Starting my life over again

Paper trails

2010-11-30T19:36:00.002-07:00

Seriously, I have a room mate who complains that the record keeping isn't accurate and keeps insisting on doing business in cash. He keeps refusing to write cheques. I think there's something incredibly odd there. Why avoid an external transaction record if your going to accuse someone of lieing to you about how much you've paid? Wouldn't you to have something to be able to back up your story if you were doing this? This has to end.

Freezing

2010-11-22T19:40:00.002-07:00

I suppose I'll mark one week of being miserably cold. I think of moving some place warmer first. Reducing my exposure to the cold would also help. If I lived closer to work, it would make a big difference. Likewise, if I started driving, that would also keep me warmer. Though maybe the idea of moving is just stuck in my head, which is why I think of that first.

Setting a few goals

2010-11-21T20:21:00.003-07:00

As much as the traditional time for setting goals is still yet to come, there isn't really a bad time to think about goals, evaluate old ones or set new ones. My big goal is still to getting back into school and getting my life moving again. I still feel like very little in my life is permanent. It's hard to feel rooted when your big goal is to get away.
With living expenses falling due to new room mates, and having built up investment income to what I have, I'm going to make a goal of spending less than my investment income. I'll exclude my student loan payments for now. I'll see if I can add those in later on we'll see when. On a side note, I still view the alternative uses of money as the most important criteria for consideration when making purchasing decisions.
Another goal that I'm thinking of is either starting a website up. It would be about photography. I'm certainly not great at it, but maybe my closer to a beginner perspective will help. Right now, I'm seeing it as partially about getting out and exploring the community through the lens and technique. I know a lot about using a point and shoot camera to get very nice results and I'm hoping to get a DSLR soon. Eyeing the Pentax K-X right now.
If I don't do that, I'd like to enter a contest of some sort. Something involved, that'll take some work to enter.

On emergency funds

2010-11-20T10:18:00.001-07:00

Came across this post http://www.punchdebtintheface.com/2010/11/emergency-fun.html and wrote up a nice long comment, but in the end decided to be a little more modest. Seemed like a shame to throw it away though, so here it is.
I was just browsing around for blogs to read and came across this. I must say, I love that first commenter's style. Similarly:
1) I don't exactly have an emergency fund, but I do have a general consolidated car/house/wedding/emergency/retirement/small-business-startup/baby/education fund. I've been keeping my costs down to a bare minimum and once I position the latest piece that I want, investment income will be larger than living expenses. Then it becomes a toss up between volatility, security, growth and inflation.
2) About four years ago. I was able to save up so much because I was foolish/lucky/brave/stupid enough to be dumping virtually all my earnings into the stock market when it was pretty close to the bottom
3) Haven't had an "emergency" yet. My life depends on very little and I wouldn't have been able to do the above if I didn't feel remarkably comfortable in terms of job security. While looking into insurance options, I realised that my place could burn down and counting lost work time and security deposits on a new place, I could be going again for about $2k. Usually, I have that much money or more sitting around waiting to get into my general fund. Maybe I can cross the word emergency off that list. Though maybe it would be a good idea to cross baby off the list till there is a wedding and now that I think of it perhaps a wedding doesn't make sense without a partner.
4) Where does it start? Where does it end? Money moves fluidly to me. It's just there. I have a central hub that everything passes through, a savings account, a back-up hub, two investment accounts, and two retirement accounts, which I started before I realised that I could retire a few decades before I'll be able to touch that money. None of these are particularly set aside for emergencies. I run my hubs down to the dollar, the savings account just runs up and down. Flow into the investment accounts have been strictly one way. I guess that would be a no.

Things working out?

2010-11-20T09:05:00.002-07:00

I'm not sure how long this arrangement will last, but I have some new room mates. There's now two cats in the house and they're getting acquainted rather quickly, but not fast enough to save my couch from being used as a scratching post. This drops my cost of living by quite a bit. Rent is now $300, which is quite sweet. My immediate surroundings, being the basement doesn't change. Though I don't think the tension has really been addressed, so we'll see how long this lasts.

Vacation worth it?

2010-11-16T09:56:00.002-07:00

Usually, vacations are quite enjoyable and gives you time to focus on things that matter in life. I left at a time when there was fighting in the house and I'm told that there's new room mates or something. Not knowing what would be there when I got back was a concern for me given the amount of tension that was there the week prior. I suppose there's still some mystery there.

Room mates

2010-11-07T22:12:00.002-07:00

I'm getting sick of my current room mates. We just renewed the lease and they're fighting and threatening to leave. They can't agree on the amount owing and refuse to share numbers or even agree on a receipt format. This is very stressful.

Play fort update

2010-11-05T08:31:00.002-06:00

I was digging through old blog posts today looking for something and came across this:
Thursday, October 16, 2008
I want a play fort!

A silly post today. Maybe it's the temperature, or maybe I seek more security in this time of economic uncertainty but right now, I have this strange desire to build a play fort to curl up in when I sleep. It gets harder to find appropriate fort building items as you get bigger. Maybe I should rectify that when I get my own place.

As a small update on my play fort situation, I took my old childhood building materials with me when I moved out two chairs that fold out to form beds, but you can roll the sections into a fort. It's a little tight, a tad hard and a bit short. I do like my fort though.

A more average life

2010-10-30T22:53:00.002-06:00

As a hypothetical, what would my life be like if I was more average and spent most of my income instead of what I do now? This leaves me with about another thousand dollars to spend each month. How much of this would be broken down in consumer durables and more on going expenses.
Maybe I'd take up driving, $300-$400 a month (car, insurance, maintenance, fuel, parking) it's a stab in the dark guess
or living in a nicer place, ~$200/month
Film photography ~$40/month
Eating out a bit more $100
The Odd Movie $20
snacks $40
That leaves about $200-$300 for replacing durable goods. Most of it disappeared in a few large categories. Maybe I'm just not being imaginative enough. I'm sure my place would look a lot different. Maybe it would actually be an unshared space, though that would have to cost more than $200 more a month. Well, maybe I could find a basement suite.
I don't think it'll make me any happier though. I'm facing the larger purpose of life issues and the biggest deficiency in my life isn't material, it's sleep.

Waterloo info session

2010-10-29T22:16:00.002-06:00

So it turns out that one of the schools that I want to go to is holding an information session and it is also within comfortable walking distance to my place.. How convenient isn't it? I'm looking forward to this and hopefully getting some of my questions answered. It's disappointing that the website says that I'll only be considered if there is room left after considering all the other candidates. Though does that mean before or after people accept the offer of admission. It is generally recommended that people apply to several schools. Several of those offers get turned down. How they allocate that pool of spots is of interest to me. I need some honest information about my chances of getting back into school for what I want.

Growing Job Disastisfaction

2010-10-25T21:13:00.003-06:00

I'm starting to get increasingly dissatisfied with my job to the point where if I'm late, I get very tempted to just turn around and go back home. I'm constantly tired and sore and feeling rather unfulfilled. I don't know how others feel about the concept of easy money, but showing up, going through the motions and getting paid is getting old for me. I don't feel like I've accomplished anything at the end of the day.
Somehow, a year ago, I never thought that I'd be seeking income from the sort of small time self employment sources, but I'm seriously considering it now so that I can feel that I've done something to deserve something.
On another note, I should really get something pinned down for what comes next in my life and when that is. I was wanting to go back to school, though now that I'm told that I'll be at the end of the list of candidates. I'm not sure I want to count on that happening.

Very Bad Sign

2010-10-22T23:48:00.002-06:00

After a week of working, I slept an extra four hours on the first day of my weekend. Didn't know my sleeping pattern was that bad. I've really got to do something about that.

Outcast

2010-10-20T20:55:00.003-06:00

I'm feeling like an outcast. Defying the norm does kind of distance you from people. Reading some other blogs right now talking about emergency funds and trying to control spending. I don't have an emergency fund and can justify my not having one. I have enough in investments to cover a good portion of my expenses and usually have enough cash on hand to not have to worry about jobloss. Also there's a stunning lack of high end stuff in my life. Most of what I have is fairly basic, granted I have a lot of things that other people don't. A blog for one, a computer, a camera, granted not high-end ones. I'm contemplating a digital SLR though. For now my high end luxury item is my fork. There is just about enough metal in that fork to make a regular quality knife-fork-spoon place setting. The things that actually affect my livelihood though are few.
Also, trying to control spending... I don't have trouble with that. Stuff was just simply hard to replace and I've had to learn that I don't need to stress over little things, I can simply replace them.
So, do I comment on those blog posts, or do I come across as bragging?

Setting Big Goals

2010-10-11T09:20:00.004-06:00

I'm at a point in my life where I'm looking for something to strive toward. Been going through several personal finance blogs lately now that I'm getting back in the swing of things. I've seen the goal of becoming a millionaire pop up more than a few times. To me though, those are numbers on a page. I have a small list of things that I value that I wrote in a note book a few years ago.
-Protecting friends
-Spreading positive influence
-Honesty
-Knowledge
-Defending beliefs
-Environment
-Rights
-Fairness
-Adventure
I'm surprised justice didn't make the list. I've always been the one to document and report crimes that I see and return lost property. Maybe it's time to revise my list a bit.
That aside, I'd like to go on a big adventure every now and then. Addressing the other things on my list, I'm tempted to set another big goal. The one that's been floating my mind is to give a dollar to charity for every dollar I have to work for. It's a rather lofty goal considering that I also have to live and pay taxes. Realistically though saving up over 30 years might generate enough investment income to pull this off. This really is one of those lunatic chases and I'm not sure I want to commit to this, but why strive for the things you know you can do when you can explore new possibilities of potential? I suppose I'll start keeping a tally and revisit this idea every now and then.

Money vs Happiness

2010-10-10T22:29:00.003-06:00

I'm listening to a very fascinating discussion right now on money vs happiness? Would you give up money to get happiness? These are definitely not mutually exclusive by any stretch of the imagination and someone raised an interesting point that I'd love to share with the world. You can only ask this question if you have money to start with. People in the lower or middle class never discuss how much better life would be if they only had less money.
This question is really more a release from obligations and a rebalancing of life. I'm over due for one. Where to from here though?

Walk in the park

2010-10-09T09:53:00.002-06:00

Last night, I went out on a photography walk and there was a part where I was completely surrounded by deer. That made me feel so connected to the world. The sunset was also amazing. Trying to decide what sort of lighting I like better, when the sun is high in the sky, the lighting is far more even. Is it more interesting though? Either way, I had fun in the hours leading up to sunset.
I'm now eyeing a digital SLR now that I'm thinking of putting a few large prints on my wall. Also considering a new point and shoot to complement that, but going to put that off for a while. While I wasn't blogging, I actually picked up a film camera, which I'm learning to use now. It's a good camera, with good lenses that can be used on newer digital cameras.
I'm still learning to use my film camera and I've been running under the philosophy that my 50mm prime was one of the only lens I needed. Next time, I'm going with my zoom.

Survived another week

2010-10-08T07:19:00.002-06:00

Work has grown incredibly dull. Last weekend, I did a 12 hour overtime shift, the money was good. Other than it isn't mentally taxing, I don't know what I'm doing there any more. The hours are hard on me, and it would be nice to get some temperature control. Dust is also annoying. I feel that I'm over due for a change. My best skills are by far my thinking ones and I've not had a chance to use them in some time. We'll see what happens.
I suppose as general catch up, I've stopped tracking things as closely as I used to and I've also started spending more. Last week, I spent about $11 on a hobby, film and batteries for an old camera. I'm hunting for a digital SLR, though shooting film in the mean time. My cousin is getting married next month, so I'm running a roll or two through this camera to get used to it.
In the short term, my goal is to put up a picture or two in my room.
In the slightly longer term, my goal is to apply to go back to school.
My main worry right now is not being able to get back into engineering.

Back after a year

2010-10-01T22:57:00.002-06:00

A lot of things can change over the course of a year and a lot of things have. Rather than ramble on about those though, I figured I'd comment on another blog post I recently read. It was about ING Streetwise funds. http://www.steadyhand.com/industry/2010/09/23/ing_streetwise_crossing_the_line/

She also talks about fees,

“Say you invest $10,000. You can save $170 per year.”

Her math here would imply that investors are paying 2.7% elsewhere for balanced fund management. While I have sympathy with this theme (balanced funds are the most overpriced fund category), the numbers don’t add up. There are few balanced funds that charge that much.

I for some reason am reminded of car insurance advertisements. All the major companies out there advertise how much the average person who switched saved. They can all do that because there is no insurance company out there able to draw in an abundance of new customers who want to pay more for the same coverage. In fact, most people aren't going to switch for a small amount, they'll only switch for a relatively large amount. Since all the ads discuss the average savings of the people who do switch, this is a relatively high figure. They don't actually assert that they have the potential to save everyone hundreds of dollars, they merely want to make it sound like that.

Not everyone can save $170 per year, and ING doesn't assert that everyone will, they merely want to make it sound like that.

Hmm, what sort of stuff do I usually talk about on this blog? A mix of money and philosophy of life? I need a bit of a refresher.

Work Draining...

2009-09-29T20:28:00.002-06:00

I know I haven't been posting much lately. One reason is that work has just been so draining lately. I don't know why but it seems to be taking much more out of me than it usually does and these have been fairly light days lately. At first, I thought it was rest related, but after resting up all weekend, the first day left me feeling sore after. Now I'm really drained. My legs ache, my right upper arm burns and when I close my eyes, I feel like I want to just curl up in a ball.

20kT of gold?

2009-09-26T10:04:00.003-06:00

http://www.nevadacounty.com/business/mormons-scammed-for-50-million-promising-sale-of-20000-tons-of-gold/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_gold_reserves
I recently found out about this scam where people were ripped off by a con artist claiming to be raising funds to broker a deal involving twenty thousand tons of gold. That's right, twenty thousand tons.
Man, that's a positively staggering amount of gold. As the article says, more than twice the USA's gold reserve. Based off the wikipedia figures, 1/8th of all gold ever mined, roughly the amount of gold held in the combined reserves of the USA, Germany, IMF, France and Italy. I can see why someone wanting to make a transaction this size would have trouble. The serious players in the gold industry probably find it completely absurd that anyone might conceivably have that much gold in their possession. Then there's the problem of trying to amass enough money to pay for that much gold. From the thirty million dollars from wikipedia, this is a six hundred billion dollar transaction. That's three times the GDP of Israel, where the people who amassed the vast fortune of gold are.

Commodity Trading

2009-09-19T11:04:00.003-06:00

I've been seeing a few commercials that really make me wonder about public perception of investment markets. The ad I keep seeing portrays one person who is down and concerned about his investments talking to another who exudes confidence because she's in commodities instead of stocks or real-estate. The commodity market has been advertised as being an easier place to invest because apparently p/e ratios are confusing and price speculation is an easy road to profits. Maybe I'm ignorant on the subject but you're either dealing with contracts for delivery at a later date, or the cost of storage. The possibility of losing money is there and I'd be surprised if it's any simpler.
I wonder why I never see bonds pushed as a less confusing and less risky alternative to stocks or real-estate. While there are some questionable bonds out there, there are also plenty of bonds out there that offer a reasonable measure of security. You can also predict your return easier since they have a stated interest rate and maturity. It's also much easier to make guesses as to whether or not a company will still be in business in two years. It doesn't need to grow for you to make money, it just needs to not be distressed between the purchase date and the bond maturity date.

Budget blown, but for a good cause

2009-09-13T20:58:00.002-06:00

Well, I said that I'd exclude family items, so I'll shrug this off. Since I'm expected to be part of the family while I'm sharing a place with them, family expenses aren't always avoidable. This one though was. I went along with my brother to go check out a place for a possible location for his wedding. It was a pretty nice formal place, good food. I probably wouldn't go there again for no reason. Just doesn't seem worth it to me.

Forgotten items

2009-09-08T21:09:00.003-06:00

Seems that I have forgotten something in my estimate of how much money I could make by the end of the year. I forgot to take into account that I'm going to be attending a wedding in November. Thus, I suppose that makes the target roughly $9,000. Still a sizable amount, and still short of what I'd like to be capable of.

New Goals

2009-09-07T09:20:00.000-06:00

After looking over the numbers, I’ve decided to set two small goals for the rest of the year. The first is to cap my recurring spending to $20 a week excluding my bus pass. That should probably curtail spending by quite a bit. Though I suppose I’ll leave family related spending in the open.
The other goal that I’ve set is to buy $10,000 in new investments. Based on my best estimates, that seems to be a maximum, which is depressing in a way. Not that I’m not grateful for the progress I’ve made so far, I would greatly appreciate faster.
Finally, on the verge of starting another work week. 141 days down, going on 144.

The correlation between the stock market and the real economy

2009-09-05T05:34:00.004-06:00

In his classic book "The Intelligent Investor," the great money manager Benjamin Graham wrote that "the investor with a portfolio of sound stocks should expect their prices to fluctuate and should neither be concerned by sizable declines nor become excited by sizable advances." If you can't exercise that kind of emotional control, then by Graham's definition you aren't an investor at all.

I recently came across yet another article expressing concerns that the stock market may be over valued at this point. It does point out that during a lot of economic recoveries, the stock market doesn't necessarily go the same way. Coincidently, I saw another article regarding how during some economic crisis, the stock market doesn't always collapse, which I'll have to try to find for this. This is another article that ties into this regarding how GDP growth and stock market returns don't correlate.

Apparently, it ain't so. There is no relationship between a country's high GDP growth and stock market returns, especially not in the long run and only weakly in the short run. In Economic Growth and Equity Returns from SSRN, professor Jay Ritter calculated that there was in fact a negative relationship between economic growth and stock returns in 16 major countries (including Canada and the USA) over the period 1900 to 2002 - this chart is taken from the paper.

Overall, I'm concerned that the stock market could go down further, however, I do feel that the economy is starting to turn around. At the same time though, I'm also expecting unemployment to trend higher for a little while longer. Question of the day though, do I get excited by sizable gains and concerned over significant declines? I get concerned any time anything looks irregular. Watching Al Gore's Inconvenient Truth gets me worried for the simple fact that if he isn't right the temperature isn't going to rise and disaster isn't upon us, correlation has broken down. There are unknowns challenging our understanding and I don't like that. After all, it's not what you don't know that screws you over, it's the things that you're certain of that are wrong that make you look nuts in the eyes of history.
With regards to current times though, I will be happy if cash flow is maintained and news releases don't cause me to wonder if declines are on the horizon. Though a significant decline right now would probably cause me to pause and re-evaluate my options and cause me a little bit of worry. Probably a healthy response.

Closing doors

2009-09-05T00:13:00.003-06:00

I was thinking of how I want to leave the past behind and start over. For some reason, I was reminded of how we regularly discuss the pros and cons of destroying the last known remaining samples of smallpox. I haven't heard about that in a while. After a bit of research, I found out that smallpox is still kicking and we're due for another discussion on the topic later. While the world will go on with or without smallpox, I don't feel that I have the luxury of living in an uncommitted state indefinitely. I feel a considerable deal of apprehension about it. The time isn't right yet though.

Little bit of overtime

2009-09-04T07:40:00.002-06:00

I got a little bit of overtime this week. Only 15 minutes to help clean up some stuff. This is what I got for it.
0.25hr x $16.75/hr x 1.5 (overtime) x 0.7 (taxes) = $4.26
It adds up.

August month end

2009-09-01T20:46:00.003-06:00

deductions/gross pay 21.6%
gross pay saved 59.8%
take home pay saved 76.3%

spending/gross 10.5%
spending/take home 13.4%

loan payments/gross 8.1%
loan payments/take home 10.3%

total outflow/gross pay 40.2%
savings $1675.61

This has been my most expensive month so far this year. I spent close to $300, which isn't inherently obvious in my summary. I'll put off changing the look of my spreadsheet till next year though. Overall though, I think I'm still doing well. As a percentage of my income, I am still saving more than half my gross pay and more than three quarters of my take home pay. Took the family out for lunch once, took my sister out for lunch once, and collected a set of Olympic sports water bottles. Overall, nothing too unusual. I have no good excuses like renewing my driver's license this time.
Finally as of the end of the month, I worked 138 days. As of this post, 139.

Cash reaches an all time low

2009-08-30T08:55:00.002-06:00

Earlier this week, I moved the bulk of my money into my trading account. Only now do I realize just how much it is. I have roughly $2.25 in the rest of my bank accounts. On average though, I think I do maintain a fairly high average balance, I'll guess that I clear my accounts every time I have 4-5K. As a rough estimate, I take in about 1k every pay day, so:
empty 2Weeks
1k 2Weeks
2k 2Weeks
3k 2Weeks
4k cleaned out to investing account
over the course of 8 weeks there's (1+2+3)x2 k weeks, units that'll make anyone cringe. So my average balance is $12k weeks/8weeks, weeks factor out leaving an average balance of $1.5k. If I could get an extra 1% return on my cash, I'd get an extra $15 a year. So, question of the day, how important is it to get the absolute best rate and how much are you willing to let slip by?

Trouble with Tradefreedom

2009-08-28T16:47:00.003-06:00

I feel kind of obligated to mention this here. I had trouble with Tradefreedom lately. As you can probably guess from my tone, it is not a big deal. When a dialog window pops up asking you to log in again, clicking cancel will close the application without telling the server that you have logged out. After that, you will not be able to log back in again until you contact them and let them manually log you out. For some reason it won't auto-timeout and there's no kill existing connections option. This was rectified for me in short order prior to the stock exchange opening, so did not present much of a problem.

OT This weekend

2009-08-26T22:03:00.002-06:00

I got an overtime shift on Saturday. That should take me to 137 days worked so far this year. Right now, I'm in a very down mood. I can't find the card with my benefit details on it, and I absolutely hate when things aren't where I expect them to be.

Localized Benefits

2009-08-25T00:27:00.002-06:00

A friend of mine was recently telling me a story about how some recruiters from a church recently came by his place and talked to him. Religion aside, there was one topic that came up that really drew my attention. Skipping over the context, they said that their church members did all their grocery shopping at a locally owned an operated grocery chain because the benefits stay within the community. This strikes me as an anti-trade statement, which on a whole is counter-productive.
A lot of firms in Canada are headquartered in Toronto, then again, somewhere on the order of 10% of the population of the country live in that one city. There are so many people there, I think it would be hard not to imagine finding a lot of people without some kind of connection to the place. Many of my friends and relatives live there.
Beyond helping out people who are where the regional and head offices for those firms are, there's also the stake holders that contributed money instead of time. Banks that handle corporate accounts benefit, it gets passed on to their employees, depositors, bondholders and shareholders. As does the firm's bondholders and shareholders. Tax payers always benefit too.
Shopping around also saves you money on things and lets you take up larger stakes to draw more of the delocalized benefits into your area, patronize other businesses operating in your area or give to local, national and international causes.
It's rather silly to see the money as leaving the community. For the most part, shopping around grows the pie for everyone. It's also kind of hypocritical to say that we're a group that tries to help people, but your aunts and uncles aren't important because we can't see them in front of us.

Taking Stock of Where I am Now

2009-08-22T09:35:00.002-06:00

132 days worked so far this year. I must say that I'm a lot more calm than when I started this blog. I feel that I've grown a bit. I certainly have learnt a lot of things during this time. However, I still feel a lack of direction and a strong sense of stagnation in my life. I'm not sure if my time to restart has increased or decreased. The market recovery and rumoured economic recovery does make me feel more confident in the security of my investment income, which is nice. Yields have gone down significantly though, but they're still higher than when I first started blogging. I feel indifferent toward that. It doesn't make things better or worse. My expectations of how much money I'll need has gone up.
Moving forward, I still have a feeling of impending doom. I'm sure that starting over somewhere new, taking some time for myself and possibly getting a new degree is something that I want to do. Though I worry about completely loosing myself. Part of me worries that I'll become too attached to not doing anything and simply stop all together. That's the danger of being driven by a desire to get away from something as oppose to striving toward something.

A handful of days revisited

2009-08-21T23:04:00.007-06:00

I was hoping to get this up prior to my mention on the Millionaire Or Bust podcast. In a previous episode, a listener submitted a comment involving pulling a few choice days out of several decades of stock market performance. Naturally, I pointed to my own article on the non-sense behind it, however, I then realized that I really have yet to put any real nails in the coffin. I also located the source of the quote that kicked off the non-sense.

From my book: “Recently, a group called Dimensional Funds studied the performance of the S&P 500 from January 1970 to December 2006, during which time the annualized return of the market was 11.1%. They also noted something amazing: Of those 36 years from 1970 to 1986, if you missed the 25 days when the stock market performed the best, your return would have dropped from 11.1% to 7.6%, a crippling difference.

Now, if only we could know the best investing days ahead of time.”

As of the time of writing, the bold faced part still highlights the 36 years between 1970 and 1986. Before I go further, I suppose I should point out that I question whether or not any reputable financial agency would issue a report of this nature due to the meaninglessness of the result. Secondly, this sort of study should take at most an afternoon including the learning of some basic spreadsheet skills.
Rather than post my own spreadsheet, I'll tell you how to create your own assuming that you have a basic understanding of math, finance and spreadsheets. Scroll to the end if you'd rather just skip to the conclusions.

Step 1) download stock market data
If you manage your own investments, this shouldn't be difficult for you. Personally, I went to Yahoo! for this. Since Millionaire or Bust is American, and Yahoo! has much more S&P500 data than TSX and it's also the index referenced in the quote.

Step 2) convert point values into ratios
Assuming you have a basic understanding of mathematics, this should be a given. Going up 5 points doubles the value of an index that was 5 the previous day, increases the value by 5% for an index of 100 and for todays value we just say that things remain the same. Anyway, in the next free column, tell the spreadsheet that you want the closing value divided by the closing value of the previous day. If you prefer percentages, subtract 1 but it'll hinder things later on. Then copy and paste that down the entire column. If you've done what I did, this is column H, if your data come from a different place or you for some reason have more or less information than I do, just remember one column has been added so far.

Step 3) sort the values
How you do this will vary depending on the spreadsheet program that you use. For me, it starts with copying the column of ratios telling excel to paste special, otherwise the equations screw up. Then I select the ratios and tell it to sort.

Step 4) marking the values
Simple enough, tell the spreadsheet how many values you want to consider in your analysis. The reference says they took 25 days out of "36 years between 1970 and 1986" I have roughly 60 years of data. 25 sounds like a good number anyway. If you've got the highest values at the top, put a one in the next column by the first however many values you want, 25 in my case. Just for fun, go to the bottom and starting in a new and separate column mark the bottom 25 with 1. These two are columns I and J on my spread sheet, we've added a total of three columns so far.

Step 5) sort the values again
Put things back in chronological order, highlight the date and make sure it sorts the entire block of data. If you've done this right, your 1s should follow and you shouldn't have blocks of them at the top and bottom.

Step 6) identifying blocks of data
The assertion that I made was that if you consider the days near peak stock market gains you may actually wind up with increased returns if you miss the peaks. So make some judgement as to how many days you want to consider. Personally, I feel like going with five days before and after. So, new column now, four or K if you're keeping track. Perhaps its best I show you what's in my spread sheet and explain it after rather than explain each part as you type it in. "=IF(SUM(I103:I113)>=1,$H108,1)" occupies cell K108 in my spread sheet. If means what you'd expect it to, then there's three things or in slightly more technical terms, the if function has three arguments. The first of these is the one that decides which of the two following arguments will occupy this cell. "SUM(I103:I113)" means that you want to add all the values in that range, which covers five values above and five values bellow. The bulk of that column should be blank and adding all those values will result in 0, which is not greater than or equal to 1. Thus most of column K should take on the value of 1 or the third argument. For values around the highest gains though they should take on the value of the change in the stock market for that day.
The only peculiarity in the next argument is the $ in front of the H. In a whole bunch of spreadsheet programs, this indicates a static reference. You can copy these around and it will still point to the H column, whereas non-static references stay relative allowing for calculations to be repeated with ease.
Finally, the third argument, 1, will become pretty obvious once you're already aware of why it's there. I'll explain it later if you don't want to think about it right now.

Step 7) Repeat for losses
After that long one, a short step. Copy the column you just finished and paste it in the next one. This is L in my spread sheet and if yours is different, this is the 5th column that's been added.

Step 8) Compile your result
At the top of column K, tell the spreadsheet to multiply all the values bellow together using the product function. Then copy and paste that equation into the next column, L, to cover the big losses. This is where 1 comes in, anything multiplied by 1 is unchanged and retains it's previous value.

Step 9) Make sense of your data
If you've done exactly what I have and used data going from 1/3/1950 to 8/21/2009, you'll have 0.892222411 and 0.33212527 at the top of columns K and L. What does it all mean though? Recall that we arrived at these values by multiplying (change1) x (change2) x (change3) x ... x (changeN). Also, recall that going from the starting date to the ending date is simply the same thing, but including ever single day. For the benefit of the non-mathematically inclined, I'll switch to multiplying with * and say a * b * c * d * e * f * g. If we wanted to remove e from this we can divide the whole thing by e.
(a * b * c * d * e * f * g)/e = a * b * c * d * (e/e) * f * g
a * b * c * d * (e/e) * f * g = a * b * c * d * 1 * f * g
a * b * c * d * 1 * f * g = a * b * c * d * f * g
At any point of convenience, enter =1/whatever cell your result is located in. I get 1.120796774 and 3.010912118 respectively. In other words, if you were trying to miss the best trading days of the past roughly 60 years, but could only pull that off by missing the five days before and after, you would have 1.12 times the amount of money you have assuming that you missed few dividends during the few days you were out of the market, or 12% more. And the other for fun result, if you miss all the worst days and the five before and after that you'd have three times as much money. If you've done this with another index, different number of peak gains, or different number of days before and after removed, please post a comment and share your result.

Conclusion
Finally, we hit what does this all mean in the bigger picture. There's a lot you can walk away from with this. It's much easier to make a case for trying to time the market than against it. That point however is completely unsupported by the way the data was analyzed as stock market values are not posted in advance and you have no way of knowing whether there is a peak gain/loss day coming up. The point that I'm trying to impart the idea that you really need to think about whether or not the methodology used to get the numbers actually support any sort of meaningful conclusion. I think it's best summed up as, "It's important to think about things you see, after all you can use statistics to prove anything, including a lack of critical thinking." Other lessons include:
-statistics are messy when you don't know what you're doing
-spreadsheets can be fun
-make a fantastic claim and someone out there will believe you if you sound credible
-someone out there will waste an evening challenging your claim
-I suck at considering my audience when explaining things and jump around with different assumptions regarding knowledge levels
If you're still with me at this point, please leave a comment about other lessons learnt here.
For another cool curiosity figure, start over and put current market value/starting market value somewhere in your spreadsheet. Proceed to step 3 and tell it to multiply the first hundred or so values. Increase and decrease accordingly to figure out how many of the best days you'd need to miss to wipe out all your gains completely. Pulling out 25 days like whoever did that first study did was cool, but if you continue ignoring dividends like many of these so called studies do, pull the best 101 days out of the nearly 60 years that I used in my "study" you don't significantly reduce your gains, they're gone completely. Pull the best 125 days out of the 15006 days and you'll have half the money you started with. Makes you wonder about the claims people make. As for the I Will Teach You To Be Rich guy, that claim he'll teach you to be rich, there's no lie there, just remember that some people teach by example. Now I'm kind of curious if "36 years from 1970 to 1986" made it into the book.

Reflections on old posts

2009-08-16T00:06:00.002-06:00

While reviewing a sales flier and saw some pencil cases for sale. I forgot how long I've been wanting a pencil case and it looks like back to school sales are starting. Anyway, flipping through the old posts, I couldn't find anything about the pencil case. Though I've learnt that my monitor has been dieing since last November. It's also rekindled fond memories of my last vacation in Ohio. It was nice, things felt simpler. The memory that sticks in my mind the most right now is heating up and eating that last frozen lasagna that I had. I can still remember how it tasted. I've stopped watching Wife Swap, but still watch House and Intervention. It's been a while since I set a small weekly goal. I don't think I'll start that up again.

Searching for a new bank account

2009-08-15T21:27:00.003-06:00

Citizen's bank has recently decided to close or sell off or otherwise discontinue personal banking for some reason, which has me looking for a new bank account. I started an account there because I wanted no fee debit in the USA when I travelled there, which tends to happen quite frequently. Thus far, the only other place that I could find offering something like that is ICICI. They're asking that $500 be left in the chequing account to avoid fees though. At a modest 1.5%, which is what Canadian Tire Financial Services is offering on their savings account, that comes out to $7.5/year. More if there are more typical interest rates. Maybe I'm ignorant about the number of transactions I make on each trip, but I don't think that move would save me money. Anyway, I suppose I'll keep looking.

Mid-week post

2009-08-13T05:09:00.003-06:00

One of my increasingly rare midweek posts. Two major things to say about work. I'm ending my night shift work a little early. This is my last week. Also I lost my ride due to a family emergency. It's going to be interesting tomorrow.

2 More Weeks of Night Shift

2009-08-09T22:15:00.002-06:00

I'm down to my last two weeks of night shift now. It's been a change, not sure if I like it or not. I don't like counting on other people for rides though. I should probably think of some sort of gift for him. Not sure what to get. Anyway, 124 days down, going 128.

July Month End

2009-08-05T05:25:00.004-06:00

Before I forget, 122 days worked so far this year, going 124. I've been behind on posting. So I guess a July month end is in store for now. The profit share cheque was for $600 or so. I suppose I'm pleased with it.

July summary
deductions/gross pay 18.9%
gross pay saved 66.9%
take home pay saved 82.6%

spending/gross 7.4%
spending/take home 9.1%

loan payments/gross 6.8%
loan payments/take home 8.4%

total outflow/gross pay 33.1%
total savings $2224.22
I spent about $240 this month, with almost $4 in taxes and misc attached government fees, mainly recycling levies and deposits. In the first half of the year, I averaged $202. This month is a tad higher because I renewed my driver's license for $64.45 and I also went to a party, which is where most of the recycling comes in. Maybe next year, I'll separate out the sales tax, recycling deposit and recycling levy. Also paid for some supplies for my sister's Canada day party too. All this and being only $40 or so over average makes me want to check my math, but I did this on a spreadsheet, so maybe checking my data entry would be more appropriate. Also notably a fairly light month on the reusable bag credits, largely due to a shift in my spending habits. Hmm, do I want to start tagging these sorts of things budget or month end or something? I wonder if there's a way that I can mark labels as obsolete so that they stop showing up in my list of suggested labels. Anyway, here's to hoping for a good August. There's only two pay days in August, my string of extra pay has come to an end.

Dollar Store deals

2009-07-29T12:10:00.004-06:00

I suppose the little stuff first. As the day nears, I don't feel quite as eager to tell my brother that I don't want to see him any more. Also, I was recently told that in the USA, if you negotiate down credit card debts, you have to pay tax on the portion that the credit card company writes off. That sounds a little scary to me. Also, 119 days worked this year and 6/20 night shifts down.
As for the slightly larger item on today's post, I recently ran across two things to do with dollar store items, so I thought I'd do my own. They tend to be fairly low quality in general. Looking though my spending log, I pulled out a couple items that I thought were of particularly good value.
Going backwards, the most recent one was the maple creme cookies, $1/325g, off hand, I don't know what they usually cost, but next time I'm at the grocery store, I'll find out. I'm pretty sure that the unit price is higher though.
Next item is a stapleless stapler. These things are hard enough to find let alone finding a good deal on one. I still find myself using a regular stapler more often, and it's taken me a while to warm up to this one. Also, I seldom find myself stapling things, so maybe it wasn't such a good deal. Though if you only find yourself stapling a few pages every now and then, your stapler doesn't need to be heavy duty and you can get by with a cheap one.
Following that, there's a tuna sauce meal. Very delicious and good shelf life too. Wonderful standby, however it's a discontinued item. I felt that offered good value and deliciousness that I went back to get more before they were all gone.
Last item on my list is a keychain sized 1AA battery to usb/cell phone charger and flash light. The flashlight is actually a tiny LED, not a regular bulb. It's a handy size and the light is not good, but reasonable and I've used it to give my mp3 player a boost every now and then. I'm not really a heavy cell user though so it might be a while till I try that. Also, should I ever get into robotics again, I could see myself testing these out to provide a mobile source of 5V power for my little machines. I wonder how stable they are.
That seems to sum it up. I also got a couple things that I felt really weren't that nice. A couple of containers that were labelled as leak proof but actually leak considerably. I've been tempted to try putting jello in them, but haven't gotten around to it yet. They're still good for storing paper clips, candy and other small items.
Headphones are also a perpetual disappointment, I've been through a lot of those. There's also a number of items that I didn't think were good that I haven't tried and probably won't.

Count down

2009-07-28T04:43:00.003-06:00

My brother comes back on the 30th. I've tentatively decided that I am going to discontinue our relationship once I leave Calgary. I'm just not sure when I should tell him. Maybe now, maybe only after I leave. I don't think that I'll get a good reaction, but I do think that he'll respect that it's my decision to make.
During this time he's shown no interest in helping me, only interest in looking helpful from the point of view of others. He refuses to respect my values or accept that I'm the one who makes decisions about my life. There's a lot of things that I could say, but someone else asked me about it as I was writing this. I'll just sum everything up by saying that I felt hard pressed to summarize things in one hour.

117 days down, going 121

2009-07-27T00:22:00.002-06:00

I guess I'm settling into the night shift routine. It's kind of comforting knowing that it'll only last for four weeks. Three more weeks to go. I'm feeling pretty good right now, though somewhat sad. There's little to do at night time because everything has to be quiet and it's hard to stay up.
Hmm, as for other stuff to report, not sure what to say. There's profit share coming up at the end of the month, so I'm putting off making month end figures till then. I hope I get something good. Been late a few times so might be a tad small. We'll see what happens.

Night Shift

2009-07-23T05:10:00.002-06:00

Working nights for a while. So far so good. after tomorrow, I'll be a quarter of the way done. It's actually nice to have a bit of a change for a while, and the night is more relaxed. There's more activity in the day with trucks being loaded, and some pieces of equipment only run during the day. When everything slows down, the feel of the place changes.
116 days down now, 117 at the end of the week. I'm surprised I haven't updated this in a while. I've also been a little negligent in my record keeping too. My spreadsheet hasn't been updated in a while. Oh well, next weekend. Also, my birthday is coming up soon.

Loneliness and Nostalgia

2009-07-12T22:30:00.002-06:00

Today, I found myself under a severe wave of loneliness. I just miss having close friends and snuggles. Also, found myself feeling nostalgic for some old games, Warpath and Castle of the Winds specifically.
Castle of the Winds is an old role playing game, more details and free download available here http://www.exmsft.com/~ricks/
Warpath is a galactic conquest action/strategy game, more details and free download available here http://www.synthetic-reality.com/warpath.htm
They don't have all the fancy 3d renderings, but the simplistic game play makes them timeless classics. Obscure classics, but still classics. It's something that I kind of want to get involved in, making simple games that'll hopefully have a timeless feel to them. Anyway, I should get some rest.

Epiphany

2009-07-08T20:11:00.003-06:00

I've been listening to The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life lately and I had an epiphany when it came to discussing the efficient market hypothesis. While it may be difficult to beat the market average, what if I don't want to? Everyone is focused on gaining money. However if markets really are rational and efficient and everything drives toward the average, not only can you not beat the market it must also be difficult to loose money or hold steady. It is a fact that things average out. It is also a fact that losers must be offset by winners, otherwise the average is misstated.
I wonder if it's worthwhile to try to develop some sort of philosophy about the investment market rather than just view my little corner of it.

Sad again

2009-07-06T21:00:00.002-06:00

What a difference a day makes. I feel a deep and profound sadness today. Earlier, I was starting to feel good about myself. Though some positives today. Returned someone's bank card and mustard seed ID. It took me a little out of the way, but it was the right thing to do. Also a bit of irony worth noting, on Friday, I managed to buy about $5.7K of a fairly illiquid security. Someone accepted my bid at the close of the market, and a bunch of shares traded for less leaving me feeling like I may have over paid. Today, it is one of few items that are up on an otherwise down day. Oh well. Hopefully tomorrow goes better.

Happy Independence Day

2009-07-04T17:32:00.002-06:00

I'd just like to start by saying happy Independence Day to my American neighbours, friends and family. I figured out what I should bring to share the next time I go visiting friends, these maple leaf creme cookies are delicious. I'm in an up beat mood finally, though I just really want to sleep. Maybe I'll squeeze in yet another nap for the day. It's starting to be a rather substantial number. I suppose another thing I should mention before I forget is that I've worked 105 days this year.

Happy Canada day, end of June, end of Q2 and end of H1

2009-07-01T12:01:00.001-06:00

It’s sad to say that half of yet another year has gone by. I feel like I’ve been missing out on a lot. Making good progress on my goals though.
Ignoring investment activities, I made $17K and this pie graph shows where it went.

Maybe if I actually get around to writing some software again, I’ll show my spending in categories. It should be fairly trivial task, but I haven’t done anything of the sort in quite a while. It’ll have to wait till I’m covering more of my expenses before it means anything though. At the moment, I think I’m going to target moving in October.

Toys

2009-06-27T10:56:00.003-06:00

All week, I've been trying to decide on whether or not I want to get a Celestron Firstscope telescope. Right now, it's on sale at London Drugs for $50 (no, that's not the regular price, the regular is $50USD and I'm in Canada). While I'm familiar with all the deficiencies, it remains the best choice of something I might want to carry out somewhere. It's also gotten some good reviews. I think I might.
Also, reading the reviews pointed me toward something else interesting, the Galileoscope. I wouldn't call it a replica, but it's based on the original design, right down to having an erect eye-piece that's like staring through a straw. There's also a more conventional eye-piece with it. Maybe I'll get one of those too, but I don't think it's worth ordering online. The shipping costs are more than the thing itself.

98 days

2009-06-21T05:28:00.002-06:00

98 days down, going on 102. I just woke up from a strange dream where I was in some sort of war time improvised detainment facility. Anyway, volunteering today. Hoping to pick up some treats along the way to share with the group. I also come to a sad realization, the way dreams are hard to remember is actually almost like commuting. Unless something unusual happens, most people don't remember much, commuting just happens. That's a depressing thought.

I still have my fingers, but other things are broken

2009-06-18T21:17:00.002-06:00

I had a near miss at work today. While cutting some material, a bundle of moulding hit me in the arm, pushing it toward the saw. It was a gentle nudge, startling, but no injury. Unfortunately I just cracked the screen of my mp3 player while writing this. Hooked it up to charge, adjusted my chair and crack. I don't really like that one anyway, give me something with swappable batteries. The alarming part with that is that I used to take such good care of my stuff, now everything is just kind of haphazard. I need my space to be more organized.

Almost half way through the year

2009-06-13T11:00:00.002-06:00

Next payday I get my vacation pay for the first half of the year. It's scary that so much time has passed and it feels like it's just gone to waste. My life is largely the same. Anyway, 93 days down, going on 97, or possibly 98. Last weekend I was asked to work overtime, this weekend was the other production line's turn. I think next weekend might be my turn again if there is overtime. Also, I now know when I'll be working night shift, July 20 to august 12. 20 days in there and I'm not looking forward to that. The days are long and annoying regardless though. Personally I'm getting kind of sick of that job. I feel so apathetic while I'm there and I can feel it stifling my growth. Sadly though most of my life has been spent waiting for something.
Complaining isn't going to fix it. Planning on the other hand will. I'll have to see what I can think up.

Dreaming

2009-06-10T02:25:00.003-06:00

Ok, it's the middle of the night and I don't often get much sleep. I was dreaming about my father again. He was sick and we were gathering family together. I'm not really sure what to say but here's to you dad.

Feeling a bit better now

2009-06-07T21:58:00.003-06:00

A bit of cooking and video games has helped smooth things over. Mythbusters helped as well. Right now, I find myself searching for a way to focus and clear my head of distractions. Part of me wonders if I want to try standing in a field practising swordsmanship all day long for a few months. That's not very practical though and I'm afraid I'll just wind up bored. I'm also wondering about music and programming. Music is something that I could probably do just to relax. It's harder to convince people to clear an area to wave a sharp piece of metal around. Programming though is something that I've always had an interest in. Maybe I'll take that up professionally one day. For now though, I kind of miss my old skills and I find myself in want of a few new tools. Strangely when I can't find a program to do what I want, I assess the complexity of the task and wonder if I could code something for that myself. Whatever it is though, I feel like just clearing a few months to just focus myself.
Sadly that'll have to wait while more practical matters take priorities. I need to get ready to move, I need to find a place to move to, and I have money that needs allocating. I've got about $4.2K lined up and ready to go right now. There's another $2.7K or so coming in this month and I'll guess about 0.5K going out. I suppose other things on my to do list include planning for the wedding trip in November. My computer also needs replacing eventually. I find myself wondering what I should go get. Pretty much anything at the lower end of the conventional range will work great for me. Though I find myself drawn to having a low power netbook as well. I'm not sure if having both is really the best combination for me. Anyway, though there's supposed to be some pretty interesting stuff coming out soon. Best to put that decision off till later. Maybe the netbook market will be more mature by the time I actually replace anything.

Scratch a day for depression

2009-06-07T17:24:00.003-06:00

I spent most of the day wandering around feeling miserable. Then I took a nap, and I still feel depressed. I regret things that I did in the past, but now I'm building up an understanding of the sort of environment that I need to thrive and how that differs drastically from what I have now.
However, I still feel confident that I'm doing the best that I can to change the situation.

Overtime makes me feel so drained

2009-06-06T14:24:00.000-06:00

89 days down, going on 93, or at least I'm not expecting another overtime shift. I'm not sure what to say, other than I just feel tired. It's good to have an extra $150. I find myself wanting to develop though. I feel that my current job is preventing my growth. So much of my energy is drained working there. Though for now, I can accept that as probably the quickest way to get somewhere. I can't seem to keep my head up now that it's my time off. I am very tired.
Anyway, other half of the problem, doing something with the money that'll help me not need to work. The market has changed so much since my last asset allocation plan. I suppose my portfolio still badly needs diversification. A couple more purchases will help with that. It feels like I just can't get money invested fast enough. The recovery has been so sharp, I worry that things might come crashing back down in a month or two. It's hard to decide what to do.

May month end

2009-05-31T22:49:00.000-06:00

Special thanks to two overtime shifts and this being one of two months with three pay cheques, my income during the month of may was rather high. I decided not to include investment returns in my analysis, or that I got my tax refund this month. Maybe a budget would be more interesting, but my living costs are severely distorted due to living with my mom.

Gross pay: 4422
Take home: 3459.85
spending: 172.85
loan payments: 225.91
savings: 3061.09

deductions/gross pay: 21.8%
gross pay saved: 69.2%
take home pay saved: 88.5%

spending/gross: 3.9%
spending/take home: 5.0%

loan payments/gross: 5.1%
loan payments/take home: 6.5%

total outflow/gross pay: 30.8%

Some nice ratios there. I like that I'm saving 88.5% of my take home pay. However I don't really like 21.8% of my pay disappearing in deductions but I'm not sure there's really anything I can do about that. Now to invest the small sum that I've accumulated this month.

Time vs wants/needs trade offs

2009-05-30T07:50:00.000-06:00

Haven't posted anything in a while, so I guess I'll start by saying 84 days down, going on 88 at the end of next week. I've got a couple things on my mind right now, such as getting a musical instrument. The past two weeks or so, I've been practicing on the recorder and searching youtube for videos of people playing and listening to the sound they make. Now I'm contemplating getting an e-bay account just to a jade dizi. The tin whistle was another one that was high up there and I also liked the sound of the flute but after some research, I learnt that it was probably a bad idea. The dizi is probably a bad idea as well. I'm told that it isn't the best to learn on and bamboo has better acoustics. Anyway, it got me started on this little list of wants and how long I'd have to work to get them based off my marginal tax rate and current wage.
Item hours
A good burger 0.25
Pie 0.5
Monthly cell payment 0.9
Movie 1
Tin whistle 1.25
Dizi 3-4
Zoo pass 4.7
Bus pass 7
New computer 30
New camera 21
Going DSLR 60
Vacation 85-128
Car 850
Median condo price 21407
Median house price 32409
A million dollars 85288

The last four are for amusement purposes only.

Whoo long weekend

2009-05-15T22:22:00.000-06:00

Well, after the chaos and having worked a total of 77 days since the start of this year, I have four days off. Put today to somewhat decent use. I rested up, which is always important. It's more a reminder of how much work takes out of me than anything else. Also did something nice and cleaned the floors. Hmm, what else to report? The market retreated a bit but it's still higher than what I was thinking that things would be at. Notably though Artis did not crash back down as I worried that it might, instead it sits even higher at $8.10. Everything else I have though moved with the markets. I'm not sure if this is where I should consider selling. Personally I'm reluctant to.
Also tried to take up some music. The recorder doesn't feel as natural as I remember it being. If only I could find some sheet music for songs that I'm interested in learning how to play. I want to learn Bert the Turtle made famous by the Duck and Cover film. If I had the sheet music for it, I would make a goal out of being able to play it.

Stunningly surprised

2009-05-09T16:47:00.000-06:00

I bought artis at 5.75 on March 8 and yesterday it closed at 7.86 add $0.18/unit of distributions in that time. I suppose this should be pleasantly surprised, though it is puzzling. I hate sudden large and unexplained price changes. Mainly because they show that prices aren't rational and it forces me to question my ability to predict things. Granted, my decisions regarding SFK pulp and Nortel outright told me that I suck. When I don't see an apparent trigger for something like this, I worry that it won't last.

March called off, market recovery

2009-05-04T20:32:00.003-06:00

Before I forget, 69 Days down, 73 by week's end...
Well, it seems that this round of overtime is likely going to be limited to a two week affair. I managed to get two shifts out of it. $300 isn't too bad.
Also, seems we're in a market recovery. I'm not sure how this changes my plans, previously I was pouring money in almost as fast as I could get it. I suppose that isn't changing much. Though can I still be as optimistic? Many of my previous estimates were based off getting more money in before things started recovering much. I wonder if I can substitute growth in as my source of optimism, it does feel better to have things improving rather than stagnating.

Whoo scanner

2009-05-03T11:39:00.000-06:00

Well, ask and ye shall receive. Interestingly enough, I went out and managed to get a free scanner. Yay co-incidence.

Of Need and Want

2009-05-02T14:22:00.003-06:00

My binder of old credit card bills, investment statements and pay stubs is getting pretty full now. There's probably no reason for me to keep saving most of that stuff. I want to get a scanner for it. That'll probably save a lot of hunting around at tax time too. Granted I'll still need the physical copies to actually mail in.

Overtime

2009-05-02T08:44:00.000-06:00

Well, yesterday went well. I was a little surprised to find that it was a 10 hour overtime shift instead of the 9 hour shifts that they used to ask for. The extra hour is nice. There was also overtime for the night shift, so I suppose this is the start to a reasonable string of overtime and now the trick begins, seeing how well I can hold this down. The extra cash feels good. Interestingly, according to my math, if I compare how much I make on average and the marginal effect of working this extra day, overtime only gives me about an $18 premium after tax. I think that says more about taxes than anything else. Pre-tax though I get an extra $50.25 on top of what I could regularly expect for an average normal 10 hour shift. That basic exemption skews the average rates that people think about and the marginal rates.
To make the math simple, I suppose I'll estimate that working that shift brought in an extra $150. It's actually a little more, but I like being able to do math in my head and the difference isn't much. An extra $300 on a pay check is quite a bit. $600 in a month, over three months and enough extra pay to count for nearly a month of extra income. $600 at 6% is $36, or an extra $3 a month. Not much, but it adds up.

March of 100 Li begins again

2009-04-27T21:30:00.000-06:00

Well, good news on two fronts. I've had quite a few happy dreams lately. Spending the day with a good friend, exploring a new city, and settling back into school. The other good news that I got was that I was asked to work overtime. That's a good sign. Company is clearly doing well enough to up production a bit. I wonder how long my body will last doing several overtime shifts. Hopefully things will be ok.

No Update

2009-04-26T21:48:00.002-06:00

It's sad that I don't really feel I have the energy to update my blog right now. Haven't calculated my usual month end numbers. I'm contemplating doing a pie graph of where my money goes, but I suppose that only works after I do my tax return so that I know how much actually went toward taxes. It'll be interesting when it is eventually done though.
Oh, and 63 days down, and I should get some rest before I face day 64.

Picking A Computer to Last A Decade

2009-04-21T20:49:00.003-06:00

Ten years is a long time for a computer these days. I think most of them get replaced every two to three years or more. I'm wondering if I can pick one that I'll be happy with for ten years or more. This question is largely prompted by the slow death of my computer monitor and the rise of the netbook. Apparently, they pack about as much processing power as my current desktop computer, and I'd probably have to say that I want faster sometimes. Granted, they have a lot more ram than I do on my desktop and probably better video too. Without a good idea of just what limits my computer's performance, it's hard to say.
Most of the time though, I'm just humming away on my current laptop, which is a 12 year old Pentium MMX running at 166MHz with 64MB of ram. I've owned it for 7 years and it's still going strong. I don't particularly want to replace it, but again, more speed would be nice and there's a fan that grinds in there. Fortunately, that fan only powers up when it gets hot and if the noises are any indication, I'm not a particularly heavy user.
Anyway, I've heard good rumors about the new atom, and arm's possible entry into the market. Also, I hear windows 7 is supposed to be less of a resource hog than Vista or XP. Maybe when I finally get around to it, I can find something that I'll be happy with for a decade or so that'll also hold me down when my monitor finally does break.

Too much vs too little

2009-04-20T20:58:00.000-06:00

Before I was in a situation with little to nothing to do. Now I'm busy. Largely due to taxes. I'm not sure which I like better. At least when there was little to do, I could brainstorm about things I'd like to do. Long story short, can't wait for this to be over, and can't wait to get back to the zoo.
60 days down.

On Risk

2009-04-10T20:12:00.002-06:00

I listen to a lot of audio about finance, one of the books got me thinking about risk. It specifically questioned a few definitions of risk, being an entrepreneur vs having one source of income. Risk is really the probability of an event multiplied by the severity of the consequences. Whether you're employed, self employed or unemployed, diversity helps. Working three jobs in the name of security is probably a stupid thing to do no matter how you cut it, but we can buy diversity through investments. Why we should has been demonstrated a number of times by people such as the former employees of Enron, Lehman brothers, and other collapsed companies. As a Canadian, I don't know much about the 401K system in the USA, but I'm told that employers exert some influence over the investment choices that people can make within the plan. I think that's largely to blame for that.
Anyway, back on topic, what are the risks for me? Well, I could get struck by a meteorite, lightening or more realistically, a car. That would be very bad for me. The first one, I really can't do anything about but the probability is so remote there really isn't a point in thinking about it. Avoiding large metal objects in lightening storms and looking both ways before crossing the street, sure that's simple enough. Then there's food poisoning, store foods properly and not for too long. All of this while very important is not really exciting discussion. As was discussed in the book I was listening to though, job loss, that's something that is somewhat exciting to talk about.
What causes job loss? Some of the causes are entirely up to you and entirely preventable, like the people who get fired for not showing up, showing up intoxicated, or act like a jerk. Other causes are hard to defend against, like if you were an Enron or Lehman Brother's employee and got swept away when the company collapsed. From what I've observed at my current job, job security happens in three stages.
The first stage is to be a learner. If you're going around learning about your job, your company and your co-workers and their job responsibilities, you're going to stick around. While learning is ongoing, the amount of time you spend learning drops significantly quickly.
The second stage is to be a doer. Show off your new skills and stay active. When the ax falls, it's going to be the less productive employees that go first.
The third stage is seems to be the one that people fail to transition to most often, becoming a teacher. Being the only one who can do your job isn't necessarily the key to job security. If you can get everyone capable of doing your job, you've clearly demonstrated a skill that others don't have, you can train employees. This typically also gets you a raise.
As for the other side of the coin, minimizing the severity of the consequences of loosing your job. You should probably keep a resume up to date, beyond that I wouldn't regularly browse job sites. Maybe keep a list of resources that you can use to look for work, but 20 minutes of looking will probably find enough to keep you busy for a while. Oh yeah, and having enough money to keep you afloat helps.

Well, Rest In Peace

2009-04-09T20:44:00.003-06:00

Somehow there's death alerts seem to have an annoying tendency to be prone to false alarms. However, I still mark the passing of a good friend today. There were all sorts of other things I'd have rather commented on, but this pretty much demands a moment. Oddly, after the news has settled in, I don't really feel a sense of loss. I'm just happy that for a while, my life was enriched.

Peer Lending Thoughts

2009-04-03T22:18:00.002-06:00

I saw an article that made me wonder about all the hype about peer lending that went on a while back. Apparently it has still yet to happen in Canada. I wonder when it'll materialize. I also wonder what will be deemed an acceptable interest rate for the highest credit score people. RioCan recently issued $180M of debt at 8.33%. I'm thinking that the average person is probably a higher default risk. Will people with good credit take 10%, 12% or more? I can hardly wait to see.

strange dreams this time

2009-04-02T05:08:00.001-06:00

Well, that was a strange mix of dreams. I forgot the first one, but I was superman for a while, it was shortly after I had moved out and I was dropping by the old place for one more night. Then I spotted and evil plot and sprung into action, after confronting the villain, I was me again and superman was rescuing me. Someone asked about the chances of there being more aliens on earth and all manner of strange creatures started popping in. After making it out, I woke up
Next set, I forget how it starts, though there was a love interest with someone at a fast food joint. We were hanging out at her place and my relatives kept dropping by. It turns out they knew her and she was a family friend that I didn't know about. Oh, before that I was going to school, there was something to do with stargate technology there, a major space battle with an alternate reality intruder. There was a lot of military training going on in the area after and a big tank technology demo. Then the love story somehow starts.

So drained

2009-03-31T21:55:00.000-06:00

I feel so tired. Today was a calm day, but the long hours take a lot out of me. There was also an accident downtown blocking the c-train line delaying me from going home for quite some time. Half way through the week already though. It's sad that I spend so much time thinking about just wanting to get through work combined with not wanting to go to work.
Today was kind of upbeat though. I had something to think about today, what I want out of life in the next year or two and trying to figure out a fixed-income investment strategy that I want to try. On the first one, I wonder why I like the idea of living in a place that can be used as a social hub but I don't really feel comfortable in large social gatherings and previously, I've never taken advantage of having a place I could invite people to before.
As for the second one, I find myself asking two questions, if I had a variety of investments before the current mess began, what would I have sold by now? If I were buying right now, what would I buy? Eventually, I had an idea. The 5-year fixed reset preferred shares seem to have really taken off in terms of offerings. Maybe I could mimic the laddered bond portfolio approach. Also had me thinking about the difference between growth potential and financial security. Are there differences between who I would invest in bonds with and who I would invest in common stock with. Thus far, I'm not really sure.

bad dreams

2009-03-31T05:03:00.000-06:00

Had a rough night today. Wouldn't be writing about it if I didn't wake up so close to when my alarm clock was set. First dream, everything was breaking down, busses, industrial ovens, cameras, mugs, I forget what else. Second dream, everyone was passing me by. I hate when I feel as though I've lost a lot.

What do I want in a dwelling?

2009-03-30T22:02:00.000-06:00

I'm trying to answer the question of what I'm looking for in a place. Thus far, I just want to stay portable. I suppose some place that doesn't take much looking after. I'm not interested in having pets, but I'm ok with living with them. I suppose when you don't intend to stay for very long, not much really matters as long as getting to the next place goes quickly. Of course, location always matters. After much prodding of bus schedules, I figured that the north east line of the LRT works best for me.

2009-03-29T22:57:00.000-06:00

I wonder how many blog posts I've made while sitting around dreading work. I sure do spend a lot of time thinking about it. Hopefully when I finally move, I'll be able to cut my commute a lot and give myself more time during the week. That should make it better. Not sure what else I want to look for when looking for a place. I just want to be cheap and mobile.

Earth Hour 1%

2009-03-29T18:40:00.003-06:00

All that advertising and well, we beat last year's record by 4.5%. Instead of a 3.5% increase in power consumption during earth hour, Calgary's power consumption decreased 1%. It seems like a lot of work for not so much reduction.

Month End

2009-03-29T13:24:00.000-06:00

Hmm, I almost don't remember what I usually calculate at the end of the month. Anyway, here goes:
gross pay: 2629.75
net pay: 2106.80
spending: 220.17
student loan repayments: 225.91
savings: 2106.80 - 220.17 - 225.91 = 1660.72, wish it was higher
Not sure what sort of commentary to make at the moment. I picked up a bunch of blank dvds, want to back up some things. My photo collection is four dvds already and I have a few rather photo intensive events coming up. It's also nice to back up my laptop's entire hard drive, though it's a bit of a mess right now, so a bit of clean up and well, two copies will easily fit on one dvd. Also, I got reusable bag credits 9 times this month. That's pretty good. It was 5 in January and 4 in February.
I've got the radio on right now and Dr. Laura just said something that really hit me. Playing worker ant isn't living. I couldn't agree more with that sentiment. Can't wait to be done with that. I should get my final tax receipts next week and be able to file my return. This year I'll be getting money back, next year I'm thinking that I'll have enough investment income that I probably won't be getting money back. Either that or be pretty close. Refund probably shouldn't come till end of may, start of June. Should have vacation pay coming around June, also have profit share coming up in July. Also have money coming from managing the family firm in the next quarter, both the stuff I loaned it and something for my troubles. I'm hoping to make some significant progress towards not being a worker ant in the next couple months.

Small Wish List

2009-03-27T18:22:00.000-06:00

47 days down. Somehow that's moved to the top of my mind. Anyway, end of month three, and the end of 2009Q1. I'm trying something new next month, volunteering. More of a hanging out with a bunch of fun folk, taking pictures and having fun. At least that's my impression of what's going to happen. Maybe I'll be wrong. I've got a goal of taking 200 pictures at that event. Also contemplating a new camera. There's a kids IR spy cam on clearance at walmart that I'm thinking about. Maybe if it gets marked down further. There's still quite a few. Part of me feels saddened that it's probably a sign that there'll be fewer non-main stream goods attempted.
Other than that, I'm hoping to get another good deal on my investments, positioning for another purchase next month. How well that goes weighs in on my spending as well.
Also on my shopping list, I feel the need for a pencil case. Pens and pencils are organized easily enough, though I'd also like to keep staplers and eventually a three-hole punch there and I also have paper clips to store. Strangely for something this cheap and simple, I don't simply go out and get a pencil case. Maybe that's taking things too far, but I like to survey my options before I get something. It brings me joy. I also don't have my own three-hole punch yet.

House hunting

2009-03-24T22:32:00.000-06:00

I took a small step today. Thus far, I've kind of been ignoring that I need to move eventually and not doing anything about it. I finally let someone know that I'll be needing a place eventually. Very nervous and scared about this.

2009-03-22T18:35:00.002-06:00

43 days down. I feel so depressed right now. It's like I'm not really living life but rather just watching it go by. I can hardly imagine doing this for the next year, though I think I might have to hold out another two or three. Though I could just as easily find myself going through decades waking up every morning to set out to do something I don't really want to spend my time doing and spending my free time making sure that I can continue the cycle. Living should really be more than perpetuating existence.
Right now, I just want to curl up in bed without the prospect of having to face tomorrow.

Oh, More Credit Card Rewards

2009-03-21T22:09:00.000-06:00

Question of the day, will switching credit cards for a different rewards program help me. Right now, I’m using a pcfinacial MasterCard, I get 1% back on my purchases in the form of pc points. The card I’m looking at now, the ScotiaBank Momentum Visa card, 2% back from participating merchants. It however has a $39 annual fee. It’s actually a sad thought that maybe I won’t be able to get $39 of benefits from a rewards program. Anyway, I have data so I can make calculated decisions.
Besides the $39 fee that needs to be made up, there’s also the reusable bag credits that I collect when I go grocery shopping. Switching to a Momentum Visa means that I won’t be getting pc points for those bags. Year to date, I’ve been credited 15 times, and the trend shows that they’re actually applying the policy more frequently now. Either that or Sunday is just a bad day for trying to get credits. They’re 50 points each and the exchange rate is 10000 points for $10 or 10 points for one cent if you want to calculate easily. So, I have collected about $0.75 worth from those bags already. Not bad. If we just assume that a quarter of the year has passed, and we’re a little under that point right now but not too far, I’m looking at about $3 for the whole year.
Now for the other side, the extra 1% from participating merchants. Besides the way out there data that people wouldn’t normally think of tracking, I also have information on how much I spend, what it was spent on, where it was spent both location wise and store wise. I usually get my groceries from the Real Canadian Superstore, I see they’re on the 2% list, as well as Co-op, Sobeys and Safeway. That just about covers every place I get groceries besides the odd ethnic place I might go to. Also on the list is Shoppers Drug Mart, I get my transit passes from there. That pretty much sums up what’s on the list. Absent are any electronics shops, dollar stores, movie theaters, video stores, restaurants, and other places I occasionally spend money at. Rather than sort through the list, I’ll just add up all the money I spent so far this year, a whopping $483.69 since my cost of living is suppressed. Most of that is at places that are on the 2% list, lets just assume that the rest of it compensates for this not quite being a quarter of the year yet. Multiplied by four, then again by 1%, and I’m looking at a difference of $19.34. That doesn’t even come close to meeting the $39 annual fee so I may as well stop calculating here. Simply put, I do not spend enough money to benefit from this offer. It’s actually kind of scary that I need to double my spending for this. When I move out I’ll be spending more, but things like rent and utilities, the two big increases, do not qualify for an extra percent, so whether or not I will after is up in the air.

Buy, Sell, Diversify

2009-03-20T12:58:00.000-06:00

Well, I suppose I was extremely lucky to buy two weeks ago before the stock market shot up. Earlier today, I was looking at a $1200, or almost 15%, gain on my previous purchase. I guess it's only about $950 now. However, earlier today, I was wondering if it was a good idea to sell and buy back later, though I still feel that it is probably undervalued. So, do I buy more instead. Then again, it's also about a third of my small investment portfolio so maybe I should buy something else instead.
It's hard to make investment decisions when when you buy has such a large influence over returns. Timing is so much more complicated that deciding which businesses will probably do ok. Earlier, I was wondering if I should put some money into the horizon beta pro for the stock market going down. Notably, if the money was available at the time, and I wasn't so timid, I'd probably still have lost money at this point. Things went higher than expected. I'd probably have posted about that if it weren't for work.
undervalued. It's hard to make investment decisions when when you buy has such a large influence over returns. Timing is so much more complicated that deciding which businesses will probably do ok. Earlier, I was wondering if I should put some money into the horizon beta pro for the stock market going down. Notably, if the money was available at the time, and I wasn't so timid, I'd probably still have lost money at this point. Things went higher than expected. I'd probably have posted about that if it weren't for work.

Challenging norms

2009-03-14T13:13:00.003-06:00

I sit here looking at my dresser with three drawers poking out just a bit wondering what is the point of that thing. I haven't opened the drawers in so long. Depression makes you not want to do things and putting laundry away is one of thing I've been slow at. After simply having had laundry in a big basket for so long I question why I spend time putting it in a dresser or if I would even have one if there wasn't already one here. Am I just afraid to question the norms I grew up in? Having a basket of mixed clothing seems to work well for me. I can tell at a glance what I have to work with and it's easy to spot a few neat combinations. Downside being that it is wrinkled but that's nothing that's bothered me before.

Whoo Splat!

2009-03-14T02:05:00.000-06:00

Off time now and I hardly know what to do. It feels like I'm crashing. Everything just wants to stop. The stark contrast between my working and non-working days. 39 days so far this year. I'll guess about a fifth of the year down.
My work takes an incredible amount out of me.

Minimum wage update

2009-03-10T21:35:00.002-06:00

Minimum wage has changed from $8.40hr, to $8.80/hr, or at least it's due to this year. I guess that means I'm now looking at $352/week or $18304/year as a target. When I have a better grasp of living expenses, I'd like to switch to a living expenses as a percentage of net worth target. It seems more meaningful when yield spreads are wild for different assets.

If life were a checklist...

2009-03-09T20:52:00.002-06:00

I'm just starting to realize that I've done a lot of neat stuff in my life so far:

seen the curviture of the earth
seen a real nuclear reactor
planted a forest
fought of forest fire
operated a wind tunnel
worked on a full scale tractor-trailer wind tunnel test
worked on what'll hopefully get the title of the world's largest optical telescope
been head of a corporation
visited the forest moon of Endor filming location
been stabbed
gone a day without food
been inside a trash compactor
experienced zero gravity

I'm sure we've all had our own little adventures, some a little more adventurous than others.

2009-03-08T21:15:00.002-06:00

I guess before I say more, 35 days down as I go back for another week of work. I don't know what I hate more, the haphazard records of the company that was dropped on me or the dull monotony and industrial conditions of the company I work for. Anyway, I really want to get away from things and just do something big, wild and outrageous. The more I learn about seafaring, the more it feels like I've barely scratched the surface on what there is to know before one sets out on the ocean, though someone suggested a Calgary to New Orleans river trip. I do want to be in motion for a while. Something about changing scenery helps make things feel like they're going somewhere.
Oh yes, the monitor I picked up happened to be a dud, there's a strange buzzing noise and oddly enough it'll work with my laptop but won't do anything with my desktop.
Hmm, other news. I made a good call last week in letting my money stay put till next week. Bought at a much reduced price, however towards the end of the day the price sank further. Question of the moment is what do I do if the price goes back up again? Do I take the chance and sell hoping to buy again at a lower price? Then there's all the other questions of what next. I suppose I'll have to cross that bridge later when I see how things change over the next while.
I still feel very unsettled and want to ramble, but I don't know what more to say.

A need for simplicity

2009-03-08T19:11:00.002-06:00

I cracked while trying to reconstruct the books for 2008. There are way too many missing documents and there's even more recent ones that I can't find. After this, I just want to settle down and clear things out. Things should be simple and straight forward. Searching around everywhere for something every now and then sucks.

Daylight Savings Time

2009-03-07T09:02:00.002-07:00

Personally, the idea of daylight savings time puzzles me. The idea of starting the day earlier to save energy/money, is a puzzling concept to me. If it really made sense, people would just do so. Unfortunately, if you're the first, you incur losses associated with having different office hours. So the state steps in. In a free economy people can't tell you when to open and close your business but the power to decide what time it is rests with the government and they choose to exercise it. So, does daylight savings actually save energy? I don't think it would have been extended if it didn't.
So, question now is what is this a symptom of? Too much inertia in the system to operate efficiently? I don't know.

If I had a million dollars...

2009-03-06T11:29:00.002-07:00

What would change if I suddenly had a million dollars?

I would probably keep working to try to avoid letting it get to my head
I'd probably pay off my debt and start acquiring some fixed income investments
I'm not sure if I'd pick up a netbook yet, but I probably will when the next atom hits the shelf, other than that, I don't think I'd really make any serious computer upgrades
I probably still won't drive
I'll spend more time looking for a new place to try out
I'll be happier

I'd probably put off most of the major changes in my life. Though I'm not looking at a million dollars on the horizon, I'm still trying to figure out what to do when my inheritance frees up. Fixed income investments needs more study. Of the six points listed, one, four and five are the only ones I think I'll be sure of.

Whoo free monitor

2009-03-03T20:57:00.002-07:00

well, was putting off replacing my monitor for a while and sure enough, someone throws out a working monitor while I'm trying to decide what to do. It's roughly comperable to my existing monitor, I just hope it doesn't have any intermittent problems that I don't know about yet.

Interesting thought while shopping

2009-03-01T18:50:00.002-07:00

I was wandering around and ran into an item that I didn't expect to see. It was a package of plastic balls, kids play in big pits of them. It was an interesting moment for me, I was laughing and arranged them in a stack a few different ways trying to estimate the volume of them. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that it would take about a week's pay to create a modestly sized personal ball pit. More importantly though, I came to the conclusion that I really can have what I want, no matter how eccentric it is. Nothing would have stopped me from pouring pack after pack of those into a kiddy pool, or for the depth I was eyeing, putting four pillars on a piece of ply and surrounding it with a tarp. I just have to figure out what it is that I want and as long as priorities are covered, most things aren't too outrageous.

Month End

2009-02-28T20:34:00.002-07:00

Before I begin, 31 days worked so far this year. I've been falling behind on my regular postings. Anyway, what did I bring in this month and what did I spend it on? Two paydays this month, there's only two months with three. Anyway:
gross employment income: 2680
deductions: 563.61
take home pay: 2116.39
spending: 273.32
sales tax: 1.29
Loan payments: 225.91
Spending is a little higher because I didn't buy my bus pass in the previous month. 40% of my gross income goes somewhere, so I guess 60% was saved by the definition of saved that doesn't include the principal portion of loan repayments as saving. 10% of my gross income, 13% of net, was actually spent on stuff, not loans and taxes.
Until I'm in an actual independent living situation, I'm not sure what to think of my data.

Tragedy of the Commons?

2009-02-24T22:39:00.000-07:00

I had an interesting thought while watching a documentary on consumerism in kids today. It got me thinking about two things, one is the tragedy of the commons. The general story is that there's some grazing land, open to everyone. Nobody has any incentive to go easy on it. The more livestock you have, the better off you are. It turns into a competition for resources where the more that's cornered the better you are. However, split the commons into private ownership and people then limit their herds to avoid over grazing and the land thrives again. We also see this in fish stock. When the catch is a quota open to everyone, it turns into a mad scramble to get as much fish in before the quota is filled. It winds up being not safe for the fishermen and floods the market resulting in lower returns for all.
While collectively every company and thus the economy as a whole will be better off with a wealthy consumer base, individually every company benefits from taking as many dollars as possible. Like the over grazing, the consumer base becomes over spent and everyone suffers.
This is an over simplification to the point of absurdity though since corporate profits pays payroll and investors. This personal income then becomes the consumer base that everyone is chasing. Also, the idea of splitting up the consumer base into privately owned blocks is absurd. Though if you ever felt like you live in a world of advertising, the consumer base being a common resource is one reason. In situations where there are exclusivity arrangements, those extend to venues, not individual consumers so marketers have an incentive to go nuts in hopes of influencing off venue spending patterns as well as overall total consumption.
The other thought. It talked about how marketing now pitched lifestyle to sell products. Individuality, acceptance, popularity, I wonder what my social values are. I should spend some time thinking about that.

Decluttering

2009-02-23T20:55:00.002-07:00

Last night, I was reminded that before my infatuation with small boats, I wanted to compress my life down into two pieces of luggage and a carry-on item. Then airlines started changing their rules. Now I'm fixated on this idea of an open-10 cruiser. Granted open-10 never really took off after the around-in-ten race fizzled out. I might build one later on as a learning experience.

2009-02-21T21:19:00.002-07:00

Interesting day. Went out to do laundry since my work stuff is too dirty and making the washing machine dirty. Forgot to bring detergent with me but hey there was a london drugs next to the laundromat and a big sale on laundry detergent. This brings forth the question of do I really get 42 washes out of a jug that says it has 42 washes of detergent in it. Maybe I should measure the cup and find out.
Anyway, cheap hobby, coin collecting. Due to a miss understanding at the laundromat, I got $8 of quarters as opposed to 8 quarters. 7 of them were Olympic quarters. I guess I can consider it a cheap hobby. The cash is still there and liquid, it is after all cash. Granted, doesn't exactly make me more amused or entertained. The novelty died well before my laundry finished.

Timid, but shouldn't be

2009-02-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

The recent sell off has me tempted to shift my savings into my trading account, but part of me is reluctant to. I get the feeling that now is a good time. Illogically though part of me wants to wait till I have more money in front of me, so that I can buy in a preplanned spreadsheet specified fashion with a minimum of transactions. Though commissions are low enough that it'll probably cost me more to wait, unless the market takes a more serious tumble.

Shorter Work Week

2009-02-16T22:37:00.000-07:00

Well, 24 days down so far. Another three this week. Two more weeks and then I'll be 20% through the year. Maybe I should count all the work days ahead just for fun. I have mixed feelings about that. I suppose it is about half way through Q1. I had two big things right now. I lost a receipt today, it was for my phone card so I'm out $10.50. Trying to shrug it off. Went a little nuts searching everywhere for it, but I'm trying to just accept it and get another one.
The other big one, back on the TV rotting your brain thing. I had an epiphany. A large chunk of my childhood misery can be attributed to someone along the lines somewhere assuming that I was autistic and ignoring any evidence to the contrary. It came to me while I was watching House and how they were treating an autistic patient. Autism might be going a bit far, but treated like there was something wrong with me. It explains the intensive work I had to go through on the basics while I was mastering much more advanced concepts at school. I also say this with many memories of being checked out by various psychiatrists and their conversations with my parents.
It explains things, however it doesn't excuse them. Personally, I wonder if it'll help me forgive. This doesn't change anything going on in the family at the moment. I suppose this changes nothing.

Life so dull

2009-02-15T20:01:00.000-07:00

Four days off, and it really brings light how bare my life has become. I hardly know what to do, spend a lot of time sitting around wishing that I were still tired so that I could at least sleep through the dullness. Instead, I find myself sitting here wondering how far I should go to try to be happy. It's often used more as an excuse to just let go. Living fast and loose is often a very destructive process. I'm afraid some day I'll wish I didn't take so much time now or cross some point of no return.
Also, one of my worst limitations right now is that I seem reluctant to establish connections and go out and do things. Should probably do something about that.