SWCAMBORNE

“Human dignity is bound is bound up with taking responsibility for conducting one’s own affairs.”

Paul Rahe, author
Soft Despotism, Democracy’s Drift

In Colorado they romanticize the nineteenth century miners and prospectors.  While at the same time they abhor the present day miners.

According to Xocai Healthy Chocolate it is.  “A chocolate bar per day can keep the doctor away.”  They have a web site to prove it. poweredbyxocolate.com.  Which by the way also offers you an opportunity to buy some chocolate.  We found this opportunity at dinner last night at a very nice restaurant in Grand Junction, Colorado named Bin 707.   On the recommendation of Elise M, our server we tried a Colorado Pinot Noir from Terror Creek winery.  The wine was quite good and the ambiance and food were very good.

This is why we travel so you can learn about good restuarants in Western Colorado, the Colorado wine industry and the health benefits of chocolate.

“Is it better to go home and perhaps die trying to live, or stay in the nursing home and perhaps live trying not to die?”

It is a terrible dilemma not made any better by the pain that makes thinking about it nearly impossible.

“Imperialism does not justify terrorism, but it does motivate terrorism.”

Thomas Sipos

Editor California Freedom

Note the bottom of this restaurant check from Coco’s.  It says “If split among two guests each pays $9.65.”  Good idea.  Especially if you have 7 people in your party.  Of course you could just use the calculator function on your cell phone.

What else could a restaurant do electronically to make things easier for guests?  How about keep a record for you of what you ordered before?  Diet and nutrition information on the menu?  Words for telling the wait staff if you are eating fast or dawdling?

The President ordered the cabinet to cut a whopping $100 million from the $3.5 trillion federal budget! I’m so impressed by this sacrifice that I have decided to do the same thing with my personal budget.

I spend about $2000 a month on groceries, medicine, utility bills, taxes, etc, but it’s time to get out the budget cutting ax, go line by line through my expenses, and go to work. I’m going to cut my spending at exactly the same ratio -1/35,000 of my total budget. After doing the math, it looks like instead of spending $2000 a month; I’m going to have to cut that number by six cents! Yes, I’m going to have to get by with $1999.94, but that’s what sacrifice is all about. I’ll just have to do without some things, that are, frankly, luxuries.

I took this idea from one floating around the internet and adjusted it to my circumstances. I encourage you to do the same.

I have worn out my hiking boots for the second time in my memory.

I’m pretty sure this is an indicator of having lived a good life.

These boots have been to:

• The Top of Half Dome in Yosemite
• Hadrian’s Wall
• Tuscany
• The Amalfi Coast
• The Indian Ruins of the Southwest
• The Coast of Maine
• The Galapogos
• SE Alaska
• Many places in San Gabriel Mountains
• The High Sierra Camps in Yosemite

I expect that the next boots I buy will be my last.  I hope that they get me as many places as this pair.

Why Not?

I have written about the need when you are old of being able to give up control.

I had an interesting juxtaposition of control issues this week and as a result found a tool for learning to give up control that is available to all of us.  Jack G my father-in-law is still in the skilled nursing home and has stopped taking as many pain killers.  So his mind is back. See Vicodin story.  It is generally a good thing but this means he wants to try to make thing the way they were before he started to have all of these medical problems.   He see himself as the Chief Executive Officer of his life.  Right now he can’t decide whether to go home or stay in the nursing home.  It would be much better if he would just take his doctors advise or go with a vote of his family.  Full disclosure: this is messing up my planned vacation and driving us crazy.

I have been serving on a few committees and during a meeting last week I had this revelation.  Committee work is good training for being old.

It is too late for Jack but for those of you planning to be old I suggest serving on a few committees.  Don’t be the head just be a member.  You will be able to practice patience, not knowing what is going on and lack of control.  These are important skill to have when you are old.  As an unintended but important consequence the committee work will also help you build social capital.