I turned 57 years old last week. And though I don’t feel FIFTY SEVEN, I do acknowledge that some things are changing. There are changes in my health and my outlook on life. Here are a few of them.

You know you’re getting old when…

• your next milestone is collecting the Canada Pension Plan
• it’s a reason to celebrate when stretchy jeans go on sale at Costco
• someone asks your age and you tell them it’s just a number and it’s really about how old you feel
• any view on politics begins with “In my day…”
• all teenagers are lazy and don’t know the meaning of a days work
• a night out with the guys is more about food then anything else
• 9 p.m. is the middle of the night
• what you can’t eat is a longer list than what you like to eat
• everybody drives too fast
• nobody talks loud enough
• you no longer have a filter on your opinion or how (more…)

I’m a pretty passive person and I have very liberal attitudes about life and society, but a recent incident on an airplane made me shake my head.

My wife Angela and I were flying from Sydney, Australia to Los Angeles. It was a 13-hour flight and we tried to prepare for it as best we could. But 13 hours on a plane is a challenge to say the least.

We were fortunate enough to have a spare seat between us, so we could stretch out and Angela actually fell asleep for part of the trip.

I have trouble sleeping on planes, which made the “incident” even more surreal.

After about nine hours of flying, a female couple sitting behind us were having an argument. The one woman moved from the centre seat to the empty aisle seat, banging the fold-up table as she moved. No big deal, but when she moved into the aisle seat, she (more…)