Are You old?

[Red Squirrel]

Time goes by so freaking fast though, it's crazy.  I don't even know where my 20's went.   Life is like a roll of wire, the closer to the end you get the faster it goes.

In a similar vein, it has been my observation that time passes at a rate proportional to your age.

To look forward to a time one year hence:
At age 5, it is forever
At 10, it looks like it is forever
At 15, it seems a long way away
At 25, it is within sight
At 40, gosh, that came around quick!
At 60 - Oh, that was last week?

There was actually a study on that, it's actually kinda depressing.   Basically it's based on the percentage of life you have left.  At age 10 you still have a big percentage left so those 10 years felt like forever.  But as the percentage gets smaller what's left is smaller so it goes by faster.  I forget exactly how they explained it but it kind of made sense.   Actually it may even be here it was posted... I don't recall for sure though.

Life is like a roll of wire, the closer to the end you get the faster it goes.

Brilliant! very EE-ish

The saying is usually "like a roll of toilet paper", but figured that fit better here. 

[vk6zgo]

 75 here---I don't know how that happened!

Like GreyWoolfe , I went prematurely grey, but never lost any hair", in fact, the damn stuff seems to grow faster than ever---I need to go to the barber to get "sheared" again.
Same snap, crackle & pop here, just a bit further advanced.

I have a left knee that has just about reached its "use by date", & should be replaced with a "pretend one" some time next year.
My wife needs her hip done, & we have the same bone specialist,so we are "in a race" as to who gets their job done first.

Two adult kids, no grand kids.
Dogs? Two belonging to our daughter, & one of our own--- they are all lying here with me, enjoying the air conditioning.

I haven't done any Electronics for a while, as my Lab/Ham Shack has been doing service as a storage room for my daughter's stuff.
Just spend my time on this & other forums arguing with other old, & sometimes young farts.

The people that surprise me are Hams.
Talking on the Radio to them, many sound like they are round about their mid thirties, & when you meet them, are in their eighties.
A corollary to that, is that the ones I knew thirty years ago all sound the same as they did then.

People who sound really "old" (Grand pop Simpson style) always sound a bit fake!

[VK5RC]

There is a really good explanation as to why time seems to accelerate as you get older, (56yrs here) your brain's clock actually slows down, so that relative to you, the world appears to be speeding up!
Not sure if I would choose the same career, but it did lead me to the best part, my wonderful wife.
Thanks Sally!
Rob

[German_EE]

Yep, 61 in a few months. The hair is gray but still there and the only things that bug me are the failing eyesight and the failing hearing, every year the TV gets turned up a bit. I do however keep my mind active. I have three ham radio projects on the go plus I have hundreds of hours of documentaries stored on the hard drives, everything from Anthropology to Zoroastrianism.

What I'm not however is a member of the Facebook generation. I don't do a lot of the online stuff and my mobile phone is a twenty Euro device that just makes and receives calls and text messages. It also has nice big keys, see the note about eyesight above.

Finally, I have even arranged an engineering approach for my departure. The local school of medicine get me, that way they can do a teardown and see what makes (made) me tick.

[MT]

Dudes 40+ check your prostata PSA level.

[GreyWoolfe]

Dudes 40+ check your prostata PSA level.

Done regularly.  Mrs GreyWoolfe is my primary care's medical assistant, who is also a family friend.  I can't get away with anything!  Now that I am a diet maintained diabetic, she makes sure my oil is changed, chassis is lubed and tires rotated regularly.

[Zero999]

I'm 36 and got my first gray hairs this summer. People still tell me I look considerably younger and on my birthday many people thought I was in my late 20s, but soon I'll probably look older.

Does anyone here dye their hair?

I don't have many wrinkles, compared to others my age and I don't have a roll of fat round my middle, as I keep fit and eat well.

[pelule]

I am becoming older more & more - 60 in a few months.
Also my hair is gray - its still there - but unfortunately not as many as 30 years ago. I don't need glasses yet and I have sufficiant hearing.
I am employed as electronic engineer - so my mind is forced to be active.
I am preparing my retirement - hope to have more time than to work in my lab in the cellar doing repair/refurbish of old high quality test equipment.
As German_EE I am not a member Facebook/Twitter/WhatsApp... even I own a smartphone.
I assume, there is a lot of my data out there, so I don't like to increase that myself.
/PeLuLe

[tautech]

Some say you're only as old as the women you're with....well we're both grand parents now after 36 years together.
Looking at what our kids are doing now and remembering how long it's been since we were in that space is what makes you feel old........60 is next year for us both so we might again have a combined party like we did for 50th.

120 years of life experience .......... that's old ! 

[Gyro]

Pretty similar here, 60 next year (only 58 if I'm "only as old as the woman I'm with"!), married 35 yrs, no grandchildren yet though (wish they'd hurry up!).

Do I feel old, well yes just a bit, but given that I was expected to have departed this world several years ago (the big C again, brain in my case), I'm quite pleased with my leisurely life. Plenty of time to potter in my 'playroom' and hang around on here.

Some people say that such life events make you re-evaluate your priorities. I suppose that's true as I no longer work for those gits in Sunnyvale who made me redundant at the same time as my 'darkest hour', but I must confess that it's mostly left me feeling slightly puzzled, but content  - that's probably the meds though!

Life is good. 

[aargee]

The quote attributable to Groucho Marx: “A Man is as Young as the Woman he Feels”

At 56, my better half is five years my junior, back in the day I used to get the nickname “Errol” as in Errol Flynn, due to his preference for younger partners. At the time (in our 20s) the age difference seemed more pronounced, I do believe it has kept me young at heart.
I too, like many others, ‘think’ like I’m in my 20s, it’s just the mechanics that are sending poor diagnostic reports.

[GreyWoolfe]

The quote attributable to Groucho Marx: “A Man is as Young as the Woman he Feels”

At 56, my better half is five years my junior, back in the day I used to get the nickname “Errol” as in Errol Flynn, due to his preference for younger partners. At the time (in our 20s) the age difference seemed more pronounced, I do believe it has kept me young at heart.
I too, like many others, ‘think’ like I’m in my 20s, it’s just the mechanics that are sending poor diagnostic reports.

Mrs GreyWoolfe is 9 years younger than me--practically robbing the cradle!!   She does keep me on my toes, for sure.

[NiHaoMike]

How many here have older family members who have remembered how much electronic parts cost back in the day but are not aware of what it is like nowadays, maybe even decades? One time, my uncle saw my collection of microchips and asked how much I spend on that sort of stuff. He was very surprised when I showed him how cheap that stuff is nowadays.

[Red Squirrel]

I'm 36 and got my first gray hairs this summer. People still tell me I look considerably younger and on my birthday many people thought I was in my late 20s, but soon I'll probably look older.

Does anyone here dye their hair?

I don't have many wrinkles, compared to others my age and I don't have a roll of fat round my middle, as I keep fit and eat well.

I have red hair and supposedly we don't go gray, but can go blonde or white.  So far so good for me, though it's probably a bit lighter than before if I compare pictures from teens.   When I don't have a beard I look like 15 but I'm 32 lol.    It used to bother me but now that I'm in my 30's I learned to embrace it haha.  Always find the reaction funny when I hand my ID over to a clerk and they're like "woah... ok".

[Rick Law]

Hi

It is global theme
But say me what do You think about at Yours country

When we became OLD? I see that all media focused at 20 years men. Huh, I`m 65 and still can make electronics but how long?

I am mid-60 also.  Here in the USA, at 65, you are qualified to begin receiving Medicare.  Medicare is a government-run healthcare for old age which you are forced to pay into since birth - whether you intend to collect or not.  So, the USA-Federal Government thinks you are old at 65.

But not so fast...

65 also qualifies you to begin collecting Social Security - another USA's government run program (retirement benefit) that you are forced to pay into since birth (first job).  As SSA (Social Security Admin) runs out of money, they are increasing the age to 66, then 67 depending on your current age.  So, you are not really consider that old when they don't have enough money to pay you back your money.

As to do I feel I am really old?  Most days, I don't feel old at all.  But, there are days when I feel so old I think I must have been born before the big bang...

- Recovery is slower and less well.  It seem small cuts takes longer to heal (this one may be perception), and for sure it seems scar is easier to form.  Cuts that would have left no trace at a younger age seem to always leave scars now at my age.

- If I don't make a point to remember something, I wont.  Most deadly is: "Let me put this down for a moment, I will be back to it..."  It used to be, I would remember without having to make a point of remembering it.  Now, if I didn't making a point to remember that, I would be looking for it (whatever it was that I put down) for hours/days/weeks wondering where it went.

This is a true life example:I had a note book for all my EE stuff.  I must have been interrupted while working away from where I normally experiment.  I must have been interrupted and I did a "let me put it somewhere safer for now so it doesn't get wet or whatever" and intended to get back to it.  Well, I must not have gotten back to it after the interruption.  I have not seen that note book for months!  I have been kind-of-looking for it for months...  It must be in a safe and out of the way place, out of the way so I can process that interrupt.  BUT, I have no idea where that place might be.  Last few days I spend fixing a simple thing I made back in 2016.  I actually use it regularly.  A simple job that took days because I had to trace the PCB to figure out my own circuit - which was nicely drawn in that missing note book.

[Tom45]

When we became OLD? I see that all media focused at 20 years men. Huh, I`m 65 and still can make electronics but how long?

I was born in 1945. So I am older than the transistor (1947) and Tektronix (1946), but not HP (1939).

My career started in September 1966, and have been self-employed since 1974. So far I haven't managed to retire. But I'm starting to think about it.

[james_s]

I'll be 40 soon, I'm still not sure how that happened already. I started feeling old when I realized some of the people I work with were born when I was in highschool and I was already working in tech before they started kindergarten. When I realize they have never known a world where the internet wasn't a thing I'm reminded of when my grandma used to tell me about growing up in a house that didn't have electricity. I still do quite a bit of work on CRT based monitors and it has occurred to me that I've turned into one of those old timers I remember who still knew how to work on vacuum tube radios because they grew up with tubes. It's interesting to see that vinyl records have made a bit of a comeback with the millennials, but when I was a kid if you wanted to listen to a specific song or album that's just how you did it.

Oh well, still a ways to go before I'm *really* old. More worrying is the noticeably accelerating rate at which time is seeming to pass.

[KJDS]

I'm 52, and the only thing that really concerns me about growing old is the rate at which my ear hairs grow. If the growth keeps increasing at the same rate, then I'll have to trim it at bedtime to avoid tripping over it in the morning.

[Kalvin]

I am 53, and the first sign of getting old was acquiring the radioamateur license in this summer (which had been in my todo list for past 30+ years).

[vtwin@cox.net]

Mrs GreyWoolfe is 9 years younger than me--practically robbing the cradle!!   She does keep me on my toes, for sure.

Got ya beat. Mine is 17 years younger. She was born the year I graduated from high school lol.

Overall it works okay, she came from a very proper upbringing and lived in England for a decade so "carries" herself in a much more mature fashion than virtually all of her millennial friends here in the United States. Plus she's smarter than I am... has a BS in Psychology (which is apt considering I'm a big infant) and a Masters' in Information Systems.

I tend to forget the age difference as we're very well suited together, although it will creep in from time to time when we talk about life experiences... for example, I will talk about movies I saw when I was young at the movie theater (the first Star Wars trilogy , for instance) and she has to remind me she only saw them on television. Only on rare occasions do I feel like a dirty old man -- usually when she has a certain look to her that makes her look like she's still in high school (and I tell her to break out the catholic high school girl uniform )

[cdev]

Taking at least a gram, preferably more, of the following functional foods each day will help you stay alert:

dimethylaminoethanol  (DMAE) in the morning
n-acetyl-cysteine  (NAC)
acetyl-l-carnitine   (ALC)
trimethylglycine (TMG)  in the evening

And we all know the world needs more lerts.

[Wan Huang Luo]

Taking at least a gram, preferably more, of the following functional foods each day will help you stay alert:


And we all know the world needs more lerts.

+1 for that corny corny joke 

[coppice]

Mrs GreyWoolfe is 9 years younger than me--practically robbing the cradle!!   She does keep me on my toes, for sure.

Wifey is 10 years younger than me. After our first couple of dates I never noticed an age difference any more. I sometimes wonder if that's still how things feel when the age difference is extreme. Many outsiders have a lot to say about relationships like that, but does a well established couple even notice the age gap when its not being pointed out to them?

[Rick Law]

I'll be 40 soon, I'm still not sure how that happened already. I started feeling old when I realized some of the people I work with were born when I was in highschool and I was already working in tech before they started kindergarten. When I realize they have never known a world where the internet wasn't a thing I'm reminded of when my grandma used to tell me about growing up in a house that didn't have electricity. I still do quite a bit of work on CRT based monitors and it has occurred to me that I've turned into one of those old timers I remember who still knew how to work on vacuum tube radios because they grew up with tubes. It's interesting to see that vinyl records have made a bit of a comeback with the millennials, but when I was a kid if you wanted to listen to a specific song or album that's just how you did it.

Oh well, still a ways to go before I'm *really* old. More worrying is the noticeably accelerating rate at which time is seeming to pass.

Hey, wait till you are interviewing for a job and the HR guy said: "Oh, wow, you are older than my father..."  That was an clearly age-discriminating comment which is and was illegal.  This was not the worst crazy (and illegal) comment I've heard in the interview, so I had the opportunity of already think over issues of that nature.  It is better to just let it go.  The way I looked at it was: "Stupidity has no cure, so why get all burnt up over it.  I don't have time to give him an education when I have an interview going on."

Wisdom often comes with age, so in all probability, I had a lot more wisdom than he does...

[coppice]

Hey, wait till you are interviewing for a job and the HR guy said: "Oh, wow, you are older than my father..."  That was an clearly age-discriminating comment which is and was illegal.

How is that statement on its own illegal? Its rude, but surely its just a comment, unless it clearly weighs upon the outcome of the interview.