Retirement Improvisation – Onward: 2025 Holiday Letter
Health Hats Danny celebrates 50 – years with his honey & pounds lost. With gratitude for privilege, & best health thru family, media, music, travel, & advocacy. Summary Think of 2025 as Danny’s Sofrito year—familiar and unexpected ingredients simmering together. The base: 50 years married, daily saxophone practice, steady MS management. The aromatics: Cuban jazz immersion, co-founding a Personal Health Data Bank, and celebrating with old friends on Bloom Mountain. The heat: losing 50 pounds, earning $150 as a “professional” musician, and learning from his grandsons. What makes sofrito work is the slow sauté, the patient layering of flavors. Danny’s learning the same with music (leave white space), with health (five out of ten is excellent), and with AI (it changes the work but doesn’t replace Mom’s feedback). Between PCORI Board meetings, podcast production, band rehearsals, and startup strategy sessions, he’s discovered that retirement’s spicy complexity comes from knowing when to drop out, when to join the rhythm section, and when to let the energizing endorphins carry you through disturbing times. The recipe? Nap whenever and keep improvising. Click here to view the printable newsletter with images. More readable than a transcript . Contents Please comment and ask questions: at the comment section at the bottom of the show notes on LinkedIn via email YouTube channel DM on Instagram , TikTok to @healthhats Substack Patreon Production Team Kayla Nelson: Web and Social Media Coach, Dissemination, Help Desk Leon van Leeuwen: editing and site management Oscar van Leeuwen: video editing Julia Higgins: Digit marketing therapy Steve Heatherington: Help Desk and podcast production counseling Joey van Leeuwen, Drummer, Composer, and Arranger, provided the music for the intro and outro Claude , Auphonic , Descript , Grammarly , DaVinci , Whisper Transcription Podcast episode on YouTube Inspired by and Grateful to: All of you! Photo Credits for Videos 50th Anniversary images by Patti Harris, Rich Rieger, Jodi Buckingham, Ann Boland, Christine Higgins, and me Swiss cheese image by Rahul Pugazhendi on Unsplash Nourish image by Santiago Lacarta on Unsplash Cuba images by Ann Boland, Richard Fish, Gisselle Perez, and me Zoom images by Michael Chaffin and Steve Heatherington Links and references The Curse of an Aching Heart Music by Al Piantadosi, Lyrics by Henry Fink 1913 played by the Summer Street Stompers https://health-hats.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/The-Curse-of-an-Aching-Heart-20251206.mp3 Referenced in episode Dan Fox and Morningside Studios , the Havana Music School , the Havana Jazz Festival Lechuga Fresca Latin Band and Summer Street Stompers Dixieland Band Research partnerships and participatory governance of A I Personal Health Data Bank https://goodlistening.org Episode Proem I love retirement. I have plenty to do on my own schedule. I can nap almost whenever I want. I‘m no better at saying no. Every day feels rich, although I don’t always know what day it is. From Mom to AI My podcast about best health continues to flourish and nourish. Thank you very much. I embrace the tension between creativity and productivity as I test new approaches and media. I published fifteen new episodes in 2025, plus 32 YouTube episodes , and countless social media shorts. What do you think of my new intro and outro? Grandsons Leon and Oscar encouraged me to update them. Leon has been updating my website, as a growing proportion of people access my back catalog. Both Leon and Oscar advise me on direction, content, and strategy, especially using social media. I meet regularly with my virtual, supportive, and challenging podcasting peeps. I enjoy experimenting with AI in production to find and create images and suggest brief descriptions and section headings. My favorite prompt is “Suggest three ironic titles, brief descriptions, and section headings, a tech-savvy teen would appreciate.” I rarely use the suggested responses, but I chuckle and ta