should probably tack three or four more years onto these "average" death ages. If your relatives tend to live into their 90s, you had better add on a few more years. You also could try the Life Expectancy Calculator to get a better idea of your longevity.

Some of those later years may not be as active as the early ones, but they will be just as expensive thanks to medical costs. The only good news about living to 100 is that if you own a life insurance policy, you're usually considered actuarially dead by that time. That means you'll get the full death benefit while you're still alive and kicking (although you might not be kicking very high).




6 smart rules of retiring early

The new retirement model has demands of its own. Here's how to make sure you can cut back sooner -- without being destitute by age 87.

If you assume you'll enjoy at least an average life span, taking early retirement at age 55 or 60 means you have 30 years or so of retirement ahead of you. That's a long time without a paycheck or a structured schedule.

Now, don't think I'm trying to talk you out of your dreams. I'm not. What I am trying to get you to do is to think about what it will take and what it will mean.

Before you allow yourself the luxury of daydreaming about what you would do with all those years of free time, look at the numbers first and see whether you can afford to retire early.

Inflation is our enemy

There are three financial factors to consider:

· How much do you expect to have in monthly retirement income? This would include any money from a traditional pension plan, Social Security or other sources. Many people don't realize that even if they retire at 55 or 60, the earliest they can start receiving Social Security is at 62. And if you start then, the benefits are no more than 80% of what they would be if you waited until "normal" retirement age (currently age 65 or older). Many people choose to defer their Social Security benefits for as long as possible to increase the monthly benefits. Before you make this decision, ask your accountant or financial planner to help you calculate whether to start taking benefits at age 62 or to defer. Usually you're better off starting at age 62 even though the benefits are less. Why? You get extra payments that you can invest in the interim.

· How much in assets will you have accumulated by retirement? These include retirement plans that don't have the fixed-income payout of pension plans (such as 401(k) plans, profit-sharing plans, Individual Retirement Accounts, etc.). You also may have other sources, such as an inheritance or the profits from selling your house for a less expensive one.

· How much will you spend? Planners recommend that you estimate your retirement expenses to be about 80% of those you incurred before retirement, but many people want to keep the same standard of living and replace work-related expenses with travel, entertainment and other new costs.



The dreaded inflation factor

Don't forget about the effect of inflation as you consider your days in the RV rolling down Highway 1 in south Florida. What looks like a hefty retirement income at age 55 or 60 may be near the poverty line by the time you're 70 or 75. For example, let's assume that inflation increases at 3% a year. If you retire today at age 55 on a yearly income of € 40.000,- you'd need € 72.000,- by the time you're 75 to maintain your standard of living. At age 80, or 25 years after you retire, you'll need € 83.800,-. And look at the difference a mere 1 percentage point change in average inflation makes: If that 3% inflation rate actually averages 4%, you'll need € 87.600,- at age 75 and € 106.000,- at age 80.

First, when you estimate your expenses, put in a 5% fudge-factor. In other words, assume that your expenses will be 5% more than you anticipate.

Assume an inflation rate of at least 4%. Long-term, it has averaged about 3% but over the last 20 years it has been closer to 6%.

Start planning now, which usually means slashing your budget so that you can sock away every dollar you can. (This is good advice anyway, whether you plan to retire early or not).

Remember that the earlier you retire, the longer your retirement portfolio is going to have to work for you. So just because you're planning to retire doesn't mean you need to move more money into conservative, lower-yielding, fixed-income investments. (Remember that all of your income doesn't need to be from dividends and interest; it is perfectly acceptable to take some capital gains, too.)

If you retire at 55 or 60, you will probably (hopefully!) need a substantial part of that money in 20 to 30 years, so a good portion of your funds should be invested in the stock market.

Finally, and this is critical, see a competent, experienced financial planner every couple of years to run the numbers for you or to double-check your own numbers. The planner can serve as a sounding board to give you a second opinion about your retirement strategy and investment allocations.

The new retirement model has demands of its own. Here's how to make sure you can cut back sooner -- without being destitute by age 87.

Now what do you do?

If, after doing this "number crunching," you find that you can retire early, the burning issue becomes what will you do with your time. When you're exhausted from work, the possibility of day after day stretching by with no required attendance anywhere sounds delightful, but this can get old very quickly. When you start making a financial plan to retire early, start planning what you're going to do with your time when that day comes. Even the best made plans can change; many an early retiree has returned to work because she cannot stand the thought of not working for the rest of her life.

At a time when most people can't afford to retire and maintain their standards of living, taking the chance of retiring early is a big risk. However, if you start planning early in life, do your homework and understand that you're likely to be around for the next 20 to 40 years and your money needs to be, too, early retirement may be for you. The only downside from a social perspective is the envy of everyone else you know who would give anything to be in your early retirement shoes.

The Old Sailor,

Whoohooo spring has arrived

Dear Bloggers,

The spring of the year is a favorite season for many people, and it is certainly easy to understand why this is so. The spring is when the earth comes back to life slowly after a long and cold winter, and it is in the spring when the first flowers begin to bloom and the green world begins to return after its winter slumber.

The power of spring and its regenerative effects are evidenced by the fact that every major religion includes a major holiday in the spring season. From Passover to Easter, it seems that every culture marks spring with a celebration of renewal and new life. It is easy to understand how in times past ancient cultures were overjoyed by the power of spring and the beauty of new life.



The spring is an important season for many hobbies, including of course gardening. For the gardener, the spring is one of the most pleasant times in the garden. The spring is the time when the bulbs that were carefully planted in the fall begin to grow and blossom, and the spring is when the first seedlings are carefully nestled in the garden. There is no doubt that the spring is one of the most beautiful, and most colorful, of all seasons for the gardener. And yes it is time to get the garden furniture oiled and get the lawnmower ready for it’s job.



The spring is also a favorite time for home improvement projects that could not go forward while the weather was too cold. Whether it is a small project like cleaning up your driveway or a large project like building a new garage or storage shed, the spring is one of the best times to work at improving the value and livability of the home. In the spring, the weather is neither too hot nor too cold, and the homeowner has plenty of daylight in which to work. It is no wonder that the spring season is one of the busiest for home improvement stores and warehouses.



For the outdoor sports enthusiast, there is nothing like the coming of the spring season. For the fisherman, the coming of spring means the first day of trout season. For the biker, spring means that those favorite trails are no longer impassable due to snow, and for the horseback rider spring means being able to take a ride without being afraid of frozen soil. And of course spring means the opening of girl season, a joy for spectators and players alike. There is a lot of eye candy around when the sun is coming out. Enjoy the beautiful time of spring.

The Old Sailor,

Fibromyalgia and what it did to me

Dear Bloggers,

I was overthinking the times that Fibromyalgia was just coming into my life and I did have a pretty “normal” life. I was not a superman that did loads of sports I was just an average guy. From the age of 16 I got stiff fingers in the wintertime and I blamed it on the cold weather after a couple of years the stiffness of my fingers became a bit worse. It was not bathering me only working on the keyboard of my computer was hurting after a while. I had a good life and I was just a few years recovered after a nasty fall of the stairs which nearly killed me. After learning a lot of things again with help of my neurologist and a logopedist I could get back to work again. But then the first problems rose due to the costochondritis.



I was fairly active, working out regularly by riding my bicycle and going to the gym. I had just joined a Tae Kwon Do class and I was really enjoying myself. It happened very quickly – my wife was driving, we were heading towards the shop, shooting past the traffic in the other two lanes. Somehow my head could not follow and my hands just swelled up and almost immediately and the pain was atrocious! A trip to the doctor yielded no diagnosis. Still confused we left the doctors office but the pain was not fading. After a fw days I saw the doctor again in a pretty bad condition as also my legs gave up on me and the pain was heavier than before It was februari 2008.

I sometimes wonder if the woman who was the assistant of the rheumatologist ever thinks about the words she so carelessly spoke to me after I finally got out of the chair in the waiting area. "Well, It is hitting you hard as see how you get up and you’re walking like an old man." Does she think about where I might be today? Sure, she was a couple of years younger, and I wander if she was thinking could this happen to me as well in a couple of years. Question is if so did she also end up with chronic pain? Fibromyalgia has many different faces as some of us end up in a wheelchair using loads of medication, others like me have found a way to use step by step less medication and started working parttime in a less stressy job. Eventhough you still have bad days it does not effect your life so much anymore.

My doctor of internal diseases has tried everything. The cortisone shots were the worst. As the pain from my costochondritis was the worst and kept me from working. Six months later, I was still limping along using plenty painkillers and crying myself to sleep almost every night, tried a tense pulsing device which was working quite well in the beginning, still I was taking pain pills every four hours, defying the instructions to take them every eight hours. Finally, my doctor of internal diseases decided that the rheumatologist was the next step. I was 40 years old and preparing for my first long term sick leave, hoping to wipe away the pain and decrease the stress in my body. My job was my life and I could not imagine a life outside of the ship. There was still a lot of pressure on me as accepting this disease is not easy. I was pretty unhappy at the current time.



Getting Better

After three months of intensive and several therapies, I could barely walk for twenty minutes as the fatigue was taking over and I would fall into a deep sleep. I forgot everything even to pick up the kids from school, but the daily pain had been greatly diminished and I COULD walk without any painkillers. I didn't cry myself to sleep at night. A success story, if you asked me. I wasn't willing to settle for a live on the shore as the ship was my life, though. I went to the gym every day and walked on the treadmill – slowly at first and not for very long, but gradually worked my way up to running for five minutes. I felt great.

Still not enough, I was trying hard to get back into shape but during one of my bike rides my body fully gave up on me. Before the event, I had talked to my doctor about getting in motion as much as I could and get to talk to a dietician furthermore I talked to him about my inability to sleep and not feeling refreshed upon waking. He gave me some medication, which didn't seem to work very well. Not being the kind of person to complain about such things, I didn't go back to him about it.

Something Going On

The next weekend I jumped on the bike again together with my daughter but I had trouble to keep up with her and this was new to me. So I tried to catch up and yes I did, and I didn't let the strange fatigue hold me back this time. It had been long enough. I told myself I was just being lazy now. I pushed myself as hard as I could, but now, shin splints forced their way on me, and I would finish one kilometre screaming in pain, only a hot shower on my shins for an hour before the pain subsided. I'd go out again, going a little slower this time. Eventually, I'd give up, feeling like I'd just been to the whipping post. Exhausted and in pain, I'd climb back into the shower, telling myself that tomorrow would be another day.

Eventually, I had to admit to myself that I would not be able to ride a bike for a long journey again, and I set my sights on the half of the journey – eager and ready, mentally, at least. My body still tired easily and my muscles ached terribly after a workout. I pushed because I wasn't going to let the pain stop me.



As soon as I cleared the “finish line”, I squatted down and almost passed out. My muscles were "zinging." I had stopped and couldn't go any further.

An Answer to the Puzzle

The muscle aches and pain started not too long after that. I hadn't made a connection between all of my symptoms, so I hadn't told my doctor about all of them. Lack of refreshing sleep; dizziness, which I attributed low blood pressure; irritable bowel syndrome, something I'd always had; muscle fatigue, flu-like feelings on occasion; poor memory at times; all the symptoms were there. Finally, I read an article about fibromyalgia in a popular health magazine. It immediately clicked – this is what is wrong with me. I went back to my doctor with the article in hand and told him, "I think I have fibromyalgia." I was scared, but relieved when he said, "I think you're right."

He sent me to a rheumatologist, who confirmed the diagnosis in the spring of 2010.

Learning to Live with Fibromyalgia

It's been a long learning experience since my diagnosis. I'm amazed that I can feel perfectly normal one day and completely wasted the next. My wife is just starting to recognize when I feel poorly and what we shouldn't do on those days. Those are the days she generously makes my dinner and doesn't expect me to do more than sit in my chair and read. She used to bully me into saying, I am not complaining when I have pain, not understanding just how bad it was. I love her but hate her for not learning enough about how this affects me to look past how it affects her.

"I've tried all the new anti-inflammatory drugs, to no avail. I've learned that one sleep aid makes me hallucinate while another gives me bad nightmares. Yet another left me so drugged in the morning that it's amazing I was able to get out of bed. After all these trials I was pretty much a drug addict and I made some choices about what would be the best bearable medication. So I started to build things down and act a bit slower with less stress.

The phrase "overdoing it" has taken on a new meaning in my life. Washing the car by myself leaves me exhausted for two days. I can still run when I need to, but I suffer the consequences the rest of the day and into the next day. My days of running and biking trips are on major hold, if not permanently ended. My membership at the gym is frozen, but I've learned that Tai Chi does amazing things. Sometimes I have to convince myself that the pain I'll feel afterward isn't so bad, but it is worth it.



I've learned that my "fibro-fog" is just something I have to accept. If I think about it long enough, the word I'm looking for will come. If I write it down, I don't forget it. My free time is now given to caring for myself, my wife and my two daughters, without their strength and mercy, I would be much worse off.

I know eventually my doctor and I will hit upon the right combination of treatments that will allow me to lead a much more normal life. Until then, I glory in the good days and hunker down on the bad days. I know I'll get through them and only God knows what tomorrow will bring. It's not always good, but it's NEVER always bad. My pain pills are with me wherever I go, but that's not such a bad thing.

I've often wondered when and how I got fibromyalgia. Did the fall of the stairs accident a few years ago cause it? Did it just exacerbate symptoms that were already there? Was it the stress in my job on board? Or was it everything together? I'll never know. I've never slept well, even when I was a lot younger four hours of sleep a day was enough. Personally, I think I always had it and that, for some reason, something made it come to a flare up and it's been with me full force ever since. To me, it doesn't matter. My wife still struggles with that question, though.

I am pretty sure that things could have been worse for example that my brain did not get back to where it was after the fall of the stairs or that fall would have killed me. Or what if .......no, no stop it now. It all turned out pretty well for me.

I am thankfull daily for my wife, for my friends and, believe it or not, for my health. I can walk. I can talk. I can work. I can see. I can feel. I can hear. I can love. What more do I need?

The Old Sailor,

What would you do with one million euro

Dear Bloggers,


And yes last week it happened again for the so maniest time or at least I nearly won the lottery again, I only missed by several digits. (only the last one was right.) My actual winnings were € 27,50 this time just not enough to buy new tickets from. Well maybe next month it will happen enthough I now that winning a prize above € 1.000.000, - is aprox 1 on 20 million people. But why the hell do I buy these tickets? Because there are a few things that I would love to realize even if it was a million euros. I do not need the jackpot of 27,5 million euros. Every price above € 100.000,- is very welcome. At least we could make easier choices.

It’s a fun game, isn’t it? Imagining you have won a million euro windfall and trying to figure out what you would do with it. Or, a different scenario: you work your butt off for 40 years, saving and investing wisely, and eventually get to a net worth of a million euros. Phew. Now what?

A Million Euros isn’t that much!

I think we’re all very aware that a million euros isn’t what it used to be. In either scenario, whether you have worked and accumulated a million euros, or whether you’ve received a windfall, you absolutely cannot go crazy and start spending uncontrollably. Let’s take a look at what you CAN do with a million euros.



Invest for income

This applies to the second scenario – the one where your net worth, after years of hard work, is a million euros. Assuming your investment mix can generate an annual taxable income of 8%, a million dollars can generate an admittedly nice income of €80,000 per year – for many this is all it takes to comfortably retire, and for those of us living in more expensive areas, in major cities along the coast, it would still be a major boost to whatever other retirement income we might have.


Spend wisely

If you get a million euro windfall at some earlier point in your life, when you still have many working years ahead of you, I would advise against viewing this as your ticket out of the workforce. As we saw above, this kind of money generates a nice income – but not necessarily enough to retire on, especially if you’re young and still need to raise kids. In addition, if you start using all the income that your nest egg generates at an early age rather than reinvest, your money will be gradually eroded by inflation.


What would I do?

The things on my own list if I ever received a sudden windfall include non-exciting items such as paying off any credit card debt, loans and home mortgage. I would also reserve a small percentage (anywhere from 1%-5% or up to € 50,000) for helping close family members such as parents and siblings with repaying their own debts and give another 1%-5% to charity.

No splurging at all? You’re so boring

I actually do not rule out splurging a little. It’s normal to want to splurge when you receive an unexpected, large sum of money. I guess in my case I would allocate 1%-5% for splurging – this could go towards buying a new car, a small boat, renovating the house or buying new furniture or art and a cruise of course. Whatever floats your boat, by all means splurge a little on it, but do limit that splurge. It’s very easy to waste away a million euros.


And what about the rest?

So I repaid debt, gave some to family and some to charity, even splurged a little. Let’s assume I was left with half a million euros. Now what? Now I invest, and I treat this as any other investment, creating a mix of stocks, bonds, cash and whatsoever is possible. Whatever asset allocation I’m generally comfortable with. Now I sit back, watch the money grow, rebalance once a year and resist the urge to do anything else with that money, except for enjoying the extra security I now have.

Just believe me when I tell you that money does not bring more luck into your life, it only makes things easier if you a bit more than needed. Just enjoy life and make the best out of it.

The Old Sailor,

Sorry we are closed today

Dear Bloggers,




Today I am taking a day off to celebrate another year that lies past me.

Some would call it the day of the big things that came to us. On of the first things that i remember is that we switched from normal black and white to colour television, and we could receive more channels and we had a telephone as not everyone had a phoneline yet. I got my first bicycle and later a moped. And I was able to vote and get my driving licences. I took the decession to go sailing as there was not that much work at the time. We bought our first house and got our children. I have to say that in those 15.705 days that I am on this cruel planet.

As there were also bad things that i remember Martin Luther King was killed, the Vietnam war, the hazardous fire on the Scandinavian Star, the disaster with the Herald of Free Enterprise, the fireworks explosion at Enschede, the attack on the twin towers, the tsunami in Indonesia and her surrounding countries and of course things that happened just around me that loved ones past away from us.

It left happy memories and some deep scars in my inner person.

“Maturity has more to do with what types of experiences you've had, and what you've learned from them, and less to do with how many birthdays you've celebrated.”

Here are some facts that might be seen as useful information to some of my readers but maybe it isn’t.

· You are exactly 43 years 1 week 2 days 9 hours 40 minutes 57 seconds old.

· You will receive your next birthday gift in 14 hours 19 minutes 3 seconds later.

· If your hair were never cut since 13.March.1968, it would be 6.266 m. today.

· If your nails were never cut since 13.March.1968, they would be 1.555 m. today.

· An apple tree seeded on 13.March.1968, bore 3,818.536 kg. apple till today. Its contribution to economy is €15,236.0 and it fed 6,407 people. We hope that in your life you, as a human being, achieved more than that poor apple tree.

Yes, spring is on it's way

Hang in there! Spring will be here soon.

Dear Bloggers,

Finally winter is moving out as cold and moisty weather is not my best friend I am looking forward to the Spring and Summertime again. The best part of spring is the great smells of new life in the garden. I think that this is natures best period of the yearly cyclus.

I noticed a few daffodils around town blooming this week and was happy to see two in my garden just starting to open. Another first bloom of spring is a lowly dandelion but it does look cheery after months of winter. I'll wait awhile and enjoy it before i pull it. The other sign of the season change is the longer days. Some days it's still pretty chilly but I get to spend some time each day doing some garden chores. What a great way to finish the work day. So here is the first daffodil that i saw.

It seems like a jibe in this weather. The icy blasts that hit you as soon as you leave towards the parking to grab your bus, the mornings are stone cold and the passengers are happy to see you. It is only –2 degrees celcius but the wind is biting cold. The morning dash of coffee and a loaf of bread did nothing to smash the calm blankness of sleep of my wife and kids. Mornings on the bus on Monday are a kind of zombie march. My head is not fully functioning yet, what can you expect at 06:30 in the morning. I have an automatic path that I follow on the route that I have to do as if I am trundling down a fixed railway line.

By the time the cold hands grab the steeringwheel and you drive to your starting point, you see people outside the bus doors on push bikes in that freezing cold weather and you are just partially awake, and my defrosted body enters again to go into chilling. Then into traffic, making little jokes with the passengers, most of the regulars are feeling home on the bus. After my two support rides that I need to do I unload the passengers and drive back to the garage, Sit down. Time to drink coffee.

I like to come home and write as soon as I can. It is already evening as I write this. I wonder, sometimes if the reason that I write is for the following reasons---is it Writers and the act of writing,--- or is it killing my devotional time, as some sort of way to enter aloneness and prepare for final silence? Or is it a well formed habit only designed to make products that I temporarily own and then discard? What is the purpose of weekly writing?

I’m not sure. I think that writing is a way to clarify my mind and my miserable life—as I am only here passing time, like everybody else. Today I write something down; this is true for this minute, but then the next thing I write contradicts what I said or thought about three days ago. Writing is sometimes difficult and somehow endlessly disruptive. When I consider this fact of lack of agreement in anything I write down--the fact that one day--I may be all for one position and the next --not--what this tells me is that I am mirroring my mind that is also as fluid as the writing. In other words, my mind is a thinking machine that functions on chemicals.

What do they do to store--memory--logical thinking processes--emotions--the self? And if everything is stored in neurons--how are they stored? Is memory a simple stockpile of chemicals with half lives that are reached continually and progressively until no memories are finally left? If so --this makes the act of writing down --critica But if what we write down is contradictory, emotional rather than rational, considered useless by our society--is it still worth it to be writing devotedly--as if despite these deficiencies in textual depictions of a mind--it is still a worthy practice to engage in the writing down of a mind?

I suppose this decision is based on what you value. Do you --if you have sufficient time--value working at something that will return you more goods and services--or do you in your free time prefer to do what makes you see clearly into your own small life and its attachments? It depends entirely on value and the type of life you want to live. This type of writing is not valuable if you would rather paint or draw; if you need to work on a career; if you prefer other activities. But if the main method of learning for you (and your main interest is learning) is to use words in multiple ways--then writing is a weekly practice that unknots and untangles a great many small minor problems a human being can encounter in a life. It also serves to waken up that human being to luck and good fortune.

I only think about nature sometimes when I am driving and my mind is at ease. After a few days I will sit down and write about it. I only think about the good fortune to be married to a kind, loving woman like my wife and the extreme luck of having two daughters, when others have no kids. Writing practice inevitably introduces you to the grace of your own extreme luck in being born into such a life of privilege.

Even the long winter is a lucky matter for it makes spring and summer like desserts after a long tedious meal of rubbery food. Outside the winter wheels and grinds us down to nothing. The pond that is still filled with a thin layer of ice that is close to my house.

Winter is the ultimate season. The poor trees stick out like old timers TV antennae and looking very dark on the horizon. And winter paints them with icy colours, It is all very beautiful –if you are sitting in the writing room like I am out of the battering fists of the wind, sympathetically appreciating the troubles of the ice cold conditions that nature has to go through, like the the locked in birds, the hares and deer that live right near here along in the bloody forest that gives them also shelter as well.

Usually I’m hanging on the couch together with my wife and watch some Tv at this time of the day. But today, I’m sitting behind the computer and my wife is leaving me alone without any resistance or whatsoever. The weather is a powerful incentive to writing—encouraging me by the hammering cold windy fists on the house walls. Crocusses and daffodils are showing their face that is the sign by the extended care that says—Spring is coming soon—but just not today.

The Old Sailor,