I was scanning a shoebox-size load of pictures from my father's vast collection and after scanning about 6, I decided there had to be a better way. I mean, 6 at a time on my little flatbed scanner, then into photoshop and finally burning them to DVD. Geeze.

Yes, Virginia, there is a better, nearly as fast (or faster depending on your scanner prowess) and worthwhile way to get all those photos scanned and safely on digital media.

So, at the risk of sounding like an infomercial, I found these guys who will scan, organize and burn all your photos to DVD (there's even a TV-DVD option) and believe me, it's WORTH every penny.

I was a little hesitant to send the whole shoebox, but they held my hand the whole way, even emailing me when the box had arrived. What I got back was a DVD full of memories - and another for my brother.

Now, the only thing we have to decide is what to do with the originals.

FotoBridge Scanning

OK, before you go off and get excited about making money working for AgingHipsters.com- there isn't any. Just that warm feeling you'll be getting contributing to a labor of love.

This site started in 1995 - before either of us hardly knew what the Internet was- and it has been an incredibly rewarding experience. I look back on i t now and think we must have been sitting around looking for something to do to have the incredible amount of time needed to get this thing up and running. In 2000 we started our own web development firm and people paid us to do what we loved. But now, the commercial side of the business is eating up the hours and we find ourselves with less and less time to devote to AgingHipsters.

That's where you come in.

We're looking for, well... aging hipsters to contribute their time and talent to keep this site relevant, vibrant and alive - at least until all us Boomers die off.

What we need. Can you actually write? Do you have an opinion? If so, we need the following:

1. Politics. With the election coming up in '08, we think Baby Boomers will have a huge voice in the selection of our next president. We're looking for someone with prolific and strong opinions to contribute regularly up through the election. One right, one left will do.

2. Health. Yup, we're getting older and we're going to impact the health care system like no other generation. Do you work in the health care industry? Does it make you want to just scream?

3. Discussion board. Looking for someone who can manage the board. That means moderating signups, posts and tracking down spam with a vengeance. Along the way, you'll have your own personal soap box.

4. General contributions. Do you endlessly surf the web finding unusual content that might be appropriate here. Contribute a story idea or make it your life's goal seeking the odd.

5. Retirement. Are your retired? Worried like hell about your own retirement? Write about it and share your thoughts on where we're headed after the work is done. (Personally, I'll be working as the greeter at Wal-Mart, so I don't really worry about retirement at all).

What you get-

1. Published. A byline on everything you contribute and, if you're really prolific, your own blog here at www.yourname.aginghipsters.com featuring everything you've written.

2. A warm feeling.

Why would you do this?

1. We are regularly cited in top national and international publications, and that has accelerated in the last two years. So instead of starting your own blog that only your spouse reads, get published here and be read by hundreds of thousands of Boomers AND mainstream media.

2. A warm feeling

What you won't get

1. Money
2. Respect from Gen-X

Apply -> Content Providers

This is really a rant on my frustration at running a discussion board - so if the headline caught your attention, you'll be rewarded in the end (so to speak).

I've come to the conclusion that Boomers just simply have nothing to say - or do they? We've been struggling with a discussion board for something like three years now. Every time we think we have it right we get hit by board spammers and the whole thing goes to hell in a hand-basket.

The problem is Google - no, really. The all-knowing Google algorithm essentially gives "link love" to outbound links in content sites like this one. So, if you are a spammer, the more discussion board posts with links to your v-i-a-g-r-a site, the more popular you become in the Google search listings. Like a lot of things, the spammer's success depends on how diligent the webmaster is at removing this spam - a discussion board that has been ignored can have thousands of these spam links and one that is moderated closely is a LOT of work.

Another trick they employ is to use robots to create hundreds of sign ups (with the spam URL included) in hopes that the discussion board will have a published list of users (we don't) - and therefore an outbound link to their spam site.

Unfortunately, throttling these two forms of spam has created a hardship for "real" users - making them jump through hoops to sign up and forcing us to moderate every new member. In fact, it's gotten so bad that we've essentially given up on trying to moderate registrations. We probably lose hundreds of new users a day in the multitude of robot-created sign-ups - our apologies.

We essentially have two options:
1. Make the sign-up process completely manual - meaning if you want to sign up for the discussion board, you'll need to follow up your automated registration with an email that says - "hey, I'm real, I have something to say and I want to become a member of the discussion board."

2. Close the board.

We think option 2 is a bit drastic. So if you really have something to say - drop us a line and we'll dutifully respond with you brand-spanking (pun intended) new username and password.

Finally, from these two recent discussion board posts it's clear that Boomers are both earnest and warped at the same time.

Post # 266: Irwin's in Toronto?!?! From a grandmother wanting to know if Steve Irwin's widow and daughter are coming to Toronto. She wants to take her grandchildren.

And this one:
Post # 267: BDSM Boomers From a guy who's started a bondage and discipline discussion group on Yahoo.

Editor's note: The second poster signed up a couple of weeks ago and I didn't activate his membership until he wrote asking when he would be approved. I let him wait a few more days until I could get around to it - just so he could feel my pain.

The following rant chronicles my descent into the bowels of Verizon hell.

My cell phone contract was about to expire and Verizon offers a "credit" on a new phone if you re-sign for another two years. Being fairly technologically savvy, I did my research on new phones, and decided on the Motorola RAZR - mainly because it had Bluetooth that would allow me to wirelessly transfer contacts, calendars and files from PC to phone.

The signup was effortless and in less than an hour I had a spanking new RAZR complete with Bluetooth headset. Even pairing the phone and PC was easy - but there was a problem. No matter what I did, I simply could not transfer files to or from the phone.

I'm not one to give up on something like this so I went online to see if I could find a solution. Lo and behold there are volumes of data explaining that the Verizon version of the RAZR has object exchange (OBEX) disabled.

Yes, there is an alternative - send the picture to any email address directly from the phone - at $.25/each + airtime. Suddenly it all makes sense. Verizon through manipulation of the phone software, is denying me access to standard phone features and forcing me to pony up every time I send a file.

OK, shame on me for not knowing this beforehand - but I don't have an alternative. Verizon is the only carrier in my area with a signal.

Just for fun, I decided to return to the Verizon store and see if there was some alternative - perhaps this was all some big mistake and in the interim had decided to turn OBEX back on. Here's the chronology of my Verizon adventure.

LIE #1
At the store, they have a "tech support" window, so I bellied up like I didn't know what was going on and explained that my phone was broken and wouldn't transfer files.

The "tech support person" explained that it was something Motorola had done as a security measure to keep nefarious Bluetooth hackers from accessing the contacts and files on my phone. When I revealed that all other wireless carriers who offer the RAZR allow OBEX, he continued to insist that it was a Motorola problem and there was nothing he could do about it.

LIE #2
Not satisfied with the tech guy's bold-faced blame shuffling, I decided to see what the phone support people had to say. After reaching a Bluetooh tech support person at Verizon, I was told that, yes, there may be a way to transfer files from my RAZR, but it was not something that Verizon tech support could not do. Would I like to talk to Motorola about it?

My hopes soaring, I was transferred to Motorola. The next sound you hear is that of Verizon hanging up on me.

The Truth #1
So I get the Motorola tech support number and proceed to explain that my Verizon RAZR won't transfer files. The MOTOtech explains that this is not something Motorola supports because it doesn't exist on Verizon RAZR - Verizon has instructed Motorola to turn off OBEX.

Finally, the painful truth
Back to Verizon tech support. By now all I want is someone to come clean. We already have confirmation from both the Internet and from the phone manufacturer that this is a Verizon marketing scheme, so stop lying and tell me the truth.

This time over at Verizon phone support, the rep couldn't answer Bluetooth questions and requested that I talk to another tech support person (already on the line) who could help. Once again, the next sound you hear is that of Verizon hanging up.

Back to Verizon phone support. Finally, I was connected to someone who admitted that the OBEX is turned off and the only way I could transfer files was to use the Verizon service at $.25/each + airtime.

Shouldn't there be some law against blatant lies - if not through legislation at least on moral grounds? I'm sure that somewhere in the contractual language there's mention of OBEX not being available. But I'm stuck, I don't have another carrier. What's more, I'm a big boy - just tell me the truth, I can handle you being the greedy monolithic corporate telecom that you are.

You've got this favorite song, it replays in your head - over and over. Yeah, you love it, but make it go away! Perhaps it's the melody, a particular beat or instrumental quality that implants itself in the music lobe of your brain - where it gets top billing.

Now, thanks to Pandora, you can not only hear your favorite song, but listen to an endless stream of other songs with similar qualities. For you Aging Hipsters out there who want to discover music (new and old) that puts you in a single groove, this is the place. It's your "personal DJ"

From the Pandora FAQ:
"Pandora is a music discovery service designed to help you find and enjoy music that you'll love. It's powered by the Music Genome Project, the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Just tell us one of your favorite songs or artists and we'll launch a streaming station to explore that part of the music universe."

"We take your input (artists, songs) and feedback ("I like this", "I don't like this") and use the Music Genome Project to create stations that play songs that are musically similar to what you've told us. That's it; only the music counts. We don't care how popular the artist is, who's backing them, and we don't care which genre bin they usually belong in. Only the music matters."

In this age of blogs, it seems almost redundant to have a bulletin board. We've had three and you'd think we'd learn our lesson by now. We felt like we should make it somehow relevant and active, but it just never happened. In fact, it became so overrun with spam that we decided to just close it down. But ater some reflection, we decided to take one last stab at it.

We installed a new bulletin board system but best of all, we thought about how to extend the discussion here on the Baby Boomer Homepage. So rather than just responding to posts, we'd like to give you all a chance to share a little of what's going on in those great big graying Boomer heads out there.

Because of the spam problem, we've had to force registration, but heck, we haven't sent out a mass mailing from our list in three years - so don't be anxious about signing up for fear you'll be deluged by unsolicited e-mail.

We're especially excited about the brag forum, where you can wax poetic about your children, or dare we say it... grandchildren!

Check it out here

It's mid-May and you need 3 credit hours to graduate college... Sound familiar? Now fast-forward 30 years or so and it's your son or daughter in the same predicament, only this time, you're footing the bill. Why not help a starving parent - take this survey and help a college student graduate.

... and how much it means to your parents!

We received this comment last night from a teen doing a research paper on Baby Boomers. Spelling and grammer aside, it asks some interesting questions. Add your comments here.

"Hi
i am an australian high school student doing resaerch on BABY BOOMERS!!!!! YOu guys!!!

so i was looking at how you perceive the youth of today and how they communicate and their love of technology. plus how yu thought the world was going to be when you were a teen in the 60s/70s.

so if you have any opinions you would like to share - contact me

thanx"

A Baby Boomer friend has recently opened a restaurant in Western New Jersey called the Pittstown Inn. We had a chance last weekend to sample the fare and found it a delicious surprise. The restaurant is kind of off the beaten path past Clinton in a 300 year-old former stagecoach stop. We were expecting the same old "country inn" but were surprised to find an amazingly contemporary menu and "country hip" decor.

Well done, Al! It's worth the drive.

More information available at www.pittstowninn.com

© Dan Sherman

I asked readers to submit stories about their favorite cars from their youth, and the car mentioned most was the Volkswagen Beetle, or 'bug.' In terms of all-time favorite German inventions, male readers ranked it just ahead of bratwurst, and just below Heidi Klum.

"My favorite car remains my 1968 VW bug which I owned for 21 years," writes Eddie Dell of Reno. "It could be fixed with duct tape and string and although I gave it up for dead many times, it always came goose-stepping back.

Once, when the accelerator cable broke in the Rockies during a blizzard, I reached under the car with a pair of needle-nosed vice grips and grabbed the wire, threading it through the floorboard. Then I propped up the vice grips with the handle of a broken screwdriver as a fulcrum and had a temporary accelerator pedal. It was temporary all right -- I drove it like that for about a year.

And when the heat gave up, I used candles on the dashboard as a defrost for two winters."

"My favorite car growing up in Ohio was my 1959 Volkswagen," says John Quinn of Santa Rosa, "in which you could, with your 1966 sawbuck (that's $10 for you Justin Timberlake fans) fill up the tank, go to the movies, and buy your girl a pizza and still have change. It was good in the winter unless it fell below 10 degrees in which case it would warm up only if you brought it into the living room."

Bugs were the first SUVs. "I used to borrow my parents' '69 VW Beetle and tool around the back roads of Pleasanton and Livermore, Calif. where I grew up," said Brian Crane, Sparks resident and Pickles author. " It didn't have a lot of power or 4-wheel drive, but it had a first gear that wouldn't quit and I took it through some pretty rough country."

Readers recalled muscle cars fondly. "We girls grew up wanting our cars to be bad, like our boyfriends," says columnist Adair Lara of San Francisco. "My first car was a souped-up pale yellow '66 Mustang convertible that I found at a used-car dealership in San Rafael when I was 19.

When I got behind the wheel of that car and headed down Fourth Street, for the first time I felt like a blonde, though I had been one for years. When the car conked out after five blocks, I was obscurely satisfied, as if that's what you got with a Bad Car: it was occasionally unavailable."

Clunkers were big favorites. "My favorite car was my father's Ford Galaxy 500," writes S. Jody Hyatt of Reno. "It was an enormous car with a huge engine. When you turned that sucker on, it had a distinctive powerful sound that you never hear today. I drove that car until the floor boards rusted and fell out."

Clunkers made great getaway cars, too. "I drove $50 junkers that had to be parked on hills, because they never fired up when you turned the key," writes Jo Beck of Missouri.

"Luckily, it was hilly almost everywhere within a fifty-mile radius of our farm, and we lived on a steep hill. When we parked the car, we put it at the top of the lane with a block of wood under the front tire so it wouldn't roll away.

This was a handy thing at night because it was a wonderfully silent escape. After Mom went to bed, we'd sneak out and tiptoe to the top of the hill, kick the block out, give the car a shove and coast to the bottom of the lane.

At the bottom of the hill, we'd let out the clutch and roar off in a great glorious cloud of dust and Marty Robbins music. There is something about that feeling -- having made a successful escape -- that is hard to match at any age, but teenagers seem to enjoy it the most. I know I did."

A clunker - German or Detroit. Freedom. And being young. With those three things you were king of the world.

Dan Sherman is a nationally syndicated columnist. His website is www.danshermanonline.com.

My 52 year old Baby Boomer friend refuses to join AARP, and with it, the denial of all those discounts and perks we could be getting... like dinner at 4 PM for a dollar off. Denying her age is one thing, but perception is reality, deary.

First, this article from the Clarksburg Exponent Telegram

"Baby Boomers of Harrison County, watch the mail. There is more than likely a survey on its way to you.

The Harrison County Senior Citizens Center and the Harrison County Commission have teamed up with West Virginia University to conduct a county-wide survey of those 44 through 61 years of age. "

It's been eight years since our last Boomer Timeline and we're having a hard time believing we were even alive 40 years ago, let alone experiencing any of this. However, we were already sentient people, if small ones, and these events and experiences are ours to claim. In case your memory has grown a little foggy with age (or whatever), see if any of this rings a bell.

1963

Why not? The Constitution of Afghanistan as it read in 1963.

Martin Luther King was named
Time Magazine's Man of the Year

On August 28th, he delivered the I Have a Dream speech
Read the complete text here

1963 was a great year for movies, treating us to all the following, among others:
Hud (Did you know this was based on a novel, Horseman, Pass By, by one of our favorites writers,
Larry McMurtry
The Birds (One of us is still scared of a gathering of more than 5 birds on a telephone wire)
In case you find the idea of 834 birds perched on your roofline interesting, here's a
bird-watching starter.
The Great Escape
For those who like their gaming on the nostalgic side, you too can now be
Steve McQueen
Tom Jones (one's pre-pubescent self thought this was pretty sexy ... they showed a great deal of...um...bosom)
How the West Was Won
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Mad World
To see what a bunch of other people thought of the movie and, by the way, check out a kind of interesting movie/DVD site, take a look at
Rotten Tomatoes

November 22, 1963. What else is there to say?
This web site is dedicated to debunking the mass of misinformation and disinformation surrounding the murder of JFK.
Vastly comprehensive site relating to the assassination

The Birmingham church bombing, which killed 4 fourteen-year old girls happened on September 15th of '63.

Long Time Coming, by Elizabeth H. Cobbs and Petric Smith gives an in-depth look at the Birmingham church bombing.
Available at Amazon

Please Please Me, the Beatles' first album to be released in the US, hit the stores in 1963.

One hit wonder, the Singing Nun, topped the charts with "Dominique (inique inique)". It was also the #1 Christmas single that year.
Not only can you read more than you want to know about Jeanine Deckers (aka the Singing Nun), but check out this
whole site for more on the "Swingin' Chicks of the 60's"

In January 1963, Whiskey A Go Go, our very first disco, opened in LA.
and it's still there

In May, the Beatles began their first national UK tour, with headliner Roy Orbison

In June, Russia's Valentina Tereshkova becomes the 1st woman in space

America gets the Zip Code on July 1.
If you happen to need to look up a zipcode

In November, Wham-O files a patent for the Frisbee, thus leading to the extreme sport of Ultimate Frisbee.
And you thought Ultilmate Frisbee was a casual past time? Nyuh-uh. It has its own official organization, the UPA.

Busy month. Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen hits the charts in November. Apparently J. Edgar Hoover thought the song was obscene-- how could he tell? Was he the only person in the country who could understand the lyrics?
Read all about it
The Lyrics...once and for all

Dec 8th--Frank Sinatra Jr. was kidnapped at gunpoint from a Lake Tahoe motel but released after 36 hours.
Okay, if you simply must know more about it.

Dr. Michael De Bakey first uses an artificial heart to take over the circulation of a patient's blood during heart surgery.

Jack Nicklaus wins his first Masters' Tournament

Robert Frost dies on January 29th. For those of you who think Frost was just this crusty rural poet. read him again.

Some of the top songs of the year. Clearly 'our music' hadn't taken over yet.
Those Lazy , Crazy Hazy Days of Summer, Nat King Cole
Kind of a scary version
Danke Schoen, Wayne Newton
Some people really love this guy!
Call Me Irresponsible
Yellow Roses

Well folks, that wraps up BB Timeline, Part 2. We're sure there's plenty more we left out, either because we felt like it or because we didn't come across it. Feel free to add your true factoids from that memorable year.

We've made some significant changes here over the last few weeks. Here's a rundown on the changes:

1. We are currently testing a system to display related links from over 8 million weblogs around the world. It's often hit or miss, but generally seems to be on topic. We certainly can not control the opinions expressed in the related outside links - nor would we want to. So in the spirit of fair play, we're lettin' it ride.

2. We also added a related links system to pull associated stories from within the Baby Boomer Generation itself. Again, the relationships are often oblique, but for the most part, it presents a window to the archive that is at least somewhat related.

3. New bulletin board. This is our third try at a functional BBS. The first one was a free trial of a commercial installation. That worked great, but the critical piece missing in the free version was the ability to delete posts. So, over a couple of years, the bulleting board was overrun by unsolicited commercial posts.

4. New design. We're toying with cascading stylesheets and have created what we believe to be a simplified design using it. As with everything, it's constantly evolving.

5. Added a section so users can view all the comments in one place.

6. Keeing a running total of all comments and articles.