Saturday, October 27, 2007

Saturday Miscellaney

Our good friend MarkM is taking a sojourn away from blogging. He's been a terrific contributor to this blog and others. To say that he will be missed is an understatement. We'll wait patiently for his return. We could make up stories about his absence, vote on the most outrageous one and present it to him upon his return!

Today I did a transport leg for Tori, a border collie mix and three black lab/mix puppitos. Very good passengers. It was an easy trip, and I really enjoy volunteering in this way. Here's a story for you....C, the person that introduced me to this volunteerism, sent an e-mail out a couple of days ago. Apparently this lovely, 9 year old, female, yellow lab was turned into the shelter because the family was moving. I sent the e-mail to my SIL to vent---she was willing to foster the dog. As she followed up, she was told that a family friend turned up at the shelter to take in the dog. Unless it was extenuating (health, financial debacle) circumstances, I could no more imagine turning my dog into a shelter than turning my kids into a "home". If I were truthful, it would almost be able to turn an insolent, surly teenager in than a dog!

Speaking of insolent, surly teenagers, my son received his driver's license (90-day temp) on Friday. Surprisingly, maybe not surprisingly, he thought that he was now able to just get in the car and go wherever he wanted. Upon my telling him NOT, he became insolent and surly....all the the things that any of us were when we were that age and our parents thwarted our every desire! Outside of the abject terror of their getting behind the wheel with their learners and our white knuckled rides with an inexperienced driver, another sort of terror slips in. The terror of their driving alone and being stupid behind the wheel. And as most of us remember from our teenage years, being stupid was a big percentage of our lives! You know what I mean. So we worry for them as our parents worried for us--all that worry predicated on doing all of the stupid things at one time that we were lucky to have lived through.

Daisey continues to heal. I took her stitches out on Friday rather than take her into the vet. It was easy to do. She has a place on her leg that is still open (for drainage) but that has become infected. She's on heavy duty antibiotics, and I'm dressing the wound 2 x a day in addition to putting hot compresses on it. Hopefully we are done with road encounters. Mark has extended the fence: a temporary 3 strand electric (we have electric on the board fence to keep those ladies from charging through the first slat).

We'll put up more board fence, but it is a chore and an expense. Poor Mark is just recovering from the first 160 ft. We have alot of road frontage to cover. We had limited to just where the yard was--but Daisey charged the road through the woods. Macy doesn't go over there, but Daisey is a machine....she covers every square foot of our land (6.5 acres) looking for something to point. Her energy is scary.

Rain has blessedly come. We were so parched. We had about 2 days of steady rain. Everything looks the better for it.
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Next week in the market will be interesting with the Fed rate decision. Have you listened to Gary K lately? I think that he is totally out of the market, as is his friend Jim Rorbach (who is a well-recognized and successful market timer). I have a few things, but I'm mostly cash. Despite my caution (and the occasional insolent surly comments by some Anon posters over this year), I've earned a very respectable return. I'll ascribe that to luck over skill--but I've really taken to heart some of the horribly painful lessons learned from last year!

Gary K has been the most consistently correct market observer. I've not seen the Fox Business Channel, but Gary must have been on. I tried to tune into his broadcast last Monday or Tuesday and I received a "server is busy". Jim Cramer used to have a radio show. I will tell you that his radio show was worlds apart from his TV show. He was calm, antic free--very much in pedagogical mode. Though I cannot abide by his histrionics, and I think that he tries to churn out too much content which makes him look waffly at best and schizoid at worst, I've learned from him. I wish he would can the TV show and move back to a platform that allows him to showcase his skills.

I've caught CNBC's Fast Money show, and that it quite good. All very smart cats. Perhaps we'll see MarkM on TV!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Leisa,
I have never watched American financial tv and know nothing of its personalities. I had no interest whatsoever in following Jim Cramer. However, few weeks - or more - ago, Jock, posting on BC's site, recommended Cramer's book, 'Confessions of a Street Addict', as a surprisingly good read. I picked up the book and am just finishing it...I agree...a very good read, with some interesting information about the trading culture.

regards
joey

Leisa♠ said...

I believe that was JC's first book. I've not read it, and I remember seeing it recommended on BC's site.

I'll credit JC with getting more individual investors interested in the market. Unfortunately some have blindly followed his picks thinking that it was easy money. There is no such thing as 'easy money'. Whenever one thinks it is easy danger is greatest.