Open Thread

dibs- Temple Mount is a Holy Site long under the Jurisdiction of the Muslims. It is Holy to both Jews and Muslims and all things considered, it is stupid in the extreme to try to foment yet another issue between Jews and Muslims in Israel.

And for the idiotic government folk there entertaining her, consider this. Her religious belief declares that end times will not come until all the Jews are in Israel. And it doesn’t end well for us. Her “support” of Israel is both hypocritical and self-serving.

By gemini10 on March 21, 2011 1:22 PM

really, who, when, where, how and why?

care to share their success story from start to finish?

Gem, most of my family is what Dave described.

I am probably the least successful in my family….

We came here with pretty much nothing (no money, just some belongings) and while my parents (and my cousin’s parents) worked their butts off for minimum wage, we studied and worked hard for our own pocket expenses while in college.

Exhibit 1 — My sis….Bachelors in Actuarial Science, MS in math, SAA, CFA, and a bunch of other certifications. Does very well and saved a lot (doesn’t own TV, Smartphone or any fancy clothing).

Exhibit 2 —- My cousin (25/male)…..Pharm D. worked all through college and finishing up his residency at Sloan Kettering now for Clinical Cancer Pharmacology (also got an offer from Sloan about a week ago – guessing in six figures).

Exhibit 3 —- My other cousin (34/female)…..Physical Therapist. Her and her husband worked 2 jobs (he is a nurse), saved enough money to open up a Hospice and are doing VERY WELL now.

Exhibit 4 —- my other cousin (30/male)…. kid never finished college but could always sell anything well. He used to sell cell phones for Cingular (ATT now) while in high school and college and was one of the top selling salesmen in the state, eventhough he worked part time. At 22 started doing commercial mortgages and started to make serious money. While his partner was spending money on a Bentley and 10K binges in Atlantic City and Vegas, my cousin would take every 10K he earned and bought houses in West Philly, rehab them and rent out to section 8. When the market tanked, banks stopped landing and his partner went broke and got his assets taken away while my cousin is sitting on over 30 houses now and practically doesn’t need to work at all but he still does.

I can keep on going…..

“My father made a lot of choices (probably influenced by the depression) where “security” was a major factor.”

Same with my dad. For alot of people from that time and place, financial security was paramount.

I come from a long proud line of poor rock picking yankee farmers.

Daniel [insert my last name here] got to coastal connecticut in 1695.

His sons Joab and Abner ended up in Northampton, Massachusetts sometime in the early 1700s. There was a lottery for plots of land in the hilltowns of Western Massachusetts. They were assigned a plot in North Chester, Massachusetts. There they settled. Joab’s son and his son and his son and his son and his son and so on and so on all lived in North Chester and Huntington Massachusetts. I grew up in Huntington. I can walk to the place where I grew up from the land I recently purchased entirely through the woods.