Take a deep breath, and imagine to not have to take the garbage out any more, I still do and don’t mind, but the real garbage that working on a job that really had no future. Even worse, having someone, I won’t mention any names, that it must be hard to tell your wife that we might never be able to live in a million dollar house. Yes it was hard to face the financial reality that I ain’t rich, but I really don’t give a shit. My journey has taught me that an unwanted enemy can be my best enema. I am am finally cleansed and see that my life is really composed of so many heart beats. In better words, it’s just the amount of time I get to enjoy and define it.

In the three years since I lost my job,(New Years Eve-2011), I learned that I never defined what my purpose, my journey was. I never put making money in the equation, and I thought my social security check was my God given gift to be able to live happy ever after. Nothing was so far from the truth. Trying to convince people to buy life insurance and join my network was very disappointing, helping others with their projects and not making money was certainly a BIG mistake on my behalf. I blame myself for not being ready. Hell, I was a Boy Scout, “Be Prepared”. I guest I forgot. So what am I going to do now.

I have no choice but to take another breath and actually define what I need to fulfill my journey.; I will make a list and maybe some of you can give me some ideas from your personal journey. Here goes.

A) Discovering away to generate an additional $50,000.00 a year income?

B) How to stay healthy?

C) Where would be a great place to live?

D) Make my wife proud of me?

E) Define my spirituality.

F) Give my life purpose.

G) Learn to share my life experiences.

H) Don’t dwell on the past.

I) Gain the respect from others I never was able to get.

J) Be able to travel to places I only see photographs of.

K) Help the children I never had.

L) Read or listen to the books that I never time to do,

M) Stop equating myself to others.

N) Learning to play a musical instrument.

O) Be able to make 100,000 photographs and being able to share.

P) Make every day in my life as it was a vacation.

Q) Go to some great photography work shops.

R) Have enough money to restore my 1984 Jaguar XJS-HE.

S) More Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter connections.

T) Make howiemaui.com a success.

U) Being able to help others, especially my family in the Philippines.

V) Treat my wife and myself with things we were not able to afford.

W) Give thanks to the most wonderful wife in the whole world.

Y)  Make new friends and continue with the friendships I have.

Z)  Be prepared when I am told that my days are numbered.

Don’t get me wrong, I feel great that I have been able to realize how lucky I have been to finally to be able to define and of course enjoying my journey. I am a beautiful STAR after all.

Each day on my new journey, I find myself being using my cell phone like they were my new limbs. They are becoming my closest friends, and I just know how I could not  enjoy my life without them. They have enable me to do so much more in my like. As I write this posting I am listening to The Wall Street Journal from my www.audible.com app. For a monthly subscription price of $14.99, I not only get a daily summary of Wall Street Journal, but each month I get one selection as well as a daily discounted recording. I just finished listening to Tony Robbins wonderful book on the Financial world, Money. I probably would of  been a millionaire if it was written ten years ago. I am presently listening to Ken Robison’s book, “Finding YourElement: How to Discover Your Talents”  I need all the help in discovering my New Journey.

Being an only child, I always wanted to have brothers and sisters to play and argue with. I now have over new 500 friends on Facebook(www.facebook.com) Even at the age of over six decades I feel like a kid all over again. I am communicating to my old high school buddies more than I did some fifty years ago. It has been my daily diary and a wonderful vehicle to share my photos.

I suddenly discovering my new world of Twitter(www.twitter.com), it definitely has me singing I got the “The Whole World in My Hands”   It’s amazing that I have so many strangers and now friends want to follow me. I can now swim in my own Shark Tank. Good morning Mister President.

My final app I want to express my devotion is my first entrance of the  web is Jeff Weiner’s Linkedin(www.linkedin.com) After I was fired from my my job on New Year Eve(2011). I was was very fortunate to be featured on the Linkedin Blog “New Adventures with Linkedin:A Retiree’s Journey ” August, 22, 2012. Linkedin has enable me to tell the world about my new journey  and being able to get support for (www.photographers.com)&(www.butterfliesandbuffalo.com), I am so grateful for being part of the Linkedin planet.

I could continue with hours of telling you about my other favorite apps, SeekingAlpha, Bloomberg, Zite, Dropbox,Google, Pulse,TuneinRadio,DUSppedBooster,EntertainmentBook,StarzPlay,ShowAnytime,Viber,Pulse,MyCarLocator,Spotify,Skype,PayPal,Mailbox,AmazonKindle,Restaurant.com,NightCamera,EagleEye, Camera,Perfect365, and of course CandyCrushSaga. There will be so many more applications that will be discovered to help me with my journey. My apps have been my life substances, thus my digital DNA. Hey I think I will see if the domain name www.appyelp .com is available? Not anymore.

As I came home to my blog, I realized that I never defined what I expected to be the final destination of my journey, or does it really mattered ? I see now that I have been very fortunate to have a devoted wife that has been, and supported me in some difficult times. I don’t think I would of endured so much pain as I suffered through three hip reconstruction surgeries without her love and much needed support. I feel so disappointed that in the last three years of helping others with their missions, projects or journeys I was unable to generate Any additional income that would made possible for my wife to be able to retire. With her having been stricken with polio at the very young age of six years old and myself being born with cerebral palsy I feel that I certainly let her down.

Hey my journey is not about you feeling sorry for me but to experience and learn from the steps of learning I discovered that I never knew or learned what the later years of my life can offer me. Never in my right mind would I think I would be entering a digital world that would able me to be able to reach out to millions of people and also to be able make thousands of photographs, and not have to worry that after I die that maybe someone might be very fortunate to find my negatives in some storage locker.(Vivian Maier) There is so much to do, and it is a matter of having the ample time to be able to enjoy and share it with so many of you.

So what is this journey I am trying to explain you the readers of my are just retired.blog is. It is my opportunity to focus on what is going to make me healthy, discovering the world but never had the time to prioritize what I wanted to pursue, being able to have to be financially dependent on where my next pay check be  coming from, and being able to define my spirituality with my lifetime partner, Teresita Silvers.

Maybe in the beginning of my life(College}, I never asked myself as I am able to do now, what do I expect to find in my journey, or am I just  tired like so many that have lost their jobs and say that they are just retired. For me it will be able to share my journey  on my www.howiemaui.com blog. Please email me at [email protected], if you would like to me a guest blogger. There is plenty of room for us howiemauiers.

It’s been three months since I last posted anything to my howiemaui.com blog. My mother’s passing took me for a loop and suddenly I found myself, what have the last three years of my new journey has taught me? Quite a bit I must say. Perhaps that what my last thirty six months was all about. Would I have done it differently, probably so. The first awakening I discovered that when you have a purpose or in my case, a forgiving, time goes very quickly.

I wanted to do so many things, but I did not get the results I wanted to accomplished, however I would not of been able to reach out to so many high profile people, I first was helping a Chicago photographer to get both exposure and funding for his thirty five foot camera that incorporates a six foot film  neg(www.butterfliesandbuffalo.com). It was also a great honor to be featured on the Linkedin Ceo’s blog, and I made over 1100 connections. This helped me with being a sales representative for a (photographer portfolio website (www.photographers.com).

It was incredible to be able to reach out to so many photographers, artists and museums. I did not stop there, I was able to reach out the the family of the last living Navajo Code Talker, Chester Nez. I was also  blessed to hear and spread the words about a blind teenager angel, Marlana VanHoose singings (www.littlemarlna.com)from my Facebook page. Not really having very many relatives to confide in, I met a Man who has been my greatest inspiration, Mr. Ronald G. Wayne(author of Adventures of An Apple Founder and Insolence of Office, one of the original Apple Corporation founders, who left Apple in less than two weeks. I no longer think what I “shoulda” done, but now realize that my three year journey has just started. I found my place and purpose for being alive on Earth, (and after death), I am my own person, scout master, journster, friend-collector, purpose, tryer, complainer, and keeper of my eternal home on the whole wide web, www.howiemaui.com.

It’s good to be back and looking forward to my next posting.

It takes the passing of a parent to finally realize what is the truth of living a fulfilled and satisfying life. I was very fortunate to have a loving Mom for close to seven decades.  She was always so generous to me, my wife Teresita, her distant relatives, friends and charities. Her passion was knitting blankets(crocheting), instead of being the concert pianist her father so wanted her to be, she used her small fingers and played her own blanket symphonies  at least a thousand performances. I would estimate the costs of her yarns must been to some $30,000.00 or more. She certainly had her final game plan, starting in her nineties which at times was very hard for me to understand at times. Mom wanted to live life of excellence, not to be a burden to anyone,  be able to read, knit, and make as many friends as if she was collecting baseball cards.

Having two husbands that never made much of an income. Her first husband Jack Silvers, my father never made more than a $150.00  a week and her second husband Morton E. Wolf, probably was lucky to make $30,000.00 a year, and after some thirty five years as a proof reader, he was called in the office, fired, no severance pay, and not even a pension.  Mom knew she had to be the sole bread earner. She made over $60,000.00 a year as a Michigan Avenue shoe sales woman, and finally retired at the age of seventy eight she hung up her shoe horn and was ready to retire.

She first had her own Sheridan road apartment, on a high floor looking over a fabulous view of Chicago’s Lake Michigan. After a couple of incidents of falling(my opinion that it was not having a good balance that were causing her falls, but a weakened heart that made her faint.), she soon realized that she needed to be in an independent facility, The Breakers. Many of her rich Jewish friends spent their remaining years,  the only problem she had to face was being able to afford almost some $3000.00 a month. With her added expenses as Medicare, prescriptions, doctor visits, food costs and her yarn costs, perhaps another $500.00 a month. How could she manage her last Hurrah?

Not believing ever owning a house, or caring about her finances, she found herself weighing what was really important to her. She did not want to be a BURDEN to me and to what little of family that she had left. With only just having $200,000.00 in savings, she opted with making the biggest gamble of her life, a Lifetime Annuity. It gave her $3200.00 a month for the Rest of Her Life. However it also meant that there would be NO inheritance for me or the rest of her family. At first I became bitter that she never let me and Teresita help her, but mom wanted and lived her life her way. With her wonderful Social Security, pension, and now her annuity, she was able to spend her remaining sixty five months as an independent mother, relative, and friend for all of us.

Even though my  Mom died financially BROKE, she has taught me that one has to live life to the fullest, having friends is more important than making money.  At the end of our lives we also have to make that decision if we  can be that unbroken warrior after all? For my mom she was a warrior to the end.

I always dreaded the day that I would have to say good by to my last living parent, my mom, Sylvia Wolf.  My mom was a classic pianist at the age of eight years ago, she hated her special made baby grand piano so much that she sold it to one of her girl friends. my grand father was so mad that he wouldn’t speak to her for a couple of months.

One of her earliest adventures occurred in her home town of Hegewisch, lIlinois on a rainy day.  A black limousine stopped and a man addressed my mom and her girlfriend and offered her ride home. Mom’s friend said we do not take rides from strangers, but took the man’s offer, why not she did not want to get her red coat wet. As the limo dropped off the two little girls in front of my grand father’s This stranger made it known to all the “Hegwischians” that he does not hurt little girls, of course his name was Al Capone.

Why wouldn’t  mom  hitch a ride with a know mobster, since her cousin,  “Uncle Bernard” was the one and only Bugsy Siegel. Mom often talked about attending Northwestern University and the Conservatory of music, her profession was that of the Chicago’s greatest Shoe Saleswoman. Starting at a no longer in existence department store, GoldBlatts, Jack O’Day’s(Marquette Park) and later, her final shoe palace, Saks Fifth Avenue on Chicago’s Magnificant Mile on Michigan Avenue. It was at Saks that she made her reputation as a Hall of Famer for her craft. I was envious of her greatness, her salary challenged many of College professors. She won many awards and certainly put a smile on Salvatore Feragamo’s face.

Even though it broke my heart when my mom divorced my father Jack Silvers when I was a teenager, I knew she needed a partner that was more educated. Her marriage to Morton E. Wolf, a University of Chicago attendant.  It was until I attended mom’s memorial service that I realized that her second marriage provided me with the much needed foundation for coping with her death.

As the Rabbi, (Norman Lewison-a family member) recited a prayer and recollected that even though my mom was not an actual member of the family, she was the one who kept everyone together. There were many testimonials, and the many thanks you given  for the thousands of blankets that my mom knitted for her many charities,( The Center for Battered Women Center in Chicago, The Sisters and Residents of Misericordia, Illinois.).  The letters were of sympathy were cited and it was my turn to sum up my almost seven decades as her child in five minutes, I rambled on, broke into tears and realized that the 1950D Jefferson Nickel that I need to complete my Jefferson collection was not just found in Mom’s change as she said but the realization  was that she just purchased it to make me happy as the other thousand of people she made happy. She was an every day Santa Claus.  Thank you MOM, I will always miss you.

On August 14th. 1982 President Ronald Regan instituted  that day to honor the 400-500 Native Americans in the United States Marine Corp. who used their Native-American language as a means to transmit secretive messages among our fighting soldiers throughout the Pacific Theatre in hope of defeating the Axis powers.

The idea of using the Navajo language was actually proposed by a son of a missionary, Philip Johnston. Moving with his family to Arizona in 1896 , the elder Johnston was to intervene the violent tensions between the Navajos and Anglos over the rustlings of the Navajo livestock. By 1901 the young Johnston boy(Philip) learned to speak Navajo with the other children. Through the dedication of the Johnston family they were able to speak to then President Theodore Roosevelt which lead to expanding the land occupied by the Navajo Reservation.  While serving in World WarI  Philip Johnston learned about the Comanches used as Code  Talkers by the U.S. Army.  Working as a civilian in Los Angeles when the attack of Pearl harbor occurred, He presented to the US Marine Corp. the using of specialized Navajos that were bilingual, to be able to communicate among themselves, thus having a defense of any Japanese interception.

On the morning of May 4, 1942, the first twenty-nine Navajo(Code Talkers)recruits boarded the bus at Fort Defiance, Arizona. Upon the completion of the seven week program, 382 Navajo graduates eventually were ready to report to Camp Elliot for their basic communication training. By December 7,  1942, a very proud Staff Sergeant Philip Johnston supervised The Navajo School of Communications, (approximately 450 gradutes)

How one man’s vision, and the use of a special Navajo language was very much responsible for the personal freedom I enjoy today. My heart and prayers go out to all of the families of the fallen Code Talkers.

Today is a day to celebrate, honor, and fly all of all Our American Flags at Half Staff. Thank You Philip Johnston.

Some prom date Dad, just a bunch of talking and did not even get a kiss good night from my date, might as well consider myself lucky, I rushed to get my hair done and my teeth brushed and all night I life had to smell my date’s DOG breath and his meows about baseball.

What a crappy life, I want to go out and see the world like you and mom. Why didn’t you take me to Costco last weekend? I hear you spent two hours tasting all of the delicious samples. Did you get any of them for me? Give me their phone number, I will tell them what I want for me and my pet buddies.

Ok Kazzi, Uncle Jim is coming over and you can tell him to add your COSTCO idea to his Pet Wellness concept. Dad you are not funnny. I would love just want to have a Super Store dedicated just for my friends and myself. A store that has pictures of cats and dogs, food samples especially made for us, music of birds twirping, a running track, a walk-in beauty salon, computers and IPads made just for us. A fitness club, a café, a swimming pool and sauna, cool looking doctors, and  just thinking about it make me want to go to the litter box. Kazzi, I never thought about it, but you are Right,  I will post your idea  my LinkedIn  and hopefully some one at Costco or Sam’s Club would also like to take their Pets to work.

It’s been quite a crazy week for my daughter,  Kazzi has been asked by one of the football players, Dalton a big orange alley cat to go to the Kat Elementary School prom.  Like any father I am very reluctant to let my little kitten go out with this big thug. I love my daughter and  know I  have to realize Kazzi is growing up and needs to find her happiness, but I don’t want her to get hurt. . With my wife’s assurance we decided to let Kazzi go to her prom. Our household went from a noisy thunder to a serene harmony. I had a new Cinderella in the house. I went from POP to Daddy. Every I hear time  the word Daddy, it really means$$$$$$$.

Kazzi couldn’t stop meeeowing and licking me, her wonderful daddy. My wife, Teresita  asked me for the credit card and couldn’t wait to turn Kazzi her cat-child intothe most “UnGrumpy” Kat in the World, Right away a call was made to our pet grooming pet salon and couldn’t believe the sad news, the next available appointment was in two weeks. Even after making numerous phone calls, and in desperation Teresita call her own beauty shop, we could not attain a groomster for Kazzi. Tears started to pour out of Kazzi’s eyes, I don’t want to look like a street cat, and with a crap meow coming out of her mouth, dad, if you can walk into your barber without an appointment, why can’t I?

What a great idea Kazzi! I called up her Uncle Jim, and told him to add it to his new Pet animal concept. A walk-in beauty parlor for our animal children, and maybe they can also brush their teeth.

P.S- Teresita’s beautician stop over to the house, and performed her magic. Kazzi was now ready to meet her Prince Charming.

My daughter, Kazzi the cat loves to watch television with us. She constantly stands up and blocks my wife wife’s view and of course the yelling starts  at poor Kazzi to sit down so we can all  watch the Property Bothers. I know Kazzi feels bad, and I can’t blame her  for going up stairs  to watch her own TV. It was  that night that I thought that perhaps Kazzi should have her own television network. Hey if I can have the FOOD NETWORK and the HOME GARDEN TV NETWORK, why cannot the 86.4 million cats and 78.2 million dogs can have their own television network. What do you think Kazzi? I can see the gleam in her eyes, her paws started to drummed and her ears radered up and down. She was telling me that she wanted television programs that would educate all the companion owners about the goods and services that are available, give her the chance to listen and watch her favorite cat music performers.  She also confessed that she has a crush on the Grumpy cat and it would only be fitting to have her own cat soap  operas, and a show about her favorite fish. Sure and maybe a  special version show-The Iron Cat Chef. You know, Kazzi  Uncle Jim is working on this, and here is what he is planning to do. Uncle Jim’s Television network will have two launch options: 1-Internet programming(most cost effective) -2Cable TV network/ celebrity show host.  The inaugural season will produce  25 shows, and at some point will air on a network television. The shows will emphasize both the educational and entertainment formats. They will meaningful and will stress the importance of making a total commitment to the companion animal industry.  There are 20 thirty episodes already written and  he has three nationally doctors already on board.  A trailer will be produced once he get a national sponsor. Here are some of the segments; Shelters and Rescues, The underground railroad, Suburban/city and country living, Equine interest, Animal-friendly communities, Preventive medicine, Veterinary rehabilitation, (largest growing modality in veterinary medicine today), Pet friendly vacation destinations, Pet friendly hotels and motels, Pet insurance(explained through a independent third party expert), Professional athletes giving back through their companion animals , Exotics, and the role they play in our world, Social media and their online structure, and Corporate citizenship. I am sure Kazzi will enjoy spending her day in front of the TV and appreciate seeing how many organizations, doctors, animal lovers and corporate America are just waiting to give her own Pets Television Network.