Hi,
Tomorrow’s birth anniversaries include the person generally seen as the inspiration for the fictional Sherlock Holmes, Joseph Bell (1837), opera icon Maria Callas (1923) and French Neo-Impresssionist Georges Seurat (1859). Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Monroe Doctrine (1823), the first artificial heart transplant (1982), abolitionist John Brownwas executed (1859), the safety razor was patented (1901) and the first self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction (1942).
I just weighed the sausage, she’s 78# already!
Speaking of dogs, I’ll be hosting a pet seance Saturday, January 9. It’s a fund raiser for the Western PA Humane Society. I’ll pass on more details as I get them. It should be an interesting event, if nothing else. I wonder what Razor will have to say to me. 🙂
The bald eagle re-population of our area seems to be gearing up, in addition to the pair on webcam in Hays by the Monongahela River and the pair on the hill over Harmar, there’s two more young couples that seem to be scouting the area. One couple seems interested in the Tarentum bridge peregrine falcon nest (Eagles frequently evict falcons from their home, the larger and stronger eagles win in a close proximity fight. Falcons are much swifter and generally win air battles if for no other reason they can escape easily. Peregrine falcons can reach speeds of 200 mile per hour on a down hill drop). Because of the lack of foliage, this is a good time of year for eagle watching.
On Saturday, December 12, the air side terminal will be open to non ticketed people from 10 am until 6 pm. You will need a government issued picture ID. They are encouraging you to pre-register at flypittsburgh.com. There will even be free parking at their short term parking lot. They wil be issuing a voucher at the registration. You will enter where flyers normally enter.
I have been receiving solicitations on the phone from some company trying to get me to switch my credit card processing to them. The calls are coming in from Pittsburgh’s 412 area code. They are never “selling” anything, they are offering to “save me money” and other twists on trying to get me to pay them to process my credit cards. I keep asking them to remove me from their solicitation list. One of them lectured me with “Let me explain something to you buddy, I’m an independent business man representing this company and there’s like 500 of us”. You’re not a business man, you sit on you butt you telemarketer. I had a call yesterday some woman had a representative in town next week and she wanted to schedule an appointment. It was the same company and when I told her I wasn’t interested in paying them to process my credit cards. She said she wasn’t selling credit card processing, I called her a lying b**ch and hung up on her. My phone immediately rang again from 917 area code and it was her saying “You sounded so professional when you answered the phone, I’m surprised you are so rude”. I again called her a lying b**ch and added another expletive. 🙂 So they’ve figured a way to change the appearance of their area code. Slick.
Speaking of business people, the reason folks start a business it to make money (the same reason folks take jobs), as a business owner you have more opportunity to make more money than as an hourly or salaried employee. (Also you take a higher risk). I really enjoy making money and the more the merrier. 🙂 But I like to believe I make it morally. I may make a special segment in my blog “outing” dirt bags, like the CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals Martrin Shkreli, raising the price of Daraprim to $750 a pill. I’m OK charging a premium, generally I don’t raise my rates, but require a two night minimum on select weekends. A fifty percent increase for a drug that costs pennies to make. Bump it up a bit, but $750 for something that takes pennies to make. I hope anyone that purchases drugs, black lists all products from that company.
I’m so over all this hype about bacon, baondtore burgers, bacon fries, etc. Maybe because I cook and serve it everyday. But bacon themed and smelling underwear? Please. 🙂
And speaking of culinary over dose, how about Piecaken, the name sounds like some Cheesey Japanese horror flick from the 60’s. You bake a pie and then put cake batter in a pan, set the pie in the middle of it and then more cake batter and cook it. I guess next you cut and eat it, the perfect go with a turducken.
People generally have a problems saving money. The hardest part is getting started, once you are in a habit of putting say $20 every payday into a savings account, it gets easier and easier. There are three new ways geared toward millennials (my contractor that recently installed all the windows, son is about 24 and he walked in the kitchen one day and I was having trouble with my iPhone, I a said “Hey millennial can you look at this?” He said “What’s a millennial?”. 🙂 too funny. One of the savings programs is called Acorns, it can be set up several ways. One is it automatically rounds purchases up when you use the credit or debit card linked to the account. Say you buy new shoes that cost $57.80, it automatically puts $.20 in you account, if you use the same method of payment for everything, this can start to accumulate. You can also program it to put a certain amount of money in the Acorns account on a regular basis. The cost is $1 a month for balances of $5k or less and .25% a year for balances over $5k. More details on their website. Another option id Digit, you link Digit to your checking account and it’s algorithms analyze how much you make and spend and then takes small amounts our periodically and places it in your Digit account. They don’t charge fees for this, But they communicate through texting and you may be charged for the texts, depending on your phone plan. More info on their website. A third option is Stash, it links to your checking account and offers about 30 ETF’s (here’s an example of an Exchange Traded Fund). to choose from that you set how much you want to automatically have invested. It costs $1 per month for balance under $5k and .25% per year for balances over $5k. More info at their website. Another fee not mentioned is they are sitting on your money and making money off it by investing your balance and not paying you interest.
That’s it for today,
ed
