Category: Ways to Make $$$

This time – Gold!

A few days ago, I quit communicating with a young woman supposedly living in Los Angeles calling herself Ellie. She was one of several young women who have “accidently” gotten a hold of me on Telegram – a secure platform boasting end-to-end encryption, enabling privacy for any number of purposes.

For the most part the purposes I have encountered have included an investment scheme, usually involving Cryptocurrency. Ellie started out differently. When I asked if she was doing Crypto, she answered that she had lost in the low six-figures in Crypto.

Her investments were in gold… but it sure sounded a lot like the pitch for Crypto.

When the subject of investing in gold came up, I politely declined and we had conversations covering other areas, such as her desire to ride a horse, or her plans to visit her parents in Singapore, or another plan to visit Japan, or even telling me about the time she got mugged in Paris. France.

Eventually, though, every conversation we had (with the full knowledge of my wife) circled back to an invitation to invest in gold. I came to realize that my conversations with Ellie had only continued because I was, to her, a project, not a person.

Here’s a bulletin – I am not a project. I have more than a few friends who are much better off than I will ever be (barring an unlikely win in the lottery) and none of them has treated me as a project needing their assistance. My friends know that thanks to good money management on my part, I am in relatively good shape financially. I have what I need to thrive. I am not some poor schlub needing a fabulous investment opportunity handed to me. I am an equal. Occasionally, one of my better-off friends will buy me lunch.

And I am good with that.

The better half and I won’t be driving around in a Bentley or one of Mr. Musk’s battery-powered vehicles anytime soon nor will we jump into an airliner to visit Singapore on a whim. However, we pay our bills and usually have enough left at the end of the month to put into savings and take the occasional trip to the Hideaway Ranch where we can soak naked in a hot tub.

Now, if Ellie or anyone else REALLY wants me to take advantage of a short-term investment opportunity with a large return, I need a lot more information than a name and a vague idea where that person lives. And in the unlikely event that I agree to make an investment, I need to know a heck of a lot more about where my money will be going. I don’t care to be providing a dividend for someone further up in the food chain in some Ponzi scheme.

Some years ago, I fell in love with the movie NETWORK. William Holden’s character was in the process of breaking up an affair with Faye Dunaway’s character, delivering the line that Ms. Dunaway’s character was “… television incarnate… shallow, vapid, and lacking any sort of soul.” (I am paraphrasing, here.) I thought of that movie in my dealings with Ellie. She (and others like her) are the Internet incarnate. Shallow, vapid, and lacking any sort of soul. All I can do at this point is to say bye bye. Better luck with the next person you wish to sucker into your investment scheme.

Gold standard, indeed!

Be Seeing You

A Fishy Little Tail

A Fishy Little Tail

I ran across an interesting little piece of trivia a few whiles back regarding Woodstock, Captain D’s Seafood restaurants, and Long John Silver’s restaurants. It seems that the first Captain D’s opened on August 15, 1969… the same day as the start of the famous Woodstock Music Festival held in upstate New York. The Festival’s last day was on August 18, 1969… the same day that the first Long John Silver’s launched.

I posted that little piece of trivia on my Facebook page the other day with some interesting responses, including from a woman claiming to be from Dayton Ohio who wanted me to add her to my friends list. She persisted, even though I indirectly accused her of “Catfishing.” Long story short, she is blocked from seeing what I do on Facebook.

Anyhoo, I had my first encounter with Captain D’s while on my way to Savannah this past June. To that point, I had been a semi-regular of Long John Silver’s for quite some time. For the most part, I liked what they offered, but one can do only so much with fish and chips, battered and deep-fried. In the absence of Arthur Treacher’s Fish and Chips, and the ever more elusive Alfie’s Fish and Chips (There’s only one, now, in Lompoc California), LJS was pretty much a safe bet… and they were pretty much everywhere. The better half and I stopped at Captain D’s in Fort Valley Georgia. I appreciated the fact that they offered different kinds of fish served in ways other than being battered and deep-fried. Besides, the staff was friendly. If I lived there, I would likely be a regular and know at least one of the staff by name.

(As an aside, I was a regular at Alfie’s Fish and Chips in Chillicothe Ohio and one of the staff was a classmate of mine – Sue Costoff. I’m mentioning this because Sue passed recently. She was an interesting person in her own right and she will be missed by many.)

Back to the tale.

Something I noticed on the trip to Georgia was the numerous Catfish Farms going through Alabama. They were almost as prolific as the Solar Farms on the same stretch of road. While a lot of people love farm-bred catfish, I’m not so fond of it. While I was working offshore, I could count on there being catfish on the menu every Friday for at least one of the meals. One of the summers I worked on the rigs, the rig I was on was towed up to New England, off Nantucket. I looked forward to there perhaps being some variety on the Friday night menu, but I ended up being disappointed. The catering crew would go to the trouble of having farm-fed catfish every Friday. The southern boys I worked with had a latent distrust of us “Yankees” and our fancy New England seafood. I deliberately delayed a flight back to Houston so I could revel in real seafood at a real seafood restaurant in Boston.

I don’t limit my seafood preferences to ocean creatures. The better half has, on more than one occasion, told of living in Colorado. Her parents would go trout fishing in the early morning to catch trout for breakfast. I love trout when I can get it. When the better half recounts those stories, I find my mouth watering at the prospect of going somewhere for some broiled trout.

There was a “Farmer’s Market” held at the Tractor Supply parking lot this morning and one of the vendors was selling fishing gear. I spoke with him because of his hat, indicating that he was a fan of West Virginia University. The gear he had on display was purchased in West Virginia on what he called an annual trip back east. He would clean up and restore the gear before selling it at various flea markets in my little corner of the DFW Metromess. No doubt that he makes back the money spent on the trip and a little more to boot. Nice to have some extra money to spend here and there.

Enough fish.

There is one other piece of trivia I’ve encountered, having to do with excess money. A gentleman by the name of Godfrey Hounsfield had an idea on how to take multiple X-Ray photographs of the human body as a diagnostic tool. He took his idea to a British company that had a surplus of money thanks to a successful deal with a “Guitar Band” of note. Hounsfield’s invention, the CAT scan, was introduced to the world in 1972 thanks to the people at EMI labs. Their surplus of money came from deals they had with The Beatles!

The woman usually at the reception desk at Texas Oncology (where I go to have CAT scans) is a Beatlemaniac. Somehow I think she is secretly pleased.

Enough rambling on a Saturday Afternoon.

Be Seeing You!

I have this Uncle…

I have this Uncle…

While poking and prodding around social media, I’ve been followed by the occasional Crypto pusher. They’re somewhat easy to spot – usually a young (under 40) female following a ton of people, yet, only a few followers. If one becomes a follower, there is a small period where there is a mundane conversation, followed by a suggestion to move to another platform (Telegraph and/or WhatsApp) where eventually the conversation winds around to how the young female is living the good life by trading in Cryptocurrency.

“It’s fun! It’s easy! It allows me to lead a life of luxury!”

Uh huh. So, what do you know about how to make money in the Cryptocurrency (racket) market?

“Well, I have this Uncle…”

Uncles reportedly know everything there is to know about life, the universe, and trading Crypto.

I have two uncles.

One worked practically all his life for an electrical utility, the other worked for an oil company and invested in electrical utilities. One of those Ying and Yang deals. Neither of them met the other but they both benefited from the other’s enterprise.

Now, I’m an uncle myself with four nieces and four nephews (I need a moment or two to count. Bear with me… yeah, I’m correct. Four of each). Not one of them has asked me for financial advice. I honestly don’t think I’d ask for financial advice from me either.

I’ve been known as an “Uncle” for a few people in Southern Ohio who listened to me on the radio back in the day. Some people still remember me – including a woman I met while I was working in a retail store in Texas. She remembered listening to me back when I was “Uncle Bruco” (think Harpo, Chico, and Groucho) between sporting events.

And no, she didn’t ask me for financial advice. That’s why we’re still friends.

There were other “Uncles” in my life – Like Uncle Donald and Uncle Jimmy. Both Godfathers. One of them worked for an electrical utility, the other, a dermatologist.

Great Uncles included a car dealer, an uncle who I believe was under the care of a psychiatrist, and Mosby. I never met Mosby, but my father told stories about Mosby. I’ve been known to use Mosby every once in a while when a story I’m telling needs a character to cover for another character.

I am not going to use Mosby as a source for financial advice. Besides, he’s been on the other side of the grass for many years.

I’m not going to use this (probably fictional) uncle quoted by the sirens trying to get me into investing in Crypto.

I have better sense than to do so.

My uncle told me.

Be Seeing You!

Crypto Through the Tulips

Crypto Through the Tulips

Yeah. I know. It’s a terrible pun. But bear with me.

Over the past year or so, I’ve had the occasional contact with women with *ahem* obvious assets who, when questioned, say something about dealing in cryptocurrency. Just the other day, a woman tried to get me into a conversation about Crypto. Funny how the conversation came to an abrupt halt when I said no. No Crypto. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Nyet! Considering last year’s dramatic drop in the value (?) of Crypto, I wonder about the wisdom of even considering it as an investment, being somewhere between a Ponzi scheme and outright robbery. This latest exchange brought to mind “Tulipmania” as happened in Holland at the first part of the seventeenth century.

To recap: Between 1634 and February 3, 1637, someone had the bright idea that Tulips had value beyond just a couple of stray Guilders hanging around the windmill. The value of Tulips skyrocketed toward the end of the year 1636 and February 1637. On February third, the value of Tulips dropped like a rock, eventually hitting pre-Tulipmania levels in a few short weeks.

Although I can’t put a date on it, the same thing happened to Crypto sometime last year. It was floating high, then all of a sudden, the value dropped like a rock. Recent attempts to interest me in Crypto are likely from people who may have been burned.

I told the latest person who attempted to get me interested that whatever she did with crypto was her choice – I wasn’t going to discourage her. (Well, this may be construed as discouragement to her and others, but since I suspect that I won’t be hearing from her again, I’m not losing any sleep.)

Crypto is not the first time nor is it the last time I’ve brushed up against a shady investment. I mentioned the term “Ponzi Scheme.” Other variations are referred to as “Pyramid Schemes” or the more sophisticated (and somewhat more legitimate) “Multi-Level Marketing.”

I recall being out shooting pictures for my high school yearbook when I was approached by someone not much older than I was driving a top-of-the-line Cadillac. There was a short pitch, followed by an invitation to a presentation held at the local YMCA the next evening. I was one of a room filled with people who were invited to participate in something called “Dare To Be Great!” Someone named Glen Turner had been selling cosmetics to a large degree of success. We were invited to take his course, “Dare To Be Great” so that we could sell others on the course to be able to sell others on the course ad-infinitum. It only cost $400 (this was 50 years ago) I didn’t have, and I saw little or no reason to even find the money to invest. Mr. Tolliver (the person who invited me to the course) was disappointed, I’m sure. I wondered for a while how long he was going to be able to afford his Cadillac.

There were several points in time where I encountered Amway. One was when I answered an ad and was invited to a house in an eastern suburb of Columbus Ohio where I was pitched by a man whose wife was running a daycare business with boxes of soap and evidence of several other MLM deals the couple had going. One thing I will say – Amway had some decent products. For some time I was a regular purchaser of their laundry detergent – at first from my then, Father-in-Law, and later from a friend I used to work with. Neither made a career of the business but managed to make a few bucks on the side.

Most of us are looking for ways of making a few bucks on the side.

A woman I know in Japan is out-earning her day job by a side hustle involving something called “Bey Blades.” There’s a site where another woman I am acquainted with bares her body for “tips” on a site called “Only Fans.” Another former co-worker drives an Uber (or is that Lyft) part-time. Or there was the operator of a local pizza buffet who maintained a room full of machines vending cheap trinkets and gumballs in his son’s name. For that matter, I can monetize my little blurbs on this site for tips, or coffee, or to sell my books.

But not now.

Spring is around the corner and the better half is making noises about planting tulips.

Be Seeing You!