Virgil Thomas, ChangingAging.org

Virgil Thomas
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Journeys: Grow Up

I graduated college December 21, 2012 and was summarily catapulted into real life. Certainly the past 22 years have been real; I have had my share of trials to date, but until now I had been living the life of a child. Childhood, in my view, was characterized by a lack of independence and the accompanying stress. As a child proper I depended wholly on my parents for support and guidance and as I grew this reliance diminished but never went away fully.

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The Next Generation

I grew up surrounded by the biggest names in aging. Eden’s first class of Regional Coordinators was initiated in my house, and I have met countless aging professionals since. My father took me to see the first Green Houses open in Tupelo, Mississippi. As a child I wore one of the first Eden shirts ever to come off the press. The point is I have been connected to the aging movement since I first started aging myself.

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Teaming Up On Healthcare

The New York Times has a great little article out about the Cleveland Clinic’s innovative team-based treatment. Instead of being bounced from specialist to specialist they have created a single team of specialists who work together.

In its most fundamental reform, the clinic in the past five years has created 18 “institutes” that use multidisciplinary teams to treat diseases or problems involving a particular organ system, say the heart or the brain, instead of having patients bounce from one specialist to another on their own.

Merry Christmas

Aging stands still for a day as we take some time to celebrate Christmas. Happy holidays to all those celibrating Hanukah, Kwanza, the Solstice, or the Yule season.

We will be back up later this week revving the engines for the year to come.

Have fun and stay safe.

Coming of Age

I know you are all probably done with the election and the myriad of coverage it received. But if you would indulge me one more reflection. The obvious is that, yes, the public has spoken and the country has another four years with President Obama at the helm. What was particularly interesting to me was how young voters approached the election as adults.

Defining(almost) Moment of A Generation

Defining(almost) Moment of A Generation

Over the weekend Felix Baumgartner jumped from the edge of space and parachuted to the ground, breaking records and the sound barrier along the way. A really cool video can be found here.

What I think is the most interesting point here, besides the fact that a man broke the speed of sound with his face, is that we are seeing a space boom like that of the 1960′s.

Generation Gap

The pundit world was buzzing after the VP debate on thursday, but there is one aspect that went largely unnoticed. There is a blatant generational gap between Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

Talking Points Memo has an excellent photo gallery of each running mate that really illustrates the age gap between these two men. Joe Biden and Paul Ryan.

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When Time Flies

So, here is an interesting video of a guy who took a picture of himself everyday for twelve years. In about ten minutes you can watch a man pass through more than a decade of his life. What you see is his hair styles change, the rising prominence of his freckles, bags and wrinkles form under his eyes, a beard, and a few other things.