Addiction LXXVI
#2127
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Bonds are also terrible right now, about as high priced as you could possibly ever see. It is hard to find a decent investment.
One possibility that I like as a retiree and may work for portfolio building is very high dividend stocks. That could be preferred stocks, but there are also a large number of ETFs focused on really high dividends. You can search for these by sorting the search results on a website called etfdb.com. I have a portfolio of funds paying an average of about 6% dividends. When the principal price goes down, I don't worry about it. I treat it like a long term bond. If you reinvest the dividends, then you will be converting income to growth.
Separating income and growth into separate baskets is a mistake that many people make, IMO. If you spend your growth it isn't any different than income. If you save your income, it isn't any different than growth. In this environment one of my strategies is to get income from the high dividend stock funds, but to the extent I can save some of it, it works like growth.
One possibility that I like as a retiree and may work for portfolio building is very high dividend stocks. That could be preferred stocks, but there are also a large number of ETFs focused on really high dividends. You can search for these by sorting the search results on a website called etfdb.com. I have a portfolio of funds paying an average of about 6% dividends. When the principal price goes down, I don't worry about it. I treat it like a long term bond. If you reinvest the dividends, then you will be converting income to growth.
Separating income and growth into separate baskets is a mistake that many people make, IMO. If you spend your growth it isn't any different than income. If you save your income, it isn't any different than growth. In this environment one of my strategies is to get income from the high dividend stock funds, but to the extent I can save some of it, it works like growth.
#2128
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Seems like yours is the amazing story, but am certainly pleased with how it worked out. By the way, when I was going through this, I had the impression that the DRs didn't want to operate on me as I was too YOUNG at the time. Like you I still have tingling at times, but with Motrin and some recognition it goes away - at least for now.
#2129
Asleep at the bars
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I assumed as much. This is more along the lines of "I'm vaguely curious and also being nosy but I'm not losing sleep over this, rather, I'm trying to kill time while I procrastinate researching the impacts of Apprendi on the Kansas Sentencing Guidelines Act, much in the same way people can't look away from a crime scene or a car crash".
Tried not to run into something immobile while craning my neck.
#2132
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#2134
Senior Member
Is Ali Baba like NafNaf?? https://nafnafgrill.com/
Lebanese & Persian Cuisine - Golden, Denver, DTC
#2135
Should Be More Popular
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Syrian owned. Not a chain, although NafNaf looks like it started in Chicago.
Lebanese & Persian Cuisine - Golden, Denver, DTC
Lebanese & Persian Cuisine - Golden, Denver, DTC
#2136
So it is
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Ali Baba is delicious. I've only been to the one in Golden, and I'm certain it's just as good at all the rest.
#2137
So it is
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That’s an amazing story with a great outcome!
I was 54 and looking forward to aging up in the local races, when I started getting electrical shock sensations in my arms when I jumped or went up stairs. Being a neurologist, I knew exactly what that was and the MRI showed my canal down to about 4 mm at one level. Sailing season just ended and I stupidly started training again and eventually dinged my cord, went numb, etc. I bought myself a C6-7 fusion and prosthetic discs above and below, a real deluxe job that conventional opinion considered too aggressive for someone so OLD and the discs were only FDA approved for single levels, so it was an off-label use.
However, I was fortunate enough to to end up at Walter Reed with the guy who was handling all the spine cases from OEF/OIF and was used to dealing with fit, strong, people and had the balls to be aggressive instead of fusing everything and leaving my neck immobile, which the guy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital offered to do. Thats also what likely would have happened in the private sector, even though two neurosurgeons I know said that’s what they would want if they needed 3-level surgery and one of them said their partner had actually gone to Europe and paid cash. Military medicine can really suck, but there are pockets of real quality. The guy has since gotten out and gone to George Washington.
Anyway, it’s been great and those two steel joint are the only reason I can still ride a 4” seat-bars drop and look up well enough to to trim the mainsail in a race. My hands and feet still tingle and the hardware sticks into my esophagus and makes it hard to swallow some things, but I’m very happy.
I was 54 and looking forward to aging up in the local races, when I started getting electrical shock sensations in my arms when I jumped or went up stairs. Being a neurologist, I knew exactly what that was and the MRI showed my canal down to about 4 mm at one level. Sailing season just ended and I stupidly started training again and eventually dinged my cord, went numb, etc. I bought myself a C6-7 fusion and prosthetic discs above and below, a real deluxe job that conventional opinion considered too aggressive for someone so OLD and the discs were only FDA approved for single levels, so it was an off-label use.
However, I was fortunate enough to to end up at Walter Reed with the guy who was handling all the spine cases from OEF/OIF and was used to dealing with fit, strong, people and had the balls to be aggressive instead of fusing everything and leaving my neck immobile, which the guy at the Bethesda Naval Hospital offered to do. Thats also what likely would have happened in the private sector, even though two neurosurgeons I know said that’s what they would want if they needed 3-level surgery and one of them said their partner had actually gone to Europe and paid cash. Military medicine can really suck, but there are pockets of real quality. The guy has since gotten out and gone to George Washington.
Anyway, it’s been great and those two steel joint are the only reason I can still ride a 4” seat-bars drop and look up well enough to to trim the mainsail in a race. My hands and feet still tingle and the hardware sticks into my esophagus and makes it hard to swallow some things, but I’m very happy.
Likes For LAJ:
#2138
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#2140
Should Be More Popular
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#2141
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Is Ali Baba like NafNaf?? https://nafnafgrill.com/
#2142
Should Be More Popular
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I suspect you will like it. It's not quite worthy of an "A" but I would give it a B+ which ain't bad.
#2143
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We've had highs under freezing pretty regularly for the last 7-10 days. It got me pretty concerned about my winter prep (primarily the snow blower and an ice dam heating wire install), which isn't very fun when you're freezing your ass off. I had, of course, put off those things in favor of squeezing out the last road rides of the season, but it was looking as if I'd played it a little too tight. Looking at the forecast now, I'm seeing the prospect of sunshine and inching above freezing a few times in the coming week, so I may luck out. Fingers crossed.
#2144
Should Be More Popular
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#2145
smelling the roses
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All this commuter talk. I thought I never commuted by bicycle. Not true. I did it daily through 1981. In flat, warmish Sacramento.
#2146
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Not the ones you just ordered.
#2147
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We've had highs under freezing pretty regularly for the last 7-10 days. It got me pretty concerned about my winter prep (primarily the snow blower and an ice dam heating wire install), which isn't very fun when you're freezing your ass off. I had, of course, put off those things in favor of squeezing out the last road rides of the season, but it was looking as if I'd played it a little too tight. Looking at the forecast now, I'm seeing the prospect of sunshine and inching above freezing a few times in the coming week, so I may luck out. Fingers crossed.
#2148
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Totally traditional as befits your worthy persona and profession. No kouign amans I suppose. Too bad.
Last edited by rpenmanparker; 11-08-19 at 08:11 AM.
#2149
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Cold morning=packed bus.
#2150
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Although it is fairly trashy, I have a soft spot for Red Robin. I think it is the jingle ending in “Yummm,” that gets me. A group of us plastics engineers and chemists are meeting there tomorrow for lunch before a round of sporting clays.