huh...
this has been a..this past year has been difficult.
my mother passed away.
jesus. i miss her
i have fortunately been thinking a lot about death lately. not sure if its an effect of the death of my mother or from turning 40 years old. what is it about this damn number? why is it so damn stark? God I need to get this fear out my mind. I keep thinking i need to make sure i leave my kids financially secure. well what about leaving them the tools to be happy? ....that's always what i have wanted...love..is it possible? i need to be the ultimate person that i can be, share that and spread that, epigeneticize that
lol, well, 2013 was a tough year, but logically suffering brings on intelligence; wisdom. well 2014, if God wills it, will be a year of planning, building, and settling. i am very optimistic about me, my family, and our prospects. the sun is shining and i am enjoying its rays.
so far this year- promotion to vice chief of department, increase in income, plans to build a house, plans to vacation to rome, plans to go to the beach (was thinking miami, but probably the cape, miami will have to wait till next year)
goals for this year- optimism, prosperity, change
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Pump and Dump
My life as a day trader has been thus far insightful and remarkable. My investments began with little known stocks such as McDonalds and Amazon.com, jk. These stocks, enormous, well known, and made me some nice pocket change. I then branched out to lesser known investments such as cloud computing, chinese social media stocks and then so far as to invest in the company that issues my credit card, Discover. Discover, I must admit is one of my favorite stocks, simply because I love the company philosophy. Its gives you a penny or more for every dollar you spend. That penny you earn can then be redeemed for gift cards for stores (these gift cards are bought for 5-20% their face value). I then use these gift cards (basically these gift cards obtained free of cost for me since we pay our credit card statement monthly) at stores online, such as gap.com. When I get to gap.com there are promo codes that I can redeem for 10-20% off my purchase, which I purchase with "free money" which was obtained at a discount. So I receive a discount on a discount of free money, now if you don't like the sound of this, then you don't understand the beauty of winning in a capitalistic country, how I love America. So when I trade Discover in my brokerage account, not only does this company give me free money, but when I trade Discover and then sell it a few hours later, I can quickly make 100-2000 dollars, not bad for basically just believing in a company's philosophy.
However, like I sometimes do, I deviated from my path, and tried to explore paths of greed and what I will label as intricacies of what I consider intellectual superiority. However the joke was on me. Not only was I not taking a path of intellectual superiority and esotericismal monetary reward, I was stepping into what I did not realize was a trap of brilliant and simplistic scope. I became involved in Pump and Dump. Now what pump and dump is for those of you who are unaware, pump and dump is a term used to describe a scheme in which a ring of criminal investors will send out email messages to investors such as myself touting the prospects of a startup company. These investors will send out fabricated press releases and will setup a front company with a front board, CEO, press releases, and will put this company on the OTC:BB. I did not realize that securities traded on the market were unscrutinized to the extent that they are. So what happens is these criminal investors will send out these emails pumping up the ticker and numerous unwitting investors will buy the stock driving its price up, the criminals have large quantities of the stock which they bought for pennies, once the stock is driven up the criminals then "dump" their stocks at the inflated price, thus causing the stock to plummet. Unwitting purchasers of the stock at the overly inflated price begin to notice a drop on price, however there are no longer any new purchasers of the stock, so when you try to sell something no one now wants to buy? Fire sale, the price plummets and you lose whatever money you put into the stock. So to simplify, the criminals buy the stock, say 50,000 shares for $5,000, next they email investors about the company and its recent large contracts and the likely expectant increase in stock price. Investors clamor for the stock, the stock value increases (lots of buyers, with few sellers, so the price escalates). This is where the criminal investors begin dumping stock and the price begins to fall, to prevent its complete collapse a few more investors are targeted with emails in a staggered fashion, so these new investors begin buying and the criminals sell. Once the unwitting investors try to sell their stocks at the inflated price they realize there no longer are any buyers and the price drops dramatically. So the criminal who bought 50,000 share for $5,000 is able to sell that same amount of shares for $250,000, meanwhile the investor who bought 50,000 shares for $25,000 can now only recoup perhaps $10,000. Again the scheme is simple however to set this fraudalent illegal activity up I would assume would be complex as the government, I would hope, would be policing such fraud.
Have I learned my lesson? Yes, I have. I have learned to invest in what I know and what I trust and to stay away from schemes promising quick profits. I also learned that criminals are operating in the stock market very openly and brazenly, which I did not realize the extent of the criminal activity on the stock market. I guess it was a tuition of sorts, instead of paying a semesters tuition, I paid to learn what to invest in by experience and what to avoid. I hope if you are a day trader you will learn from this and avoid the expensive experience that I have been a part of.
However, like I sometimes do, I deviated from my path, and tried to explore paths of greed and what I will label as intricacies of what I consider intellectual superiority. However the joke was on me. Not only was I not taking a path of intellectual superiority and esotericismal monetary reward, I was stepping into what I did not realize was a trap of brilliant and simplistic scope. I became involved in Pump and Dump. Now what pump and dump is for those of you who are unaware, pump and dump is a term used to describe a scheme in which a ring of criminal investors will send out email messages to investors such as myself touting the prospects of a startup company. These investors will send out fabricated press releases and will setup a front company with a front board, CEO, press releases, and will put this company on the OTC:BB. I did not realize that securities traded on the market were unscrutinized to the extent that they are. So what happens is these criminal investors will send out these emails pumping up the ticker and numerous unwitting investors will buy the stock driving its price up, the criminals have large quantities of the stock which they bought for pennies, once the stock is driven up the criminals then "dump" their stocks at the inflated price, thus causing the stock to plummet. Unwitting purchasers of the stock at the overly inflated price begin to notice a drop on price, however there are no longer any new purchasers of the stock, so when you try to sell something no one now wants to buy? Fire sale, the price plummets and you lose whatever money you put into the stock. So to simplify, the criminals buy the stock, say 50,000 shares for $5,000, next they email investors about the company and its recent large contracts and the likely expectant increase in stock price. Investors clamor for the stock, the stock value increases (lots of buyers, with few sellers, so the price escalates). This is where the criminal investors begin dumping stock and the price begins to fall, to prevent its complete collapse a few more investors are targeted with emails in a staggered fashion, so these new investors begin buying and the criminals sell. Once the unwitting investors try to sell their stocks at the inflated price they realize there no longer are any buyers and the price drops dramatically. So the criminal who bought 50,000 share for $5,000 is able to sell that same amount of shares for $250,000, meanwhile the investor who bought 50,000 shares for $25,000 can now only recoup perhaps $10,000. Again the scheme is simple however to set this fraudalent illegal activity up I would assume would be complex as the government, I would hope, would be policing such fraud.
Have I learned my lesson? Yes, I have. I have learned to invest in what I know and what I trust and to stay away from schemes promising quick profits. I also learned that criminals are operating in the stock market very openly and brazenly, which I did not realize the extent of the criminal activity on the stock market. I guess it was a tuition of sorts, instead of paying a semesters tuition, I paid to learn what to invest in by experience and what to avoid. I hope if you are a day trader you will learn from this and avoid the expensive experience that I have been a part of.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
UFOs and alien beings
Have you ever been to Foxwoods? Well if you havent, it is an extremely large, and when I say extremely I mean 4.7 million square feet, the largest casino in the world and it contains the largest number of slot machines in the world with over 7,900. Wandering through the casino in such a daze, looking at the extremely high ceilings and entryways, the oak covered restaurant facades, the plush carpets, the grandeosity of the place is truly startling. And it was clean. The floors were clean, no where did I look was litter on the floor for more than 10 minutes time. This is a place that is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Sort of like a hospital. It felt alive to me. There have been births, deaths, fortunes attained, and life savings surrendered. Hope, despair, friendship, loneliness...
I went to Foxwoods to see a friend of mine from college, I trek down to Foxwoods every 2-3 years to meet up with my friend, to see him, lose some money, and try to learn something about people...I never go with any intentions of walking away with winnings, I think of the times I have gone to any casino, I have won perhaps twice and lost many other times. It is an odd experience, I used to play blackjack, get up to the felt, settled in, bet for a while, watch some people come in drunk ravingly happy, most went away broke, drunk and depressed, but a few...perhaps 1 that I recall...won..Its funny I can remember him to this day, a black guy in a sweater, drunk and constantly ordering drinks..winning hand, after hand after hand...who knows perhaps in retrospect everything seems larger than it is..but he won. I on the other hand, am one of the multitude of losers that goes to the casino. Some will say, I go, not to win, but to have fun. Ok, I can understand that. I dont like to lose money at a casino though, even if I get to meet some people and perhaps learn a thing or two about human nature and the nature of behavior and the multitude of experiences that occur.. The other reason I dont like going is because I feel hypocritical being a Christian. So I go at odds with myself, one part of me wanting the experience, the other part not wanting to potentially take away the savings or hope of a desperate individual...
So what does Foxwoods have to do with UFOs and alien beings? I knew you were wondering what the point was and when I would get to it..well to me an alien is anything that is not based in reality, and for me my reality consists of my wife, kids, minivan, soccer practice, local 3000 sq ft restaurants, and work. Foxwoods to me is alien. When I go into Foxwoods I feel I am entering an alien planet. The whole of it feels strange, unreal, vast and unattainable, unsustainable. I imagine the number of toilets, the amount of water, the amount of electricity, the amount of everything..enormous...to serve the need of millions of starving people..starving for entertainment..starving for companionship..for riches...yet the riches are a fantasy..almost as big a fantasy as the casino is, and how the casino morphed into the mammoth enterprise it is today from the seed of those fantasies..
When I was a little lad of the ripe old age of about a decade, I had the chance encounter of a spacecraft. It was quite interesting, myself and my friend at the time, were walking down a dirt street in a campground, on our way back from a dance at the rec center. I remember us both stopping and looking up into the trees above us and then out to the clearing to our left. Scott was mesmerized and he pulled me and had me look. I looked and froze in awe. It was quite a sight, it had a ring of red lights, it was black, it hovered over us, and then immediately accelerated to the distant sky. We ran to tell anyone who listen, which was no one, they would rather play pool, Pac Man, or ironically enough Galatica. That experience, opened my eyes to the mystery we live in..I called my friend Scott some 20 years later, and he had no recollection of the events, but apparently the same night of the UFO encounter; during a game of truth or dare, I was told to dare Scott's buddy to kiss a girl, well Scott informed me that those 2 kids got married and have their own kids. To me that is almost as bizarre as the alien spaceship, that something I did as a 10 year old changed 2 peoples lives in such an amazing way.
Sort of like a hospital. It felt alive to me. There have been births, deaths, fortunes attained, and life savings surrendered. Hope, despair, friendship, loneliness...
I went to Foxwoods to see a friend of mine from college, I trek down to Foxwoods every 2-3 years to meet up with my friend, to see him, lose some money, and try to learn something about people...I never go with any intentions of walking away with winnings, I think of the times I have gone to any casino, I have won perhaps twice and lost many other times. It is an odd experience, I used to play blackjack, get up to the felt, settled in, bet for a while, watch some people come in drunk ravingly happy, most went away broke, drunk and depressed, but a few...perhaps 1 that I recall...won..Its funny I can remember him to this day, a black guy in a sweater, drunk and constantly ordering drinks..winning hand, after hand after hand...who knows perhaps in retrospect everything seems larger than it is..but he won. I on the other hand, am one of the multitude of losers that goes to the casino. Some will say, I go, not to win, but to have fun. Ok, I can understand that. I dont like to lose money at a casino though, even if I get to meet some people and perhaps learn a thing or two about human nature and the nature of behavior and the multitude of experiences that occur.. The other reason I dont like going is because I feel hypocritical being a Christian. So I go at odds with myself, one part of me wanting the experience, the other part not wanting to potentially take away the savings or hope of a desperate individual...
So what does Foxwoods have to do with UFOs and alien beings? I knew you were wondering what the point was and when I would get to it..well to me an alien is anything that is not based in reality, and for me my reality consists of my wife, kids, minivan, soccer practice, local 3000 sq ft restaurants, and work. Foxwoods to me is alien. When I go into Foxwoods I feel I am entering an alien planet. The whole of it feels strange, unreal, vast and unattainable, unsustainable. I imagine the number of toilets, the amount of water, the amount of electricity, the amount of everything..enormous...to serve the need of millions of starving people..starving for entertainment..starving for companionship..for riches...yet the riches are a fantasy..almost as big a fantasy as the casino is, and how the casino morphed into the mammoth enterprise it is today from the seed of those fantasies..
When I was a little lad of the ripe old age of about a decade, I had the chance encounter of a spacecraft. It was quite interesting, myself and my friend at the time, were walking down a dirt street in a campground, on our way back from a dance at the rec center. I remember us both stopping and looking up into the trees above us and then out to the clearing to our left. Scott was mesmerized and he pulled me and had me look. I looked and froze in awe. It was quite a sight, it had a ring of red lights, it was black, it hovered over us, and then immediately accelerated to the distant sky. We ran to tell anyone who listen, which was no one, they would rather play pool, Pac Man, or ironically enough Galatica. That experience, opened my eyes to the mystery we live in..I called my friend Scott some 20 years later, and he had no recollection of the events, but apparently the same night of the UFO encounter; during a game of truth or dare, I was told to dare Scott's buddy to kiss a girl, well Scott informed me that those 2 kids got married and have their own kids. To me that is almost as bizarre as the alien spaceship, that something I did as a 10 year old changed 2 peoples lives in such an amazing way.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
annual christmas party
Nita and I had a great time dancing at the Christmas party, it was a good time. Man was that a workout I was sweating bullets
Cemetaries
they should revolutionize caskets, make them biodegradable, I was thinking put seeds in the casket so that when the casket degrades have flowers and a tree sprout from your grave, and instead of a tombstone have an ID that can be scanned by a smartphone that takes a person to an autobiography of your life and pictures of your life, kind of like a story of your life, maybe with a link to ancestry.com
Friday, December 16, 2011
Nervous
Ok, wow, I am a little shocked right now, I just found out that I can check to see the traffic on my blog, and it breaks it down by country, and interestingly enough, or frightening enough, I have a huge following in Iran..should I be nervous?
Perhaps its time for a new title for my blog
Well I am an attending, I work at Cooley Dickinson Hospital in Northampton. Being a full fledged physician has its perks and it definitely has its own set of learning experiences. Thus far I have learned how to start my own corporation, how to start a corporation with partners, how to be a trustee, clerk, president, and multiple other business associated activities that I had no clue about a little less than a year ago.
I must say that I do enjoy my job a lot. I like to work with people on a daily basis. I love having the specialized knowledge that I have and the sense of accomplishment that I have. I know you may be reading this and to yourself this guy is naive, a little too sentimental, but no I just live my life by my own standards and by what makes me happy....
Per the vacations that I seem to write about in the past, we went to Ogunquit again this year. We enjoyed a very good dinner this time around at the Front Porch in Ogunquit. Not bad. We stayed at a bed and breakfast this time in Perkins Cove, it was definitely a great place to stay.
This year I have been more involved with my son Oliver in running. He has run in a number of 5 k races and has performed very well.
Well its Christmas time and I just put up my lights, I gotta run and do some stuff, so more writing later. Adios.
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