Brokers

This is an e-mail I wrote to my Auntie P when she asked me about what broker I use . . .

I had been using Vanguard which charged $20 per trade, but I thought that was pretty reasonable. Then they wanted to start charging a yearly fee plus increase the per trade costs so I went elsewhere. I considered E-Trade and Ameritrade, then tried Muriel Siebert but I wound up with Scottrade (Siebert’s web site didn’t work through my work’s firewall so I would have to pay extra to make phone trades or limit orders). They have very good customer satisfaction reviews (they always talk about winning the J.D. Power award four years in a row or whatever) and they are also really cheap. Online market orders are $7 and limit orders are $12. They also have local offices though I’ve never been. They don’t have minimum balances or fees for closing out your account. I’ve had them for about 9 months.

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Tools and Chips

This was in response to one of Jeb’s postings but I don’t know how to link to that. He said my comment was too long and should be its own blog entry.

There are already Palm/cell phones. Since Palms support mp3’s then why not add one of those tiny hard drives and GPS? Maybe the Palm is the device. And if it is, the Tungsten 3 is awfully nice . . .

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Penny Instructions

The new owners of Lucy (nee Penny) wrote to me asking for instructions. They were feeling guilty for leaving her in the crate all day and then again all night when they go to bed. Here’s what I wrote:

Thanks for the update. I appreciate it now that I’m Penny-less. I’m glad she’s fitting in. She really likes people so much I knew she’d be okay, but I was a little worried she might miss the other dogs at first.

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Where’s George?

I think maybe Jeb told me about the whole concept of Where’s George. Where’s George is a web site where you can register the serial number and year of dollar bills you have. Then you write “www.wheresgeorge.com” on the bill and hope someone knows what to do it with it when they come across one.

Well, I got one in change yesterday at Waffle House (Susan and I like to go to a special restaurant on Friday nights) and told Susan about it. So we came home and logged on. We were the first person to report back on this dollar. It had come from Florida a couple of months earlier.

Neat concept. Keep your eye out. It’s like doing GPS Travel Bugs but you don’t have to leave the house!

Penny

Penny is the name I chose for the dog I found in Avondale. She looks like a small version of Katie. Lots of energy and likes to chew things up. Anyway I didn’t find her owners so I’m assuming she was abandoned. Then I tried finding her a new home and couldn’t find anyone (Jeb). A couple of people were interested but they backed out or didn’t meet my high standards (they wanted her to be an “outside dog” which I don’t believe in; this dog loves people).

So I decided to take her to Dekalb Humane Society because they wouldn’t kill her and I think she would be adopted pretty quickly. But they didn’t have room and I was put on a wait list. So I took her to the vet where she got a clean bill of health and scheduled her to be spayed. Then one day a couple saw Penny and asked if that was the stray. I said yes and one of them said they had a brother who was looking. He and his wife came by Sunday and they are going to take her on Saturday which will give her a few days to recover from her surgery tomorrow. Unless she lives up to her name and “turns up” again, I think she’s finally found a home!