Vegas & The Aftermath - Diary

[theprawnidentity]

Bagsy not it.

Turn around touch the ground and everything.

Tomsom has a diary?

Indeed Tal.  It's a 'hopefully something for everyone' kinda venue.  Please see below works that may appeal:

General disruption, youthful folly, ebullience and high jinx both in and around college

[celtic]

I've only really been reading TFT for a few weeks, and have sort of stopped again recently. It's a great thread, but I have no interest in betting. You have said that it's takes up lots of time etc, which I can see why, and have noticed that you have missed stuff, due to not being online. Would it be a good idea to get an assistant for placing bets? Someone like chompy, but trustworthy

In short, yes.

Not Chompy though, we'd be boracic within the week.

Forgot to add, some of the stuff you have missed would have been losing bets, so wasn't a dig or anything.

I'd just call you an old tosser if I wanted to do that.

[tikay]

I've only really been reading TFT for a few weeks, and have sort of stopped again recently. It's a great thread, but I have no interest in betting. You have said that it's takes up lots of time etc, which I can see why, and have noticed that you have missed stuff, due to not being online. Would it be a good idea to get an assistant for placing bets? Someone like chompy, but trustworthy

In short, yes.

Not Chompy though, we'd be boracic within the week.

Forgot to add, some of the stuff you have missed would have been losing bets, so wasn't a dig or anything.

I'd just call you an old tosser if I wanted to do that.

Ha, no worries, never took it as a dig. It has been exercising my mind for some time now.

The whole Fred thing is interesting to me, because on the one hand it takes up SO much time, so much that I can no longer do it efficiently. This is balanced by the amount of fun, pleasure & buzz we get. Cake & eat it.

I do know that one of its appeals is that it is full of differing opinions. Two of our greatest NFL minds completely disagreed on a game yesterday, but just laughed it off, instead of getting all mardybum.

blonde seemed to be very tetchy the last few days, with no discernible reason. It was no different next door, with pages & pages of chuntering about Freerolls, of all things.

Maybe its the weather, or the time of year?

Here's a happy Medium.*

* You don't get clever stuff like that on DimSum's Diary.

[tikay]

I mentioned yesterday & uploaded a photo of a remarkable lady. Tom sussed her right away.

I've pieced this together from all over the place, but most of it came from the Warren Buffet Bio, "Snowball". Thickest book you ever saw, but well worth a read. 

[tikay]

Rose was born in 1893, in the little town of Shchedrin, Russia, & had 7 brothers & sisters.

Her father was a rabbi. Poverty was the name of the game, they all slept on the floor of a two roomed log cabin.

From an early age, she dreamed of escaping to America. Why? They had pogroms against the Jews. Cut up pregnant women & take out their unborn kids. Kill the fathers, too. Burn the bodies in the Market Place.

Aged 13, she set off, with the equivalent of 4 cents in her pocket. That's it, gone.

She walked, barefoot, 18 miles to the nearest train station. Hiding under a seat, she rode the train 300 hundred miles to the next big town, Gomel.

Arriving late at night, after what must have been a 12 or 15 hour journey, hiding under train seats, she knocked on door after door, seeking work, & somewhere to sleep.   

At the 26th attempt, some soul took pity on her, gave her a straw bed on the floor & a job.

She was soon running the place. Aged 13, she outworked everyone else. By the age of 16, she was in charge, supervising workers twice or three times her age.

When she was 20, she married a local chap. But now WW1 broke out, & vigilantes were running amok. They needed to escape.

With little money, the hubbie set off for America, Rose was to follow as & when.

Within 2 years, Rasputin was killed, & it all started to kick off. Time to go time.

[tikay]

Two weeks later, Rose set off.

First leg was to reach China on the oh-so-romantic sounding Trans Siberian Railway. With no heating, & chuffing along at 20mph, it was far from fun.

It chuffed along for 7 long days & nights, before reaching the Border with China. With no papers, she was immediately arrested. She blagged her way out of it by saying she was going to buy material to make soldiers clothes. War effort & all that. She got it through.

On & on the train went. Over 9,000 thousand miles. That’s Lands End to John O Groats TEN times, on a rickety train with no heating, meandering though China at 20 mph. 

Eventually, she reaches the port of Tientsin, & boarded a boat to Japan, which stopped off at Hiroshima & Kobe before eventually docking in Yokohama.

She hangs around in Yokohama until she finds a cargo ship heading to America, & she got steerage in the hold. 

Off they go, across the Pacific, & six weeks later, she landed in the Promised Land, America.

Seattle, to be precise, on a Jewish holiday, Purim. It had taken her 3 months to get there. The Hebrew Immigrants Society looked after her, gave her a room & a bed. Soon she was off on her travels again, by train again, to Fort Worth, where her husband was living.

[tikay]

She hooks up with Isadore, & has a family. Her Son Louis is the favoured son.

Soon, with the kids growing up, she starts working again.

Soon, she has built a huge store & life is good. 

WW11 arrives.

Eldest son Louie goes off to war, where he is awarded the Purple Heart at the Battle of the Bulge, & returns home after the war to help Rose run the store.

The Store is thriving by now, but Rose has made a bunch of enemies. The wholesalers refuse to deal with her, as she undercuts them all, so she travels the country (train again) buying up job lots of surplus inventory.

Son Louie was the spit of his Mum, & an excellent salesman. The rest of the family, who had all followed from Russia earlier, were not so good, & Rose lambasted them daily, regularly firing them. Louie would quietly give them their job back.  Rinse repeat.

The store does well, but another War, the third so far to punctuate Rose’s story, the Korean War, kicks off.

The economy goes bad, the store struggles. So Rose adds Carpets to her specialities, almost by accident.

She had been in Chicago, & wanted to buy carpet for resale, but nobody would deal with her. Eventually, she tells a bit of a porkie, & claims she has to carpet an office block & needs 3,000 square yards of carpet for the office.  They charge her $3 per sq yard, & the Retail Price is $7 per yard, but she flogs the lot @ $3.95 per yard. Boom!  More profit, more enemies. Damn them all.

The carpet sales thrive, & soon she is taken to Court by Carpet manufacturers, for selling below recommended prices.

She goes to Court without a Lawyer, & tells the Judge “What I do wrong? I sell everything @ cost +10%. I don’t rob nobody”.

The Judge likes, & throws he case out of Court. Next day he turns up at Rose’s Store & buys a chunk of carpet.

Business continues to grow, despite the war. She needs to kickstart it.

So she borrowed…..$50,000. Ugh.

With that, she goes in a stock buying spree. She spends the lot, & then hires a City Auditorium to flog the gear, advertising far & wide.

Everyone comes to town, from far & wide, & she sells the lot in three days, & clears a tidy $5,000 profit. Way to go.

_______   

[tikay]

The years & decades roll by.

By now, Nebraska Furniture Mart is the biggest Furniture store in North America.

Son Louis is her right hand man, but Rose works 6 days per week, starting @ 5am every day, & Sunday morning. Sunday afternoons are for Church.

By now, Omaha neighbour Warren Buffett has taken an interest, & repeatedly tries to but the place. Bugger off says Rose.

Eventually, Warren hears that Rose is being offered a ton of money to sell the Mart to a German company. German? Forget that. Warren spots the opening, & drives across to the Store.

He says he wants to buy the place, but only if Rose & the family continue to operate it. He only wants control of Capital spending, & CEO remuneration. Agreed.

“How much?” he asks.

$50 million for 90% she says.

DEAL says Rose. But I want CASH, not stocks or shares.

Buffett reaches into his pocket, & writes her a cheque, there & then, for $50 mill. No Contracts, no legalities, job done.

And they all lived happily ever after. Well, actually, no……

__________________   

[tikay]

The Store gets more & more successful, folks come from all over America to buy stuff, & to meet Rose, who by now, known as Mrs B, is a mini-celebrity. She continues to work 7 days a week. But she is 96 now (!) her knees have gone, so she races around the Store in a golf cart, scattering folks as she goes.

The Business is run mainly by Louis & his brothers & sisters, & it’s Big Time now.

Rose does not attend Board Meetings, can’t be arsed. She just wants to sell.

She starts to feel isolated by the family, & as often happens with old peeps, she gets argumentative, stubborn, awkward, obdurate, & a bit of a pain.

In a fit of pique one day, resigns.

Fuck you all she says. 

And that was that, the story Of Rose ends, & she goes away to die peacefully on her own. 

Oh, wait……

[tikay]

So, Rose is sat at home sulking.

Warren is not happy, either. He intensely dislikes bad blood, always has. He likes to live in an aggro free world.

He goes to talk to her, a bit of sweet talk generally gets the job done. Warren does cooey-wooey well.  

Not well enough. She tells him to bugger off.

Pissed off by his efforts, Rose decides to plot her revenge against her Family, & Warren.

So she goes & opens her own, brand new, Furniture Mart. At 97 years of age. WTF?!

Americans love schmaltzy sentimentality. Her new store takes off a treat over the next 6 years

Soon sales are booming, & the Store, right next door to her original one (she even got her customers to use the original Store Car Park!) is hurting sales at the original Furniture Mart.

Warren thinks it is time for another cup of tea & a chat with Rose. He takes a box of candy, & a bunch of flowers. He wins her over, peace at last. I want $5 million to close my new place” she says. Warren writes her a cheque for $5 million, there & then. Job Done.  This time he wises up though, & insists on a non-compete clause. He knows it was a mistake not to have done so originally.

Rose was 103 at the time.

She died a year later, by now at peace with her family, aged 104.

Nebraska Furniture Mart now has three megastores, each of them thrice the size of an Ikea.

What a journey. What a life. What a woman.  

[tikay]

Click to see full-size image.

Click to see full-size image.

[Karabiner]

Great story but why would an old Jewish lady go to church on Sunday?

[tikay]

Great story but why would an old Jewish lady go to church on Sunday?

Ha! Detail.......

[Kev B]

What a great story Tony.

[RED-DOG]

Very nicely done Tony.

It's incredible to think that a story as mind blowing as hers hasn't been told in it's entirety, several times over.

I enjoyed the cliffs immensely, but I would love to have all the gaps filled. I wish she had written and published her autobiography, or even some memoirs.

Probably not enough interest though......