Whoo, 1500th LJ entry!

I was at Sam's Club late last night when a huge thunderstorm hit.  You could hear the torrential rains even inside the store.  Fortunately they have a covered loading area, unlike Costco, so I was able to load the stuff without getting soaked.  I was also apparently the only person who brought an umbrella.

Picked up a 50 pound ( Read more... )

If there was some way to determine who lost the money, I'd return it. Otherwise there's little point in turning it in to someone who'd just as likely pocket it themselves.

It was 5 years ago today that Bush proudly declared "Mission Accomplished in Iraq".

Since then, over 4000 American soldiers have been killed and nearly 30,000 wounded (and this doesn't account for the psychological effects that may plague combat veterans for decades).  At least 90,000 Iraqi civilians have lost their lives (some sources estimate as ( Read more... )

( If you have a $200 investment that earns 10% per year, and you let the money grow, how much money would you have total at the end of 2 years? )

First class postage is going up again, one extra penny May 12th for a total of 42¢.  If you buy some Forever stamps before that date, you'll be able to buy them at the 41¢ rate and they'll still be valid for First class.  That's a profit of 1 penny for each stamp you buy, or 2.4%  That's better than most banks ( Read more... )

Bush wants to drop money from a helicopter, but this isn't going to do anything to help the economy, and it'll be just another $150 Billion added to the national debt.

What I think we need to do is reestablish the Works Progress Administration or something like it.  Use the money to offer people employment, doing jobs like improving freeways, ( Read more... )

Battery on my car went dead flat again.  It's not the battery's fault, it's maybe a year and a half old and it's one of those fancy Optima Red batteries.  There's some weird electrical drain in my car that keeps killing the battery.  (I suspect it's the Motorola Bluetooth kit I had installed in early 2006.)  To make matters worse, the trickle ( Read more... )

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After much deliberation, and seeing just how fast my brokerage accounts were outpacing my money markets, I moved most of my inheritance money into the brokerage account.  I've now got about 10% in cash instead of the 50% I had before.  It's riskier, but I made as much in 6 weeks in stocks and mutual funds than my money market would make in a whole ( Read more... )

I've finally invested all the money I'd allocated (which was 1/2 of my inheritance).  Since March 21st, I've made over $600, with $100 of that just today.  Microsoft Money is projecting an annualized return of 61.9%!  Whoot!  Beats the crap out of bank rates!  That's not quite enough to pay for a house, but it's enough to pay most of my bills ( Read more... )