Ace Wisdom

Daughter-in-law Shelby has a birthday tomorrow.  Nobody knows how old she is going to be however one of the retail stores in town has sold out all their black balloons.  What does that mean?  Happy Birthday Shelby.

Greg Gard got the 5 year contract to coach the UW-Badger basketball team. I was ready to watch the Badgers march through the Big 10 tournament this week end.  Wouldn’t you know the Badgers lost the first round game to Nebraska.  Nebraska?  There goes my weekend.

Xavier High School girls team made it to “State” for the second year in a row. I was going to watch them over the weekend.  They lost yesterday to an “inner city” team from Milwaukee.  Now my weekend really sucks.

Your Mom and I went to see “Cinderella” at the PAC last night.  I can’t believe at my age that I’m going to see fairy tale performances.  I made a trip to the male restroom during intermission.  It was empty.  It dawned on me that the only people at the performance were women. Grandmothers, mothers, and daughters.  I guess it is part of the fantasy that every young lady at sometime in their life hopes to find their Prince Charming.  The play deviated a little from the books.  Cinderella didn’t lose her glass slipper on the palace steps.  She actually threw the slipper to Prince Charming and said “find me”.  Brazen!  It also dawned on me that your Mom also must have had her fantasy about her Prince Charming.  Alas, she found me!

The birds are chirping each morning.  We have several fat, fat morning doves sitting on our back porch.  They should call them “dirty, messy doves”.

Love,

Dad

Hank the dog, the Milwaukee Brewers mascot, is the real thing.  He did not die.  He hasn’t been replaced.  He is just older and fatter!  I know that story.

My advice is always to bank your tax refund.  I have noticed that there are never ending enticements to help you spend your hard earned money before you actually get your hands on it.  Car dealers, mattresses (there must be big money in mattresses), new windows for your home and of course, personal loans.  The sharks are circling.  Don’t feed them.

Speaking of sharks.  I have always been an advocate of credit unions because they are philosophically “non-profit”.  You must be an owner of a credit union to belong and all profits are returned to you with better loans and higher interest paid on savings accounts.  My local credit union deducts $50 for the rental of a safe deposit box each year from our checking account. This year they deducted the charge twice.  $100.  No wonder they are thriving.

I see that one the “chicken restaurants” has issued a cardboard box for each table.  It is built like a chicken coop.  It looks like a chicken coop.  The idea is for each person at the table to place their cell phone in the “coop” until the meal is over.  Patrons love it.  They are forced to talk to each other. Unfortunately everybody gets their cell phone back after lunch.

The Downton Abbey TV series running on Public TV is now history.  Six seasons.  The rich are still rich. The servants are leaving for better jobs hoping to get rich. Everybody got married or had kids.

The second season of the Outlander begins next month.

Daylight savings time starts Saturday.  Spring ahead.  You working stiffs lose an hour.

Love,

Dad

 

I had cataract surgery a couple years ago.  My eye doctor says I have a slight re-occurence in one eye of a cataract.  Really?  What did I spend all the money for?  I guess it happens in 30% of the surgeries.  My expert adviser, Grasshopper No.1 (who went to school for vision care), never indicated anything could go wrong.  Where was she when I needed her?

You can tell the Milwaukee Brewers are going to have a lousy team (i.e. rebuilding) when they call a news conference to talk about Hank the dog. The social media has been accusing the Brewers of switching the “old Hank” for a “new Hank”.  I know.  I know.  I’m being insensitive.

I have been picking up a few “over the air” TV stations lately.  Each evening at 10:00 PM, one station is broadcasting “Johnny Carson reruns”.  I know I am showing my age but some of guests were hilarious.  David Brenner! Buddy Hackett.  Maybe I will drop my cable network along Netflix, Amazon, and Vudu.  Carson is free.  Hey, another chance to get rich.

Back to Warren Buffett!  He is worth over $50 billion.  His wife sent him to the bank to pick up some cash.  He withdrew $9,999 (essentially $10,000) several times. Banks have a mandate to report to the FBI cash transactions of $10,000.  I guess it is to discourage drug dealers from laundering cash through our financial system.  So Warren got a visit from two FBI agents investigating the transactions.  It seems bizarre that our government would check out the billionaire.  Here’s the bigger question!  Where is his wife going to spend $10,000 in cash?  I’d like to have such problems.  Just saying!

Give Greg Gard the UW-Badger basketball coaching job.  I’m impressed.  I didn’t think he was the man.  He is a Bo Ryan clone.  It is hard for me to say but I was wrong.

Love,

Dad

 

Our weather forecast last night was that all the snow would pass south of us. Why do we have 3 inches or more and it is still coming?

My recently washed car is all full of salt again!

I filed our Federal and State income tax forms this morning.  The annual “dance” is over.

My favorite “money guru” is Warren Buffett, Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway.  He announced yesterday that any employee of any company he owns can win $1 million per year for life.  All you have to do is fill out the brackets to the 2016 NCAA basketball tournament and pick the winner of the first two rounds correctly.  The first round of the tournament has 32 games and you need to pick every game correctly.  The second round of the tournament has 16 games. You need to pick all those correctly too.  Thats it. Pick 48 correct games and you have $1 million for life.  ESPN tracked 48 million entries picking NCAA games over recent years.  Not one single person got all 48 games right. Nobody said Buffett was stupid.

Yesterday was the extra day in “Leap Year”.  Legend has it that women can properly propose to a man on that day.  I was scared to death that several ladies that work out at my gymnasium would call and offer me their hand.  I told your Mom to not answer the phone.  Your Mom is still laughing!  Why?

Don’t spend your tax refund money.  Invest it.  You’ll get rich.  Just saying!

Love,

Dad

 

The big question is “Do your Mom and I renew season tickets for the UW-Badger football games”?  Hmmm!

The Milwaukee Brewers start broadcasting Cactus League games next Thursday.  Spring is in the air.  Rest still my heart.  I understand the Timber Rattlers players (Appleton) will be substituted for the Brewers because they don’t have any players left after all the “off-season” trades.  The Brewers are spinning some sort of a “bullsh– rebuilding strategy”.

I am a student of the “Oprah Effect”.  She bought 10% of the Weight- Watchers company last year for hundreds of millions of dollars at $7 per share of stock.  Greedy investors noting Oprah’s involvement also bought WeightWatcher stock pushing the value up to $26 per share.  She tripled her money.  Alas recently WeightWatchers reported that membership had actually declined since Oprah got involved.  The stock is now at $11 per share and on the way down. I’m still betting on Oprah.

I found a PDQ car wash certificate dating back to 2010 (it was an Xmas gift). PDQ honored it.  I got my car cleaned for free.  The car gets better gas mileage (less wind resistance from the dirt) and it goes fast again.  It is a fundamental truth … clean cars go faster.

I plugged my financial numbers for 2015 into Turbo-tax.  It calculated my tax obligations to Federal and State.  Can I redo Turbo-Tax until I get the numbers I like?

This will be the last weekend of February.  Whoa!

Love,

Dad

 

I haven’t washed my car since December.  I’m afraid to touch the outside of the car.  It has streaks of black and it is loaded with salt and dirt.  Ick!

I see that Mike McCoy, a Green Bay Packer defensive back in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s died at age 62.  He had dementia resulting from multiple concussions during his playing years!  The big question is “are several years of big money worth dying 20 years early?  Most retired football players stricken with dementia say they have no regrets.

There is a raging argument on whether “Apple” should design a “backdoor” to the encryption designed into your Apple Cell phone.  The Government wants to track phone calls of the California terrorists who killed 13 people but 44 days are locked by the phone encryption.  Many people say that they want their private information kept private (Apple agrees).  Some people say when terrorists are involved, creating a “back door” should be allowed.  Scott MaCallum who used to manage Sun MicroSystems says “there is no such thing as privacy”.  That brings me to one of my Ace Wisdom universal laws “when you send or receive information electronically, make the assumption that the whole world has access to it”.

Everytime you fill you gas tank with gas, you save $20 or more from what you were paying last year.  What are you doing with it?

Your Mom and Dad accept all donations.

Love,

Dad

 

 

Great Grandson No.5, born last week, is Shayley Oliver.  Isn’t that a name of Irish derivation?

My experience with credit cards dates back to the early 1960’s.  Your Mom and I were living in Plymouth and I was commuting daily to Milwaukee (Marquette University).  I filled my two toned green, stick shift, strait 6 cylinder Rambler with gas several times a week paying $.25 per gallon of gas. I was spending $50-$100 a month for gas.  I used Clark gas at the time.  Low cost.  High octane.  Good quality.  Gas stations were one of the first to issue credit cards meaning you didn’t have to carry cash.  I applied to Clark Oil Company for my first credit card.  I was turned down.  They said I didn’t have an established credit rating.  I didn’t have a job (because I was going to school).  I guess I was high risk.  I could get a credit card through Clark Oil if Mom’s folks (Nana and Grandpa) would guarantee monthly payments.  Nana and Grandpa said “no” (they were very nice about it, but essentially it was a problem your Mom and I would have to solve).  I remember getting pi–ed off at Clark for not recognizing a good future customer.  So I showed them.  I started buying gas at the local Mobil gas station.  I still had to pay cash.  The feeling I got never left me.  I didn’t like being jerked around like a second class citizen.

From then on, your Mom and I applied sparingly for credit cards and used them very carefully.  We never paid interest on an unpaid balance.  Ever!  I remember talking to Nana during the later stages of her life and found out that she and Grandpa George never paid interest on a credit card either. She was very proud of that.

Today credit cards, debit cards, electronic transfers, electronic debits proliferate our lives.  One thing has not changed.  If you don’t pay off your monthly balance, you will pay interest rates as high as 25%.  As financial book author Dave Ramsey would say “that is just plain dumb”.

My financial tip is to always pay off your credit cards monthly.  If you can’t discipline yourself to do that, use your scissors and cut up the cards.

Managing your credit cards wisely will make you rich.  Just saying!

Love,

Dad

Congratulations to Grandson Collin and wife Audrey.  Feb. 13, 2016 at 12:45 am, they had a bouncing baby boy.  That marks Great Grandchild number 5 for your Mom and I.  There continues to be a predominance of boy babies in the family.

I understand Grandson Mitchell has been accepted to Iowa state.  Congrats! By coincidence, Mitchell’s girl friend has also been accepted there.

For years, I filed Federal and State income tax prepared manually by myself. When retirement plans, medicare, social security and health saving plans began to complicate my world, I turned to Turbo-Tax.  I plug in the numbers, get an electronic copy of tax returns and push the “send” button.  I am now guaranteed to be in absolute compliance with 74,000 pages of tax code. Really?

We are almost through February on our way to Summer!

Vote today!

Love,

Dad

 

I’ve spent the last few days setting up my “ice shanty” preparing for the sturgeon spear fishing season.  Tomorrow (Saturday), let the fun begin.  It is going to be -25 degrees F. windchill to kick off festivities.  I get to stand over a large hole in the ice, poised with a spear in my hand, and wait for one of the large ugly creatures to cruise past my hole.  I will probably get 10 days to stand in this poised position.  Really?  Be still my heart.

The sturgeon season is supposed to be difficult this year.  Normally you can see down into Lake Winnebago about 20 feet.  This year the Lake is murky and it is clear to a depth of 5-6 feet.  It is hard to believe that there have been fishermen that have gone sturgeon fishing for 30 years and never seen one of the creatures.  If I were a stay at home wife and my husband went fishing for 30 years and never saw a fish, I’d check his equipment. I’d also check the closest taverns (and motels).

This is my financial insight for the day.  The Bank of Japan just announced that they were going to move to “negative 1/2% interest rates”.  That means if you bought a CD at a bank for $100 for one year, at the end of the year you would not only not get any interest payment (nor the normal return of you $100), you would get back $99.50.  You lost $.50 for your 1 year investment.  The reasons for “negative rates” relates to confidence in the money system. $99.50 return of your money might be better than alternatives 1 year from now.  Imagine being retired and your IRA’s going down in value.

It is a complex web the world weaves.

Today is mandatory “fish day”.

Love,

Dad

 

The Super Bowl came and went.  If you look back 2 weeks, I blogged that Denver would win.  Genius!

Yesterday was the celebration of the Chinese New Year.  It is now the year of the Monkey.  Monkeys tend to be quick witted and lively but have impetuous tempers.  Our family does’t have any Grasshoppers born under the Monkey sign but we have several rats, an ox, a dragon and a snake.

Today is Fat Tuesday.  It is your last chance to “pig out” and over indulge in anything.  Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday you need fast and contemplate giving up something significant for Lent.  Because I am a “senior”, I am exempt.

Growing up, my religious training was protestant “Evangelical Reform”, whatever that means.  I did go to Saturday catechism but it lost out to Saturday morning basketball for boys.

When I first started dating your Mom, the religious intensity began to pick up as I was exposed to devout Catholic practices of Lent.  I do remember the solemn devotion given to Ash Wednesday, the serious commitment to “giving up something” for Lent and then of course there was the fish, lots of fish on Fridays.  It always felt like a black cloud had just rolled in and everything was dark and mysterious.  Hard to believe I eventually converted to Catholicism.  In the end I am probably scheduled for the “down” elevator.

Valentines Day Sunday.  The average couple spends $147 on the event.

You can be my Valentine for “nothing”.

Love,

Dad