My other job update 1

If you have no desire to read through what I would say is about as exciting as Macro Econ 101, then you should stop reading now.

I decided that the best way for me to improve and refine my forex trading strategy was to write it down. I thought that doing so in a public forum even if no one is reading it would be best as it will be more likely for me to be honest and disciplined in my approach.

Moving forward I am going to break up my time between now and the real go-live date (the May-June-July time that I will be measuring success for the year by) into 2 week goals. Each 2 weeks I will have some outcome that I am hoping to get. I will then hopefully figure out what worked, what didnt, and make refinements.

So now that I am in my first 2 week period I figured that I would come up with a basic strategy, make a few trades against that strategy, and hopefully finish reading my first forex book.

The trading strategy is to break each day into 1 of 3 categories; Major news event, mid news events, minor news events. On Major news events, its just go with the flow. I am looking for a sustained trend in a particular direction. For mid news event days, I will look to stay out of the market and just watch and learn. On minor news days, I am looking for range based trading and markets to respect strength boundaries which I will define as the MACD line and Bollinger bands. I will look to do market + 10pip trailing stops. In this first session, I am just going to be looking at the EUR/USD pair and doing 1-10 mini lot trades.

My next job?

Recently we went through (another) round of layoffs at my work. I think that unless something dramatic changes, which can happen, the writing is on the wall and layoffs will continue. That being said, its now time to come up with plan b.

I need my plan b to:
1) pay the bills
2) be in san diego

would be nice if it also:
1) allowed me to work for myself
2) flexible schedule
3) do much more than just pay the bills
4) is fun and engaging

For a while now my bro and I have been talking about doing more day trader stuff in the ForEx market. Its funny, I get almost the same reaction from people when I tell them this as I do when I tell them I ride a motorcycle. Its always "I had a friend who was doing great until the crash".

I started out exploring ForEx by just jumping in. I got a free 30 day paper trade account. My intent was to determine how viable this is in making money in a short time, if i like it and if it meets the other requirements. I started this beginning in June and thought that I would evaluate how to move forward while on vacation. During my little 2 week stint, I started with $2000 in monopoly money, never leveraged more than $800 at any point in time, and finished with ~$2,700. That included a ton of mistakes like clicking the short button instead of long, or entering back into a trade with a currency pair that I just got out of. Stoopid

Now that I am back from vacation, I have a plan.
1) Write down the plan on the blog so I keep myself honest with it.
2) Give it the college try for 1 year. This means learn as much as possible and be ready to sink some money into it for the sake of learning.
3) Fund a real account with money we can afford to lose.
4) Use the next 9 months to develop a trading strategy that can be executed part-time (since I am still employed).
5) Demonstrate month over month positive earnings in April, May, and June.
6) Figure out a way to stop making stupid mistakes, gain some maturity (yeah right).

There it is, that is the plan. Im interested in feedback and success or fail stories. If you have them, let me know.

1-30-50 Challenge

The 1-30-50 challenge is ridonkulous! It is pointless and is counter to everything I know about sports. There, I have said it. I feel better.

For those that do not know, the 1-30-50 challenge is simply to run 1 mile, do 30 push-ups, and do 50 sit-ups in one day, then to repeat that for the next 30 days (maybe they should rename it to 30-1-50-30). In the event that you cannot do this, you have to buy a chicken for some 3rd world family / village for $20 or some other type of donation.

At first glance this seems ok. I was ok with it at first. But after having a friend bring it up daily I started to think about it more. Since then, I have come to several conclusions. First, I did some researching on the net. I was wondering why I had never heard of this before and what was the fitness benefits of this challenge. I found nothing. Come to think of it, any sports program I have ever heard of or done recommends the exact opposite of this in terms of varied resistance or activities, and to give your body time to rest through the program.

I then tried to think of any sort of program outside of sports similar to this and could only come up with one thing that was similar, the attendance record from school. This is something you get for making it to school on time every day. Doesnt mean you are getting smarter or making the honor role, just means you were there with a heartbeat.

I was asked the other day on why I like sports. For me its because someone is always winning or completing some great achievement. The 1-30-50 does neither of these as when you are done you completed a normal part of a Jr. High PE program and it only punishes failure (in terms of the chicken and anyone you are doing it with talking smack). This is neither a great accomplishment or a win.

The only reasons I can think of for why someone would do the 1-30-50 challenge is because this is an entry exercise to someone starting a daily program and doesnt know what else to do, or that running, doing sit-ups and push-ups is a lot of fun, or you were just plain bullied into it.

One Reason Why I Love Surfing

Its the unexpected adventure that awaits. It starts with the first phone call at 5 something in the morning leading to being picked up and riding to the beach with a bunch of friends. Most times we end up surfing, sometimes we end up at a new coffee stand, and then there are mornings like today where its a bit of both.

We started with our normal routine where Rick picks me up. Only difference was Paul was lazy and didnt roll with us. We ended up at Cardiff after looking at a bunch of other breaks that werent breaking. Jason posted and met up with us also. In the water it was a normal slow day, but we did meet a guy named Matt, a friend of Drew and Keri's (2nd time this week I have been reminded what a small world we live in).

Afterward there was the normal comical conversation about who has to get back home in 5 minutes or their wife will have their head. This time it was Rick that had to bolt. His loss because another new friend, Todd, offered to make us breakfast on the beach. Todd was there with his camper and BBQ ready for holiday. Todd cooked up some eggs, bacon, and an english muffin for both of us. I have never had breakfast on the beach before, but Im convinced the beach makes food taste much better. Since my ride left already, I was glad Jason was around to give me a ride back home otherwise it would have been a long walk.

Happy 5th Birthday, Jonathan!

It's official! Jonathan is now 5 years old. The time flies by so fast... One day he's cooing and needs a new diaper and the next, he's squirting you with a water gun. Go figure.

We had such a blast with him at his birthday party on Saturday! Thanks to everyone who showed up! We rented a jumpie again (this one was 2 feet bigger than last year, so there was some tree trimming going on pre-blow up) and of course, a "Sno-Kone" machine which was used later (after the kids left) to make "adult sno-kones with rum"! Aaron had fun too in his little car walker. He was running around the garage in good spirits for his brother's birthday party. What a great day - the sun was out and everyone had fun!

Its official...Jon is now on 2 wheels

There are a few things that are sure fire ways to make any dad proud and athletic achievement is always on that list. We started teaching Jon to ride on Saturday and he has been all over it. He has gone to just scooting around to riding on cement, turning, riding up and down hills, driveways, bumps, and anything else.



The funny thing is that he lasted longer than his bike. When we were riding last night, the seat on his bike broke clean off. Jon was devastated, he was just now starting to love his bike. The good news was that we had bought him a new one from Performance. So we jumped in the truck and picked it up a day early. This bike is a lot bigger than his old one, but he seems to have picked it up quick. Happy Birthday Jon! I hope you ride this one so much that you destroy it also!


More Jon learns to ride pics.

sharks

Get This Widget!TOPP.org

A few people have been asking me about where I go to get shark info. Here are a few of the sites I check on a consistent basis:

-http://www.topp.org/species/white_shark
-http://www.sharkresearchcommittee.com/pacific_coast_shark_news.htm

hang 10!

Busy Weekend

So many cool things happened this weekend.

First, happy birthday Mike. I hope you enjoyed your day of surf, work parties, halo, call of duty, and Chevy's. Bueno, well done.

Second, what a great day at "hidden beach". Can never complain about a day in the sun and sand on an empty beach with friends and family (Mike, Matt, Brandon, Elizabeth, Christina, Aaron, and Jon).

But I think what I will remember most from this weekend was that Aaron is now able to stand on his own! Little dood is definitely a small.

Social Networking gone too far

At work, we had a directory that was really useful. You could type anyone's name in and it would pull up their office number, phone, cell, and reporting structure. It was really cool because it also showed a picture of them, which is really useful when working with people that are in other buildings and cities to put a face to the name and voice. For example, I can look up our CEO's picture and see that he looks like this (so I know to keep my mouth shut if he walks by)


Recently, we switched from this useful web app, to more of a facebook style application. It has a lot of the same information as before except there is a lot more customization that can be done by the individual such as adding hobbies, likes, dis-likes, what they are working on, and the ability to upload a custom picture. This apparently is much more control than we are able to handle. Here are some pictures I ran across just from today:

Surf - Work - Surf

Yesterday was the first "Surf - Work - Surf" session of the year. Its finally light long enough to get out in the morning for over an hour, get to work in time, and get outta there fast enough to get another hour or so before dinner. The morning session was probably one of the top 2 days so far this year. Waves in the shoulder high + range and lots of them. The evening glass off was nice because of the sun, but the conditions and the attitude in the water wasnt as great.

Needless to say, I am feeling it in my shoulders, back, and chest from all the paddling. I was thinking I might be able to get out again today, but I am so tired I dont think I could even pick up my board. Its lunch time and Mike wants to go to the gym, so I will limp through that now.

Quick day of sailing

To welcome brother Matt back home, we went out on a sailing trip. For some reason it sounded like a good idea even though there was no wind. I figured it would be a good time for Jon to get out with us since it would probably be fairly mellow. It did in fact start out slow, but as we got up to open water near the jetty we saw that there were waves breaking and a larger swell than expected. Jon wanted to play down low and was having a great time running around the cabin, riding the waves as the boat went up and crashed back down. Unfortunately, he realized later why he was the only one hanging down below. Even some of the bigger doods were starting to feel it. After everything was said and done, we cut the trip short and called it a day while everyone was still in good spirits.

My run in with a credit card thief

A few weeks back I got a call from my credit card company. Apparently they were concerned about some of "my" recent transactions and some guy trying to purchase a laptop at the lemon grove Target. During this conversation I find that I no longer am in possession of my card and someone named Mckinely Thomas charged about $100 at several gas stations, a 7-11, and a Wendy's. I had to admit, I was impressed about the $80 charge at Wendy's, but his flaw was crossing paths with Target's security. Apparently these guys stopped him from purchasing at least one Laptop and maybe some other stuff also.

Over the next day or 2 I find myself going over the same stuff with the Credit Card company, the local SD PD, the Sheriff, and Mckinley's Parole Officer (oh yeah, thats right). All ask about the same questions;
-Do you have your credit card in your possession? no
-Did you authorize anyone to use your card? no
-Do you know Mckinley? no
-Do you know anyone who fits his description? no
-When was the last time you saw your card? last week
-Any idea how he got it? nope

The interesting thing was what I learned about this guy talking to the random law enforcement officers. First off, I find that he is wearing a GPS unit. Jeez...wonder why he was wearing one of those, and a lot of good it did :-) I also find that he is out on parole and is looking at another year in jail just for breaking that. In addition I find that he has 3 or so cases now against him. Apparently everyone wants a piece of this dood.

I also find that the sherrif's dept has a nice website that allows anyone to find out who is in jail. I found that Mckinley is in cell 5b. I hope the accomodations are nice. Its also cool because you can apparently email anyone in Jail through this site, find out when you can visit people, and when they will be in court. Interesting stuff.

The latest event to happen is today I recieve a subpena to appear tomorrow at the courthouse as a witness. I thought that was releatively short lead time, but between that and work and that, it wins out this time :-). On the advice of Rick, I decide to call the DA's office and find out whats going on. I learn it will probably take all afternoon and there is a lot of stuff to go through. I then find out that apparently the DA sent a sherrif to hand me the subpena, but I guess our neighborhoods high security gate kept him out and he wasnt able to deliver it. So they issued a new one for me which we got today. This one is to have me show up in court and before a judge get me to commit to coming back next week for the preliminary hearing.

Since I told the DA that I would come back next week she said that I no longer needed to come tomorrow and she would send out a new subpena. I sure hope they send the same sherrif to deliver it. I totally want to get a video of him trying to figure out how to get in our gate :-)

Now on Twitter

You can get even more updates by following longboard_dood on twitter

http://twitter.com/longboard_dood

Shark boy loves eating fingers...

...or anything else he can get in his mouth. The level of ferocity and determination in his eyes always cracks me up as he is going for food. He is also starting to realize that everyone else is eating different food than he is and wants to try it. He could truely be one of the worlds most perfect eating machines if this grows with his size.

Amgen Tour of California

Somehow we managed to get the kids rolling down and got a great spot next to the rail just over 100 meters from the finish. It was a lot of fun waiting around for the riders, but by the time they came by we were pretty tired. Jon told us "This is just too exciting. It's too exciting with all the bikes, motorcycles, and police cars. I want to go home".

We have more pics on our picasa site.

Someone is finally on solids

Apparently we hate rice cereal.
But anything mixed with bananas is cool with us.

dads, kids, and motorcycles

I have been playing around with the idea of building a kit car with Jon when he gets older. This past Christmas I spent a little time with my dad fixing some of the things on my motorcycle and a little time playing with Aaron on the bike. I am even more intrigued by the idea of doing something big like building a car now. What is it about doods and motors?