Investing Fun

For years I've admired the idea of earning income from the stock market. But I've always assumed that were I to join in, I'd just be one of the millions of "donators" that makes the smart investors more money. You can surely imagine the type. Someone that is possibly cautious at first, but experiences success early on and starts to feel invincible. Or perhaps you can imagine a cousin of the chronic gambler that, win or lose, continues to play for the thrill of the risk. I'm not the type that would sell my car on a long shot promising a big payoff, or invest with money I need to pay bills next month. But lets be honest - nobody wants to lose the money they've invested. Unfortunately the facts are in order to make money here, you've got to take it from someone else.

More recently, the urge to see what it's like playing stocks has grown. I saw an ad to sign up for an investment newsletter and decided to give it a read. It shows up daily and talks about anything that's going on in the world that might affect stock prices. The main objective of the newsletter is to sell investment advice that the business offers. The prices range from tens to thousands of dollars per year for such advice. I figured just exposing myself to "stock chat" was more than enough for me at the time. And I was very pelased with that decision, too. Somedays I really wasn't in the mood and I just deleted the email. Other times I'd learn quite a bit from the ods and ends they would dole out while trying to slip their hooks into my wallet. In the end, curiosity won out and I signed up for one of their more conservative services, which also happened to be one of the least expensive.

So what did my money get me? As promised, in addition to hearing an update to the state of the market, I had access to the stock symbols that were supposed to make money off the latest news. I read about which companies have excellent dividends, which were solid investments based on earnings and all those uninteresting abbreviations. It was good to be allowed behind the curtain to see how to actually profit from the stories that happen every day.

The next step, which I knew was coming was to identify and use a broker. That's something that to me, sounded both intimidating and relatively easy to do. I imagined I just had to rise above my fears of letting someone else handle my money, and pick up the phone book to call one. As it turned out, there was in fact, only one option I could call. And after contacting them, I was not impressed with what they had in mind. They gave me visions of stable 5% returns for the rest of my life. Thanks, but no thanks. That left me with either going out of town or looking at online trading. Being the online junky that I am, I decided to start comparing my choices there. You probably know the big names. I'll not be advertising them here. Starting out small I had one goal: cheap broker fees. After reading all I could stand, I made my decision and sent the winner some cash.

Once my deposit showed up, I began to marry my investment advice newsletter to actual trades with my online account. I took several positions I felt very safe with and began to wait.... This was about mid October of 2008. As you probably know about that time - everything, and I mean 99% of the market if not more, lost money that month. I had to watch as every day my prize picks sank lower and lower and lower. Finally I hit my pre-set limits and had to close my positions. How crappy is this luck? I picked the worst time in my entire life to buy stocks! Thanks to my limits, I was able to get out with about 75% of my cash intact, ready to go at it again. However I'm once bitten and twice shy so to date, only about 20% of my online balance has been re-entered into the market. And it's performance thus far has been lackluster at best.

We hold this trip to be Universal

Hello? Anyone still awake out there?

Hmm.

Well in case someone stumbles across this site in the distant future I shall post an update.

Michelle and I took a much needed vacation last week. We chose Universal studios for the warm weather and rides. We were not disappointed. 82 and sunny every day and a maximum 5 minute wait on every single ride in the park. We highly recommend the week before Thanksgiving for those of you looking to do this trip someday.

I'll post a few pictures to prove I'm not making this stuff up. They were rolling out the Christmas decorations in case you don't recognize the place ;)

Till next time, loyal readers!

Momo Ridin'

Morrison has his music, and we have our bikes.


So yeah there are a lack of updates around here. The plan is to increase post frequency once we have a regular source of interesting news to report =)

Last weekend, we went on our first official mass motorcycle ride. I would estimate around 50 bikes participated. It was a little slow paced but still fun. The picture above is a shot of us all parked at our destination afterwards. The event was a fund raiser for down syndrome.

VACATION!!!!!!!

We were able to go on our honeymoon at the end of February. We took a cruise on Carnival Cruise lines & stopped at 3 wonderful ports: Costa Maya, Mexico & Grand Cayman & Ocho Rios, Jamaica. It was 7 of the most relaxing days we've had ina VERY long time. In Costa Maya, we rented a two person speed boat, played around in the bay and then parked at a floating dock and did some snorkeling. WOW...the water was so warm and clear.
In Grand Cayman, the shopping was awesome. We took an Island Tour that included making a brief stop in a place called Hell. It was nothing but some really ugly rock formations. The final stop on the tour was swimming with stingrays. I was scared, but it was still an exciting event.
Our final shore excursion was in Jamaica. We went horseback riding on the beach. I had always wanted to do that.

The Wedding

By now, most of you know we did it....WE GOT MARRIED!!!!! Here is one of our favorite pictures!!!!

We loves us some flyin'

So Saturday evening was our company's annual dinner. Organized entertainment, free food, and door prizes - oh my! I'm perpetually pessimistic when it comes to games of chance, but as luck would have it - Michelle and I actually won a pair of free airline tickets!

I'm sure you can appreciate the timing, as we are getting married this weekend, and the list of possible ticket destinations includes the Caribbean :) This has just added to the already magical feeling this week carries with it.

A big thanks to for being a sponsor of our wedding!

It's me...Sea Shell.

Hey everyone!!

This is my first time ever doing this too. Chris and I hope to be able to share many of our memories/adventures with you. As most of you know, we are about to officially start our lives together as one and are quite thrilled that most of you will be sharing our big day with us. We went to the church last night for our second session of marriage counseling. Chris and I have done so well during these sessions, that the pastor informed that we didn't have to come back for the third and final one next week. We also met the photographer there last night so he could get some ideas of what to expect. Chris' parents met us down there and Sheila and I got some ideas for more decorations. We just can't wait to get things started.

Home Alone

It's Saturday night, and Michelle has left for her bachelorette party. The plan was to work on my project motorcycle. ("mo-mo" as she calls it) It has battle scars from a previous owner so with a little glue and power tools I'm attempting to return the bike to most of it's former glory. However, it seems no local stores carry the stuff I need tonight so I'm forced to order it online. In 3-5 business days, the project should resume.

We put together a TV stand last night. It's really the end of a saga that began months ago. Just prior to Thanksgiving, we got wind of a nice deal at a not-so-local store. A 200 dollar rebate on a 42 inch plasma TV. Well the time was right to upgrade, and the deal was unmatched so we moved in for the kill. Standing in line at 5am is something everyone should experience in their lives just to appreciate the joy of paying a little too much for something. After getting the beast home it became painfully obvious we had nothing to set it on. Circuit City had the early lead with a nice little stand. However about an hour before we clicked "Buy" they raised the price on it quite a bit. We were miffed, but confident the price would come down again after the holidy frenzy died down. Well that never happened so a month later Target got our business.

While messing around with the colors for this blog, I ran across a handy little tool. If you have a color you like, just click on it and this program tells you it's value in web lingo.
It's called Color Picker.

Peer pressure is great.

All my friends are doing it (actually just 3 so far) so here goes nothing.

What to write... Well I won't be winning any academy awards for what happens on this site, so if anyone out there is trolling for the next great coattail to ride, this isn't the place.

My initial imagining of what you're gonna find here is what's going on in my soon-to-be married life. I've got plenty of ammo. However I doubt the interestingness of it all. I suppose I'll dive in and learn what I like sharing, and what needs to remain off the screen.

For now I'll be treating this like a diary of what's new. Love it or hate it. The comments button is there for your use.