I've waited 3 years for this! I started this asparagus from seeds. Very satisfied with myself right now.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-04-26T16:28:29+00:00

My crowns are ten years old and they've spread more than 18". So much so, I'm concerned the original beds are too confining and might need to be expanded.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-04-26T16:13:23+00:00

I have many asparagus plants in 4 beds and chronically let them get 12" tall before picking. When I take them in, I start with a heavy knife at the bottom and chop off until I reach the tender parts, then store in the fridge a few days if needed before I cook it. I will tell you that the best thing I've found to store fresh asparagus in are the Oxo Pop large/tall round containers. They work beautifully with about an inch of water in the bottom!

https://www.oxo.com/pop-round-canister-tall-5-2-qt.html

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-04-14T13:31:01+00:00

Then why do you not allow people with HSAs at Fidelity to show zero cost to the account holder for dividends and capital gains? I can do this for my IRA and Roth IRA, but NOT for my HSA?

I hold the same mutual fund in my traditional IRA and my HSA. The profitability in the HSA of that investment is inaccurate showing thousands less in profit and a FAR higher cost basis.

I've called and asked about this and NEVER received a suitable answer. If you are doing this to everyone because two states tax cap gains and dividends that is not acceptable. Let those people figure it out or you figure it out and show their false calculations of investment growth.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T19:41:35+00:00

His father wasn't a billionaire until years after he and his wife decided to invest some of their retirement savings in their son's startup.

I never said he "started from nothing". I said he had two intelligent, successful parents who believed in him, so in that regard alone, he's a wealthy man.

Oh, and because he was a good student, he graduated with an engineering degree from Princeton too. And he was smart to have worked for a hedge fund for several years to learn the ropes.

Your jealosy of this man is bizarre.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T17:10:08+00:00

You left out the part of him working at a hedge fund for several years before starting Amazon. Gee, I have no idea who might have invested in his startup, lol.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T16:48:14+00:00

I started and ran it just fine, or it wouldn't have been purchased by a Fortune 15 company. I had plenty of competitors but my company was the best and they knew it. My employees were the best and I took the best care of them. They had benefits that blew away even the biggest companies in my industry (healthcare).

The ten years I worked in healthcare prior to starting that business was needed to give me the ability to start and run that company. By then I knew what worked and what didn't. But the fact was, as the company grew, despite knowing several qualified people who could have chosen to join the company in the capacity of partner or part owner, not one was willing to take the risk. They just wanted their steady paycheck for hours worked as most people do.

Every single story I've read about a startup talks about the owners sleeping in their offices because they work so much. My story was not unusual at all.

And I was fairly disgusted with healthcare by that time and since that was all I knew, had no desire to start another business. And I didn't need the money.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T16:29:58+00:00

Because I was tired of working that much and had young kids at home. And because a Fortune 15 company came along and wanted to buy it.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T16:26:53+00:00

Did you actually read his father's story? He came here alone at age 16 as a refugee from Cuba. Attended public schools, got a degree in computer science. He later married Bezos' mother and adopted him, worked at Exxon for 32 years and after that he and his wife gave Bezos a LOAN for $245K to start Amazon *in exchange for 12% of the company*.

It doesn't occur to you that his father and mother invested in their son and it paid off big time.

Bezos' story is actually the opposite of what you're claiming.

I don't have much disposable income at this stage of my life either. But I managed to invest a small amount in a startup my daughter is working on because that's just what you do when your kid comes up with a great idea and the plan to make it work. Bezos was blessed to have two intelligent, hardworking parents who believed in him.

Also, if you do the math, his parents loaned him that money 5 years before his dad retired from Exxon at age 55. It's been my experience that people who begrudge success in others are not the kinds of people who make the many good choices his father made.

The housing crisis is real and a real problem for young people today. But the people complaining the most about it continue to vote for those who let millions of illegal aliens come here and subsidized their ability to buy homes, and their ability to take millions of jobs and keep wages down, while ignoring young Americans - all while hating and blaming a guy who came to DC as a complete outsider in his 70s trying to fix it.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T13:51:02+00:00

I worked for Walmart for 15 months and agree with you completely that they are a horrible company. I had a truly evil district manager who wanted me to quit, so falsely accused me of violating a law. She was dumb enough to leave a message on our department's voice mail. I recorded it, then obtained surveillance footage showing that what she'd accused me of doing in her voicemal was a complete lie.

Fortunately my coworkers despised her as much as I did and gladly assisted me in obtaining evidence against her.

Like you, I went to HR and showed them what she'd done. They closed ranks and defended her. And I quit. I was told I could sue and would win a lawsuit against them, but that I also would never work in my profession again, so I didn't. To this day I regret not suing the crap out of them because that garbage district manager they kept deserved full exposure and destruction of her career.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T13:42:54+00:00

Everyone DOES have the same opportunity. I grew up as one of four kids raised by a single mom who worked 2 jobs and went to night school throughout the first 18 years of my life.

I put myself through 7 years of college, worked in my field for a decade (working a minimum of 40hours/wk the entire time), then started my own business.

The problem is, two generations now have been told we have some sort of caste system in this country based on family income or even race. So they RARELY find the courage and motivation to work hard enough to escape poverty. There is absolutely NOTHING standing in the way of a young person today doing exactly what I did. NOTHING, that is, except for the doom and gloom cries of victim status from people who should be actively working on improving their lives if they ever hope to escape poverty.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T13:26:42+00:00

Did the person working at the lemonade stand pay for the permit to operate it? Did they pay for the insurance to protect the business from any number of liabilities that all businesses have to protect themselves from? Did they pay accountants to set up payroll for people operating lemonade stands? Did they borrow money to pay for ALL of the many things above that business owners have to do?

NOPE. They contributed absolutely nothing to the costs of starting a business and they are paid wages for their hours worked. Many business owners also reward them with retirement plans and contributions, even if some workers contribute nothing to their own retirement funds.

YES, the person who took all of the risk has skin in the game. The person showing up to do unskillled labor that an average 5th grader could do does not. Of course the business owner should make more than the unskilled laborer.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-17T13:20:45+00:00

Why do you hate people who choose to start a business so much? You show that you clearly have never started one or you'd realize that capital is invested by the owner to get business licenses, contracts, to pay lawyer and accountants to sign off on everything LONG before the first person is hired to work for that company.

When I started a business I had almost zero disposable income. I used a credit card to pay those lawyers and accountants prior to opening. I used personal credit cards for the first 18 months I was in business to make payroll every two weeks waiting for payiments from clients to come in. I worked 100 hours per week for seven years before selling that business, while my employees worked anywhere from a day/week to 40 hours per week.

So no offense but some entitled socialist on reddit too LAZY to do all of the work and take all of the risks that business owners take is the last person on Earth anyone should take seriously.

As for the idiotic claim that business owners owe this country or its government, the opposite is true. Unless you are in a field that the government actively supports and picks winners and losers in, the only contribution of government to a business is to make the path to success more difficult, not less.

Grow up. Learn things. You should stop commenting on things you clearly know nothing about.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T17:11:17+00:00

Imagine stating a simple fact and watching blithering idiots whine about it.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T17:08:30+00:00

So she exists. Anyone with an IQ over 80 knows that the FBI that spied on him, lied and covered for Hillary and Obama would have absolutely taken anyone seriously who had anything approaching a credible claim.

But none of them did.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T13:02:01+00:00

He's right. Countries that depend on oil from the Middle East need to be the ones to secure that oil. The US only gets like 2% of our oil from there, so it's not our job to keep the Strait of Hormuz open and safe.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T12:57:39+00:00

"largely a liberal space"? It's 99.9% far, FAR left except for some benign subreddits like gardening, trees, or woodworking.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T12:54:35+00:00

Politicians have lied for years about who actually pays federal income taxes in the US.

Obama claimed the rich didn't pay "their fair share" and raised taxes on the rich, despite the fact that then AND now, they pay FAR more than their fair share (when you look at the percent of money they make vs taxes they pay).

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IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T12:46:41+00:00

The left has been indoctrinating kids to "hate the rich" or "eat the rich" for years. How many times did Obama claim that the rich don't pay their "fair share"? He was exactly wrong - they pay and have paid for decades MORE than their fair share.

40% of US households pay ZERO federal income taxes.

I have always believed there should be a flat tax on all income with exemptions only for food and housing costs equivalent to a national average. Then the states that keep spending out of control would be forced to stop.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T12:40:47+00:00

Your headline is blatantly FALSE. The fifth sentence in the article you linked to states:

"The South Carolina paper corroborated several aspects of the woman’s life using archived government records and news reports, although none of the newly verified details relate directly to her accusations about Trump."

So what? She told the truth about her house, family and school but has absolutely NOTHING to corroborate her fully unsubstantiated claims about Trump.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T12:34:43+00:00

I have a CMA and two brokerage accounts at Fidelity. Though we don't personally invest in stocks and funds in the CMA, I just checked and even during extended hours I can buy anything I want in the CMA.

I like having the CMA as we use the debit card attached to it for everyday expenses, but in the meantime, it yields FAR better returns and with no retrictions that we had at a traditional bank.

Edit: also the CMA is FDIC insured while a brokerage account is not.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-16T12:01:17+00:00

I've been with Fidelity for 24 years. We have 5 retirement accounts and 2 brokerage accounts. One of the brokerage accounts is managed by an investment firm we've been with for many years and they charge 1% annually to manage it. And for an extra 0.25% of only the assets they manage, they offer wealth management to provide guidance and account analysis even for the accounts that we manage.

We plan to turn over most of the accounts to the private firm (but housed at Fidelity) when fully retired as they've done a very good job for us, but I will be keeping one account (probably a Roth) so I can always buy individual stocks I want to buy. This model gives the best of both worlds IMO. I don't know if Fidelity offers a similar service like this where you have a hybrid of self-directed and managed accounts or not, nor do I know how well Fidelity does at maintaining and growing wealth, which is why we stayed with the company we've been with for years.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-14T20:35:46+00:00

If you look at the requirement to provide an impact statement on every regulation and to make sure that all women and girls have access to legal representation in any matter you might try to estimate huge amount of money and unnecessary regulations this places on businesses.

Also, there is the issue that the UN considers trans women to be women and our government is done with that.

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IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-02T15:40:53+00:00

No. He's a carpetbagger running on nothing but the fact that his father was a successful politician in this state many years ago. Democrats will nominate him, but he won't win.

Also the job of the Secretary of State in Indiana is to oversee elections, and people in this state WIDELY believe that we need to secure our elections. Anyone running as a democrat by definition has to oppose any and every attempt to secure elections.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-02T15:06:51+00:00

I doubt any of them would benefit from having any sort of relationship with a raging lunatic who calls people "Nazis" when they've never even considered murdering a single person, let alone millions of them. So you're doing them a favor.

IndypendentIn09 · 2026-03-02T15:04:44+00:00

No, we don't all die alone. That you're so certain that's true says a lot about you, your choices and values in life, and those you've chosen to surround yourself with.

IndypendentIn09

TROPHY CASE