The Newfie Millionaire

 My wife's family comes from Newfoundland, so I am sure they will appreciate the humour in this post. The spelling is my attempt to imitate the Newfie's way of speaking, which is probably way off base, but it is the best I can do

The Newfie Millionaire

Jarge, from Newfoundland, appeared on 'Who Wants to Be A Millionaire'

And towards the end of the program had already won 500,000 dollars.

"You've done very well so far," said Chris Tarrant,

The show's presenter, "but for a million dollars

You've only got one life-line left phone a friend.

Everything is riding on this question. will you go for it?"

"Yes, Buy," said Jarge. "I'll have a go Aye!"

"Which of the following birds does NOT build its own nest?

a) Sparrow

b) Thrush,

c) Magpie,

d) Cuckoo?"

"I ain't gatta a clue." said Jarge,

''so I'll use one-a dem dare loif-loins and phone my friend Charlie back home in Carner Brook."

Jarge called up his mate, and told him the circumstances and repeated the question to him. 

"Fookin hell, Jarge!" cried Charlie. "Dat's simple......

It's a cuckoo."

"Are you sure?"

"Lard Je'sus Buy I'm fookin sure."

Jarge hung up the phone and told Chris,

"I'll go wit Cuckoo as my answer Aye cause Charlie gots a grade eight

dee-ploma."

"Is that your final answer?" asked Chris.

"Yes  it is, Buy"

There was a long - long pause, and then the presenter screamed, "Cuckoo is the correct answer!

Jarge, you've won 1 million Dollars!"

The next night,

Jarge invited Charlie to their local pub to buy him a drink.

"Tell me, Charlie ole cock?

How in da Lards name did you know it was da Cuckoo that don't build its own nest?"

"Because he lives in a Fookin clock!"

You can do it, what ever it is

"At age 23, Tina Fey was working at a YMCA.
At age 23, Oprah was fired from her first reporting job.
At age 24, Stephen King was working as a janitor and living in a trailer.
At age 27, Vincent Van Gogh failed as a missionary and decided to go to art school.
At age 28, J.K. Rowling was a suicidal single parent living on welfare.
At age 28, Wayne Coyne (from The Flaming Lips) was a fry cook.
At age 30, Harrison Ford was a carpenter.
At age 30, Martha Stewart was a stockbroker.
At age 37, Ang Lee was a stay-at-home-dad working odd jobs.
Julia Child released her first cookbook at age 39, and got her own cooking show at age 51.
Vera Wang failed to make the Olympic figure skating team, didn’t get the Editor-in-Chief position at Vogue, and designed her first dress at age 40.
Stan Lee didn’t release his first big comic book until he was 40.
Alan Rickman gave up his graphic design career to pursue acting at age 42.
Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his first movie role until he was 46.
Morgan Freeman landed his first MAJOR movie role at age 52.
Kathryn Bigelow only reached international success when she made The Hurt Locker at age 57.
Grandma Moses didn’t begin her painting career until age 76.
Louise Bourgeois didn’t become a famous artist until she was 78.
Whatever your dream is, it is not too late to achieve it. You aren’t a failure because you haven’t found fame and fortune by the age of 21. Hell, it’s okay if you don’t even know what your dream is yet. Even if you’re flipping burgers, waiting tables or answering phones today, you never know where you’ll end up tomorrow.
Never tell yourself you’re too old to make it.
Never tell yourself you missed your chance.
Never tell yourself that you aren’t good enough.
You can do it. Whatever it is."

The link between income and pension

The idea for this workshop came from an article written in 2014 by Richard Denniss.

Women have a problem when it comes to saving for retirement in all countries. In most countries around the world, women earn around 17% less than men who perform similar work. In addition to lower pay, women are far more likely than men to take time out of the workforce to raise children; to care for elderly parents; and to work part-time. All of these factors impact on the ability of women to accumulate retirement savings. 

It’s important to acknowledge the link between the pension and wage gaps. Statistics Canada, for example, found women’s average hourly wages were 88 percent of what men earned in 2014, although that doesn’t necessarily take into consideration factors such as occupation, age, union status and location. But when it comes to annual pay, that drops to 74 percent, because women work far fewer hours. And pension contributions, of course, are based on total salary and not hourly wages.

So, when you’re looking at an employer contribution into a pension, that percentage will be pounds and pence, or dollars and cents, if you will, less in a woman’s pension than a man’s because she actually receives less in her salary.

The gap between the retirement incomes of men and women will never be solved by information campaigns, decision-making tools or new websites. Better information may help some women (and men) avoid the exorbitant fees charged by many pension plans, and may enable better investment decisions, but information will not overcome the underlying structural flaws in the system which disadvantages women.

For example, calculations by The Australia Institute show that an average woman who worked full time would have around $200,000 less in their superannuation savings than the average man, a hypothetical nurse who took time to care for her children and parents would have around $538,000 less and a hypothetical lawyer who took time out for caring would have around $457,000 less. A recent study by Zurich Insurance Co. Ltd. found that over the course of her career, the average British woman would earn 47,000 pounds less in employer pension contributions than the average British man. In Canada, women need to save 26 percent more than men for retirement. 

If we are serious about improving the retirement incomes of women then tinkering with pension programs or superannuation has a very small role to play. Millions of women have already made 'bad decisions' such as having children, working parttime and caring for their elderly parents. Indeed, all women made the mistake of being born into the gender that gets paid between 17 and 26% less than a man

The only way to help women in retirement, as opposed to making them feel guilty for having made 'bad decisions' is to increase the age pension. While such an increase would be expensive, the cost is trivial compared to the enormous, and rapidly growing, cost of helping women in poverty survive.

If we wanted to spend money to help boost the retirement incomes of women, or all retirees, we could do so. Instead we have chosen to run seminars and provide information for women on how to make better decisions, and make women feel guilty about the choices they make for their family. 

Falls

I write about falls and seniors, and I give workshops on how to prevent falls for my age group. So, I should have known better and paid more attention before I fell. We were at my grandaughters second birthday party and we were inside the house, talking and watching the children play when Annie said she was going to the store to get some needed stuff. She asked me to move my car, I said, "Why don't I just go to the store?" She said no it would be more fun if I stayed and watched the children. As we do not get to see them that often, I agreed and then went out to move my car.

The entrance to her house is up a flight of about 8 stairs. It was not raining, I had not had a drink and it was midday, so what could go wrong?  As I started down the stairs, Scott (Annies brother) was about 12 feet away from the bottom of the stairs, waiting at the car, for his sister to come out. Andy (Annie's husband) was to the left of the stairs, walking to the backyard. I took one step, failing to use the handrail and Scott said something and I partially turned and looked over at him and started to respond. As I took the second step, I missed the stair.

I realized that I was going to fall, so I reached out with my left arm to grab the railing, this was a mistake as I now swung back up the stairs. When I was younger I was a runner and a football player and from time to time I would "get in the zone". Athletes know this zone; it is a time when everything is in slow motion and they can see, and predict what will happen next. Some of my friends who have experienced falls also told me that yes, everything seemed to slow down for them as well.  I was in the zone as I started to fall. and everything happened in slow-motion and I was watching it seemed from a distance. This is what I saw.

As I swung back up the stairs, my elbow hit the railing and I bounced across the stairs against the house and after hitting the house, I bounced back and slammed my back into the railing. I was now two steps down with 6 more to go. As my back hit the railing I looked over and saw Scott, who looked absolutely panicked--the kind of look where you see a disaster happening and you are powerless to stop it from happening. 

I then looked down and realized that I was starting to fly forward. I realized that I would miss the rest of the stairs. I also realized that I would ram my head into a concrete wall with full force before landing face first in a bed of rocks and gravel. 

Some people claim that your life flashes before your eyes at moments like this; not true for me. My first thought was I am going to ruin the party because I will probably break my neck or at least sustain some sort of major head injury and they will have to phone 911. My second thought was to get your arms out in front of you, they were currently flapping like wings, which was not helpful.

As I moved forward I raised my arms to protect my head and I decided to turn my head to one side so that the upcoming injuries would only impact my right side. The next thing that happened was Andy, who had moved from going to the backyard, was between me and the cement barrier and I was in his arms. He looked very surprised as I did. Andy is a sheet metal fabricator. He was able to catch me and stop my fall without falling down himself.

I looked at Andy and said, "thank you", he said, "no problem". Scott came over and asked how I was and how my back was as he had seen me slamming into the railing as I fell. By then the adrenaline was pumping and I said I was fine. Andy put me down, and I went and moved my car. 

Scott went in and told everyone what had happened and how Andy had saved the day. When I came back in, Annie was asking Scott why he had done nothing. I said Scott was too far away, but he had his phone out and was ready to call 911. 

I did say that I thought Andy was a hero as he had only seen me start to fall out of the corner of his eye and he had moved quickly to a spot he could catch me. The next day, my back and arms were sore, but I was thankful that I had not been hurt.

My lesson, always use a hand railing and pay close attention when walking up or downstairs. The other good news is that I now have a new story for my workshop on falls.