MickinMD

China's Temu Takes Over 17% Of US Market Share, Cutting Jobs From American Amazon And Decimating Small Businesses A while back, I mentioned some incredible deals I got from Temu, $1.17 sneakers, $1.99 tools, 25% off entire orders, etc. and it got a mixed reaction. Since then, I haven't been buying from Temu or other China-based companies as a protest of China's support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But many of those decimated American small businesses mentioned in the headline make their money selling Chinese-made products that they buy cheap and then mark up a lot. A lot of things I get from Amazon or Walmart online,, not mentioned on its Amazon, etc. page, or from Costco turn out to be made in China or in some 3rd World Country in what's likely a Chinese-owned factory. So I wonder if I'm just being ripped-off for not buying from Temu. Some years ago, the tour group I was in stood in light rain in Shanghai and a street vendor, with a huge handful of beautifully-made folding umbrellas, walked toward us. The umbrellas would sell for around $20 in US stores. I wondered if we could bargain her down to $5 per umbrella when she called out, "Umbrella. One dollar." I immediately realized why Walmart was making big profits on items they sell "cheap." It also made me wonder, after 9-11, why Walmart objected to Pres. Bush when the Port of Hong Kong said it could check all shipping containers for dirty nuclear bombs for a few pennies per item before they were shipped to America. So people like me, living just several miles from a major port where Bush gave the government supervision contract to an Arab company, wondered if we'd be Chernobyled while Walmart saved a tiny fraction of their profits.

There have been a deluge of commercials for people needing help reducing credit card debt on the TV stations I watch during the day. Maybe it's because a lot of people sitting on their butts and watching the historic criminals, airline disasters, swamp people, etc. shows I watch during the day tend to be not working and in debt. They have customer testimonials with how many tens of thousands in interest they were saved from paying. But then the alleged customers say things like, "Now that I'm out of debt, I'm planning a trip to the Caribbean," or they're wearing a very expensive dress and saying they're very active and one says., "Now I'm thriving" - and she's equating thriving with SPENDING. It seems like the purpose of those ads is to get people to come to their company to get out of debt - and then to get back in debt real fast so they can come to the company again. Smart but unethical advertising! I reminds me of a 2nd cousin who was on public assistance a lot of her life - a rarity in my extended family, won a large settlement from an employer for an auto accident, bought a house with a mortgage and immediately began buying a $3000 patio furniture set, etc. I expected to hear she was another case of "A fool and her money are soon parted," and was foreclosed on, but her 86 year-old mother sold her mortgage-free house and moved in with the daughter and apparently is getting milked for money. I have another relative and wife with about $175K income, a $1000/month net income rental property, a $1600/month mortgage and one teenage son, yet have $30K in credit card debt. They also hire cleaners to clean their house once a week, spent two weeks out of state at the ocean last year, and the wife said to my sister last week, "Sometimes I see my Instacart guy in supermarkets." These people are likely to approach my sister and me for monetary help at some point. The 2nd cousin is out of luck. The couple would be helped - with conditions.

My new Samsung Galaxy A54 phone that replaced my 6-year old Samsung Galaxy S7 had been a pain to record my voice when putting together my grocery list compared to my old phone. I often do it in my recliner while watching TV. It often writes on the screen, "Sorry, I didn't get that." Today, when I added "Onion soup packets" to my list, added on to the end was "knew it was Al Capone." I was watching "Natural Born Outlaws" on the AHC channel and I realized the microphone on my new phone was better than the old phone and picked up my TV's audio - the p;d phone didn't. So I muted the TV and am now having no trouble adding stuff to my phone's memo lists by voice.

My mother was bored after she retired even though she was in good financial shape with a mortgage-free home, a SCM Corp. Pension with Health Insurance on top of Social Security and Medicare, and traveling a lot including my sister and I paying for a lot of it (I paid for an Alaska Cruise, 2 weeks in France, various cruises and Senior Center weeklong getaways. So a neighbor, an electrical engineer retired from Black and Decker who was also bored, got her a part-time receptionist job at H&R Block for a few months during tax season each year where he was filing stuff for them. It gave her something to do. A lot of retirees who don't need to work do it to keep themselves - including their minds - busy' Others do it because they enjoy and miss work. Occasionally, I miss teaching physics, chemistry, coaching varsity sports, and doing industrial research chemistry, but am too busy with hobbies to want to do those things regularly. When I was a very poor kid working my way through college, I was NOT jealous of the rich friends I made who could pursue their passions in acting, art, music, etc. without worrying if it would lead to a career that paid the rent. I was ENVIOUS and wanted to be like them. So, my plan was to retire a little early (it came at 56) comfortably enough to do things I always wanted to do but didn't have time to do while working. Traveling, Piano, Chess, Coaching nephews' sports, seriously studying and applying Graham-Buffett Value Investing Methods, and whatever else came along like Bicycling and Gardening. Piano was the biggest accomplishment and, with the big profit from investing in Nvidia, that will pay for more Piano lessons for the next decade at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins U. I hope to start in the Fall in the Adult Program. I loved the Peabody experience whether it was playing "Chopin's Album Leaf to Emile Gaillard in Eb" while reading directly from the sheet music at an ACE Recital in front of hundreds of musicians, some famous, or telling my virtuoso-level professor, "I'll never be a Lang Lang," then getting backstage passes from her to the great pianist Lang Lang's concert in the Washington, D.C. suburbs. Why work a regular job when I can get thrills like this and experience new accomplishments?

We hit 44° early this morning and are forecast for a few cold mornings in the next week. My sister is anxious to put veggie plants in the ground since no freezing temps are forecast and May forecasts are in the 50's or higher. She said, "All the nurseries have tomato and pepper plants outside in mid-April and they're not bringing them inside at night." Of course, they would bring them in if there's a frost forecast! The traditional frost-free Spring planting date in Central MD is Mother's Day (2nd Sunday in May) which is May 12, 2024 but effectively means May 8th since it occurs then some years. The University of Maryland says May 1st for Central Maryland but another site that goes by Zip codes says May 8th for me and May 3rd for my sister, 20 minutes south near Annapolis. I told my sister I planted in late April a couple years in the '90's and got away with it, but the tomato and pepper plants don't begin to grow a lot until later in May, so trying to cheat the frost devil isn't worth the risk. I'm doing cucumbers and eggplants and planting them for the first time in May. The U of MD chart says May 1st for Tomatoes, May 10th for Cucumbers, May 15th for Peppers and Eggplant, and May 20th for Pumpkins - which my sister is going to plant and I'm growing for her.

At Aldi, you have to put a quarter in a slot so the small chain holding a cart to the stack of carts releases it to you. You get a quarter back - sometimes one covered with some kid's spit as he played with it before putting it in the slot for mom - when you return the cart and lock it back in the stack of carts. At least once a month, someone who has walked out to the parking lot and unloaded their cart will offer me a cart for free because they either don't want to bother walking the cart all the way (100 feet!) back to the stacked carts or else don't want someone else's wet quarter. I decline because I either carry in an insulated shopping bag or the small cart I bought when I lived in a 3rd floor apartment while my burned house was being rebuilt and got tired of making lots of up-and-down trip to bring stuff in from the car. This cart is still very useful. For anyone interested it's at Amazon for $59.99, snaps together without tools, and rolls good over most cement, asphalt, etc. surfaces. I bought it in mid-2020 and it's still like new. I fold it flat, lay it on the back seat of my car, and take it shopping.

I might get a dog. After failing to get the county to grandfather-me-in to let me put a new fence where the old one was - the new law is that corner properties can't have a fence within 25 feet of the corner of the property - I'm going to fence in all but the front of the house. Then I can either get a dog or babysit relatives' dogs at my house. I'm going to rebuild the mini-deck coming off my enclosed back porch and widen it in case I want to install a doggie door alongside the main door from the porch: there will be space for a ramp to run alongside the steps down to the ground.

My college clique was crazy about Neil Young. We thought it watered him down when he joined Crosby, Stills, and Nash, but the live double-album that resulted is fantastic, the one where "Southern Man" is introduced as, "This is a real long song and we're going to do it slow tonight."

The late Steve Wozniak said that spell-check software caused him to take longer to type documents because of unnecessary corrections. Now AI's getting into even more stuff where it's not needed. I keep track of when I planted seeds in my micro greenhouse and when they sprout. Today I also entered a note to remind myself, next year, when I removed one of three grow lights above my tomatoes to slow growth. Suddenly, lines appeared under middle, light, and tomatoes. They weren't spelled wrong. I clicked on "tomatoes" and the new AI stuff on the free WPS Writer told me I should have typed "the" in front of tomatoes. And there are 31 AI suggestions for the page! Another thing to slow me down!

I mentioned here, a couple weeks back, that I bought GE Aerospace (GE) after GE split up into a few different companies, after reading the first major, free-from-broker, reports that focused on GE Aerospace's record alone for the past decade, those of CFRA (formerly S&P Quality IQ Reports) and Morningstar, which called Aerospace the "crown jewel" of the old GE. I bought it right as the stock market began to dive in April. But, I did my homework for long-term investing and, according to Barrons and Yahoo: GE Stock Rose When the Stock Market Fell. Here’s Why GE Aerospace (GE) stock has been just fine during the recent market slide. It could be the strength of management or the outlook for commercial aerospace. Or it could just be Wall Street. Fine is an understatement. Coming into Thursday trading, GE Aero stock has been the best stock in the entire S&P 500 for April, according to Bloomberg, up about 11% month to date. The index was down about 4%... The updated target prices for GE Areo have been better than expected ... updated price targets range from about $150 to $190 and are averaging out to about $172, according to FactSet.

My right hand is still a little sore from the fall I had on Sunday. Everything's healing quickly, so I don't want to take a chance of aggravating something that should be fine at some point next week and then I'll so some shoveling and tilling the garden where tomatoes go in on May 8th and the peppers, cucumbers, and eggplants a week or two later. So I'm going to do some yardwork, but mostly just mowing and light weeding. I think my sister's crazy to ask me to grow cucumbers in my micro-greenhouse instead of waiting a month and putting them in directly in the outside soil, but since I had room to do it, I decided to try it and see if it gives us a head start. My Mini-me Cucumbers began to sprout today, 3 days after planting the seeds, but no Lemon Cukes yet. My sister's Sumter Cukes also began sprouting.

I was picked before I got the colonoscopy last year, so they didn't look over the results and then pick me. The one I got over 10 years previously had no polyps and last year's had a few, normal, "precancerous polyps" that were not cancerous. I think they do a lot of such corporate research there because it's done in a separate office that's apparently open 5-days/week that's behind the larger center where they do the colonoscopies. I got a call yesterday from a phone rep who walked me through going online and filling out the consent form ahead of time. She said she was in Louisiana. I think the actual testing is done by a 3rd-party company that Hoffman La Roche subcontracts. In any case, there must be thousands of people nationwide that are doing the testing like I'm doing.

Yes, it's a corporate study. Hoffman La Roche Pharmaceuticals has some kind of association with "Woodholme Gastroenterology" where my family doctor sends me for colonoscopies. They're looking at the actual colonoscopies done by Woodholme for selected patients, then doing the blood tests to see if they can develop a blood-test-only replacement for colonoscopies that detects all the stuff the actual colonoscopies detected.

I rarely eat Burger King food, but for some reason, frequently popping up in my head is: Hold the pickles, hold the lettuce. Special orders don't upset us.

Looks so good!

I had the same debate with my cousin, who prefers fresh frozen beans. For better or worse, a lifetime of canned green beans has led to me liking the taste better than otherwise.

The beans seem identical. I'm not going to dry the beans since the study proceeds as I use the beans for cooking, not discarding. The amount of water that remains on the beans should be consistent and any small errors will average out with multiple measurements.

Intrigued by a claim on Quora or Reddit that Aldi's 14.5 oz Green Beans were watered down, I decided to measure the three brands of Cut Green Beans I usually get: Del Monte from Costco, Great Value from Walmart, and Happy Harvest from Aldi. I cut open the can's lid, use it to drain the water from the can, then weigh the slightly wet green beans. As you can see, Del Monte is ripping us off! My sister said she's also had problems with too many hard stems in Del Monte green beans. Here are the results so far: Name, Price, Drained weight in oz, 14.5 oz. can of Cut Green Beans Walmart Great Value ($0.64) 9.42, 7.83, 8.40, 8.68 AVG: 8.58 oz. Aldi Happy Harvest ($0.63) 8.11, 8.54 AVG: 8.33 oz. Del Monte ($1.18 to $1.50) 7.05, 7.87, 7.62, 7.80, 7.69 AVG: 7.61 oz This 63 cent can of Aldi's Happy Harvest Cut Green Beans has more beans than any of the 5 Del Monte cans I've used:

When I got my colonoscopy in 2023, I was selected by Hoffman La Roche pharmaceuticals to be in a study it is doing while working with my local colonoscopy center. They want to see how close they can come to actual colonoscopy diagnoses by blood tests alone and will compare my actual 2023 colonoscopy to a series of blood tests. They said they'd pay me $200 per annual blood test for four years and I said "Sure!" So I got my $200 last year and I'll get another $200 when they take a few small vials of blood today. And I don't even have to fast before the test!

I've had some foreign immigrant teenagers who were in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classes while taking Chemistry and Physics with me. One came from a small town in Argentina with a funny name. When I asked her why anyone would give a town that name, she asked, "Who would name a state Mary land?

They probably won't kill you but, if they're like the old, past-best-by-date, packaged foods I should have thrown away but ate this Spring, they might clean you out as good as a colonoscopy prep solution!

Sorry for this sad turn in your road of life. When I've been in emotionally trying situations, it helped so much to have a group of helpful friends and relatives and for me to be willing to open up to them as you are doing here. Make sure to stay in touch with your personal support group, including your sons and mother.

I don't have a sleep routine, but studies say we should. I often fall asleep in my recliner around 11 pm - midnight and wake up around 6-7 am. If I feel tired, I climb into bed and fall asleep - no reading, TV, etc.

They should have ask "The Jeffersonian" for help. Angela, on Bones, had access to millions of videos and stills instantly to ID people and events and could recreate stuff on the Angelator:

As a teacher, we had a group coffee pot in our science dept. office. There was barely enough time to fill a mug between classes and we all drank it black, no sugar. Today, I prefer a little half-and-half in it.