Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Last weeks comics.....

I'm usually three or four days late looking at the Sunday paper. I just find it a lot of noise that means very little to me. But once in a while I find something I especially like. Here is a link to the Non Sequitur strip from 9 Mar 08. It describes me almost perfectly.

http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur/2008/03/09/?campid=0&ssns=9&

I stupidly registered as a Republican when we moved to Florida. Thus before every election I receive fifteen or twenty calls trying to get me to vote for some idiot Republican or another. Please don't get me wrong, all Republican's are not idiots but sometimes it sure seems that all people running for office are!

Polls and statistics are another hot button. Mr. Miller has really nailed the pollsters in his strip. Well, you have to remember that the pollster is being paid by someone who wants a certain result from the poll. Yes, Virginia, even tv sponsored polls can be slanted. Even if you want to be fair, it's tough to both write questions and provide answers that will enable a range of answers to complex questions.

Enough rant. Tonight I'm off to a meeting of my local American Association of Individual Investors (AAII) group. Every month we have a speaker from a mutual fund company, brokerage or such who talks to us about their investing methodology. Many are a little too technical for me; I think the markets are both emotional and political so technical answers don't really satisfy me. But that's just my un-humble opinion. There are plenty of technicians who have made money in the stock market. Still, I learn something from every speaker. If nothing else they pique my interest in areas that I've never before considered. Here is the national web site: http://www.aaii.com/ for those who might like to check it out.

Take it easy out there; it's dangerous!

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Florida Scene

This is an odd winter. We had one freeze that damaged a bunch of plants. But we haven't had the consistently nice weather that one comes to expect. There has been a lot of cool cloudy weather and quite a lot of rain. The rain is good because the state has had a water shortage for many years; but in the Tampa area we are almost 2 inches above normal so far this year. When our friends were here we went out to Clearwater Beach and got sand blasted off the beach. The breeze picked up that sand and just peppered you with it. Today we are having 20 mph gusts. It's just different this year!



Yesterday I was in John Chestnut County Park. It is on the other side of Lake Tarpon from the photos I posted few weeks ago. Here there is a boat ramp and some places where you can fish from the shore. I got a kick out of the avian help that these two guys had.

Have a good one!

Monday, March 10, 2008

Alone at last!

We've had friends visiting us since the 28th of February. It's a long time even though we love them dearly. It's a long time even though they took time out to visit other people in other parts of Florida. But now they are gone.

Back to my morning computer fix. Back to a 'normal' amount of coffee. Back to cooking for two. Back to quiet. Back to blogging!

The couple who visited are really nice but the woman can talk non-stop for several hours. I've no idea how she breathes since she certainly doesn't have to pause for it. She does read though and that quiets her for a while. Maybe she is storing up oxygen during that time for later use. The guy doesn't talk as much (how could he?) but he doesn't read. So he is always around to talk if his wife is reading. Of course, this last week has been fairly cool so we were stuck in the house a lot. Yeah, just to make escape more difficult. LOL We did go out to the beach but the wind was kicking up the sand so it was practically sand blasting our skin off.

All I can say is "Thank Goodness for alcohol"!!!