Hello on Friday Morning

Dear Friends,

Thursday went well for Linda and I even though were apart for most of the day.
Linda arrived home around 6 PM from her shopping adventure. Yes, she had to show me everything which she purchased. This took about 30 minutes before we were all done putting the treasures away. Many of the treasures were for me!
When you shop at a place like Cosco's, everything is large. There is no small bag of peanuts in the shell. There are no small cereal boxes. As an example of large quantities, I have enough of Irish Spring Bath soap to take me through the next 5 years, and this is with me taking at least on shower per day.

I had to make a beverage run for alcoholic, and non alcoholic beverages. Luckily in the Liquor store, I ran into a couple who was doing the same thing. This couple just happened to be coming to the Curley Christmas Party / Open House. The only problem was that they thought the party was on Sunday which is when my friend and I will be at Gillette Stadium.

Pension Plans -- Linda and I received our membership cards in the mail from the Retired State, County, and Municipal Employees Association of Massachusetts. Some of my readers comment about the State pension plans. I thought that I should quote a few lines from a letter sent to us members: "Fortunately, our Defined Benefit pension plan is a contractual guarantee, a guarantee that the vast majority of private sector retirees do not enjoy. For the most part, these retirees rely on 401 (K) type plans, defined contribution plans, as their primary source of retirement income. These plans depend on the market and have done well at times, but have lost much of their value over the past year.
Even though most of our members worked for lower wages than those of the private sector, knowing they would have the security of a guaranteed DB pension, this benefit is now permeating a sense of envy among our neighbors in the private sector.
The media has created an image that the DB pension , which you have earned, is a costly, overly - generous benefit subsidized by the tax payers. A few high- profile pensions, including those of Legislators, are constantly anecdotally highlighted within any criticism of our retirement plan.
While it's a fact that employee contributions, properly invested, pay most of the cost of our pensions, this is overlooked by the critics." .....
I didn't mean to bore you with the sentences above, but everyone seems to be jealous of the other guy when economic times are they way they are right now. Everyone of us baby boomers had choices when we entered the workforce in the late 60's and early 70's. If you made the choices which we did, you too could have been part of a defined benefit plan.
Note-- The military, and government employees have a defined benefit pension plan.

Weather -- The impending snow storm in our area is the big item on people's minds today. I know my snow blower is ready for action with the little workout it had the other day.

Have to send some other e-mails. The Curley Lad