SteveCook.net

Okay, so here’s what I was working on in Colorado – it’s still not 100%, but nearly done. It’s online weddings at VirtualVow.com! Basically, it lets anyone (or anything) get married on the internet. Of course, it’s not real – only married in cyberspace, but I’ve already got people signing up, and I’m not advertising it yet.

I also sent in the final draft of “The 308 Buyer’s and Owner’s Guide” to VelocePress.com. Hopefully it’s the last edit! This is about the 4th or 5th “final” edit, focusing mainly on the layout. It actually took the longest to do because I was waiting for school to finish.

All through the 90′s the strategy was Growth… growth was king. Now, most investors are going with “value” investing – probably due to the success of Warren Buffet and his value investing. I’ve tried both of those methods in the past, and didn’t do horrible, but I was not good at value investing… I’m leaving my long-term and retirement investments in the mediocre but less risky vehicles, and been speculating with some dedicated “speculation” money.

Most recently I’ve been trying Darvas’ Box Theory- which is like momentum investing with some additional rules.  Basically, a stock will trade within certain upper and lower bounds. If it pops up “convincingly” out of it’s box, then it’s a possible buy.  I also add some additional requirements (P/E vs. Industry P/E, minimum volume, EPS, etc.), and build my stock screen from that.

So far, I’ve done really well. I did some call options, but only on ones I though would do really well. Best to date was DLP (Delta Land & Pine) – it was doing well, and then Monsanto announced they were buying them, so it shot up to 40. My current top picks (which I do have money in at the moment) are: FDRY and SWY.  Foundry poped out of it’s box in early/mid august, while Safeway has been skyrocketing since mid-July.  These are short-term holds (speculation, remember? .

First, I really like riding my bike to work – Darn near “love” it!  It’s a great time to think and reflect on things for the day, and it’s a great workout.

Jonah had his first baseball game last night (for Fall Ball). They won!  He had two really good hits – singles both times, but he got out on the second, when he went for second base, but the player at 2nd, didn’t run… DOH! The coaches are good this year too. I’m going to put their schedule into TeamSites (beta) this week.

I have been reading “Altered Carbon” by Richard Morgan. It’s a cyberpunk/sci-fi “private investigator” type genre, that reads really well.  A bit long, but not boring at all – I’m about half-way through. I recommend it so far. I finished Neal Stephenson’s Cobweb last week, so this was next on my list. Cobweb was very good.

Been doing a lot of work on CheatCodes and some BooyahMedia projects this week, and that will probably contine for a while. Trying to put more TeamSites in there as well.

LifeHacker had a great font site: dafont.com.  Fonts are in topics, which is nice for browsing.

Janet, Jonah and I spent the weekend (fri-mon) hanging out at Copper Mountain Colorado. We did a bit of mountain biking (you can take the chair lift to the top and bike down), rock climbing, and bungee/trampoline jumping. Jonah had fun, but chickened out halfway up the “medium” rock climbing route. We took Janet’s Cayenne and it drove great.

While we were in Copper, while Janet and Jonah slept, I started putting together a quick website I’d been tossing around for a little while. It’s nearly done, but I’m going to write some better copy before putting the link here .

Just before leaving for Copper, I also picked up a new GPS unit. Earlier last week Colin picked up a Garmin eTrek Vista Cx. I played with it a little, and decided to pick one up too! We used it for our trip up to Colorado and back. It worked very well, and was pretty good at re-routing. The battery life is also outstanding (16+ hours on 2 double AA’s so far). I picked up the bicycle mount, but because my handlebars are carbon fiber, they’re a little thicker (non-round too), so don’t fit the mount. It does fit on my older mountain bike (Specialized Hardrock) - so I guess that’s where I’ll put it on there.

I’m also starting a new diet plan, which places some emphasis on protein/carb/fat ratios and timing (carbs in the morning). I’ll update here with the progress.

Both final class weekends are complete. I have only a short paper to write – a mere 10 pages on a critically reflexive leadership self-assessment – and I will be completely done.

It’s been over two years since this MBA adventure began, and I must admit, I’m sorry to see it end. I really enjoy learning things, and the classes were always enjoyable (despite my lack of interest in some of the topics). If any of you readers (or is it just one – reader) are thinking about going back to school to get an MBA, I highly recommend you go for it. It can be tough sometimes, with work and homework, but in the end, your smarter for doing it.

I’ve also been reading a few books, now that I don’t have required readings. I’ve already zipped through a Doctor Who novel that was waiting on the sidelines, and I also am about half-way through a short historical text on Napoleon Bonaparte. Man, that dude had some big brass cajones…

This past weekend I took Jonah for a bike ride. He was able to make it 20 miles!  Although we stopped several times on the way back so he could take a water break, we still made it in just over 2 hours. Like me, he’s not a big fan of going up hills.

Janet’s belly is really starting to show now. We don’t know if it’s a boy or girl yet – she didn’t want to know…