New Keyboard

Well, I got my new keyboard for the Nook. It's taking some getting used to. It's better than the screen, but I'm still not completely happy with it. A genuine laptop is better to type with. At least I don't have to hunt and peck. It's been three weeks now and I still prefer a laptop.

I've been tempted to get back to trading options. The market is moving up and One Main Financial sent me a letter saying that I can borrow more money. I can borrow $1700, which would get me back into options.

I don't think I'll do it. I told Holly at the VA that I wouldn't borrow money. I think she's right. I would just be gambling again. Last year was very similar to this. I had the easy money to borrow and the market was moving up. Well, that turned out to be a trap. I ended up strapped for money and it took me until recently to get out of the hole.

I don't like having my upside potential limited by working for an hourly wage but that looks like that is just the way things are working out. I probably read too many books about taking risks to reach your income potential. It just sells books. I'm no Zuckerman or Steve Jobs. I'm just Craig in Decorah. I'm probably better off finding beer cans on weekends that I can sell for the deposit. It has to do with reality. That is something that I've considered optional for much of my life.

I think I'll get one of my etchings sold. Someone sent me an e-mail asking me to lower my price to $75. I told him that I had already reduced my price and I was in no hurry to sell it. I hope he bids on it, I could use the money.

Things are going well at the Peace and Justice Center. That's where I work, part-time.

Not much, else, is happening.

Later

A Week Later

It's a week after my last post. I said that I was going to buy puts on the SLV ETF. I did and the first day I was ahead by about $150 on a $200 investment. After that it went down. After two days of collapsing the metals prices stabilized. I was late getting into the trade. If I had bought the puts on the Friday that the collapse started I could have made thousands of dollars. As it was I was too late. It moved in China too much for me to take advantage of it here.
The lesson was to have some money in my Etrade account to always be ready for a big move. A couple of hundred in reserve can make a big difference. I now don't know which way the markets will move.
That move last week might represent the deflation that happens before the hyper-inflation, that people are expecting.
I watched a lot of truly negative videos about the coming currency collapse, last week. I think they are right. The dollar is worthless and we'll go into hyper-inflation soon.
I feel a need to position myself to be better prepared for it. I talked with Jim about buying his land. I think I could afford it with my income from the Peace and Justice Center. I should try to partner with Jim in building a house there.
I don't know what else I can do. Poverty is the big obstacle. Maybe I could make money in a leveraged manner while the currency is going down. The trouble with that is that I would still be in the dollar.
I was thinking about prospecting for gold. The trouble with that is that it would cost money.
I've been spending too much money on my new computer. It's a Nook by Barnes and Noble. I'm finding myself buying apps for it and they sneak in charging me for them when I don't know that they cost money. The Nook has been a big mistake. I bought an operating system on a memory card for it. It worked for about a week then it froze up. I tried erasing it on the desktop but much of it was write-protected. I'll take it to Radio Shack and see if they can erase it.
I had a money-making idea last week. I noticed how the Peace and Justice Center has regular donations on a monthly basis. I figured that if they can get people to donate year after year and they increase their donor list on a regular basis, it could really add up. I was thinking I could do something similar with dental care for poor people.
My experience with poverty has shown me that dental care is something that is grossly overlooked in caring for the poor. It's hard to get free dental care and people need it. I could start a charity and get people to donate on a monthly basis. In a few years, if I took 10% for overhead, I could support myself quite well. I'll have to ask a few people about getting this off the ground.
That's all for now.
Later.

Buying Silver Puts Tomorrow

After last Friday's big down move in precious metals, I decided to buy puts in the silver ETF.  Buying puts means that I'll be betting that silver keeps moving down. I would advise using Google and doing a search on put options if you don't understand what I'm talking about. Books have been written on this topic.
I just feel that the move is not over. Since we are apparently going into a depression people aren't buying silver and gold which act as an inflation hedge. Playing the options can be difficult but they are highly leveraged and I might make a lot of money. I just hope that I don't stay in them too long.
I'll keep you all posted on how I'm doing if you come back to my blog.
I went to the Kitco website today. It's a site that specializes in metals (prices and discussions). I wound up watching a lot of negative articles about why gold and silver should go up. Apparently the world's economy is collapsing and now is the time to prepare for it by buying metals and food. Of course, they have been saying that for the last thirty or more years.
 They made some good points on buying silver that I wasn't aware of. Something that struck me was the point that when gold is dug up it is stored as an asset, whereas silver is used as an industrial metal and then thrown away. That means that silver is being depleted at a faster rate than gold.
When the sell-off is over I'm going to buy more silver. I hope I'll be able to afford it. I would also like to buy Jim's acreage. It's close to the Mississippi river, and I could raise chickens and grow a garden as well as fish for food. It really would be an ideal survivalist homestead. Things may turn around, yet. Of course, I've been through this many times, before. I get my hopes built up, then my investments turn bad.
I just checked the Asian market for gold and silver. They opened down, but now they seem to be coming back. I'm glad. That means I'll be able to get into my position at a better price than what it could have been. I'll be buying at 8:30 tomorrow morning. I'm a bit anxious. At least I won't have thousands invested and I have a good income from Social Security and my part-time job. It's money I could afford to lose.
I've been using the Nook a lot more, lately. I still prefer to use a laptop to blog with. I might have to get the wireless keyboard for the Nook. I don't see any great advantage to the tablet computers. They are hard to get used to and I need a real keyboard, anyway.
If anything great happens tomorrow I'll get back to you.
Later

New Nook

Last week I went to Barnes & Noble, in LaCrosse, and bought a Nook. It's a  tablet computer sold by B&N. I'm having a hard time typing with it. I'm reduced to hunting and pecking typing. I can see that I'll have to buy a keyboard for it. It took me a while to get used  to navigating on it. Overall I don't see any great advantage to this over my old Mac Ibook laptops. I think they are a waste of money.
It was a two for the price of one deal. I got an ereader as well. I like the ereader. It's really handy, but I'm not sold on the Nook. Maybe I'll like it when I get a keyboard. I already sent off for a memory card with a different operating system on it. I couldn't get enough apps with this operating system.
That's all for now. I might get back on the desktop.
I'm back and the desktop works, which is more than I can say for the Nook. It's great to have a real keyboard. I was sucked into buying a tablet computer by all the hype. I think they are a waste. I can't type with it and I keep bumping things and ending up doing something that I don't want to. They are just too hard to use. Maybe the Ipad is better but I doubt it. The new operating system might help. I couldn't get Google Drive on the nook. We'll see.
From what I can see the tablets are just an attempt to get you to spend more money. And I don't have any to waste.
later

Hard Drive Doesn't work

The hard drive that I was trying on the Macintosh at work didn't work. It was just too new of an operating system for that old computer. I took it home and I may install it on my Dell. I put the old hard drive back in and it works on the Mac. It's just too old and slow of an operating system to really be useful. I asked Julie about putting Linux on it but we'll have to wait until Ruth lets us.
We had a misplaced flash drive this morning. Apparently I misfiled it. We were looking for it for at least half an hour and it finally turned up in a file cabinet.
We've been experimenting with Google Drive and other Google applications. I think we could go with that and replace our Libre office stuff. I am afraid that it might not be complex enough for our uses though. We were able to transfer files and print easily with it today. It's a cloud-based system and everything seems to be going that way. Cloud-based means that instead of having applications here they are on a server somewhere.
I got another old Ibook G4 today. It's a 14 inch screen. That's rather large for me. It seems to be working. It had a problem that was similar to another 14 inch Ibook that I have. When you turn it on it beeps 3 times and the hibernate light comes on and flashes but the screen stays black. The other one got progressively bad. It got to the point that I gave up on it. Now I have to wonder if there was something wrong with it's hard drive. I ran fsck on this one and it seems to be working fine. Of course, intermittent
problems can be that way. I'll play with it for a while.
The old printer broke. I think it happened when I had the ink cartridge out and turn off the computer. The printer went into a shut down mode with the cartridge opened. It broke some plastic and I threw it out.
The new printer only cost me $43. It's a Canon scanner, copier and printer combined. I got it working by loading a new form of Linux on the desktop. It was time to do that anyway. I don't think I've had an operating system on any of my machines for more than 6 months, anyway.
My running has been taking a back seat to the cold weather that we've been having. I don't have very warm running clothes. It's been bitterly cold so I've said to heck with it. I'll start in a few days.
Not much else is happening. I guess I'll go to Ebay and write some feedback for things that have gotten here lately.
Later

Overeating at Culvers

I am such a sucker for free ice cream. I just finished a hamburger and a dish of ice cream even though I wasn't really hungary. Those coupons are getting to me. I now have two more to use. Every time I come in I get one or two coupons. I'm going to be adding weight.
At least I started running. I'm trying to get into shape by jogging. I run from my home to the bank which is on top of the hill from where I live. Maybe it is 300 yards away. It's not far but it's a start. I'm only running every other day to give myself a little time to recover.
The black Dell desktop at work is giving me troubles. I replaced the CMOS battery last week and it seems to be better. I also replaced the CD player. The old one wouldn't even eject at all. At least the new one ejects but I've only been able to read a disk once or twice. I'm going to try loading a live form of Linux Mint on it and see if everything will work. A live version means that it runs from the flash drive or the CD and doesn't touch the hard drive. If it works, I'll load the whole program. I think it will work. It's possible that the hard drive is damaged as well. Only time will tell.
I hope to get the new hard drive into the Mac at work as well. I was hoping to get it in the mail, yesterday. But it didn't arrive. Maybe it will be here tomorrow. If that works I'll be able to take the Mac's hard drive out and use it in the Dell. I'll find out if I can do that when I remove it. I hope that it used an IDE hard drive. Those are pretty common now. I might be a scuzzy drive. That is the type that Mac used a long time ago. The cables will be different if they are incompatible.
I also hope to get the ink cartridge for my printer, tomorrow. If it comes from China, I won't be seeing that for another week. I got my printer to work with Linux as far as the utilities are concerned. I had a problem removing the ink cartridge. I played around with it and it works now. I need to print 22 pages of tax information from Etrade before I can do my taxes. it would cost $.25/pg to print it at the library. That's over $5.00.
Well, tomorrow its supposed to snow again. I'm tired of it. It probably won't amount to much but I'm just burned out on snow. That is especially true now that I have another job. I'll be making enough money at the Peace and Justice Center. I don't really need the snow money.
I don't really have anything to add. Not much is happening today.
Later

Bought the wrong hard drive

It's a snowy day in Decorah. I made some money, this morning, shoveling snow. It didn't interfere with my job at the Peace and Justice Center. I'm working there, on a part time basis, to learn about IT work.
Anyway, while there, I got into looking for a newer operating system for an old IMac that they have. I went home and got on EBay. I ended up looking at hard drives that had an operating system pre-installed. I got to thinking about my worst old Ibook G4. I can't load an operating system because the plug for the CD player is broken. I tried using firewire but that didn't work. So I bought the hard drive. Only after I payed for it did I notice that it is a 3 1/2 inch drive. The Ibook takes a 2 1/2 inch drive. That makes it useful for a desktop only. Maybe I can install it in the old IMac. We'll see.
Other than I'm spending too much money at the new job, it is going well. I spent $30 last week for a firewire cable. I can use that at home as well as at work but I couldn't get the operating systems to work. I think it might be that Macintosh simply rejects anything that isn't a Macintosh operating system. I know that it's that way with the flash drives. I'll have to try loading some of the old Macintosh operating systems on my home computer. That might work.
Culver's is loading me up with free coupons. Each time I come in they give me a coupon that I have to take a survey with. Then I get free ice cream the next time I come. I'm a sucker for free things. I'm going to get very fat. Not only do I eat the ice cream but I end up ordering something else as well. I guess that I don't want to look like the cheap skate that I really am. Anyway, tonight I had chile french fries as well as ice cream.
Tomorrow it is supposed to snow again. The last weather report I saw had it snowing from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM. That may mess me up with the job at Peace and Justice. The snow that came down today melted as fast as it came down. I only had to deal with the snow that came overnight. That was bad enough. It was wet and heavy. I doubt that tomorrow's snow will amount to anything but I've been wrong before.
Well, I've got a survey to fill out.
Later