This is no minor issue. Our government gives folks a chance to retire at the relatively tender age of 62 with 75% of the full benefit package. If the applicant waits four years, they’ll receive the missing 25%. If you take it in between these milestones, it becomes a math problem for the local SSI clerks.

My decision at 62 was to stay out of social security until 66 because I plan to live past the breakeven point of 82*. My thoughts all along are I can work now and survive on its output, but the 82 year old me shouldn’t be working and will really welcome those extra bucks. He’ll probably buy food, electricity or rent with it. Or maybe he’ll find yet another way to spoil his grand-children.

When I was in my 30s, I truly believed social security would not be here when I reached retirement age. I nervously watched the US Congress monkey with it both harming and strengthening it. Sure enough, here I am and here it is. I wouldn’t want to be around when the money flat runs out and folks get bupkis+. There should be a massive outcry.

* If an applicant retires at 66, it will take 16 years of collecting full benefits to equal what the same applicant would have collected by accepting 75% at age 62.

+  http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bupkis

(1/50)6 is the mathematical probability of a monkey writing Hamlet by striking typewriter keys an infinite number of times. This also holds for the word, “Banana”. It’s a number so unfathomably large it allows for such an unlikely success.

Imagine the massive logistical problems this theorem would create. Imagine an endless supply of monkey to take turns typing; acres of reams of paper for printing and their resulting disposal, and finally enough people to read the dribble in search of Elizabethian verse. Imagine the referees’ call if the results produced only Moby Dick.

I imagine if we put this idea to a test we would have 100% employment, but I can’t imagine would fund such a worthless endevour?

Right, America’s Congress.

This blog was my attempt to write one of those trendy “vanity cards” we view for one second after every Chuck Lorre TV sitcom like Two and a Half Men.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Lorre

It was a typically slow, post-Super Bowl Sunday afternoon, and writing this was fun.

In the late 1960s, The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien was a fashionable read. This mid-earth fantasy preceded his trilogy, The Lord of the Rings and features a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins who left the security of his home to seek adventure.  If you made it to end of the book – and thought you understood it, you had bragging rights above the legions who failed to complete the assignment.

Today was my hobbit day.

This was my day to be part of a “Posture and Orientation in Older Adults and Post-Stoke” research study at Temple University. Part of my adventure was to travel today using SEPTA’s low cost or free rides for seniors. Thank you,  lottery players.

I caught the 7:18 a.m. express train to Philly to allow buckets of extra time. First thing I learned, after paying my paultry $1.00 fare, was today’s 7:18 a.m. express would be a cattle stop local. Ouch! I readjusted my thinking. I was left with cupfuls of extra time.

I then caught the commuter train – another buck – to Temple University where I read an over-sized area map and promptly got lost in one of Philly’s nastier sections. I readjusted in time to find the testing laboratory with zero extra time left.

Temple University’s Pearson Hall is being revamped, and there are no markings on any doors. A HA, adventure beckons. No one could direct me to Room 40 or the Department of Physical Therapy. It was only by dumb luck I found the room where I hooked up with Tarre and Jill who would attend to me during my testing.

After the obligatory paperwork, my body was “suited up” with multiple sensoring devices. My outfit was further equipped with a lovely vest/harness. My black running suit rounded out the ninja warrior look.

The tests combined visual sensory tricks while standing on a platform possessing its own mind. The challange was to maintain my balance as best I could while all these effects worked against it. It was old school Wii. For a guy in his mid-60s, I think I did pretty darn good.

Tarre and Jill were professional and efficient with their testing and computations. In no time, I was back on Broad Street and enjoying a nice, long walk to lunch in Chinatown. I set my inner GPS for the VT Sandwich shop on 10th Street for Philly’s best Vietnamese sandwiches. I also had their wonderfully spicy Phở soup.

I continued my day out with a leisurely tea break at a pastry shop and a free bus ride to 69th street terminal. It was here where I treated myself to a SEPTA Senior ID card. I’ll need this card if SEPTA dumps Medicare as an ID. Other old folks were floating this rumor during a previous SEPTA ride.

By this stage, the day exhausted my adventure resources. I rode free SEPTA buses from 69th Street to West Chester to Downingtown.

Waiting for me at home was my Valentine, Lyn who sat attentively as I told her about my day.

Since I’m no Tolkien, my day’s adventure is only blog material.