Perfection

My friend took this shot at our beach today, and there’s really nothing to say.

Greatest hits

I took my hit on my S&P long,  and decided that equities still confuse me. My other positions faired much better, and today was a wash.  Actually, I didn’t lose that much on the S&P, but if I’m in a trade for a couple of days and I’m not right, I get out.  Sugar went down a couple hundreths of a cent, but corn and beans rallied very strongly.  Gold acted very nice….too nice, and I’m waiting for the axe to fall. It looks like I was right about a large commercial letting the wheat market have some wheat, plus our own rogue trader.  Today was the biggest one day declines I’ve seen in many years.  In fact, I don’t think there’s been this type of action since Carter’s embargo of grain.  Still, I remain bullish on wheat, and look forward to a good place to buy either wheat outright, or put on a spread. 

We got our painting today, and are very pleased.  My lovely wife actually cried at the sight of it…….her tears spread to me.

Jeff

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. died today.  He was 82 years old.  Buckley was a strong influence regarding my political beliefs ever since I was in high school.  Ever erudite, and very quick witted, Buckley was a true renaissance man and gentleman.  He was a great influence on my son’s decision to attend Yale ever since I took my son to see him when he was only 10 years old.  My son asked me how somebody could be as smart as Buckley was, and my answer was simply, “Yale.”  My lovely wife and I made it a point to see his lectures whenever he was within 250 miles of our house.  Over the past 30 years, we probably saw him a dozen times, and always came away from the lectures a little better.    I once won a subscription to his magazine, National Review, when he had a contest to define obscure words. The word that I defined to win the contest was “tricoteuse.”

He will be missed.

Jeff

Power Outage

I spent a worrisome afternoon with the power out.  I guess that some power stations went down in Miami and the domino effect caused our power to go out.  Power was restored to our neighborhood after about a 4 hour shortage. 

The markets were very cooperative today, and I ended up in the black. Soybeans, sugar, and gold all went up, with corn losing a couple of cents.  I did end up buying some more sugar contracts, and I also bought some S&P futures contracts when an indicator of mine issued a buy signal.  Luckily, I was able to get through a very nervous afternoon (no power or communication) unscathed. 

Having no power made me revisit a few things.  It was impossible to make a cell phone call today, as all of the cell sites were overloaded.  Our regular phone service is VIOP, and the internet and computers were down.  I was truly at the mercy of the markets with no recourse.  I’ll have to plan for that contingency, I assume that there will always be power on demand, except during hurricanes.  We have a small generator, but it’s not hooked up to anything and is only there for a hurricane.  The power outage affected the bridge to our key, and the bridge was up when the power went out.  We were stranded on our key, and the delivery guy wasn’t able to get our painting delivered.  I’m still hoping that it gets delivered tonight.

Jeff

Happier Times

Here’s a picture taken of my lovely wife and myself about a year and a half ago, right before she was diagnosed.  That picture was taken at a big BBQ on the Taylor ranch which is a nice 50,000 acre spread inland from us.  That Saturday night was our last free weekend before the bottom dropped out on the next Monday.  It’s all been downhill from there.”The upside to s=all of this struggle is that it has brought us closer together than anytime in our 30 year love affair.

Jeff

Budding collector

My son wants this Miro.  It’s up for auction in about a month, and he mentioned to my lovely wife that he would like it.  I checked out the auction site, and found the piece will probably fetch a low price.  I’m not keen on Miro, but as the old cliche goes, “Art is in the eye of the beholder.”  My lovely wife instructed for me to bid on it, as it will be HER present to him.  There’s no sense in arguing with a strong willed woman such as my wife, so i’ll bid.  I can’t understand his attraction for the Miro, as it’s against the grain of everything he grew up around….perhaps that is the attraction.  Oh well, I’ll blow a couple of grand, get the picture, and my lovely wife will be able to give John a final gift. Reastically, this is a win, win, win situation.  I’ll take that anyday.  Speaking of how kids get jaded….our son grew up in a household of museum quality art.  He knows the difference between good art and crap.  We have several lesser quality drawings from Edgar Degas that I’ve offered him.  He has passed on these, preferring to develop a collection more along modern lines.  If he continues with his classical studies, the only art he’ll be able to afford is those pictures of Elvis on Satin…..no disrespect to Elvis.

My lovely wife is at  stage 5(acceptance) on the Kubler-Ross model of grief.  She entered  this stage earlier this week, and I’m at a loss of words or thoughts.  I’m just trying to present a sense of normalcy, and am going to take her out of the house tomorrow and let her sit on the beach for awhile.  I’m going to do it under the guise that she needs to take some pictures of waves, surfing, and sunsets.  I want her to do it tomorrow, as her strength is waning at an alarming rate.

Jeff

Waiting

Our painting, which was supposed to be delivered today, never came.  I checked the tracking number, and it will be delivered tomorrow, if tracking numbers are to be believed.  Another day of waiting……sigh.

Jeff

Laughing out loud

I got flamed from that troll over on Daily Speculations.  Here’s a link to his comment.

http://masteroftheuniverse.wordpress.com/2008/02/17/second-handers/

 No need to respond to a second hander.

The market was rather ho-hum, as I would have been a lot richer had I held the wheat I scalped on Friday.  Corn and beans held their own, and sugar went down a couple of ticks.  Gold went down a few dollars, and my account lost a few bucks for the day.  No big deal. 

 I’m still confused about the stock market.

I managed to get a good 2 hours of surfing in, and it felt good.

Jeff

Do Nothing Day

I had help with my lovely wife (my sister came down from Orlando), and I managed to get a little surfing in, three different times.  The waves cleared my head, and I even managed to write a little piece over at Daily Speculations.  My sister is going to stay for a week and help us out….she took a week’s vacation from work.  I plan on rewarding her greatly for helping us out, but I haven’t figured out yet what I’ll do. 

I’m wondering what the market is going to do tomorrow, and need to devise a battle plan for whatever happens. 

Jeff

Flyer

Soybeans closed up very nicely, while corn was down a couple of cents.  I bought some May Minneapolis wheat, but ended up pitching it after making a nice scalp.  My heart wasn’t into keeping a long position in Minneapolis over the weekend, especially if Cargill lets the market have all the wheat it wants next week.  Although I’m extremely bullish in the wheat, I don’t want to put on a large position at this time and price.  Sugar retreated a bit after a strong run all week, and I’m very happy with my position. Gold went down today, yet made me a lot of money this week.  I was able to do very little trading for the week, yet my positions kept me firmly in the black.  I think that I’m evolving into a sort of minimalist as far as trading is coincerned.

Since it’s Friday, my lovely wife has decided that she wants Chinese for dinner, therefore I’ll make a run to our local Chinese place and whatever she wants.  This weekend, I’ve got surfing on the agenda.  I plan on doing at least an hour  a day of surfing on Saturday and Sunday.  Surfing always clears out the cobwebs in the brain and is good for the soul. 

Our new Renoir is scheduled to be delivered on Monday between 12:00 and 4:30 PM….We can’t wait.  My wife is already checking out some other auctions that will go on next month, and that’s a good thing.  I’ve been trying to get her to look to the future, any future, and look at things rationally.  I’m trying, with little success, to instill some hope in her.  As it goes, she has good days and bad days, and I’m helping her deal with that as best as I can.