I just finished reading "The Kite Runner." My ex-girlfriend recommended it. I'll admit I was skeptical at first. I thought--Afghanistan?? ehh??
It was by far the saddest and most beautiful story I've ever read.
It's a story about undying loyalty, family, respect, redemption, and overcoming the harsh realities of life.
I can't lie, I cried a couple of times while I was reading it. I guess, I'm just an old sentimental fool. It's such a beautiful story.
Plus, it reminded me of snugglepants. I miss her--"For you, a thousand times over!"
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Sunday, November 26, 2006
A novice trader's lament...
I put a couple of stocks in my watchlist: Delta, American, and Northwest.
Northwest and Delta are going through bankruptcy.
My thought was, I would buy 10,000 shares of Delta and let it ride. Then someone by the name of Jeff M. was kind enough to point out to me what happened with United Airline's stock when they went through bankruptcy. Basically, their stock was cancelled and reissued just before emerging from bankruptcy. It rendered the previous stock worthless. So, I called Delta and sure enough Delta has the same plan-I didn't do my due diligence. Luckily, some random person named Jeff M. did it for me and probably saved me about $6,500. I still made $6000 on the trade--so, it was still a good trade.
Unfortunately, the thing I didn't do was call up Northwest's Investor Relations and see if they were planning the same "cancelation and reissue." Northwests stock was still trading at $.55 when all this Delta stuff was going on. If I was just a tad more on the ball, I could have taken that $6000 from the Delta trade and bought 10,000 Northwest shares for $5,500. Today, in one month's time, that investment would be worth $40,000-the stock closed Friday at $3.98 a share.
This is a tough lesson. It's not that I'm unhappy about not making more money on the Delta trade, or that Northwest's stock has taken off like a rocket. I'm unhappy that I didn't do my homework by making a simple phone call. I dismissed Northwest without really looking into it.
All I can do is make a note of this and be more inclined to investigate companies more thoroughly in the future.
Also, something that I think was throwing me off was reading the Headlines--not always the best thing to do. Delta always has great news coming out. Northwest's news is sort of lack-luster--something else to note.
Northwest and Delta are going through bankruptcy.
My thought was, I would buy 10,000 shares of Delta and let it ride. Then someone by the name of Jeff M. was kind enough to point out to me what happened with United Airline's stock when they went through bankruptcy. Basically, their stock was cancelled and reissued just before emerging from bankruptcy. It rendered the previous stock worthless. So, I called Delta and sure enough Delta has the same plan-I didn't do my due diligence. Luckily, some random person named Jeff M. did it for me and probably saved me about $6,500. I still made $6000 on the trade--so, it was still a good trade.
Unfortunately, the thing I didn't do was call up Northwest's Investor Relations and see if they were planning the same "cancelation and reissue." Northwests stock was still trading at $.55 when all this Delta stuff was going on. If I was just a tad more on the ball, I could have taken that $6000 from the Delta trade and bought 10,000 Northwest shares for $5,500. Today, in one month's time, that investment would be worth $40,000-the stock closed Friday at $3.98 a share.
This is a tough lesson. It's not that I'm unhappy about not making more money on the Delta trade, or that Northwest's stock has taken off like a rocket. I'm unhappy that I didn't do my homework by making a simple phone call. I dismissed Northwest without really looking into it.
All I can do is make a note of this and be more inclined to investigate companies more thoroughly in the future.
Also, something that I think was throwing me off was reading the Headlines--not always the best thing to do. Delta always has great news coming out. Northwest's news is sort of lack-luster--something else to note.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
So, I wrote this book.
I wrote a book called "The New Bill of Rights." I actually stole the idea from James Madison, the creator of the original Bill of Rights. The idea of the original Bill of Rights was to give people the fundamentals rights they needed in order to be live and be happy and prevent an oppressive government from ruining everything. The original Bill of Rights is a pretty cool thing, and we are pretty lucky we have it.
Something I discovered while I was writing my book was that there was originally 13 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. Apparently, 3 didn't make the final edit. To me, this sounds like the Mel Brooks movie "The History of the World; Part One" during the scene where Moses was standing up on the hill; he had 3 stone tablets in has hands. Moses starts saying, "I have brought before you these FIFTEEN...one of the tablets drops and smashes on the ground....TEN.....TEN Commandments!"
So, I naively wrote this book called "The New Bill of Rights" with the idea that there were some gigantic loopholes in the Constitution that need to be closed, and there is an equally gigantic "vested interest" interested making sure those loopholes never get closed.
A couple of people said I was crazy for wasting my time writing a book like this. I've even felt like my style of writing was a little amateurish--OK, it's very amateurish. But, it's still my 1st book, so what do you expect, Hemingway?
Every time I've edited my book it's cost me $300, which kind of makes me wish I hadn't been so hasty in getting self-published. But now, I've gone through and re-edited for the 3rd, and hopefully, the final time. I've simplified and re-worded some things. I've taken out parts that I felt were juvenile and other parts that I felt were condescending. I switched out a chapter that I felt promoted intolerance. I've fixed some sentence fragments and a couple of run-ons. I've even come up with a subtitle that I think I can finally live with:
For the most part, I think I'm getting to a point where the book is presentable. My plan is still to mail copies to key political, media, and business leaders. Hopefully, I can get permission from one of them to use a quote on the front cover.
I'm still set on the chapter titles:
The Education Amendment
The Drug Decriminalization Amendment
The New Progressive Sales Tax Amendment
The Balanced Budget Amendment
The Profit Sharing Amendment
The New States Amendment
The Campaign Finance Amendment
The Stable Leadership Amendment
The Anti-Obsolete Amendment
The Golden Rule Amendment
You can kind of see where I was going from reading the chapter titles. There's nothing too earth-shattering in it. It's pretty straight forward. You can also tell I picked some areas where there some major issues.
No one else has written a book like mine. So, I'm still proud of my accomplishment despite the luke-warm reviews it's received.
As far as I'm concerned, "The New Bill of Rights" is a copywritten work-of-art. I've written a book about my political views. How many people can say that?
The next book is going to about my religious views--some people already know the title.
The book after that is going to be a children's book titled "The 13 Year Old Astronaut." It'll be somewhat autobiographical, but in a less depressing sort of way. LOL. OK, it will be a science fiction adventure set in present-time America.
Writing is something that makes me happy.
Something I discovered while I was writing my book was that there was originally 13 Amendments in the Bill of Rights. Apparently, 3 didn't make the final edit. To me, this sounds like the Mel Brooks movie "The History of the World; Part One" during the scene where Moses was standing up on the hill; he had 3 stone tablets in has hands. Moses starts saying, "I have brought before you these FIFTEEN...one of the tablets drops and smashes on the ground....TEN.....TEN Commandments!"
So, I naively wrote this book called "The New Bill of Rights" with the idea that there were some gigantic loopholes in the Constitution that need to be closed, and there is an equally gigantic "vested interest" interested making sure those loopholes never get closed.
A couple of people said I was crazy for wasting my time writing a book like this. I've even felt like my style of writing was a little amateurish--OK, it's very amateurish. But, it's still my 1st book, so what do you expect, Hemingway?
Every time I've edited my book it's cost me $300, which kind of makes me wish I hadn't been so hasty in getting self-published. But now, I've gone through and re-edited for the 3rd, and hopefully, the final time. I've simplified and re-worded some things. I've taken out parts that I felt were juvenile and other parts that I felt were condescending. I switched out a chapter that I felt promoted intolerance. I've fixed some sentence fragments and a couple of run-ons. I've even come up with a subtitle that I think I can finally live with:
HOW TO FIX AMERICA'S BROKEN SYSTEM
For the most part, I think I'm getting to a point where the book is presentable. My plan is still to mail copies to key political, media, and business leaders. Hopefully, I can get permission from one of them to use a quote on the front cover.
I'm still set on the chapter titles:
The Education Amendment
The Drug Decriminalization Amendment
The New Progressive Sales Tax Amendment
The Balanced Budget Amendment
The Profit Sharing Amendment
The New States Amendment
The Campaign Finance Amendment
The Stable Leadership Amendment
The Anti-Obsolete Amendment
The Golden Rule Amendment
You can kind of see where I was going from reading the chapter titles. There's nothing too earth-shattering in it. It's pretty straight forward. You can also tell I picked some areas where there some major issues.
No one else has written a book like mine. So, I'm still proud of my accomplishment despite the luke-warm reviews it's received.
As far as I'm concerned, "The New Bill of Rights" is a copywritten work-of-art. I've written a book about my political views. How many people can say that?
The next book is going to about my religious views--some people already know the title.
Once these religious and political books are a done deal, I probably won't ever write another book that's "non-fiction." Although, anyone who's read "The New Bill of Rights" will probably tell you it's fiction.
The book after that is going to be a children's book titled "The 13 Year Old Astronaut." It'll be somewhat autobiographical, but in a less depressing sort of way. LOL. OK, it will be a science fiction adventure set in present-time America.
Writing is something that makes me happy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)