OK 50 Plus...Inquiring Minds Want to Know...

Just a few short days til '07 is here. So...what are your resolutions for the New Year? You tell me yours and I'll tell you mine.

A New Resource Targeted to Boomers...Just in Time, Too.

Ayayay. What to do? What to do? From shortbread cookies to latkes, cakes and chocolates, wine, champagne, egg nog... Oh I can go on and on and on. So much food, so little time to exercise it off! Well, aside from getting up and moving around to burn the calories, what other nifty resources are out there? General Mills has come up with a wonderful site with particular appeal to Boomers. EatBetterAmerica.com is a really easy-to-navigate site focused on fitness and nutrition. According to their publicist: "Eat Better America suggests diet and exercise tips for individuals concerned with heart health, diabetes, weight management and vitality. A recent addition to the site, “Healthify My Recipe,” allows registered users to submit their calorie-laden, diet-detrimental recipes for recipe makeover.”

I haven't tried the "Healthify My Recipe" for my Grandma's famous chocolate chip cookies yet, but that is next on my list. Oops. Gotta run. My mom just took out a batch of her heavenly sugar cookies out of the oven. I'll have to check out that recipe too.

Let me know what you think. General Mills is interested in your opinion on the site.

Happy Holidays!

Blogging Boomers Carnival #3

To read this week’s installment of the BloggingBoomers Carnival, which is filled with great info specifically for baby boomers, head over to Man-o-pause.

After this week, the Carnival will be on a two-week hiatus due to the upcoming holidays. I'm Carnival host the week of January 15th, and we'll have a ton of relevant topics to get you started in 2007.

Feedblitz? Commenting? Help!

Bloggers LOVE to get comments, but the 50 plus demographic still prefers emailing to publishing comments. As well, I get emails from some of you who are frustrated trying to figure out how to make a comment from the feed you receive from Feedblitz. So to help you navigate the blog-comment world here's the easy 1-2-3. Email me at wspiegel@genplususa.com if you are still having problems after reading this post.

If you are a subscriber, that means you chose to get my articles via your email (either by subscribing on the blog or by taking out a membership at www.genplususa.com). The header tells you that the email is coming from Feedblitz. It's just like getting home delivery of the LA or NY Times...but via email.

You can't reply to the email to make a comment on the topic, just like you can't comment directly to your newspaper in your living room. Nor can you click into comments from the emailed article. You need to go to the source (i.e. the blog), so either click on the article TITLE to redirect to the blog, or go directly to the blogsite: http://genplus.blogspot.com to make a comment. Once at the home page for the article, you'll see a little line at the bottom that gives a number of comments. It looks like this:

Posted by Wendy, founder, Gen Plus at 11:14 AM 6 comments

Click on the link for comments (doesn't matter whether there are 0 comments or 100 comments) and write in the pop-up box. You'll be able to preview your comment before posting. You can post with your user name if you have one, as yourself, or anonymously. Because I moderate comments, you'll have to enter a special code (funny looking letters and numbers in a colored box) in order to post. I'll get a notification of the comment and provided that your comment isn't spam or offensive, I'll allow the post. Simple as that.

When you write something that catches someone else's imagination, there can be very interesting dialogue. I love when you email me, but other people would love to hear what you have to say as well. Now, go make yourself heard!

Happy Chanukah Meets the Virtual Dreidel!

A very happy Chanukah to all my Jewish readers celebrating the Festival of Lights!

So who said it has to be all work and no play?

The Dreidel Game takes a new "spin" on things with an online version this popular holiday gambling game designed to keep kids entertained with pennies, candies or any item that can be used to create a "pot" of goodies.

Check out Judaism 101: Virtual Dreidel Game You start here by hitting the "ante up" button and the rules come up for you. Lots of fun.

If you want to play the traditional version, get yourself a dreidel (a four-sided spinning top with hebrew letters on each of the four sides). Each letter denotes an action. Everyone starts by putting a coin into the pot (or two or three or four coins...whatever you decide). Player 1 spins the dreidel. The letter that the top shows when it is down gives you the direction. Follow the direction and the next person takes a spin and follows their direction. Play stops when one person wins all them money...or if you've been using chocolate gelt (money)...it is eaten up!

I've taken the images of the Hebrew letters and their meanings from the Judaism 101 site. The letter shin means: Shtell (Put) You put a coin into the pot.

Letter: Gimmel Means: Ganz (All)You get all of the coins in the pot. All players must put a coin in the pot (ante up) to rebuild it.

Letter: Nun Means: Nichts (Nothing) You do not get any coins, but you do not lose any coins.

Letter: Heh Means: Halb (Half) You get half of the coins in the pot. If this leaves the pot empty, all players must put in a coin (ante up) to rebuild it.

Happy Chanukah!

No Surprises Here. Age discrimination most commonly felt between 50 and 55.

AECS, the Association of Executive Search Consultants, just published an article on the results of their survey on executives and age discrimination. Their poll of 294 responders, showed that most executives commonly begin to feel age discrimination 50 and 55.

In the US, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA) protects applicants and employees 40 years of age and older from work and hiring related discrimination based on age. Well...that's good to know...

From the comments and emails I receive all the time, it is pretty clear that there are a lot of ways to downsize an older workforce without heading into the area of discrimination, which is very, very challenging to prove. The UK has just recently added a similar law regarding age discrimination and it will be interesting to see what impact this has on retention of the 50 plus workforce overseas.

What's your story?

Source: AESC Marketing

Blogging Boomers Carnival #2!

BloggingBoomers Carnival is a weekly collection of the top stories on the top blogs dedicated to baby boomer interests. The BloggingBoomers Carnival shows up each week at a different boomer blog. Carnival #2 is being hosted this week at The Boomer Chronicles, a wonderful blog written by Rhea, a Boston-based journalist. Check it out.

Trendwatch -- hot industries for 2007

Just the other day I was listening to an broadcast report on the railroads. From what I understood (still searching corroboration for these figures) in the US, the Department of Transportation is anticipating about 5000 job openings.

Why is the railroad industry picking up? With gas prices ever higher, rail transport is becoming a more attractive option compared to trucking. "I've been working on the railroad" no longer has to mean pulling out the shovel and pickaxe. There are jobs in every sector -- from in-house lawyers, to administrators, to transport experts and engineers. And more importantly, they are looking to the 50 plus demographic to help fill positions.

The other industry worth watching is vessel transport. In 2006, ships ran almost 100% to capacity and research appears to be underway to construct even larger vessels to accomodate the PanAsian surge in import. Getting into the unions is a tough call, but there are a lot of support and management positions that are always needed to run any operation and as this sector of transport continues to expand, so will job openings.

Carnival is in Town!

Carnival is in Town!

I am very pleased to announce the launch of Blogging Boomers Carnival. What is a Carnival? It is a weekly collection (or "carnival") of the top stories on the top blogs dedicated to baby boomer interests. The Blogging Boomers carnival will show up each week at a different boomer blog. These are all really good blogs (I'm pleased to be one of them!)and if you take the opportunity to check each one out, you'll find great resources, stories, laughs and possibly...inspiration!

As far as any of us can tell, this is the only boomer-centric carnival in operation so it will be a great deal of fun to watch it develop. I've been experiencing a wee problem with the Blogger platform, so try to click here to link to the Carnival . If the link doesn't direct you, cut and paste this address into your browser address bar: http://lifetwo.com/production/node/20061130-blogging-boomers-carnival

If that doesn't work, head over to http://lifetwo.com and click on the link on the upper right corner titled Blogging Boomers Carnival.

Have fun!