I must confess that I hardly remember turning forty-nine. I remember the German Chocolate Cake, but only because it had to be! At Eons, we were totally focused on building a site for the fifty+ crowd, and at forty-nine I didn't think twice about a 70 hour work week . At Eons, we decided you could be a "sneak-in" and register at forty-nine. This is a good thing, since I love to actually work on sites and software I can actually use. I joined a couple of groups on Eons, thinking I would try out being a joiner. I wasn't quite ready for my first private message: "Aren't you a bit young for us?" Hard work deserves a warm embrace.

When we talk about eons.com at Eons, we talk about social media with meaning. "Set your life goals. If you don't write them down, you won't fulfill them. Tell your life story. Put your life in context, and share it with others. Honor your loved ones with a tribute." Naturally I ask, Why is it important to do this at fifty? Is there meaning to the Eons Way?

My life has been a fulfilling one, and I count my blessings. God's been good to us. We have a wonderful extended family, a small number of close friends, we live in a caring community, we get to enjoy nature’s bounty in our small New England town. We have an active physical life thanks to the Mass Audubon Society and the people that preserved our local reservation land, I get to bike/train to work almost every day, and I've enjoyed the roller coaster ride otherwise known as my high tech career. Our children give us great joy and challenge us and themselves endlessly. My wife is my best friend and confidant. She supports me much more then the other way, and she needs a good wife too, just like I've got! Trite, perhaps, but true, nevertheless.

I'm not exactly planning our empty nesting, although those days are upon us with our youngest off to college next year. I'm fortunate to work with colleagues who are friends, and friends who are colleagues. Work is especially challenging, but I learn something almost every day. I'm enjoying the ride, all but the dentistry, to be honest.

So what about the Eons Way? A week ago my middle son said I should set some goals:
They included working on the Netflix prize, building software for a professional basketball team, hiking through the Appalachian trail. Clearly he was projecting, but it was fun. Everybody said they wanted to take a family vacation, and decided on Greece. Lifedreams are part of the lingua franca of Eons, and they are have also joined the language of my family. I wrote them down, and feel good about it. And yes, we are planning a trip to Greece. And I was delighted to learn Eons is a great travel resource. Even more so, writing it down does matter.

Not the stuff others told me though. What I want to do. Which is to design a folding bike, One that's better then my Raleigh Twenty. And I think that should be really hard, unless I start with a Raleigh Twenty. Hard is good though, and it's my avocation/hobby. Bike porn rocks! I'm actually jazzed about sharing this goal and you have some good ideas about folding bike design, please share them. Haven't set a timetable for this goal yet...

At fifty, it just isn't about me though. Where will my children learn the stories of my grandparents who are so much a part of me? On occasion, I tell them the stories. It's an oral tradition. I opted for the Eons Way in writing a tribute, ( not an obituary written with immediacy in mind). I honored my grandparents with a tribute, even if it contains the sort of off-color humor they passed on to me. And my children have a reference point to properly color the story, even if they've heard it verbally.

About the youngest graduating high school. That Lifemap idea seems large and imposing, so I took it one bit at a time. I entered a recollection of the day of High School graduation. One bit. I've got small feet, so I'll take small steps. It didn't seem that hard to add one bit to each of the six decades I’ve been around in, and seemed fitting, so I went ahead and scanned a few pictures and added them as well.

All this in the first couple of days of turning fifty. There is meaning to this Eons Way, and I had fun with it!