Be Social. Go to your desk. - 10 December 2025

I marvel at how, in my geezer-hood (I'm 80) sitting at my home office desk, I am able to stay engaged with the world. Take yesterday as a case in point.

Yesterday our ROMEO group, LSDM, had a one hour Zoom session with a young astro physicist speaking to us from Miami. I was watching the presentation from my home in Ivins, UT. The young presenter happened to be the son of one of our adherents. Not only did we get a lesson in line intensity mapping and the COMAP project, which aims to study the universe's large-scale structures and evolution (!), we got a positive boost of confidence that our progeny was out there fighting for a better world. PS. I was able to get my two cents into the discussion by extolling the benefits of Tik Tok's short presentations on the universe by astrophysicist Bryan Cox.

Two hours later, I "attended" via Zoom a live one-hour Hoover Insider's briefing with Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia and currently a senior fellow with the Hoover Institution. My written question was teed up to the former ambassador: Here it is:

The US 2025 National Security Strategy says the US needs “reestablish strategic stability with Russia.” That's not going to happen if NATO keeps expanding and a door is kept open for Ukraine to join NATO as seems to be the wont of Starmer, Macron and Merz. How will this dichotomy be resolved? Is the existence of NATO itself at risk?"

McFaul's position on Russia and Putin is pretty well known. He replied, predictably, to the effect that Putin views the US as an enemy and would never agree to "strategic stability" with the US. Also, he said that the idea that Putin was provoked to attack Ukraine by NATO pushing outward is false.

Later in the afternoon I had a conference call with my financial advisor. He was calling from Coral Cables, Florida. I scrolled through emailed charts as he took me through my investments handled by his firm. Right now, things are looking pretty good. I'm in a 60% equity, 40% bonds situation. We agreed that moving forward, considering our age, we should be more conservative in our positioning, at, say, 50/50. We also agreed to trim the holdings of a very successful stock that had exceeded 15% of my holdings with his firm.

So, in this cyber age, sitting at my desk, over the course of a day, I was able to engage with the world. This is something I never would have thought possible forty years ago.

It is true that cyber interaction is not a substitute for face-to-face interaction while in one's geezer years. Last night we joined friends for dinner at Black Desert's 20th Hole sports bar for real human contact. So, pretty much a full day of engagement!

A few years ago, an LSDM speaker, an MD specializing in wellness, told the ROMEO's that there were four things we had to do to ensure living a longer, quality life:

1. 8 hours sleep.
2. 50% of your food from out of the ground.
3. Regular upper body exercise.
4. Frequent social engagement.

I'm trying on most of the above. But it is good to know that requirement number 4, frequent social engagement, can be enhanced by modern technology as outlined above.