Doing More With Less Since 1972
I was reading this “Boomers Will Work Until They Drop” article, and I had an odd thought:
Would some younger folks’ opinions of Social Security change if they looked at it from a different perspective? What if, instead of considering it money-down-a-hole-that-we’ll-never-see-again we considered it a payment to older people to get out of the job market, thus freeing up jobs for us?
Oh wait…that’s extortion. “Extortion” has an even worse social connotation than “pyramid scheme”.
There aren’t that many high profile professional triathletes, and I don’t think there necessarily need to be. But I have a few ideas that could really make amateur triathlon participation grow by leaps and bounds. I think what is needed is the introduction of a team concept, and maybe some rule tweaking.
I think triathlon clubs membership would grow tremendously if there was a really compelling reason to belong to a club. I mean, I like to train alone because I have to race alone. So outside of some seminars here and there, what does a tri club really have to offer me? Training programs? I can find those for free or buy them online. I think I can get more for my money by joining a masters swim group and take a coaching beat down there a couple of times a weak.
But if the idea of triathlon “Club” was changed to triathlon “Team”, things would be different.
What if every race had a Team division, and it awarded points not just for the top 3 overall times a team turned in, but within age groups. For example, a race could award 10 points to the team with the top overall men and women finishers, 8 points for second, and 6 points for third. But beyond that, why not award 5, 3, and 1 points respectively for the top three age-groupers in each division? This would push clubs/teams to invest into the performance of members on race day.
It would also encourage clubs to go out and pursue age groupers and keep them in top shape to earn points for the Club throughout the season.
Everybody wins
Age groupers could really benefit from this type of setup. By paying to be a member of a club, they’d actually get something very tangible in return for their money. First of all, they get to be on a team. Not every age grouper is going to race every weekend, so there’d be chances for multiple folks to represent their club within a division over the course of a season. Secondly, the age groupers could gain a lot of tips from the “Overall” members of their club–that means training and racing tips along with what will most likely be a higher level of passion and intensity that will be contagious.
What about the “Overall” team members? Well, aren’t most of those types doing stuff like coaching and personal training on the side? The top level members of a club could actually be paid by the other club members’ dues to coach and pass along their knowledge. Worst case–they can use the club as a way to introduce themselves to potential clients. Even if there was no money involved, I can imagine some people would be happy to be one of the top dogs in a club for nothing more than a complete or partial reimbursement of race fees by the club if they place in the overall division.
Pros win too. First of all, they’d be in high demand by the more elite teams. Imagine a team made up of a few guys with some real jack…they just want to win. So the pro would not only get money from their sponsors, but also by team members and sponsors to wear their jersey.
Rule Changes
How cool would it be if you were able to draft teammates in a race? Safety seems to be the biggest and most logical reason drafting isn’t allowed, but if it were limited to teammates, that wouldn’t matter as much. I mean, you are going to be much more careful to not cause a problem for a teammate, right? And penalties for drafting non-teammates could actually be increased at the same time to further encourage safety.
This may be a long shot to happen, and I realize that.
Series Instead of Single Races
There are some race series already out there, and they make up their own sort of mini-seasons. But what if there were State-level organizations that awarded championships? Clubs could simply pay yearly dues to participate. It wouldn’t even matter that there were multiple races in a state on a single weekend. Points available at each race could simply be determined by the number of finishers at each race. A small club could strategically rack up points on a big tri weekend by sending key age-groupers to multiple smaller races.
This isn’t all that different from what WTC does for rankings and qualifications, so why can’t it be done on a bigger scale? And why can’t it be across organizations?
There are a few things they could have done to help themselves gain votes with Floridians:
If Mitt Romney had been thinking ahead, he could have put an ace in his pocket that he may just need. In rasslin’ terms, this would have been the proverbial foreign object or loaded boot. It may even be sneaky enough to be called an eye gouge.
Think about it–the guy’s been running for President pretty much continuously for the last 4 years. How shrewd would it have been to donate loads and loads of money to charities and err on the side of over-paying taxes for all of those years? Then, when his wealth/success became an issue and he was asked to release his tax information, he could reluctantly agree to release four years’ worth at just the right moment, showing just how generous and over-taxed he is.
And the obvious question to opponents would be, “how much have you given to charity and paid in taxes over the last four years?”
He’s spending money like mad anyway, and it doesn’t seem to be working. He probably could have donated his way out of his image as a one-percenter at a discount.
I’m happy to say that Michael Silence is blogging once again.
For some of us who were (and still are) D-list Z-list bloggers, one of the first major milestones of our endeavors online was getting linked to by Michael. I’ve always appreciated the fact that he was out there bringing attention to the stuff us weeds growing among the tall trees of the internet had to offer to the blogosphere, specifically in East Tennessee. As if that isn’t enough, he’s a guy they bigger guys actually pay attention to. For example, I’ve received exactly two Instalanches in my blogging career exploits efforts time served, and they both came about because he was the first to bring attention to the posts.
Back a few years ago, there were several blogs in Tennessee aggregating smaller voices, and it fostered some great discussion. Slowly but surely, and with no small amount of drama, these all disappeared. The one thing that was different about Michael’s blog was that it was consistent, unbiased, and completely void of public drama.
Glad to have you back!!!
I know the general rule for missed short workouts is to just move on without worrying about picking them up. I usually follow this to a fault.
I’m rethinking this a little right now though, at least for the swim. I usually don’t place a huge amount of importance on the swim anyway…those are definitely workouts I don’t stress about missing since it’s the shortest leg of the race by far. This time around though, I’d planned on concentrating more on the swim for no other reason that it provides low-impact time training. I’m thinking of them as heart workouts as much as they are swim workouts.
But due to my inability to buy tickets for weekend youth hockey games in advance, I’m one week into a training plan with no access to a pool.
Long story.
What I’ve been doing instead is jumping on the spin bike and knocking out very light and short rides in place of the swims. My logic here is based on three ideas:
I still plan on abandoning scheduled short rides I miss, and definitely short runs. Missed runs are usually the result of being so whooped and beat up that I legitimately need the rest.
[poll id=”9″]
If you aren’t really sure what Pinterest is, I’ll assume you are a male.
If you do know what it is and have spent any amount of time on it, you may have noticed the words that show up in the comments section underneath the photos of Stuff-Women-Fantasize-About-When-HGTV-Is-Not-On. On occasion, Pinterest users put these words together to form things that begin to approach sentences. My proposal is that we improve Pinterest by making it easier for them to choose a comment instead of having to type the same things out over and over.
***UPDATE***
Tizzle Van Dizzle has some Pinterest slogan suggestions.
The 2% payroll tax holiday has been extended for a couple of months, and it will probably be extended for the rest of 2012. I’m guessing a lot of people don’t realize this 2% goes straight to Social Security–no other government spending is involved. Long term, that means Social Security isn’t going to be funded as planned. You can’t keep a pyramid scheme going ad infitum, but this may bring Social Security as we currently know it to an end sooner rather than later.
That may be a really good thing.
The longer people are taking the 2% home, the more difficult it’s going to be to convince them it needs to be withheld later. The longer people keep taking that 2% home, the more likely it is there will be some kind of Social Security reform deal cut to end the tax holday.
Here’s a possibility…
Bush 43 failed at convincing people that Social Security needed to be partially privatized. But how would people feel in 2013 if they were offered the option to save that 2% in a private account when withholding resumes? For those already saving responsibly for their own retirement, there wouldn’t be much resistance. They could break even by reducing their contribution to a qualified plan by the same 2% they’re going to be mandated to save. For those doing nothing currently on their own, they’ll be forced to take some ownership of their future instead of only relying solely on the current Social Security plan. Some may balk at that, but when you tell them they’re going to be taxed an extra 2% either way, they probably won’t complain much.
I’m guessing this would lead to some sort of means testing for Social Security, which we’re probably headed for anyway if we’re honest with ourselves. I’m betting I’ll never see Social Security either way, so I’d happily take the compromise of being guaranteed my 2% private account and having to give up the other 4.2% as a “safety net tax”. Well, “happily” may be a stretch, but 2% is better than getting none of the 6.2% I’ve had taken from me up to now.
Newt Gingrich as suggested something similar, but without the means testing. Instead, he’d guarantee current Social Security benefits as the floor.
Google added some really nice touches to Plus Photos yesterday–pretty lightboxes, and better navigation for tagging and comments.
But there are a couple of problems I still have…
Photos and Picasa are basically the same thing now, but in order to manage my albums, I have to go over to Picasa and move/copy/delete. There isn’t any album management available in Plus anywhere. Kind of weird.
I’d also love to have stuff like red eye elimination available in Plus.
I know Google is releasing new features to Plus every day, but I don’t get why they haven’t included some very basic photo management and editing functionality yet.
Proposed rule changes by the Labor Department may be bad for farmers, but they are worse for kids.
We never owned a farm when I was growing up, but I knew plenty of people who did. Having the opportunity to do farm work at a young age is one of the single biggest advantages I’ve had in life, second only to being as handsome as ten movie stars.
That was a joke.
First of all, it gave me the opportunity at an early age to learn about working to earn something. Most of the time I was paid by how much work I did, not how many hours I worked. The harder you worked or the more desired skills you possessed, the more you could earn. Example: suckering tobacco doesn’t pay nearly as much as cutting and spiking tobacco. I learned the lesson my first year of working tobacco for a family friend. I showed up the next year anxious to cut.
Secondly, I learned the difference between “working” and “working hard”. I learned this mostly from my Uncle Fred. My dad (he was actually my dad’s uncle) had already told me that this old man could outwork anybody he knew, and he lived up to his reputation the first day he hired me on. Lucky for me the other two guys working with us were grown men with a knack for laziness. I could easily outpace them, so he wasn’t too hard on me. But I did get to hear his opinion of people like them while we were waiting on them to finish their work, and I knew I didn’t want anyone to talk about me that way if I could help it.
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. Working hard at an early age is good for the body, mind, and soul. If nothing else it can give kids the motivation to make the most of their education so they don’t have to spend their lives doing back-breaking labor. I’m talking about kids 11 and 12 years old and up here, not babies.
Why would anyone want to deny kids the right…yeah, I called it a right…to learn these lessons, earn their own money, and actually get outside and do something productive?
Let me put it on tougher terms–these are the kids you are going to be depending on to go out and hit it hard all day to pay your social security (or whatever sort of safety net exists at that point).
We are getting soft.
This is the part that really gets me:
Furthermore, most 14- and 15-year-old workers would be prevented from operating any tractor, all-terrain vehicle, milking machine, or lawn mower. Now, exemptions exist that allow them to operate such equipment given they complete a 24 hour safety course…
My safety course for driving a tractor consisted of “You know how to work a riding mower don’t you?”. It was sort of implied that if I wrecked my Uncle Fred’s tractor and survived, my safety would be in danger.
Assumption: you bought your current residence as an investment with the intent of selling it for a profit at some point.
Similarities
The fact that PETA is suing Sea World for enslaving orcas is ridiculous on so many levels.
These are killer whales. They lost all their constitutional rights when they violated the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of food of the seals and fish they devoured while they were in the wild.
I consider their imprisonment justice for their misdeeds. Doing flips and splashing me with their tails a few times a day beats the hell out of picking up trash on the beach. They should stop complaining and clogging up the courts with their frivolous lawsuits.
Real quick…two articles in Mashable today that should give Facebook a clue:
Sean Parker (a FB shareholder) notes that Facebook’s power users are moving to Twitter and Google Plus
and
Users surveyed dislike Timeline.
What do these have in common? It’s the perception that users’ privacy is being chipped away too rapidly. For instance, I think Timeline is awsum! I want to look at my Timeline…what a great tool! It’s just that I want to be able to lock it down and only show it to a few people (or no one).
What if Facebook’s default position was to make all new features super-private in the beginning and give users a chance to adjust to them and open up themselves instead of forcing everything to be public and ratcheted down? They continually come at things from the wrong direction.
UPDATE
And teens will leave Facebook for Google+? I’ve said it before…they really screwed up by putting off that IPO.
This could be a long-ish post for me, but I’m going to try to keep it short and sweet. I’m done with my time in the Clydesdale division. It was fun, but it has really just held me back. The last race I ran I was struggling to keep my weight above 200 for the last few weeks of training. How much faster could I have gone if I’d let my self drop another 10 pounds?
Back when I was lifting weights regularly, it would have been tough to get to 199 and not be a little too little (I was 230 for my marathon PR). I was playing rugby for most of that time too, and I needed the bulk.
It’s not bulk anymore. Now it’s just fat. I’m about 218 right now, and could probably comfortably walk around at 185-190 if I got rid of all the, uh, bulk I currently have.
Ok…maybe I’ll lift just a little and shoot for 195. I mean, the only thing worse than being fat is being skinny.
Ok, so I have some questions about the whole “Occupy” movement. Not trying to be a jerk here, even though that will surely be the way it’s interpreted. There are just some things I don’t get about this movement. I don’t think what they are doing is wrong or a bad idea necessarily, I’m just not sure they are doing it for the right reasons or if they’ve thought about what would happen if they got what they’ve asked for.
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