Bob Jensen at Trinity University
Bob Jensen's home page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ 

Erika Telling Secrets at My Retirement Party on May 14, 2006 at in the Great Hall at Trinity University

It amazes me that I'm already into the fourth year of retirement. Where the heck did the first year go? Andy Rooney was right about life being like a roll of toilet paper. It spins ever so slow when you're a kid and ever so fast after you retire. Now September with its autumn colors is about to spin forth. The days are already much shorter, and I'm hauling up my sweat shirts from the basement. I'm writing this on the morning of August 10, 2007 and the temperature dropped below the 50 degree mark. Our furnace even kicked on. The days are growing shorter in this spin of things.

Today I feel September blowing in on the mountain winds.

 This is a view of Mt. Lafayette about ten miles away in the Kinsman Range.  Lincoln Mountain can be seen between Lafayette and Cannon. Only Cannon Mountain has ski trails and an aerial tramway. Between Lincoln and Cannon is a mountain pass called the Franconia Notch State Park. After he retired my father took on another job managing the Kossuth County State Liquor Store in Algona, Iowa. The ear of corn next to my monitor was one of his collected Jim Beam bottles of bourbon. Just to the right outside the picture is another bottle in the shape of an Iowa hog. The picture below was taken in the summer. To the right of Cannon Mountain are the Three Graces (also known as the Cannon Balls) and North and South Kinsman mountains.

In your dreams of retirement, which of these scenes appeals to you the most?
My choice in Picture Number 1

Online Guide to Dream Interpretations

For old men who collect Tokens

The Traditional Locale for Retirement

If you're miserable in your job, first of all be thankful you have a job. Secondly you might sign up for feel good motivation about your job at "Thank Goodness Its Monday" (TGIM) --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/entitlements.htm
Personally, I get turned off by motivational speakers/preachers, but Scott does produce some beautiful/artful videos that on occasion make me feel good.
The question for me in retirement is how to enjoy any day of the week --- whether it's Monday or Saturday doesn't matter much in retirement. I find leisure boring, and I would doze off at every other page if I once again tried to read War and Peace from cover-to-cover.

At my age I'm not supposed to eat the rich foods and win martini contests. I got tired of sea sickness and blue water in the Navy. Away from home I have that feeling that I've already been there before and "done that." Erika refuses to let me chase wild women or buy faster horses. Perhaps I could become a Wal-Mart greeter, but that might deprive someone who badly needs the money from a job. My cousin Mark does important work helping people in Africa grow more food. He eventually became the Director of Agriculture in Tanzania. But I can't even grow tomatoes. I also got turned down when I applied to be a quality control inspector at the Mustang Ranch in Nevada.

A retiring president of a university, who was definitely a Type A+ personality, said he was going to spend his retirement catching up on all the books he'd put off reading. I knew this wouldn't work, because a Type A+ person who thrives on working would be bored stiff having to read book after book from cover-to-cover. And for what purpose? What could be gained by quietly reading 1,000 books and then passing on from this world? Does this help his case with St. Peter? It might make him happy if each page really lifts the serotonin level, but in his case I seriously doubt that reading is the best way to create more serotonin. He eventually found greater happiness trying to raise money to educate poor people.

Being retired for me is a bit like being in a 'think tank" except for a few happy outdoor moments in the mountains on a walk or on my tractor for a ride. It would be very boring to walk all day long or to listen to the roar of a diesel engine for hours. Having been in a for-real "think tank" for two years in the early part of my career, I can honestly say that the "think tank" experience, where you've almost total control over how you spend your time, varies a great deal with how much time you have left in life. So how should I spend my time in my retirement "think tank?"

Question
What would you study for if you were given total study freedom in a think tank?

October 25, 2008 message from Gerald Trites [gtrites@zorba.ca]

Hi Bob,

I have a question for you. If you were to have six months to go alone to a cabin in the woods just to read and write, with no technology or connections with the outside world, and your objective was to write something that would distill the life lessons in those books, which books would you take with you?

Jerry
Phone: 416-602-3931
Website: www.zorba.ca 
Blog: www.zorba.ca/blog.html

 

October 30, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Jerry,

I’m not putting you off on this question. I just need a bit more time to contemplate my answer.

Back in the 1970s I was granted two years in a think tank at the CASBS Center on the Stanford University campus --- http://www.casbs.org/ 

While at the CASBS I could study anything I liked and was not obligated to even publish outcomes from my two years. Actually I spend most of my time thinking about multivariate statistics and did produce two AAA monographs (# 14 and #19) on the side ---
http://aaahq.org/market/display.cfm?catID=5 
But mostly I worked on trying to develop adaptive multivariate models that, unfortunately, proved not to be robust when sorting out subsets of predictive variables. Sigh!

Now in retirement I have the renewed luxury controlling what I do in each and every day. I suppose I could, like Maynard Mack (see below), elect just to study a single scholar or topic in depth for the rest of my life. What I’m not certain about is what that subject would be at this point in my life. In the past I tried to study things that would have utility (generally in terms of teaching and publications and presentations and consulting) in my career. This type of purpose no longer inspires me late in life, so I must think a bit about what I would most enjoy if I spent another year in a “think tank.”

Bob Jensen

October 30, 2008 reply from Dennis Beresford [dberesfo@TERRY.UGA.EDU]

I guess this is why I'm an amateur or unofficial academic. But I would go crazy with total freedom in a think tank for a year. I like the excitement of waking up each morning to new issues and challenges as well as interacting with those who are working on those matters or just interested in knowing more about them. Just today Fannie Mae announced the write off of its over $20 billion deferred tax asset, a news service reported that up to $1 trillion of goodwill impairments will be recorded this year because of the decline of stock prices and so many companies having market capitalizations in excess of book value, and Deloitte announced that it is suing a former partner who traded extensively in securities of clients that he worked on. Yesterday the SEC held its fair value accounting roundtable with many interesting positions expressed including those of former FDIC chairman William Issac who strongly objected to fair value accounting and called for the Fed and others to have control over the FASB. I can hardly wait to see what happens tomorrow!

Denny Beresford (still loving accounting after all these years)
University of Georgia

October 30, 2008 reply from Bob Jensen

Hi Denny and Jerry,

Actually I consider my two think tank years as my least productive years in academe. In part this is due to my trying to be inventive. I ended up on a lot of blind alleys. It might have been more rewarding to spend those years trying to be a scholar rather than a researcher. But mostly I think it’s just that under ideal “thinking” opportunities the adrenalin just is not flowing as much as when the world is pressing in from all sides.

At the CASBS think tank itself, administrators warned the “Fellows” (women included) early on that think tank years sometimes lead to depression --- really!. It has to do with expectations versus failed endeavors. Think tanks are somewhat analogous to winning the lottery. After dreaming all those years about winning the lottery, many lottery winners actually end up miserable for a variety of reasons since dreams often don’t come true when given the means to live out those dreams. Guilt sometimes sets in when we don’t live up to our internalized expectations. In a think tank there’s nobody to blame but yourself.

I did become close with inspiring and mind-expanding "Fellows" at the CASBS, including the following varied scholars:

• Harvard’s Youngest-Ever Philosophy Professor Robert Nozick --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Nozick 
• Stanford’s Josh Lederberg --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Lederberg 
• Stanford’s Phil Zimbardo --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbardo 
• Yale’s Maynard Mack --- http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-maynard-mack-728966.html 
• Harvard’s infamous pit bull lawyer named Alan Dershowitz --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dershowitz,_Alan 

Bob Nozick changed my ideas about utopian philosophy. I’d never heard of cloning in those days, but Lederberg was already into studying societal risks in certain types of new knowledge and technology. Zimbardo was truly a colorful researcher who was very inventive about behavioral experiments (including some that went awry such as his famous prisoner experiment). Maynard Mack taught me how difficult it is to be a generalist in literature. Much of his life was spent studying the writings of a single author --- Alexander Pope. I greatly respect the academy's scholars like Maynard who learn more and more about less and less along the way such that they know more than anybody else about a few angels on the head of a single pin. I'm just not one of those types of scholars. I want to learn less and less about more and more --- leading to knowing epsilon about almost everything.

Fortunately, there are many scholars like Maynard Mack who fill the academy's halls around the world with experts on virtually every topic known to mankind. Obviously some are more expert than others on a given topic, but the academy is the first place to look for pin heads. The good news is that most of them teach so that the legacy and inspiration for expertise is passed along to each forthcoming generation. They're the main reason students pay to attend college.

One interesting experiment that Zimbardo conducted was to leave a car on the streets of three cities with the windows open. In each case, the part of town where the vehicle was parked had a lot of young people milling about the streets after dark. In East Palo Alto, all that happened was that somebody rolled up the windows as if to protect the car’s interior from rain. In San Francisco some things were stolen like the radio, speakers, battery, and hub caps. In New York City street people literally beat the sh_t out of the car after stripping it. Obviously there is very little that can be generalized from such a small and uncontrolled sample. But it does suggest that anger and aggression are more pronounced in large city ghettos teaming with children from poverty stricken single parents and evil drug dealers on the streets.

Zimbardo’s famous and controversial Prison Experiment was a much more serious study of behavior ---
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment 

Alan Dershowitz is probably more like you Denny. He wants to be where the action is (like when defending Israel, Patricia Hearst, Harry Reems, Leona Helmsley, Jim Bakker, Mike Tyson, Michael Milken, O.J. Simpson and Kirtanananda Swami), and there’s not much action in a think tank study that has no telephone and no students. In those days there were no cell phones and Internet communications. The CASBS was literally in the middle of a cow pasture. I think it was too quiet at the CASBS for Alan. Alan thrives on being a protagonist surrounded by antagonists rather than polite scholars studying a few angels on the head of a pin.

In retirement I could withdraw to my private studio (it’s a separate building up here in the mountains), disconnect the phone and the Internet, and seek out those angels on the head of some pin. Instead, I find myself inclined to study more and more pins without digging down to the angels on the head of any one pin. That’s the way you folks have come to know me on the AECM. In some ways this is a more scholarly endeavor because it really is collaborative --- I learn a lot from the likes of Jagdish Gangolly, Paul Williams, Denny Beresford, Amy Dunbar, Richard Sansing, Ed Scribner, David Fordham, David Albrecht, Tom Selling, Patricia Walters, Jerry Trites, CPA Bonacker, and the rest of the AECM contributors. I also learn a lot from my chosen bloggers out there like Gary Becker, Richard Posner, Jim Mahar, the Unknown Professor, Free Republic, Inside Higher Ed, Chronicle of Higher Ed, Technology Review, Freaknomics NYT blog, the AAA Commons, etc.

In addition, I learn a lot from people who ask questions both on the AECM and in private email communications. Their questions put my mind on the hunt to seek out answers to those questions I find especially interesting. In some ways, scholarship is more about questions than answers. For one thing, there are many great questions for which there are no great answers.

I guess my answer to Jerry Trites is that I probably would not seek out another think tank experience unless it contained some other “fellows” that I really wanted to become close within a think-tank setting. I probably would not seek out knowledge of the small (those angels on the heads of pins). I probably would not seek to become a greater scholar about research methods and techniques that, at my age, I probably don’t have time to put to productive use.

I probably would continue doing what I do now --- which is collecting and broadcasting and debating networked scraps and pieces of information day-to-day that I “post” into my Website pages such that, when a question arises about some issue, I can go to my “electronic scrap book” and re-learn all that knowledge that I’ve almost forgotten. I’m always amazed by how much I’ve forgotten. But my Websites and my many unpublished working papers that reside on my hard drive give me an edge over many scholars who did not take the time and trouble to cut and paste over a lifetime in the academy. Or if they did play cut and paste, they did it in hard copy that’s almost impossible to search as their offices become overflowing with books, papers, index cards, and piles of good intentions. Hard copy really is a poor medium for slicing, dicing, and filing into relevant categories.

I happily receive hundreds of requests for help each week from students, educators, researchers, and practitioners around the world. My greatest reward is when I can truly help them find answers to their challenging questions. Whereas my cousin Mark tries to give people more food for their bodies, I try to give them more food for their brains --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm

If I studied history more in retirement I would want to slice it, dice it, and try to make sense out of patterns that emerge. Examples of my history endeavors late in life include the following:

• History of The Accounting Review --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/03MainDocumentMar2007.htm 
• History of Derivative Financial Instruments --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm#DerivativesFrauds 
• American History of Fraud --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/415wp/AmericanHistoryOfFraud.htm 
• History of Course Authoring and Management Technology --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/290wp/290wp.htm 
  Also see http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/000aaa/thetools.htm 

I have little interest at this point in my life in studying something that I do not try to share with the world. And my sharing is an evolving thing rather that years of effort in secret isolation before unveiling a masterpiece. I would rather get others to interactively help me form my attempted masterpieces along the way. Thanks to all of you who openly share you gifts and talents freely with everybody in the world, including me, seeking your help.

Another thing I've learned is that it's better, at least late in life, to share something crudely crafted and incomplete early on at a Website than it is to strive for a polished, read that word-crafted, published manuscript. Early feedback on a Website living document can improve a document far more than you can do with more and more time spent in massaging a dead fish on your own. Too many writers hide their works from the world in fear that somebody will steal their ideas and or catch them making a sophomore-like error. You are free to steal any of my ideas and errors, although any writer always hopes for acknowledgement along the way. Since many of my errors are in the public domain, feel free to let the public know about my errors.

Bob Jensen

Get busy living or get busy dying.
Stephen King (Shawshank Redemption)

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.
Lewis Carroll

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.
Gilda Radner

Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it."
Mother Teresa

A 2005 holiday letter from my cousin Mark Jensen who ended his career in Minnesota in order to help starving people in Africa

Institute of Agriculture Tumaini University:  It is becoming a reality.
The Mgongo farm will have four demonstration plots going in December of 2005. The Institute will also have demonstration plots at Mpanga farm and Lulanzi Farm. We will be starting a farmstead (for security of stored equipment and harvest) at the Mpanga farm along with the beginning of a Rice Project.The Institute is an outreach project of the University of Minnesota, Sokoine University and International Rice Research Institute (IRRI). We will be receiving research information and technical help with our projects but no financial aid. Our goal is to increase the food production in the Region of Iringa so they can feed themselves plus have extra to market.

We need your help in several ways. Prayer support which I know my family is so good at because of your prayer support for me during my two major surgeries and three chemo sessions of four plus months each and now a clean bill of health so we will be leaving on September 19th.

We also need people to help in running the Institute both here and in Iringa.

We also need financial support demonstration plots will cost $1000 plus each ( 12 to start with), farmstead buildings of $2000 each (need 4 by December) and initiate rice project if possible $20,000 plus. All monies (large or small amounts are greatly appreciated) go to the projects and none for administration or salaries. A sincere thank you to all that have already given to the Institute.

Our Jensen roots are rural so we feel it is a natural fit for us to help the poor in rural Iringa. For tax deductible reasons checks can be made out to SPAS (Saint Paul Area Synod) Institute of Agriculture ATTN: Myrna and addressed to me. Please pass on to family, friends and anyone else you feel may have an interest in this project.

Mark and Terry Jensen

Mark Jensen,
Director Institute of Agricultural Development
TUMAINI UNIVERSITY, Iringa (Tanzania, Africa)
13025 Dahlia Circle #208
Eden Prairie, MN 55344 USA
E-mail: mtjensens@earthlink.net 
Phone: 952-829-5326

Bob Jensen's main Website is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/
Bob Jensen's threads are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's multimedia is often served up from http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/

Videos From Bob Jensen's Personal Camera (the pictures are clear but some of them lost a bit in the video) ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/EdTech/Video/Personal/
The Tidbits.wmv video is narrated.

For earlier editions of Tidbits go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TidbitsDirectory.htm
For earlier editions of New Bookmarks go to http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookurl.htm 

My Theme Song
Train of Life (Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline) --- Click Here

My music download page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm
My electronic literature page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ElectronicLiterature.htm

On May 14, 2006 I retired from Trinity University after a long and wonderful career as an accounting professor in four universities. My wife and I now live in a cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm

The pictures taken by a professional photographer courtesy of the Public Relations Department at Trinity University are available at http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/
A subset of these pictures is available for loading into a browser at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2006/tidbits060512.htm 

Thanks to the generosity of Trinity University, I will continue to tend my knowledge gardens on two Web servers --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/

A Few of the Pictures at the Above Link Are Shown Below

The interesting history of our cottage (formerly called Brayton Cottage) is summarized with pictures at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2007/tidbits070326.htm
Because of the historic pictures. the above site loads slowly.

Old 35-mm Pictures Across Earlier Years ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/PictureHistory/

For a listing of Year 2004 Spring Pictures, click on http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/2004spring/2004spring.htm 

Bob & Erika's 2004 Holiday Greetings and Pictures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/XMAS2004/XMAS2004.htm 

Winter 2005 pictures --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/2005winter/2005winter.htm 
For a listing of 92 Year 2004 Spring Pictures, click on http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/2004spring/2004spring.htm 

More pictures and our Year 2003 holiday season letter are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/XMAS2003.htm 
This pictures I took in October download very slowly, so be patient when you are at this site.  They will show up eventually.

These Are Some Older Pictures of Our Cottage in the White Mountains

September 20, 2003 picture of the golf club house that is beside our barn (barn not shown is getting new roof and siding).  This is the view of the Green Mountains of Vermont on the back side of our home.  We can't quite see the golf club house through the trees, but we can see the Green Mountains from a slightly different angle.

MSNBC has a special section entitled "Journey Around the World:  A Virtual Picture Tour" that has some wonderful pictures.  My secretary, Debbie Bowling" found this Picture 4 on January 27, 2005.  Our living room looks up at Cannon Mountain.  In the winter we watch the skiers glide down this cold place.  It's about ten miles from our house.  Cannon Mountain is in Franconia Notch State Park in New Hampshire.  

The link is at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/ under "Travel" and "Photo Tour:  Beautiful and Unique Places"

You can find links to other pictures in this region at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHcottage.htm 

Our 2004 holiday season letter and pictures are at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/xmas2004/xmas2004.htm

A holiday picture from our living room is shown below.  The White Mountains shown below are on the front (East) side of our house.

SOL DA!! (means sunny day in Norwegian)
My neighbor's tulips in Texas are out of the ground.
It's springtime in Texas --- http://garywolff.com/springtime/ 

UFF DA!! (means poopie day in Norwegian)
"New Hampshire Winter:  The First Nine Months Are the Hardest"
Auntie Bev posted this picture of that expresses our sentiments about winter up in the Northeast this year --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/winter.htm 

This is Erika trying to climb up to our back door.

We can view Mount Washington from our living room.

In the February 26, 2007 issue of Time Magazine on Page 6, there's a page entitled "A Little Taste of the Arctic Close to Home:  If you like awful weather, you'll love spending a night on Mount Washington." To read about the history and mean weather on this mountain --- Click Here

Live Webcam atop Mount Washington --- http://www.mountwashington.org/cam/ 

Current weather report from Mount Washington --- http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/

Erika and I are capable of fast decisions. We got married two weeks after we first met almost 20 years ago. We just bought a New Hampshire house after looking at it for 15 minutes. I moved from Florida State University to Trinity University after one phone call from Ron Calgaard (former President of Trinity University). It's a darn good thing that I avoid horse sales.

The history of our new cottage is rather interesting. It was the structure called Brayton Cottage on the grounds of a huge hotel. In 1973, all the structures in the resort were demolished except for three summer homes on the golf course and a small power house.  The power house is now our barn, and one of the summer homes that was saved was originally named Brayton Cottage. George Foss purchased the land and Brayton Cottage.  He poured a fine basement where the hotel's dining room once stood atop a hill. Brayton Cottage was then moved over this basement. The views are spectacular. The front side overlooks the Kinsman Range (about 10 miles away) and the Presidential Range (about 30 miles away) of the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The backside overlooks the Green Mountains of Vermont. On a clear night we're supposedly able to look down on the lights of 27 villages, although I've never spotted all of those villages. 

This Field is in Front of Our Cottage in June

For a description of our new location, go to http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0027pL 

There is a fantastic spot in northern New Hampshire for wildflowers with mountains on the horizon (though not usually covered in snow at that time of the year). Go to Sugar Hill, NH in mid-June for the lupine festival. From about June 10th to 17th there are fields of lupines that bloom beneath the White Mountains. In Sugar Hill on Sunset Road there is a 12 acre field completely filled lupines that has Cannon Mountain and Mt. Washington in the background. These lupines come in shades of blue, purple, white and pink. The attached image was taken at sunrise in the lupine field on Sunset Road in Sugar Hill. The back roads around Sugar Hill contain a number of spots where there are large concentrations of lupines, some strategically located near red barns and white churches. This spot is not only great for grand landscape shots, but is also macro photography heaven, the dew drops and little insects on the lupines also make great subjects. But be careful, one morning at sunrise I was intently photgraphing the sunrise and moved towards a tree to include it in my shot. I startled a mother moose and calf who I did not realize were on the other side of the tree and they ran right in front of me. Of course having a 17-35mm lens on my camera with an ND grad and polarizing filter made it a little tough to get a good shot of the moose.

About 5 miles away is Franconia Notch state park where there are lots of nice waterfall opportunities, my favorites include The Basin, the Falling Waters Trail (Stair Falls and Cloudland Falls are both wonderful)and the Flume.

This area in early to mid-June can't be beat. To do grand landscape photography in New England requires a little more work than in the national parks out west, but Sugar Hill is one of the better locations in New England for the kind of photography you are interested in.

-- Ed McGuirk , April 06, 2002; 06:15 A.M. Eastern

---

I live in New Hampshire and have done a good amount of hiking in the Whites and know of some good places. In particular one place that comes to mind is on Mt. Garfield - there is a pond, a short way from the summitt which is beautiful. I hiked up Mt. Eisenhower in the spring in early june/ late may (I can't remember exactly when) on a cloudy day and it was spectacular (with 70 mph winds). Additionally, there is one trail that I myself have not been on - The Alpine Garden Trail on Mt. Washington, which is known for its alpine flowers which bloom in June (I'm hoping I'll get up there for that). Good luck. I too, am very much looking forward to spring photos in the Whites.

-- Doug Seigars , April 06, 2002; 08:35 P.M. Eastern

A very nice and nearby inn is the Sunset Hill House, Sunset Road, Sugar Hill, NH 03585, (603)823-5522 or 800 SUN HILL --- http://www.bnblist.com/nh/sunset_hill_house/ 
Fall and winter pictures of the Sunset Hill House (about 100 yards from our house) are shown below:

About a quarter of a mile from our house is The Homestead.  The Homestead is the 24th oldest family business in the USA, home of Sugar Hill's first settler (1780), and handed down through 7 generations of family.

The Homestead Corner of Route 117 and Sunset Hill Road P.O. Box 619 Sugar Hill, New Hampshire 03585 Phone: (603) 823-5564 Toll-free: N/A Fax: (603) 823-9599 http://www.thehomestead1802.com homested@together.net

A short distance beyond The Homestead is the lovely Foxglove Inn near our church --- http://www.foxgloveinn.com/ 
Route 117 at Lovers Lane, Sugar Hill New Hampshire 03585 Toll free:  888-343-2220  
email: Foxgloveinn@compuserve.com

About four miles away, you will find The Franconia Inn --- http://www.franconiainn.com/about.html 

Sugar Hill is a village that has only houses, two churches, and a post office. Another village (Franconia) with a grocery store and hardware store is about two miles away. The backside of our four acres borders on a small golf course, but I don't think residents are looking forward to the arrival of the divot king.

There is an  an art studio beside the house. Erika already has plans to make it a home for her bench saw, her scroll saw, her drill press, and her other heavy tools. All I'm concerned about is the speed of my Internet connection in these remote mountains.

We are fortunate to have the Robert Frost home and museum within a short walk from my new house in the White Mountains. You can see some pictures of his old home at http://www.simplybicycling.com/sugarhill.htm 

We're a bit tired of city dwelling and the Texas heat. However, we may return to San Antonio a couple of months a year. Of course for the next two or three years, I will be teaching at Trinity University about nine months per year (which is full time for Trinity).

Live Webcam atop Mt. Washington --- http://www.mountwashington.org/cam/ 
Current weather report from Mt. Washington --- http://www.mountwashington.org/weather/index.html 

Bob --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/ 

More photos of our new home are available in the following PDF file:
 http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/NHcottage/NHhouse.pdf 

New England Mountains --- http://www.billwood.com/travel/newengland/ 

Retirement in New England --- http://www.seniors-place.com/retirementhavens/AdirNewEnglandWest.html 

New England Travel --- http://www.virginholidays.com/ski/breakout.html?url=http://www.virginholidays.com/ski/resorts/newengland.html 

New England Ruins (photography, American history, travel) ---  http://photos.dobi.nu/ 

Hiking in New England --- http://hiking.alpinezone.com/ 

New England Books --- http://www.nesales.com/newengbk.htm 

New England Skiing --- http://skiing.alpinezone.com/ 

Look at what you can get at a New Hampshire spa --- http://spas.about.com/library/weekly/aa070703.htm 

• Botanical Body Masque
• Shirodhara
• Full Body Rejuvenation (I could use this one!)
• Thalassotherapy
• Body Polish
• Organic Mud Therapy
• Rose Envelopment

A few miles down the road from our new retirement cottage in the White Mountains of New Hampshire is the home where Bode Miller was raised deep in the woods. His parents believed in a simple life (not even plumbing or electricity) and sound values.

A World Class Athlete With World Class Ethics That Will Impact Upon Future Generations
He speaks his mind --- and apologizes later.  He loves to party --- and doesn't care about winning.  Yet Bode Miller is poised to strike Olympic gold.  On the slopes with skiing's bad boy,.
Bill Saporito. As written on the cover of Time Magazine, January 23, 2006 --- http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1149374,00.html

Jensen Comment
Bode Miller is the best of the best in a sport where winners are determined by hundredths of a second on a stop watch.  His picture is on the cover of the January 23, 2006 edition of Time Magazine.  Although he's relatively unknown in his home country (U.S.A.), he's been an established hero in Europe where crowds chanted "Bode, Bode, . . . ." while he was on his way to winning the 2005 World Cup.  He's poised to become the Gold Medal hero in the 2006 and obtained recent U.S. notoriety due to a recent interview on Sixty Minutes (CBS television) in which he admitted that having fun is more important than winning and that he sometimes partied too much when skiing including a few instances when he was a bit tipsy or hung over when crashing down the slope at over 80 miles per hour.

Chagrined media analysts questioned whether the partying and outspoken Bode Miller was really a role model for our young people.  I contend that he is largely do to some things buried in the article in Time Magazine. After discussing his partying and independent nature, the article goes on to explain how Bode more than any other skier in history made a science out of the sport.  Most of his life has been spent studying and experimenting with every item of clothing and equipment, every position for every circumstance on the slopes, and the torques and forces of every move under every possible slope condition. That sort of makes him my hero, but what really makes him my hero is the following quotation that speaks for itself:

Last year, after tinkering with his boots, he discovered that inserting a composite --- as opposed to aluminum or plastic --- lift under the sole gave him a better feel on the snow and better performance.  Then he did something really crazy, he shared the information with everyone, including competitors.  His equipment team flipped, but in the Miller school of philosophy this makes complete sense.  Otherwise, he says, "I'm maintaining an unfair advantage over my competitors knowingly, for the purpose of beating them alone.  Not for the purpose of enjoying it more or skiing better.  To me that's ethically unsound."

One has to be reminded of the famous poem painted on the wall of my old Algona High School gymnasium:

For when the Great Scorer comes
To write against your name.
He marks -- not that you won or lost --
But how you played the game.
Grantland Rice --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grantland_Rice

Congratulations to Don and LaDonna Jenson on their Golden Wedding Anniversary.  The picture below is from a family reunion in August 2005 (Don and LaDonna are in the right in the first row):

Here are some fun sites if you've got speakers on your computer

In the past I've provided links to various types of music available free on the Web. 
I created a page that summarizes those various links --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Retirement Music:  Some days you can't win --- http://wandascountryhome.com/retirement/

The following interesting poems and music vary quite often.  The current ones are at http://www.plantinghisseeds.com/httpdocs/poems.html 
The "Train of Life" one has the following verse:

I want to feel the winds of change,  
Blowing in my face,  (Yep, that's for sure in the White Mountains)
I want to see what life unfolds, 
As I move from place to place

Great Photography PowerPoint Show (turn up your speakers) --- Click Here 

Also see "Treasures" --- http://www.plantinghisseeds.com/poems/treasures.htm 
My dreams are getting better all the time.

For Sven, Ole, and Lena stories, try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_and_Lena 
 

Remember the Old Barn?  Check it out at  http://www.countrywhispers.com/oldbarn 

"Our get up and go got up an went." http://www.eakles.com/get_up_go.html 

Music from our generation --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm#JukeBox  

Various Music --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Hope Has Place (I love this one) --- http://www.jessiesweb.com/pity.htm

Train of Life (Willie Nelson and Patsy Cline) --- Click Here http://mywebpages.comcast.net/singingman7/TOL.htm

Romantic music --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm#Romantic

Inspirational Music --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm#Inspirational

Other free music downloads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/music.htm

Cindy is David's wife and the mother of four of our grandchildren.  Her journal about raising four children near Yuba City, California --- http://journals.aol.com/cb96db/Summeradventures/

Ten things Bob Jensen's done that nobody else has done
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits022605.htm#TenThings

God Bless America --- http://www.dayspring.com/movies/view.asp?moviename=GBA2movie.swf

Other Dayspring fee online videos --- http://www.dayspring.com/movies/

Please check on your bank account --- http://www.scottstratten.com/movie.html

Bob Jensen's home page is at http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/