The Boomer Chronicles

The blog Contemporary Retirement is hosting our Carnival of links for baby boomers this week. Be the first to arrive.

Read her Valentine’s Day wish list

Here’s a roundup of online appointment calendars

Living the fantasy of retiring abroad

Dom Perignon was 60 when he produced his first champagne. It’s never too late to pursue your dreams.

I’ve got a big, fat honeydew melon ripening in the pantry, and a bunch of clementines piled up in an orange string bag. Could you live without fresh fruit and vegetables during the winter? If you’ve been reading this blog for the last year or two, you know I’ve talked about ‘peak oil‘, the point at which extracting the remaining oil from the ground becomes so costly that it not worth doing. In fact, oil production in 33 out of 48 countries has now peaked. What does this mean for you? It means everything that is not bought locally, and anything that has to be transported to you, will become prohibitively costly.

How would your life change if you could not buy anything that was not available locally? Would you learn canning? Would you move to a warm climate and plant citrus trees in your backyard? These questions are not as outlandish as you’d think. Peak oil, or The End of the Oil Age, as some call it, is right around the corner.

Here are some ideas from Peak Oil Hausfrau for meals that can be stored.

Every once in a while I visit the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization website to read about the most recent Bigfoot sightings around the U.S. Here’s a great report of a Bigfoot sighting from a truck driver who saw the strange creature in the summer of 2009 near Richland Chambers Lake in Texas:

At precisely 1:30 a.m., on the 25th of August 2009, I was driving an 18-wheeler on CR.196 which runs off of FM.416 in Freestone County, Texas. I had just driven about 100 meters on an oil field lease road, when I spotted what I thought was a large Russian boar hog on the right side of the lease road about 75-100 feet in front of me. What really caught my eye was that it had a really big head covered with long, bushy hair. I’d been driving about 20 mph before I saw it, but as soon as I saw it, I slowed down to maybe 5 mph. At this time, it stood up on its hind legs and looked directly at me and growled at me….Then it ran on its hind legs like a human being, but faster than anything I’ve ever seen in my life, across the road in front of me, and into a tree line. I was in an 18-wheel Mack truck and this thing stood so tall as to look at me eye- to-eye. I’ve worked in the oil field for years and I’ve seen hogs of all sizes and breeds. Thousands of deer, and even black panthers. But this was something different, almost un-natural. I’ve never been more afraid in my life than during the time I saw it and while I was performing the job I was sent to do.

The Academy Award nominations were released early this morning. The Best Picture nominees are:

“Avatar”
“The Blind Side”
“District 9″
“An Education”
“The Hurt Locker”
“Inglourious Basterds”
“Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire”
“A Serious Man”
“Up”
“Up in the Air”

I am excited about the Oscars this year for two reasons. A film about sexual abuse and poverty, featuring a black cast and a black (and gay) director (Lee Daniels), and based on a semi-obscure novel — Precious — is in the running. The Hurt Locker, directed by a woman (Kathryn Bigelow), is in the running. Did you know that just three women in 82 years have been nominated for Best Director? Pathetic.

What have you seen? What do you think will rise to the top?

The Baby Boomer Entrepreneur is hosting the BloggingBoomers Carnival this week. Be careful not to spill any wine on the carpet over there.

Drop everything and watch this stupendous pre-wedding video made by a clever couple named Jeff and Erin

Here are 47 lists of Bloggers to Watch this year, brought to you by ProBlogger

Bad luck personified: Lottery winner dies on the day she gets the check

Cute photos of Martha Stewart’s dogs getting bathed

Did you listen to the State of the Union address last night? I want healthcare reform just as much as ever. As President Obama said, “We are THIS close.” C’mon, people. Reform now!

OK, I think I’ve held my tongue long enough. I’m from New Jersey. I’ve heard my fill of jokes about my state — the accent, the big hair. And now there’s Jersey Shore.

I don’t watch Jersey Shore, but I’ve heard it wallows in the dark underbelly of the Garden State. Just as my home state was starting to get some respect, a new reality series comes around to screw it up. My guess is that the show focuses on a bunch of declasse working-class kids, because they’re an easy target. Like Jerry Springer East.

For other folks who don’t watch the show, I found these popular one-liners to give you a sense of life in Seaside Heights:

“I don’t eat frickin’ lobster, or anything like that, cause they’re alive when you kill it.”

“I am like a praying mantis … After I have sex with a guy, I will rip their heads off.”

“He’d bang a Gatorade bottle if it had a pulse, at this point.”

Do you watch the show? Whaddya think?

A team including Dr. Jorge Moll of the National Institutes of Health found that when a research subject was encouraged to think of giving money to a charity, parts of the brain lit up that are normally associated with activities like eating or sex, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Encouraging news!

There are many places to exercise your altruism. Here’s one: Support a group called Women Thrive Worldwide, which advocates for the International Violence Against Women Act, an important effort to decrease violence against women and girls globally. The bill would help support survivors, hold perpetrators accountable, and prevent violence.