Daily Archives: March 31, 2020
I Can’t Resist Any Longer . . .
Back in the mid-late 90’s, I dabbled in stocks, and I made some decent money. I probably could have made more, but unfortunately stock trading wasn’t like it is today.
Back then it was hard to find a brokerage that would handle small accounts >$1000. And if they did, the commission rates made it hard to make money on small trades.
However today, with companies like E*TRADE, Ally, and Charles Schwab, etc., offering $0 trades, as well as $0 to open an account, as well as all the good quality companies with severely depressed stock prices, I know where our Stimulus checks are going to go.
Probably my best trade was back in late 1996, after reading about a number of clinical studies showing the efficacy of zinc in treating colds, I bought $100 of ColdEze when it was basically a penny stock. Then 18 months later I sold it for about $5000, which paid for our Holland America Alaskan Cruise in May 1998 with a good bit left over.
But most of my profits came from short term trades (3 – 6 months) for maybe $500 profit on a $100 buy. So we’ll see how it goes now.
Jan and I went out this afternoon and put some more time in on the shed, ending up with this.
I’m using the full Kitty Litter bucket to help hold it down in case the wind comes up.
And like before, there was a couple of problems with the instructions. The latches that hold the wall sections together were labeled ‘Q’ in the manual, but the parts I had were labeled ‘WC’. Plus some of the photos didn’t really match the parts that I had. But we got it figured out.
Thursday we’ll start working on the roof, including the front part that slides back and forth to make access easier.
We’re putting it together on the patio to be sure it’s level and square. Then when it’s done, we’ll slide it onto a raised frame behind the patio concrete.
Back when I booked our upcoming September 2020 Alaskan Cruise I didn’t book our flights at that time, because we weren’t quite sure about the dates. We already planned to fly into Fairbanks a week early so we could spend some extra time there, but we weren’t sure what we wanted to do when our cruise ended in Vancouver, B.C. on September 13th, 2020.
So Jan and I were talking the other day, about the one time we’d been to Vancouver was on our first Alaskan cruise in 1998, and then it was only to ride a bus from the airport to directly inside the cruise ship, and how we’ve like to spend some more time there.
We disembark from the Noordam September 13th, about 7am, then rather than get on the bus to the airport, we’ll take an Uber to whatever hotel our friend/travel agent, Chantelle Nugent, finds for us. Then we’ll fly back to Houston on the 17th.
So yesterday I went back to Expedia to check flights and prices, and boy, was there a difference. When l looked at flights/prices back in October, a One-Way ticket from Houston to Fairbanks was between $550 – $650 per person. And a One-Way ticket from Vancouver to Houston ran about $400 each.
But today, the same ticket to Fairbanks was now only $188. And the Vancouver ticket was only $147. That means that all 4 tickets totaled only $670, only a little more than one ticket to Fairbanks.
Of course, it’s all because of the WuFlu situation, and I wish the money we saved wasn’t for that reason, but of course there’s always a chance that Delta and Air Canada will be out of business in September and I’ll lose the money anyway.
Jan and I headed out about 3:30 to make a Kroger stop and then pick up dinner at Los Ramirez on the way home. Kroger wasn’t especially busy, and Jan was able to score some baby wipes for the first time, so she was happy.
And our Los Ramirez was as delicious as always.
Well, the virus curve didn’t flatten yesterday, but it didn’t grow as fast as in the past. And in several states, like California and Washington, did see the curve flatten with less case over the last few days. Hopefully it will spread to the rest of the country ASAP.
Thought For The Day:
Don’t worry about what people think. They don’t do it very often.
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