2008--Week Two

(NOTE: View a larger picture by clicking on the photo(s) above.)

Time is moving swiftly in the new year. It is almost the middle of January, and we are settling in nicely in Arizona. We are not driving around a great deal now. It sure is a savings of fuel, which, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you, is on the rise again. So, we are staying put for a while, resting up for future travels come Spring.

We are enjoying good conversation with our neighbors and getting to know them a little better. The first picture above is a map of our campground. We are in site # 104, on the upper left of the map. The second picture is of two of our neighbors, Jack (on the left) and Roy, in sites #105 and #100 respectively. Both of them are “single” campers who have spent years as permanent RVers. Both have spent most of their adult lives in California. Roy was a pipe fitter by trade, and Jack is a retired Marine Corps Captain. Jack began his RV lifestyle ten years ago after his wife died. He has several children, one of whom is a Major in the Air Force. He said that when his son made Major, he called him up to rub it in. When Jack answered the phone his son said, “Is this Captain Whitford.” Jack said, “Yes.” “Well“, said his son, “this is Maaaajooor Whitford” drawing out the word. Jack said, “Listen, I don’t ‘Sir’ anybody whose diapers I’ve changed.” You just got to love that kind of come back.

Apart from conversing with our neighbors and walking three miles a day, and the occasional trip, we mostly read and engage in a little TV watching, when something worthwhile can be found to watch, which is rare. Most of this new year is taken up with football, on TV that is, though I would much rather play it than watch it. But somehow we can’t seem to get up a scrimmage here among the “senior” crowd. I can’t image why!

Since Carolyn is more the football fan than I, she does the watching and I mostly read. I have read some five or six books lately, mostly fiction though I keep a couple non-fiction books going as well. One of the resent books was the “DaVinci Code.” If you haven’t read it, you have certainly heard about it. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the book, but I found it an interesting read, particularly about a man called Fibonacci. Not only am I familiar with Fibonacci, but I had studied and worked with his mathematical formulas. Let me explain.

First a little background. Fibonacci was a nickname, not the real name, of an Italian mathematician of the Middle Ages during the early 13th Century. His name was Leonard of Pisa, you know, the city with the leaning tower we all know about. His father was named Guglielmo who had the nickname of Bonaccio (“good natured” or “simple”). Leonardo was posthumously given the nickname Fibonacci (derived from the Latin “filius Bonacci,” meaning son of Bonaccio). Anyway, he was the most famous mathematician of his day and is responsible for much of the math we use today. He developed what has come to be know as the Fibonacci Sequence. A series of numbers the next number of which is the sum of the previous two numbers, like 0,1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21 etc.. The result of this is what is known as the Golden ratio, 1.618. I know this sounds like a lot of “gobblely gook,” but bare with me a minute.

This Golden ratio has been shown to be found in all of nature from sunflowers to the human form, something known as the Divine Proportion. If one measures one’s height and divides that by the distance from the belly button to the floor, one gets 1.618, known as PHI (pronounced “fee”). The same is true if one divides the length of an arm from shoulder to fingertip, by the length from the elbow to the fingertip. Etc., etc.. Now, what does all this have to do with me?

Some of you reading this are aware that at one time I was a stockbroker. As such, for a time I worked for a man by the name of Robert Precther, founder of a financial research and advisory firm called Elliott Wave International, based on the theory of Ralph Elliott, which was based on Fibonacci ratios.

It is a collection of theories on how a market acts and reacts. Elliott wave theory is an idea that market behavior is based on waves rather than random timing. Elliott believed that market prices rose and fell in a series of waves based on the same Golden ratio or Golden mean that Fibonacci proved. Since this ratio is present in many aspects of nature and science, Elliott felt that it had great significance on the financial markets as well. The basic idea of this theory is that a market rises in a series of 5 “waves”, as he called them. Also, the theory states that the market declines in a series of 3 waves. Elliott’s theory is that on the first wave a market rises, on wave two it declines, beginning again to rise on wave three, has a period of decline again on wave four, and finally completes the rise on wave five. The period of correction is referred to as a three-wave correction, where the market declines for wave A, begins to rise for wave B, and falls again for wave C. Based on this, we analysed all the major financial markets from the Dow Jones on down, and sold this information to financial institutions such as banks, brokerage houses, insurance companies, etc. worldwide who wanted to know what this method said about the psychology of the markets. Yes, I know. That is way too much information. But, believe me folks when I say we are in a “three-wave correction” right now. It is out of my system now. So we’ll move on.

We had to go toward Phoenix yesterday to get some needed things done, so we thought we would get a couple bikes to ride. Since we only walk three miles each day, we need some more exercise, you understand. You see a picture of our new acquisitions above. We had to buy them because we got such a good deal at Walmart. These are 15-speed mountain bikes that we got for $39 each. Such a deal! The one on the left is mine, the other Carolyn’s. Now we haven’t ridden bikes for many, many years. But, hey, we had never been in an RV before either. Master one, master the other!

I’ll leave you this week with a little story about life in the “senior” lane, certainly not the “fast“ lane.

After Christmas, a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their holiday away from school. One child wrote the following:

"We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida. Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on their bicycles and wear name tags because they don't know who they are anymore.

They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, they do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with hats on.

At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night --- early birds. Some of the people can't get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck.

My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too. When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren."