author

If you live to the age of a hundred you have it made because very few people die past the age of a hundred.~ George Burns

I am a Registered Nurse that evolved into an Independent Rehabilitation Consultant, or R.N. Medical Case Manager, .. a consultant for employers and insurance companies seeking to optimize the rehabilitation of injured workers.

Work on The AntiAging & Longevity Project began as I exhibited more & more symptoms my geriatric patient clients reported.

Individuals are generally unwilling to hire an outside consultant, choosing instead to trust their insurance adjuster. ..
:-o.. IMHO, never totally trust an insurance company.
Adjuster promotions are not based on generosity, kindness or compassion.

I have had the pleasure and opportunity to work with a full range of patient clients.
- As a Director of Nursing I had the opportunity to work with and evaluate literally 1000s of long term care patient / clients.
  - Detailed medical histories and current situations .. diagnosed & undiagnosed conditions.
  - A relationship with patient clients that is unique to Nurses.
- As a case manager muscular skeletal injury patient clients comprised 90% of my work load.

I was a Vietnam era Air Force Medic.

After working in a variety of Health Care / Hospital / Rehabilitation / Long term Care facilities I realized that rehabilitation was / is the most personally and professionally satisfying field for this confirmed patient's advocate.

I have had the honor & privilege of working closely with the team doctors of Houston Oilers (RIP, anyone else remember the Houston Earl-ers), Houston Rockets & Houston Astros.

Working with the teaching doctors at The UT Medical School or The Baylor College of Medicine is always an honor.

I tend to refer patient clients to high profile / teaching doctors.

A referral to a Medical School Department Head is always reassuring for my clients .. & an easy no brain-er for me.

My educational back ground combined with 50 years experience ( ouch! damn, that's hard to even type much less accept ) in exercise physiology, medical rehabilitation and long term care has provided me with the opportunity to evaluate the multiple factors involved athletic performance & the maturation process.

IMHO, the better the Doctor the more open & cooperative the doctor is.

Incompetent Doctors are the most resistive to cooperation or openly answering questions.

In my youth, this humble author was a competitive swimmer.

I trained with & under U.S. Olympic Team and University coaches : Richard Quick, James McNalley, Phil Hansel and Pat Patterson.

I have had the privilege of training with and competing against multiple National & Olympic Champions.

I worked out daily with 2 Olympic Gold Medalists Joan Spillane & Caren Cone (Beautiful, radiant & blonde Caren did Prell Shampoo TV commercials in the '60s).

Record setting 1967 SWC champion Robert Graham was a college teammate, close personal friend and constant inspiration.

Captain Robert Graham was a highly decorated US Navy Seal in Vietnam

In 1957 I started lifting weights using a 1956 manual written by Texas A&M's strength coach Emil Mamaliga.

A 110 pound bar bell / dumb bell set + a chin up bar allowed 99% of the movements provided by huge workout centers.
"Mammy" was also coach of a summer swimming program at the old Golfcrest Club in east Houston.
"Mammy" was Randy Matson's strength coach at Texas A&M in the late '60's when Randy set the World Record in the Shot Put.

Wish I still had Mammy's book .. amazing how the basics covered in that 1956 large format manual remain as current as any Wieder Principle

.. that manual disappeared along with my huge collection of baseball cards when I went off to college .. & my old bedroom became mom's hobby room.

Athletically I was a consistent City / State / Regional winner .. & an equally consistent national wanna be. My times placed me in the NCAA top 10 several times during the middle '60s .. but top 10 doesn't result in many kudos.

I did win one National YMCA championship, but that was a fluke.
- Hey, the black & white video made Houston local TV in 1962.
Houston City, Texas State and Southwest regional championships were the pinnacle of my achievements.
3 year college letterman, with several second and third place finishes in the then glorious Southwest Conference.
- After a good freshman year, I had a SWC championship in my sights for the spring of 1966.
- Over the summer of 1965, Texas recruited the 1965 national Junior College Champion & SMU brought in the British Empire Champion from South Africa.
- damn! :-)
Competing against the likes of Midland & UT Arlington's Multi Gold Medal Olympian Doug Russell (1968's version of Michael Phelps or Mark Spitz) on a regular basis was a humbling experience.
- Doug was a reality check to the max!
- My fastest 100 relay split was when Doug & I 'hit the water together' on a relay, every knowledgeable person in the building knew I 'did not have a chance in hell' to maintain our position.. & I didn't.. but swam the fastest 100 of my career!

My fastest 200 was in the 1966 SWC meet. I was in lane 3 .. in the always cold water of the UT Natatorium .. next to SMU's British Empire Champion from South Africa Vernon Slovan .. & again, I got my butt handed to me .. but what a glorious memory that race remains in my personal memory bank ..

Career best race .. perhaps the best I ever felt in a race .. strength & power 'til the last stroke.

.. personal best is what matters.

Don't bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself.~ William Faulkner.

To be your best is what life is all about.

A shoulder injury during the 1967 season ended my dreams of winning much more than personal satisfaction.

I remember circumstance of the injury today like it was yesterday .. & my shoulder hurts this morning! :-(
Weekly cortisone & pain killer injections into the shoulder by the team doctor allowed me to continue to compete .. but he did me no long term favor.
Poor form & the stupid Bart Star Exergenie isometric / isotonic pulley system caused (NOT) the injury..
- My above statement regarding the Exergenie resulted in a conversation with Jim Warren managing director of exergenie.com .. check it out.
- That Exergenie did travel with me on college summer working vacation trips to Europe & South America, merchant marine seaman jobs.
  - In the late '60s you could walk into the old SIU (Seafarers International Union) Hall on Canal St. in Houston with no seaman's experience, much less seaman's papers, & catch a ship the next day!
  - After 3 summers I made it to AB (Able Body Sea Man.)
  - My first ship, '66, was a WWII Victory Ship (500' C-3) fresh out of "moth balls". (Vietnam was a boon to the US Merchant Marine Fleet.)
    - No GPS, navigation was via a sextant .. communication was via Morse Code, that crewman was known as Sparky.
  - A major North Atlantic storm on a creaking & groaning Victory Ship is unforgettable .. bow out of the water, then crashing below the surface (literally, waves rolling over bow), then a huge wall of water rolling down the deck, crashing into the focsal's bulkhead ... over & over.. "batten the hatches, matty"
    - In '68 we went through a small hurricane 2 days out of Beaufort, NC on 1000' modern hulled tanker & it was actually not much, a rough ride, but nothing like North Atlantic swells rolling down the deck of that rickety ancient Victory Ship.
  - I was on a grain ship in June of '67, 10 days out of Houston headed to New Candela, India. Crossing the Med to the Suez when the Israeli Arab 6 Day War broke out. The US Navel Ship the USS Liberty was bombed by Israel less than a day ahead of us. We were surrounded by the US 6th Fleet & forcibly rerouted to off load the grain in Tito's Yugoslavia. Rejika,Yugoslavia (aka the Communist Rivera) on the Adriatic is quite beautiful .. the Southern Alps come down to the sea at Rejika.
- The "old salt seamen" thought I was totally nuts, working out with that Exergenie after 12 hours of manual labor!
No matter what the equipment always protect your joints through proper form.

& why I preach proper technique & free weights today.

I began to be aware of nutrition at about the same time as I began sports.

Meal timing was based on practice schedule .. 3 -4 workouts per day from when I was 13 til I was 21.
- I left the house by 5:30 AM through out high school.
- Huge & high protein meals were part of my teenage life.
  - 5 egg breakfast with piles of assorted breakfast meats .. & Texas sized steak w/ large mixing bowls of veggie de jour for dinner.
  - My regular late night snack at Broadway Drug's Soda Fountain was a Vanilla Malt with 2 raw eggs in it.
  - Dear 'ol mom made "high protein" candy from Carnation Powdered Milk. (nasty stuff!) .. might be the only "candy" I've ever declined to eat!
- I
  became aware that veggies were good in the late 50s.
  - 'Course a salad in the '50s was seasonal .. ice berg lettuce, carrot, celery, tomato & cucumber.
  - I never remember leaving the potato skin of a baked potato on the plate .. I may leave some of the 'white pulp', but never the skin. To this day for soups I skin potatoes, keep the skin & toss the pulp!
  - I understood the benefit of vegetable fiber, but do not recall the term 'fiber' until the early '70s.

& .. seems I intuitively knew that macaroni in any form and Jell-O of any color were not "salad".

I enjoy working on this evolving project.

To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow, the coup de Grace for the painter as well as for the picture. ~ Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

Email your suggestions, your research, your links ..
- Suggestions are often appreciated.
or your jokes! Laughter is the Best Medicine!!

You have to stay in shape. My grandmother, she started walking five miles a day when she was 60. She's 97 today and we don't know where the hell she is. ~Ellen DeGeneres

In my end is my beginning. ~T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)

Those are my principles. If you don't like them I have others.~ Groucho Marx (1895-1977)

good luck & stay young

tim

For some of us it's 10:10 PM on our 24 hour Baby Boomer clock. It's so late, it's almost time for Jay Leno.

August, 2007: The VA is in dire need of R.N. Medical Case Managers .. for injured military: 1-800-949-0000