How can I handle work on day like today?



As one person commented, "and just like that, the head of every Gen Xer asplodes."

What does it mean? I think it's a commercial for a Superbowl commercial. The 46th Superbowl is February 5.

Rock on, Ferris Bueller! It's about time you had another day off.

Screenshot from FiPath video

"In a perfect world, Generation X wouldn't have to worry about retirement. But, sadly that's not the world that Generation X lives in. Their financial future is much more grim..."
--FiPath video on Social Security and Generation X.

Many Generation Xers (like um, me) aren't prepared for the future and believe that social security will be around when they retire. As I've blogged about before, my annual Social Security statements tell me that right now, without any changes by Congress or the U.S. Government, there will only be 77 cents on the dollar available to fund my Social Security benefit.

Moreover, in a magically undelicious way, a program I have paid into since I was 15 years old is constantly referred to in the pejorative: entitlement.

This week, FiPath, an "unbiased financial services website" launched SaveGenX.org. Get a load of these statistics provided in a new video posted on their site:

70 percent of Generation X doesn't have a plan for retirement.
89 percent will have a lower standard of living when they retire
82 percent don't have the information they need to plan for retirement 

In an effort to help pay down Social Security debt, for every new member, FiPath will donate $1 to Social Security up to $20,000. While they know this contribution won't solve the ginormous problem, their efforts to bring attention to this issue are impressive. Join here.

From the FiPath website
Solutions for fixing Social Security
Social Security Planning for Generation X
Generation X's Fears About Social Security

Disclosure: No compensation was received in exchange for this post.

A man on a scooter gets a flu shot during a "drive flu" in Napa, CA., October 2011. Image by Getty Images via @daylife I hate to admit this, but I made sure every person in our family of five got the flu shot except me! I don't know if I think I'm flu-immune or what. I'm terrified of the flu because it actually does kill people every year.

Several years ago, I caught a news story about an Oklahoma mom with several young children who died from complications of the flu. The flu really is nothing to mess with.

There is a recent article on Science Daily about Generation X and influenza, and it turns out, I'm not alone. Only about one in five Gen Xers in their late 30s received a flu shot during the 2009-20 swine flu epidemic. A University of Michigan report details the behavior and attitudes of Generation X in relation to epidemics like the flu. Check it out.

Hat Tip: Shawn!

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It's life's illusions I recall.
I really don't know life at all.
--From Mitchell and Both Sides Now

Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway | Shields Boulevard | Oklahoma City | The trains take a beating

There's a popular blog meme that dominates the blogosphere every Wednesday. It's called Wordless Wednesday and it consists of posts that feature just one image. Bloggers far and wide use it as a way to take a mid-week break from content creation and content marketing. It keeps search engines crawling these sites and probably helps with a variety of other analytics, too.

Although I enjoy it on many of the blogs I visit, I've never really gotten into Wordless Wednesday. However, since I've started documenting graffiti across Oklahoma and doing research about it and street art as part of my work in government and the arts, I thought my own version might be in order, Graffiti Wednesday.

Graffiti and Economic Opportunities
Graffiti has been around for centuries and it's here to stay, right along with its second cousin, street art. Although the full wave of both have not yet hit Oklahoma, I can see it cresting from London and Paris, New York and L.A. It will no doubt wreak havoc on communities. Cleaning up graffiti is very expensive. It hits the pocketbooks of taxpayers and private businesses equally as hard.

But, for the most creative and innovative communities, graffiti and street art represent economic opportunities like nothing any of us imagined possible with something that is illegal and even criminal. Acceptance of this notion can only come with a greater understanding of graffiti, graffiti artists and particularly street art. The latter is a nondestructive, impermanent form of graffiti that includes things like video projection, street installation and yarn bombing. I find it delightful and brilliant; oxygen for the creative economy.

Graffiti, Street Art E-Book
I have many irons in the fire and so many things demanding my attention with work, but I'm hoping by fall I will have completed an eBook about graffiti and street art. I am learning a lot through this project. I'm learning that snap judgements can last for decades. I'm learning that I may have some of the answers, but I may not have the most important ones because I'm narrow minded and don't ask the right questions.

I'm learning to be open-minded, less dismissive and more inventive. And, I'm starting to believe (not that I didn't before) what the Chinese have always known. In crisis there is opportunity.

As I've explained in previous posts, there is a big difference between gang taggers and freelance graffitists, even if there is little or no legal distinction between their activities. While I don't condone vandalism, I believe graffiti and street art are legitimate art forms. They represent art that is not collectible; art that cannot be contained on gallery walls; art that is free to view and almost impossible to buy.

Interesting Links:
Blame Phone Apps for Graffiti's Reemergence, January 2012
(From Governing the States and Localities)
Street Art Utopia

There was a comedy that came out in 1982 named Savannah Smiles. It was quintessential Generation X, centering on a 7-year-old daughter of a politician who is ignored and neglected by her parents.  She ends up running away and hooking up with a couple of crooks.

It was a very popular movie and beloved by many Gen Xers, including a good high school friend who had a baby in the summer of 1985 and named her Savannah! (By the way, the girl who played Savannah, Bridgette Andersen, died of an accidental drug overdose in 1997.)

Now, 30 years later, the Girl Scouts are celebrating their 100th anniversary with a new cookie, Savannah Smiles, as well as a campaign, The Year of the Girl. (Good thing there isn't' a copyright on titles, huh?)

Killybegs Harbour, County Donegal, Ireland | by Andrew_D_Hurley via Flickr | Creative Commons Applies

My dad always told me to keep my eyes peeled. It was just one of those funny things he always said, like "talk 'til I'm blue in the face." He always said that when words alone couldn't convince someone of something.

Sometimes, when he had nothing to say at all or when he wanted to infuse the room with a happy neutrality, he'd rest his chin in the palm of his hand and ask if we thought the rain would hurt the rhubarb. I loved that saying and many more.

The thing is, I never knew what half of my father's sayings really meant. That is, until my sophomore year in college when I wrote a research paper on euphemisms and idioms. Away, it took all the mystery. It  seems by the time we figure out that some stones are better left unturned, we've already turned them all over. But, anyway.

Yesterday, while looking for paint brushes, my little girl, Bridgy, 4, said, "Well, keep your eyes peeled."

Amazing. I had to smile.

These are the things we hand down from generation to generation. They take root in families and cross oceans and survive fires.

Thomas Elliott was my great-great-great grandfather. He was born in 1807 in Killybegs in County Donegal, which is located in the famously troubled Northwest Ireland. He was the first Elliott in my family tree to come to America. He died in Ohio in 1859.

I'm not sure when Thomas immigrated to America, but I know he died nine years after experts say the phrase, "Keep your eyes peeled," first appeared in the United States. I like to think that maybe he brought it over.

By the way, Killybegs is the largest fishing port in Donegal. Last year, a travel writer referred to it as a lonely, seaside town marked with wild beaches and cheerful pubs. It's like my father personified. Me, too. And, Bridgy, super and wild, moody and cheerful.

They've been fishing in Killybegs for centuries. My father loved to fish, probably because he loved the ocean. After he got out of the Navy, he never stopped longing for it. For awhile, he worked on a fishing vessel for the California Department of Fish and Game just so he could sail. 

All my dad ever really wanted was to go back out to sea. This is one of the most dominant themes in his poetry. I know he would have loved to visit Killybegs, and if he'd made it there he would have  never wanted to leave. Someday, I'll go for both of us, I think. 

These are the things we hand down from generation to generation. Legacies and phrases, poems and desires.