Deciding on Disability

I missed all of my number for the lottery, again. Nothing I seem to do changes this.
I wanted to upload a picture but I forgot that my pictures are on the other computer. I've got some on a memory stick but I only have one usb port on this computer and I'm using it for the Wifi module.
At least the old Thinkpad 390 is working. It's slow and I'm thinking about getting the shell of a 390X to replace the CPU. I could use all of the other stuff off of this machine to get it going. I could use a decent battery. This one lasts less than 5 minutes. Uusally it turns off the second I pull the plug.
On the disability front. I think you should apply for disability even if you feel that you could work.
First of all the disability people will probably turn you down, anyway. That's their job. They keep the government expenses down by declining you.
If you get a decent job while you are waiting, you can always just drop your claim. If you lose your job, you can keep your claim active. I've mentioned going to school while you have an active claim. School doesn't disqualify you for disability. And you might have to drop out, anyway.
Keeping your claim active simply keeps your options open.
Also you may feel that you're not really disabled. For many diseases, denial is common. It's easy to feel that you are just going through some temporary setbacks. But if you look over your life you might see that it is a recurring pattern. Let the doctors decide whether you rate disability. That is their job. I'm presuming that you have a diagnosis, if not, take it up with your doctor.
After all, you've been paying into Social Security for your working life. Now is the time to get some of that money back.
I'm thinking of buying some more Delphi bonds, tomorrow. I can't see risking any more that $200 on something that risky, but the payout could be substantial.
I'll see about loading some pictures and then reconnecting to the internet.
I found a couple of old pictures from a 15 year old camera (Polaroid 320). I doubt that they will look as good as my new Sakar camera, but we'll see. Its a picture of my home in Decorah, Iowa.

4th of July

Well its the forth of July and I'm busy getting an old laptop working. I got up at 4:00 this morning and went to work on the Thinkpad 390. I loaded Suse 11.1 on it. It took about 3 hours. After that I went to Magpies and started on the updates. I got Adobe Flashplayer and Acrobat working. I couldn't get Java Runtime to work. Maybe it's just too slow.
I'm ready to swap it with Alice's machine so that she can see how well Linux works.
I'm giving up on posting my lottery picks. I need to improve my dowsing, and actually win some of the time, before I post my picks.
I think I'll just keep this post short, after all it is a holiday.
I uploaded a picture of Trout Run Creek.

Got the Hard drive

I got the 40 gig. hard drive in the mail, today. I'm busy putting Suse Linux 11.1 on the thinkpad.
I couldn't get the sound card to work with Mint Linux. I've found that if I can run Alsaconf from the command line, I can get the sound card to work. I did that with Suse Linux. I'll see if I can get Rythembox from the packages. I prefer that, for the sound programs.
I'm busy loading Suse at home while I'm doing my blog at Bookends.
On the disability front. If you are a veteran don't be afraid to ask for help from the local Veterans Affairs person, usually at the county courthouse.
I've gotten help with making my mortgage payments, car repairs, gasoline, and emergency dental work from the local Veterans office. They have a slush fund that they keep quiet about unless you really need help. Of course, once you get your pension going, you won't have to go begging. The period of time that you are waiting for the pension to start is difficult, however.
Other things you might do while waiting for the pension is to collect beer cans from the roads, sell things that you can do without, find under-the-table jobs. Maybe you could mow the neighbor's yard, or do painting. Shoveling snow in the winter-time might bring in some income.
Another place to look for help is the county. A friend of mine had his rent taken care of by the county for 6 months, one time. The Community Action office will also help with dental bills. They get donations from people for that sort of thing. And as I already mentioned, the local Community Action runs a food bank.
The stock market is closed, today. Maybe yesterdays sell off had something to do with the long weekend. I don't know. Of course, the jobs numbers were bad, but weren't people expecting that?
I think you should stick to bonds for the near and long future. We might have another 1937 market in the works. The stocks fell something like 90% that year. It caught people by surprise because the stocks were already beaten up. Even Jim Cramer said that you should be cautious right now.
I uploaded a picture of Dug Road Trail.
Let me know if I should keep or drop the lottery picks. Leave a comment.

Dropping the lottery numbers?

I uploaded a picture of the Upper Iowa River, viewed from Dug Road Trail.
I never did list my lottery picks, yesterday. That is because I never got around to picking them. I'm discouraged about dowsing for the lottery numbers. It just doesn't seem to work. If anyone wants me to continue, leave a message on the comments. Otherwise, I'll just drop that.
I'm still waiting for all sorts of computer stuff that should be in the mail. I've got 10 memory sticks coming and 2 laptop computers. I also have an AC adapter that should have been here. I sent an e-mail to the seller, asking about it. It's been a couple of weeks since I paid for it.
I think I'll load Windows 2000 on my good laptop. It will mess up my Ubuntu Linux. I'll have to reload Linux. I think I'll try Mint Linux. It's based on Ubuntu but apparently it handles the things like Adobe and Java better. I'll see.
On the disability front. Be prepared for a long wait to get your Social Security. I think there is gender bias, because most of the women that I know who got it, did so, in a few months. Men on the other hand, take about 3 years. You have to fight for it.
If you get almost any job in that time, you will be disqualified. If you are making a , significant income, (by their standards) you are disqualified.
Six months after you apply, you will probably be rejected. Then you file an appeal. After another six months, you will be rejected again. Then you appeal again. Somewhere in there you will talk to their psychiatrist or doctor. They will ignore him even though he may be on your side.
After about 1 1/2 years you will come up for a hearing. Then, you should probably hire a lawyer. Don't worry about the lawyer, he won't get very much of your settlement. It's either 25% of your settlement or $5300, whichever is less. In my opinion, the lawyer didn't do much for me. I did all of the talking and we just watched the key witness say that he didn't feel that I could be expected to work. That witness came from the Workforce Development. He was there at the behest of the judge. I don't think my lawyer said 5 words. It was really a slam-dunk. I don't know why they had to drag it out so long. I guess they do that with everyone.
If you are a veteran, keep in mind that there are all sorts of benefits that you might qualify for. There are 2 types of pensions from the VA. The most common is the (Service Related) pension. This applies if you became at all disabled, due to something that happened while you were in the service. This is on a scale of something like 10% to 100%. If you were !00% disabled, you wouldn't be able to move. The payout is something like $100/month to $2200/month. One of the advantages of this is that you can get all of your tuition paid for if you go to college for up to 4 years. You would also get a monthly stipend while you go to school. I think it is around $500 to $600/month.
The other pension is for being disabled after serving in time of war. It's all or nothing. You are either disabled or not. That is the pension that I was on. It pays $930?/month. It goes up each year so I'm not certain of where it's at now. There is no college with this one. And you can't make outside income while you collect it. If you did, you might not be considered disabled.
The market took a nose-dive, today. The Dow is off 223 points.
I think you should probably avoid stocks. As long as our jobs are going to China, I think unemployment will climb. The high oil prices will strangle the market a,s well as the world's economy. If you have money, maybe you should invest in bonds, for now.

I went to see Linda Lucy this morning. She is an assistant of Senator Harkin. I asked her if the (Cash for Clunkers) program could be extended to help people buy used cars. Even with $4500 in assistance a new car remains out of the reach of the poor.
She also talked about Health Care Reform and other issues.
After that Alice and I went to LaCrosse. We ate at McDonalds and went to Barnes and Noble. I found a book that I was interested in but I couldn't afford it, right now. I have doubts about buying it anyway. It talked about how right the Hick's are. She channels a 10,000 year old demi-god, so I have my doubts.
I'm still waiting for my AC adapter for the Gateway Solo. I'm going to have to send off a nasty e-mail.
I was hoping to get some memory sticks, as well, but they didn't show. I've got a lot of stuff in the mail, right now.
I asked Alice what she knew about affordable housing. She said that there is a program called Section 8 that will help a person on the basis of their income.
I think its the same thing that Dan Micals told me about. I'll have to find out what sort of income you need for this. I think its pretty low. Apparently it is handled through HUD.
It might help a person who is going to college to wait for their Social Security to come through.
Also, don't forget Heating Assistance. Joan Nelson, at the Smith Building, handles that. It works even if you own your own house. You just have to have a low income to qualify.
I forgot my lottery ticket so I might not get the numbers today. If I get back to town, after eating dinner, I'll list them. I've yet to beat the laws of probability though.
I loaded a picture of Dug Road Trail. Apparently it used to be a road in the horse and buggy days. Now its a trail next to the Upper Iowa River.
About bonds: I would say not to buy tax-free bonds for the tax advantages. The difference in yields on a Treasury or corporate bond will more than pay the taxes that you avoid with the tax-free bonds. Another factor, is that municipalities are also going bankrupt, so what risk are you avoiding. The state of California may end up bankrupt. The same may be true of Florida. So I think the best place is in a high yield corporate fund. You should get around 14% yield. There is no such thing as safety, now. I would go for the yield.

Gateway problems

I didn't go to Waukon, to see Senator Grassley, this morning. I was running low on money, and I didn't want to spend it all on gas for the trip. Jim called me yesterday, and told me that he couldn't go. Tomorrow Linda Lucy, who is a representative for Senator Harkin, will be in town. I'll try to see her. I want to suggest that they extend the (Cash for Clunkers) program to buying used cars as well as new.
I got a new memory stick, but the Gateway is still acting funny. It has trouble loading at times, and then things bounce around. I'm thinking that it is memory problems, but it might be that Mandriva Linux doesn't work well with the Gateway.
I'm still waiting for the AC adapter from Ebay. It's been over a week since I paid for it. I may have to contact the seller. The new memory stick that I got today is acting like a 64 meg. stick and it should be 128 meg. I'll have to contact that guy as well.
I think I'll wait for the other memory sticks, and see if they make a difference. It will be easier to load a modern linux if I have more memory.
I took some pictures yesterday, but I have to download them to my Windows machine and then to my good laptop. I'm tempted to make my good laptop a dual boot system. That means that I'll be able to choose whether I want to boot to Linux or to Windows. I'll have to lose all of my bookmarks, and the extra programs that is so good to have. I'll have to reload Adobe Acrobat and flashplayer. Also I'll have to find Java Runtime Environment.
On the disability front, Remember to go to Vocational Rehab. if you get into college. They will pay about 1/3 of your tuition. That varies with their funding so don't count on it. That means that if you are going to a junior college, more of your Pell grants can go to your living expenses
Also look into the (Work Study) program. If you are getting student loans, that might not work so well, because what you make there is deducted from the student loans. If you are collecting unemployment and going to school that might be a better fit.
You might think about bonds for investment. I got burned buying individual bonds. I didn't think that GM would go bankrupt, but they did. Also I bought bonds in a company named Rouse. It turned out that they were bought by GGP, a company on the verge of bankruptcy. I also bought bonds on Aventine, and they went bankrupt. I couldn't win.
You can buy funds or ETFs of bonds. A couple of my favorite bond ETFs are TIP and JNK. TIP is an ETF of Treasury Inflation Protected Securities. If inflation goes up so will the yield of this fund. Keep in mind that they are U.S. government securities.
JNK is an ETF of Barclays Bank's high yield corporate bonds. At least it's a collection of bonds so if one company goes bankrupt you won't be devastated.
JNK is yielding 13.16%, today. TIP is yielding 5.13%.
I did well with both TIP and JNK.
I uploaded a picture of the Upper Iowa River from a viewpoint at Phelphs park in Decorah.

Still waiting

I got an e-mail from the guy who sold me the AC adapter for the Gateway. He wants me to leave feedback. But I haven't gotten the AC adapter, yet. I don't know what is holding it up. One problem is that Decorah is so out-of-the way. Our mail is always late.
I bought a 40 gig hard drive for the Thinkpad, this morning. I'm thinking of having a dual boot system on it. I'll put Windows 2000 and Suse linux on it. That way I can choose which operating system to run. I was thinking about doing that with my good laptop. It has a 35 gig hard drive and I'm only using 5.
I talked with Jim this morning. I showed him how to leave comments on my blog site. He just told me hi. I asked him if he wanted to go and see Senator Grassley tomorrow. He'll be in Waukon in the morning. Jim said he would get back to me but I doubt that he'll go. The Senator will be there in the early morning and Jim doesn't get up before 10.
On the disability front. If you have low income, don't forget to apply for heating assistance. In Decorah, that is handled by Community Action. Joan Nelson runs that. They are in the basement of the Smith Building on Montgomery. While you are there you might as well get some free food. They have a food bank that you can use for something like 6 times a year. There is also a food band at the 1st Lutheran Church on Broadway ST.
Yesterday I mentioned how ETFs are replacing mutual funds. Some of my favorite ETFs are:
(DTO) Powershares double short crude oil, bets against the price of crude with 2 times leverage
(VDE) Vanguard Energy, a long energy play
(UYG) Proshares ulta-long financials, long financial with 2 times leverage
(SKF) Proshares ultra short financials, short financials with 2 times leverage
(USO) United States Oil, Long US oil
(UGA) United States Gasoline, long US gasoline
(DZZ) Deutsche Bank Short Gold, shorts gold with 2 times leverage
(SGG) Barclays bank sugar fund
This is just a small sampling of ETFs to be found. I invested in all of these and more when I still had money from my Social Security settlement. I did pretty well until I decided to play it safe by investing in General Motors preferred stock, to play it safe.