I get more than little upset when I hear Social Security referred to as an “Entitlement”!  While it may be for some in my case it was anything but.  Had I been allowed to invest those amounts that I paid into Social Security along with the matching amount that my employers paid in at an even modest rate of return I could not spend all of the money.  So calling what I receive an entitlement is totally disingenuous.  In reality I will never recover what I paid in – never.  I never hear the pensions that are paid to Public Employees referred to as entitlements but in many cases these individuals paid nothing into the account that funds their pensions.  Why is my Social Security an entitlement and their pension never referred to in that manner?  Unfortunately this situation is the same for many current Social Security recipients and certainly for those currently paying into the system.  Now because the money that I paid in has been used to fund other’s benefits my benefit becomes an entitlement?  With that kind of logic I suspect you can justify most anything.

While there have been many articles and posts about the iPad I would like to add my two cents worth.  I acquired my iPad in early November and continually find ways that it makes things both easier and more productive.  I have made two trips since acquiring the iPad and in both cases the iPad eliminated the need to carry a laptop.  Now my Apple MacBook only weighs a little over 5 pounds but the iPad comes in at around a pound and one half – a substantial difference when slogging your way through the lengthy concourses at our airports.  Because Kindle software is available for the iPad another weight reduction comes from no longer having to carry my Kindle – here again not a lot of weight but never the less we are now up to a weight reduction of close to five pounds – see the above about the airport terminals.  Another iPad advantage is that at most airports it is not necessary to take it out when going through security.  By the way, I am not a big Apple user – my mainstay computer is a HP 18″ laptop.  Having  said that, I find it amazing how much of my day-to-day activity happens on the iPad!  Email, Twitter, Facebook, web browsing happen daily while sitting in the great room watching television – no need to get up and go to the office to research something on the internet that comes up on TV.

The virtually unlimited range of apps available for the iPad – something over 60,000 iPad specific apps not counting the over 300,000 for the iPhone which run on the iPad – means one can find an app to fit almost any situation. While on the subject of applications those with an iPad that do not have an Air Print printer and may have been trying to find a way to print from the iPad, there is help and it works very well – the app is Print n Share and you can find it in the app store.  Another very helpful app is LogMeIn.  This app allows me to access my main computer – the HP Laptop – or my Apple MacBook from anywhere and actually work on that computer.  I would be remiss if I did not mention Evernote.  This application helps to organize my life and keeps the entire gauntlet of different sources of information in one spot, categorized by whatever grouping I choose to establish, makes them available from anywhere  – from whatever of my devices I am using at that time – as long as there is an internet connection.   If you are looking for an alternative to Safari for web browsing take a look at Skyfire.  Walt Mossberg – the technology writer for The Wall Street Journal – wrote a very informative article titled In and Out Of Office: Putting iPads to Work this week.  You can find it at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703899704576204564046912604.html?mod=djemptech_t.

The iPad on-screen keyboard is more than adequate for most of the activities that I do on the iPad but when I think I will be doing more typing I take out my Padacs combo iPad carrying case/keyboard.  The keyboard is narrower than a standard keyboard but works well with its only shortcoming being the lack of a right shift key.  By the way, the Padacs keyboard is silicone so it is silent and I have used it to take notes in meetings without the disruptive clicking attendant to most laptop keyboards.  If I do not contemplate other than normal things on a trip my iPad travels in a wonderful leather case by Targus.  I got mine at Best Buy but I am sure there are other outlets.

Earlier I wrote about my decision to move from the Droid to an iPhone, a decision made much easier by my experience with the iPad.  Many, if not all, of the applications are the same and the operation is truly identical.  The next question I suppose is do I upgrade to the iPad 2?  For me the answer is more than likely no.  While there are certainly changes and upgrades I have not found any of them compelling enough to make the change and I will probably stay on the sideline until iPad 3.  If however I were inclined, I would look to Alltech Wholesale on eBay to sell my current iPad.  This is where I sold my Droid for more than I paid for it.  As you have probably surmised, I am a very happy iPad user and would recommend an iPad to anyone.

As life goes on we encounter things that seem to defy logic.

• Like, why are motorcycles, particularly the Harleys and crotch rockets, allowed to be so loud?  Let’s face it; if our car was half as loud we would be required to repair it.  Added to the mystery, we have evidence that they do not have to be that way – look at the Japanese bikes.
• Staying with the two wheel conveyances, why do bicycle riders claim all of the rights of the road but declare that stop signs and red lights are not meant for them?
• To my knowledge all states have anti-littering laws but why are trucks allowed to litter our highways with their tire debris?  Virtually all of this comes from retreaded tires that come apart and in addition to the littering issue this is a safety hazard.  You really do not want to be behind a truck when one of those comes unglued!  Plus, we are saddled with the cost of cleaning up the mess they leave.  By mandating a change to new – not recapped – tires this issue would go away.
• Is there no issue that the global warming crowd will not try to pin on increased temperatures?  In  this Sunday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune there was an article about the declining moose populations in Northern Minnesota.  The postulation was that warmer temperatures were the cause.  However, in the same article it was noted that moose populations in neighboring North Dakota were increasing and the temperatures in North Dakota are warmer!
• Why is talking on a cell phone, particularly one that is hands free, while driving more distracting than talking to a passenger?  I suspect that if the passenger is in the back seat the cell phone is probably less distracting and if the rear seat passenger is a child all bets are off.

Just a few thoughts.  Add to the list with your comments as I am sure that you have other ones and probably ones that stretch logic even more than this group.

Not quite a year ago I wrote about my newly acquired Motorola Droid and my general satisfaction with the device.  Over the intervening months I added applications and found the device more than capable.  As you are probably aware, earlier this month, Verizon began offering the Apple iPhone 4 and after a week or so I acquired one.  As I already have an Apple iPad the learning curve on the usage of the applications and the method operation was easily acquired and one of my motivations was that the two devices would operate similarly.  One of the first things that struck me was how much easier it is to operate the iPhone than the Droid.  I had been told about this by friends and family but as Verizon was the only option given where I live the potential benefit was lost on me.  All of my critical apps – like Poynt and The Kindle – were also available on the iPhone along with an increasing number of applications that were either not available for the Droid or I had not discovered them.  Almost daily I am encountering more apps that I like, mostly by seeing them online or in the magazines.  Some like the Walgreen’s app are more  a convenience and others like the SI Swim Suit Edition are an unexpected bonus.  One thing to bear in mind if you are upgrading from another Verizon device to the iPhone is that you will have to reset-up your voice mail  I was not told this by the salesperson at Verizon and only discovered it by accident – I had not received any voice mails. However after I setup the new voice mail account I found 4 waiting voice mails.   This is totally different than other upgrades over the years with Verizon so be forewarned. By the way, I had considered waiting and looking at the upcoming Droid Bionic but as the form factor is the same as the Droid X I decided to pass.  I had found the rather large size of the Droid X a little ungainly.

In this process, I also discovered that used cell phones have value and in my case almost as much as I paid for it a year ago.  The purchaser, Alltech Wholesale an eBay merchant, provided free shipping to their location in Carrollton, Texas and promptly credited the agreed amount to my PayPal account.  I was able to transfer the amount from PayPal to my checking account on the same day.  So if you have an unused cell phone laying around the house, you may want to check and see if it has value.  Certainly, if you are upgrading from one smart phone to another, check out the options here.

As I have watched the drama unfold in Wisconsin I am struck by something that while actually very simple has become complicated.  When private enterprise negotiates with employee groups or unions it is with the understanding that the organization will have to provide the funding for any negotiated increases.  However, when a government – state, local or federal – is negotiating with employee groups or unions they bear no responsibility for funding any negotiated increases be it in salary or benefits.  Any negotiated increases will be funded by someone else – us taxpayers!   It is actually worse than that – they typically are either rewarding support groups or currying the favor with those groups so the better the deal the more likely the support.  And then when a leveling becomes necessary we see action that if done in other settings would be unthinkable.  Choreographed “sick outs” and phoney sick notes distributed by health care professionals caught on video should result in immediate termination, but that is unlikely.  Think about it – if you work in the private sector and tried that what do you think would happen?  Beyond that, what message are the teachers sending to those they are charged with teaching?  Added to this tragic display we have elected officials “hiding out” (analogous to a 2 year old throwing a temper tantrum) and not reporting for work to avoid a vote on the issue.  Another sterling  example for the young people in our country.  So we go on knowing that in the end it will more than likely work out but why does it have to take this track?

As we look at the retirement real estate market, particularly the golf community segment, there are many moving parts.  Tonto Verde shares in the difficulty of defining that market and more importantly how to reach that market.  As we define our choice as 4 Star, we have most of the things in place to meet that definition.  Not only are the amenities in place, our setting here between two mountain ranges with essentially 360 degree views provides a difficult to match, let alone exceed, setting.

I think we have defined the outside size of the market but have differences as to what part of that market are candidates for Tonto Verde.  The market is the 10,000 that will turn 65 every day for the next 19 years.  For our purposes I think that the market is the 10,000 per day that turn 55 and the 10,000 that turn 56 and so on through the 65 year olds.  Many, if not most, begin the search for a retirement home before they actually retire.  In our case we considered, and visited; North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Nevada in addition to Arizona with the thought that there was no timeline but that when we found what we wanted we would buy.  In our case that occurred three years before I retired and we bought in Tonto Verde.

I think it was at the meeting before last when we discussed the income level necessary to be a prospect for Tonto Verde.  The minimum numbers that were tossed out were $200K in income or assets of $2 million.  Those numbers may be right for those in Tonto with one of the higher end homes and a second home elsewhere but for someone that is looking at a townhouse, and it will be their only residence, the numbers are much lower, particularly in the current real estate market.  We are not a Sun City but we are also not Estancia.  So how big is our potential market?  Somewhere in the 3,650,000 each year that are in the age range – something over 36.5 million – are the Tonto Verde prospects.  If only 1% would be prospects the potential is 365,000 floating around out there.  Unfortunately there is no neat way to identify that 1% or whatever the number is.  Someone in the group postulated that our potential market was only about 1,000 per year which I think is conservative to the point of being meaningless.  Was that the case I doubt there would be the population that is now in the Verdes.  We are not going to approach getting 100% of the potential market so we had better hope it is larger.

The difficulty is determining how to reach the market.  As I noted earlier they are not defined but are mixed in with the 36.5 million.  This suggests to me that we have to cast a fairly wide net.  Working the private clubs in the Midwest and West coast can probably yield some prospects.  But even that is very restrictive.  If, as we have discussed, we do the “surge”, with the substantially lowered initiation fee, we may well open private club membership to an entirely new population.  If there are two golfers in the family, the $650.00 monthly dues yields a rather acceptable cost per round and certainly is less than playing daily fee courses.  For instance if the membership only plays 20 rounds for the month – 10 per person, less than 2 ½ rounds each per week – the effective green fee is $32.50. And this is for a 4 Star experience!  The substantially lowered up front cost totally changes the dynamic.  This will be particularly true for the aforementioned prospect where this will be their only residence.

I am sure that most of us that have chosen Tonto Verde would have no problem recommending this area to anyone.  We are in fact he hidden gem in the valley and need only to get the word out.

As I approach the purchase of a new computer I am struggling with my choices.  Over the last few years I have stayed with notebooks and currently have a 15″ HP and a 13″ MacBook but now want something with a larger display.  If I stay with the notebook format my considerations are a Hewlett Packard with an 18″ display or the 17″ MacBook Pro.  I am also considering an all-in-one and here the options are 23″ HP or the 27″ iMac.  The display on the 27″ iMac is unbelievable however the choice of a Mac, either the iMac or MacBook Pro, creates some compromises with software.  While a goodly number have Mac specific options, some like Microsoft Office are short of some of the functions that are available in the PC versions.  Others, like one of my favorites PDF Converter Pro, is not available for the Mac. By the way, there is a program with some of the features of PDF Converter for the Mac, deskUNPDF PDF Converter, but here again it is missing key features, principally converting a PDF file to a MS Word form, something I find very useful. I have used QuickBooks since it first was introduced and the Mac version does not share a common file format with the Windows version which creates issues with all of my historical data.   I guess one can modify the data to some extent but that entails a very laborious manual conversion of file names and the like.

So it appears that if I decide on a Mac I am destined to run most of my applications in Windows on the Mac which kind of defeats the purpose of having a Mac.  Also, my understanding is that if you run Windows on a Mac you eliminate one of the Mac’s strengths, the virus resistance.  Having said all of this, it appears that while I love, and lust for, the display on the Mac it makes little sense to go that way.  My current Mac – the 13″ MacBook – is my traveling computer which is light and when on the road I seldom get involved in the more feature intensive tasks and do none of my financial work.

My computer experience runs the full gauntlet.  I started with an Apple 2E in 1979 and over the years have had just about everything – the original IBM, the first Macintosh, a Toshiba laptop with the gas plasma display (all 13 pounds of it), dabbled with an Osborne, even had a brief experience with the first Compaq (it was called a portable but was better described as a lugable) and for the last 20 plus years have been a PC guy.

So now I feel that I have to decide on the 18″ HP notebook or the HP all-in-one.  I would like someone out there to mount an argument for me to choose the Mac.  Given my limited experience with a Mac recently I may be missing some key points that would change the equation.

I do not know when it happened but at some point semi-truck drivers went from knights of the road to bully’s of the road.  One only has to drive the freeway system to see ample evidence of this, particularly routes like I40 across northern Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.  For instance – two trucks driving side-by-side on  a 2 lane freeway.  Cutting you off on an uphill grade so that they do not have to slow down.  Some states have addressed this problem by forbidding trucks in the left lanes, but this only works where there are more than two lanes in each direction.

Another issue – the tire chunks that litter our roads.  This happens because truckers are using recap tires on their trailers.  These chunks are a hazard when they fly off – they could hit your car and if you should hit one lying on the road.  Also, we are stuck with the cost of picking up this trash.  Think of it – what would happen if you pitched a piece of junk out the window?  Depending on the state, you could be liable for up to a $1,000.00 fine!  But for truckers we are charged for the litter.

One of the best stretches of the Interstate system is I580 from Oakland to the I80/I580 split – NO TRUCKS!!  I know that trucks are necessary but I do think that something should be done to address the abuses.

Every now and then it becomes necessary to just start over!  I encountered one of those times over the last 4 or so weeks.  It all started as the performance on my computer degraded to the point that I felt compelled to do something about it.  After exhausting my ability, I contacted HP support and began an interesting and sometimes frustrating experience.  HP has strong customer service and to no fault of theirs it became increasingly obvious that the only real solution was to start over.  The process began with backing-up all of my data files – documents, pictures, videos and music – basically anything that was not a program file.  As an aside, my Western Digital “My Passport” proved to be invaluable.  With its 1 TB capacity and smooth operation it handled this task with aplomb.  Back to the story.  For some reason the Recovery Drive partition on the computer had become corrupted so the only option was to order a Recovery Disk set from HP.  Once received I inserted the disk and watched everything on my computer disappear!  I did not want to ghost my drive for fear of  reintroducing whatever was causing the performance problems.

I forgot to mention that we have two homes situated about 1,800 miles apart.  As luck would have it all of my software documentation and disks were at the home 1,800 miles away.  We have an individual that checks our house and I had him locate what I needed and ship it to me here in Minnesota.

With a clean slate the next task was to upgrade Windows Vista to Windows 7 something that is not difficult only takes time.  After that, reload all of the program files, some on disk some stored on the aforementioned Passport drive.  Finally a month or so after starting the process, I have my computer back to usable condition and the performance is back to an acceptable level.  I guess the  moral of the story is that while this process is time consuming and can be fraught with problems the payoff makes it worthwhile.  By way of history, the computer is about 1 and 1/2 years old and my tendency to try new things -ie. downloading items from the internet –  more than likelihood contributed to the degradation in the performance.

If you have experiences similar to this I would like to hear from you on how you addressed the problem.