Thanks God

My Grpa always had a bowl of candy around whenever I would walk over to play cribbage. He honed my hidden math skills, together with my baseball addiction for stats, to make me a math wizzeroo.

In 9th grade algebra I swept the table. 100 on every test+20 bonus on two final extra problems. Then the next year on a national deductive reasoning test, I came in at 99.99+% (and I finished early)

Thanks Grandpa, baseball and God

Grampaw Hoots

My gpa O lived a half block away on Muscatine Ave. Muscatine was an ordinary 2-lane street but actually it was a coast to coast hwy, hwy 6. A few large trucks would grind up the hill there at night but during the day there was little out of state traffic.

One day Iowa beat Illinois in a rare football win. Grandpa placed a chair out front--remember this was Hwy 6--and heckled at all the Illinois plated cars to GO HOME !!

Government Managed Health Care

"To do nothing is also a good remedy"

--Hippocrates

Barron's Top Ten Large Caps

"Right now one can find leading large cap, high quality stocks with growing dividends". Barron's 11/23/2009. Here are the top ten picks with Barron's comments. In alphabetic order.

Banco Santander STD $17.40 4.2 % yld Well run retail bank, global reach (Spain)

Chevron CVX 3.5% Integrated oil giant; dollar hedge

Intel INTC 3.3% Tech leader with scale advantage

Johnson and Johnson JNJ 3.1 % Quintessential dividend stock

McDonald's MDC 3.5 % Good emerging market growth

Nestle ADR NSRGY 2.6 % World's best run food company

Novartis ADR NVS 2.3 % Internationally diversified drug maker

Pepsico PEP 2.9 % Stable income and growth, strong brand

Procter and Gamble PG 2.8 % Hard to find a country where it isn't

Verizon Comm VZ 6.2 % High dividend, biggest U.S. wireless firm

Equities are still 30 % lower than their 1997 tops.

The World Series of Poker

concluded this week at the Rio with the youngest player ever, 21, winning the 8+mill prize. He was down to 1 % chip total before his launch.

The rally didn't match the wild WSOP held at Binions Horseshoe in 1982.

In that match, down to two combatants, a Mr. Strause appeared to push all his chips in and lost the pot. He was about to leave but he had overlooked a single chip that was stuck between the table and the rail.

So play continued and, yes, book it, Strause won it all !!

A Caged BARE on the Strip

That's correct, BARE, not BEAR !!

A gentleman's club has converted a U-Haul truck with a large plexiglass cube in the back. Inside

the cube is a scantily clad stripper, slithering around a shiny pole.

The vehicle comes out about midnight and roves up and down the strip until 2 AM while advertising its wares.

The HustleMobile has doubled the fish visiting the club in its first two weeks.

A truly happy person

can enjoy the scenery on a detour.

A Quarter on Saturdays

Mother would give me a quarter every Saturday to go to the movies (aka "show") in the summer in the 40's.

A city bus would come every 20 min. The pickup was at the corner, cost each way was a nickle. The show was a dime and a box of popcorn was a nickle. Five theaters in Iowa City, cowboy movies, Abbot and Costello, Frankenstein, all in black and white. Chilly air conditioning.

At about 1947 when we were 12, the outing was still a quarter but we freckle heads had fat tire bikes then and could bike downtown and back, saving two bus nickles for candy consumption.

After WW2-1945-there was candy available so we had 15c of candy moola if we biked instead of riding the bus.

Licorice came in black plugs and black sticks and had true licorice in it. A PENNY each for a plug or stick !! Hersey bar, bigger than ever went for a nickle. Jujie fruits, good & plenty, 5c a large box. Coke, pepsi, orange pop, root beer all 5c

A platoon of bikes would be parked around the theater on Saturdays, none of them were locked, nor needed to be.

Pepsi song----"Pepsi Cola hits the spot, 12 full ounces-that's a lot !! twice as much for a nickle too-you'll know pepsi is the drink for you !!" Coca Cola only had 7 oz.