Sunday, December 18, 2011

The geese at Upper Iowa

I took a few pictures of the geese at the Upper Iowa River, just off of Dug Road. This is one.
I've been getting lazy. I intended to walk the length of Dug Road, which is about 1 1/2  miles long, but I ended up just walking a hundred yards or so.
Luther is closed for the Christmas holidays so I can't go swimming. I only went one time and it made me so tired that I could hardly get out of the pool, afterwards.
I talked with Loula last Friday night at the Co-op about my money making schemes. Specifically I told her about my idea of going West and looking for gold. I also mentioned the idea of buying things at auctions and selling them on E-bay. If I discount the silver-plated flatware debacle, I did rather well at that. There is no market for silver plate, no matter how pretty it is, but I did well with coins, stamps and guns. I'll have to keep track of all of my expenses, such as eating and gasoline, but it might be worth trying. I'll have to sell on E-bay, myself, since I wouldn't be able to afford paying 25% to the Game Exchange. I think the gold prospecting will have to wait until I get a better vehicle. It's worth a try.
Last week, when my sister Faye and I went to the Christmas at Luther choral presentation, later we ate at Rubaiyat's. Here is a picture of Faye, me, and Jim and Sherry Slitor. Faye wanted me to send her this picture. I wonder if she can download it from the blog.
I transferred my representative payee account to a local bank. I hope that it works out alright. I am a bit concerned about getting my allowance checks in a timely fashion. I'm hoping to use any surplus for investing either in buying at auctions or on E-trade. We'll see.
Later

Friday, December 9, 2011

Hanging out at Java John's

I'm just hanging out at Java John's, today. I'll post a picture of the place. I may have mentioned it on my blog, earlier. The owner, Mary, is a great cook and she has very reasonable prices.

My sister visited me, last week. We went to "Christmas at Luther". It's a musical presentation at Luther
College. They put it on each year. Only Luther alumni, students, and faculty and staff can get tickets. I got four tickets, 2 for my sister and me, and 2 for Jim and Sherry Slitor. We had a great time. The show was awesome. We sat in the front row and afterwords, we went to Rubaiyat's for dinner.
Faye, my sister, went back to California last Friday. I failed her inspection of my apartment. I now have to clean and organized the place in case a woman actually sees the place again.
I've been talking with Loula once a week in a professional way. She's a counselor at the Behavioral Health Office. She got me to go for walks in the morning and make the commitment to go swimming at Luther in the morning. So far I haven't gone swimming at all, yet. It's getting a bit cold to walk in the morning, as well. I need to Just Do It. I've been trying to lose weight by reducing my food intake, but that hasn't done the job. I also need to increase my activity level. I'm afraid that the medications that I'm taking for schizophrenia is making me gain weight. Apparently it has that effect on a lot of people. I've probably reduced my food intake by 2/3s. I've been eating very little and I still can't seem to lose weight. I take vitamins but I'm afraid that I may not be getting the nutrition that I should.
I haven't been investing at all, lately. Between the car and my investments, I'm broke. I'm down to $300, that I'm going to try to buy a car with at an auction, this Saturday. It's another Voyager, but it's six years newer than mine. It has close to 200,000 miles on it so there is hope that it will go cheap. So much for storage locker auctions and investing.
I've got a metal detector but it's too late in the year to look for coins around here. The ground is frozen. I was thinking that I might find a way to go west and look for gold nuggets. Maybe I can work that out, somehow. I could sleep in the back of my van. Where there is a will there is a way. I'm back to reading books on the Law of Attraction. I never did get into tithing. I think that only works well for the churches.
Maybe I should try it, after all, things went to shit when I didn't tithe. Things were working quite well before I read that book. Maybe it jinxed me.
Maybe I'll get back, tomorrow

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

I'm back

I haven't been posting anything for several months. I don't know what got me started again, but I'm back.
This has been more of a journal than anything else and I think I'll keep it that way.
I moved from Calmar and I now live in Decorah. It's a lot larger than Calmar and it has coffee shops and grocery stores that I like to hang out at. I was spending over $300/month just driving back and forth between Calmar and Decorah.
I lost most of my money, trading stock options. The market has been terrible for investing. The last posting I was starting to invest in options. They are a lot more risky than stocks but when you are right you can make a lot more money with them. I had a month or so when I was seeing my options go through the roof and my stocks poke along. I switched to trading just options. I had a couple of weeks that I made over 50% a week in the options. Then it turned sour. I didn't have enough sense to bail out as I felt that it would turn around. Of course, my car had troubles at that time and I had to spend money to get it repaired. I should have just bailed out and forgotten about trading. The trading saying "Sell in May, and go away" worked, this year. I wish that I had done that.
I'll be back tomorrow.
Later

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

The camera works

It turned out that I was operating the camera wrong. I was snapping pictures before the lens had extended. It just wasn't ready to take pictures before I started taking them. I've got to be patient.
 This is a picture of my van. It's a 1990 Plymouth Voyager. It has the grill off of a Dodge so I suppose it's bi-racial.
I'll post the  eagles' nest link   . That should do it. I've got it on a couple of earlier blogs. Just click on the blue letters.
Well, I've been making money on gold, lately. It's been going up since the Egyptian crisis started. I missed out on the first big move, but it's been moving up steadily since then. So far I've got about an eighty percent gain on my GLD options. I'm thinking about selling my commodity ETF and buying options on Gold Corp, tomorrow. I would like to buy a dip but I don't think there will be one. Now is the time to buy.
I've been struggling with my new desktop computer. It's not really new since I bought it, used, from  Luther College. But it's new to me.
I bought some memory DIMMs from E-bay, last week and they didn't work. After taking them to Luther and NICC it turns out that cheap DIMMs may or may not work with different computers. I gave them to NICC. I'll see about getting new ones from Wal-Mart. Nate can help me.
I've been reading a lot about the Law of Attraction, lately. Basically it means that I can visualize money coming to me. So far it seems to be working. When I had to come up with money for the taxes a lady from the credit organization that handles my monthly bills called me. She said that quite a bit of money had stacked up for me, there. I'm using that for the  taxes. I'll also see about tithing with the monthly surplus. Another book raved about the way that tithing magnetizes money to you. I'll give it a shot for 6 months. If it works, I'll make it a long term thing.
Later

Saturday, February 19, 2011

One Picture Worked

I took several pictures today with my new camera and only one worked. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Maybe the batteries are low. I know that if you leave batteries in some cameras, that the camera will drain them even though its not on. Well this is a picture of the Dug Road trail in the wintertime. If you go back on some of my old blogs you can find it in the summertime.
I took the tax stuff to H&R Block yesterday. I had some good news and some bad. First, I made a lot of money with my stock investments, last year. The bad news is that I owe a lot of taxes. That's just the price of success. As much as it pains me, I'll just transfer some money from E-Trade and pay them. My gold options are doing too well to touch, so I'll use money from the commodities ETF.
I've been reading books on the Law of Attraction, lately. I found that in one I set a goal of making $1000/month beyond what I make on Social Security. That was achieved. This year I want to make $200,000 for financial security. If my bonds become worth something, that will be doable. I don't want to limit how I will do it, but I would feel a lot better if I had that amount of money in my portfolio. Maybe I'll win the lottery.
That reminds me. Monday I'm calling the guy with the storage locker for auction. He was going to let the previous owner try to make payment, yesterday. If it's still being auctioned I think I'll bid $500. He said that it had a washer and dryer, a stove, a microwave, and a rolling toolbox. I don't really need any of those things but  if I can sell them I would have an new revenue stream. It's worth looking into.
Later

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

New computer

Last Thursday I picked up a desktop computer from Luther's auction. They get rid of their old computers by auctioning them off online. It cost me $70, but it had a bad CD player. I took it back yesterday and they put in a good player. I've got 2 forms of Linux on it. They are Ubuntu and Mint. I couldn't get Mint to work with my WiFi module so I loaded Ubuntu. It also has Windows Professional from Luther.
I can now watch CNBC without having it pause. I'm still pirating the WiFi from my neighbors.
I made $425 on my options, today. I'm ahead by about $1000. Of course I didn't mention how I lost over $200 yesterday and another $175 Friday. It fluctuates wildly. I think I'll stick with the gold options as long as I'm ahead.
I haven't heard anything from either Sophie or Clara. Even though they both friended me on Facebook, neither has replied to my message about the Eagles' nest. I think that is the trouble with being a dirty, old man. Nobody pays you any attention. I think I'll post the link to the Eagle cam again. Just in case someone actually sees this blog and wants to go to it.http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/  That was easy. Now I have to get my camera out and get some pictures. The sun came out for a while and the snow was melting. It was pretty. It's too late tonight to take any pictures but maybe the sun will come out tomorrow. 
Later

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Storage Wars

I've been watching a lot of television shows about auctioning off the contents of storage lockers. Now one has come up for auction at a town near me. The trouble is that they are doing a phone auction and I haven't been able to see the contents of the unit yet. They are starting the bidding at $300, so I want to see it before I bid on it. I called the owner of the storage units, yesterday. The guy wasn't there and he hasn't returned my call. I'm afraid that I'm just gambling. I would love to get a bunch of silver coins and collectible stamps.
The eagles are working on their nest at the fish hatchery so I'll make a link to it http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/   It's fun to see both of the eagles working on their nest. I'm showing this feed to a bunch of people at Java John's
I've been talking with Gary T. He's going to Vail soon. He skis a lot. I asked him about starting an investment club, but he wasn't interested.
I think I'll need about $20,000 to invest enough to really be diversified. Maybe a club with 4 or 5 members who really have some money to invest is the answer.
I've got 7 options on the gold ETF GLD. I was hoping that the Egypt thing would drive gold through the roof. Apparently, that won't happen. I still think gold will do well before April. The Chinese are supposedly buying a lot of gold for their central bank.
I canceled my cable television, last week. My bill went from $43/month to $180/month. I was on a year long special deal. I'm now getting my internet from my neighbors. I pirate it with a USB wifi connector on my computer. I'm able to watch CNBC and listen to music all day. I just have to get used to not having the normal TV shows.
Later