Heidi's World

After All That, I Still Had to File an Extension

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 04:12:00 +0000

I thought I was doing so well! I finished both Federal and New York joint tax returns Monday afternoon. Today, I started to recalculate them as married-filing-separate so I could do the NJ and VA state returns. Fortunately, I subconsciously noticed something curious after I finished the MFS version of the taxes, and looked them over carefully to find out why they seemed different from other years.

I discovered that this year, we'd actually save over $2,500 by filing MFS instead of joint. This has not happened before, and I really wasn't expecting to file our 1040s separately. I have to fill out an annualized form 2210 to avoid underpayment penalties. For those of you lucky enough to be unfamiliar with this, it means I not only have to add up the annual totals for each tax line item, I have to go through my records to discern the totals for each tax line based on the transacations from 1/1 through 3/31, from 1/1 through 5/31, and from 1/1 through 8/31. In order to save the $2,500, I now have to do this not only by date, but also by ownership, allocating each item of income or deduction to either Terry or myself. We have both joint and individual accounts, and our earnings fluctuate throughout the year, so there's no quick and easy way to do this. Plus based on the whims of the allocation factors we fall into and out of phase-out ranges, and all this must be calculated on a spreadsheet. TurboTax is helpful, but when you have taxes as complicated as ours, there is only so much that can be automated. So despite being very close to finished with the taxes, I had to go off to the post office armed with only my application for an automatic extension.

Now don't get me wrong, this change wasn't odious, I knew it would only take me a couple of hours to break out the additional data. It seems like a very good trade-off for me, to add another half-day of work in order to net another $2,500. I spent an extra 30 minutes thinking about how to maximize the distribution of our itemized deductions, I saved about $80 from that.

I actually did file Terry's NJ tax return on time today; the parts of the MFS returns I changed this evening didn't affect the NJ allocation so at least that one is put to rest. I'm ready to file Fed & NY tomorrow, but I might hold off until I do just a little more checking into the 2006 amended return I've nearly completed. There might be a new carryforward credit I could apply to 2007 if I file the amended 2006 first. But I'm not sure, it's probably nothing, but to me it's worth me spending a few hours investigating the tax rules to find out for sure.

When our refunds finally come through, I think I'm going to buy myself a treat. The tax returns for the past few years have been horrendous. I've probably averaged 100 pages per year since 2005. Terry is lucky he married a CPA, otherwise we wouldn't really be getting a refund this year, since the entire amount would go to pay accounting fees if we sent our returns out.

Carville as Stewart as Carville

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 06:21:00 +0000

I'd like to see James Carville and Patrick Stewart impersonating each other in a debate on a late night talk show.

Macbeth!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 05:36:00 +0000

Terry and I stayed up late to watch the the talk shows, and Patrick Stewart was on Conan. Apparently, he's starring in Macbeth at the Lyceum Theatre, and is a phenomenon. It was discussed how the NYT reviewer said something like, "if you see Patrick Stewart in Macbeth, you'll understand why this play has been causing a sensation for 400 years" or something like that.

Ahh, the benefit of having a few drinks and a credit card at 1:15 am. The only "regular" seats available were on the mezzanine on the extreme left side of the theatre. Bleh, the theatre was built in 1903 which seems charming and historic, and it is, but having lived in NYC and gone to lots of shows, I know I prefer better seats. I'd only want those seats if I had gotten them for half price in the TKTS line, not at full price. BUT, there were some sweeet premium seats still available for the Thursday night Terry and I will next be in NYC. So we splurged and got them. Terry was all balking (they are 2x the regular seat price), but I peer-pressured him into acquiescence. C'mon, the best performance in 400 years? Let's spring for the good seats. Eight rows back, center stage, baby. One of the benefits of barrenness is no college tuition to save for. Maybe I'll make dinner reservations at Le Bernadin to round out a night of extravagance. . .nah, they're no good pre-theater. Maybe for Saturday night, our anniversary is approaching and what, are we going to go to Clifton Inn or Fossett's yet again? Our years in Manhattan really have ruined us for the rest of the world.

Number One Elite in Cake?

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 03:57:00 +0000

This morning I was ranked 32nd in portfolio performance among platinum market timers. Imagine my surprise when I logged in tonight and saw that I was the number one elite member on the website! And for performance, I've moved up to number seven among the elite market timers.

Here's the link to the page on the Cake website, but if you don't click it within the next 24 hours I'll probably be back off the list. I was promoted to the elite level once before, but it was only for one day before they knocked me back down to platinum. I bought some DXD yesterday, I guess that was just what my portfolio needed to give it a little boost. But I think it must be a bit of a fluke that I'm listed so high, probably due to the fact that several Cake employees have to link to my profile since I joined their advisory team. My returns really aren't all that impressive. I do keep a low-risk profile which seems to elude many Cake members.

What was especially sweet was when Terry saw how my performance is compared to other investors. After dinner when I told him I bought DXD he gave me a lecture about how he hoped when I lost money on this ultrashort it would be enough for me to learn my lesson and stop choosing such high-risk securities. But when he saw how high I was ranked, he wanted to see what the other top performers were invested in. Not many have DXD, admittedly, but they have been buying various other short ETFs. Hey, I'm diversified in my shorts, too, since I've got SDS. I'm hopeful that in time, Terry will stop second-guessing my investment decisions so I can do my job without feeling like I'm letting him down.

Cake Elite

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:07:00 +0000

I was on my first "Cake Elite" conference call this afternoon. They are smart to be involving the users early in the process. There were some things they plan to roll out that involve summarizing user activity, but it hadn't occurred to them that the information would not be particularly useful as they planned to present it. Sure you could list the securities with the highest buy or sell activity for the day, but so what? I pointed out that just because a stock is wildly popular among the day-traders in Cake and is at the top of the list doesn't mean it's a good investment for people looking for securities to buy for their retirement fund. I also suggested they include some tutorials to help inexperienced investors interpret some of the data and other advice. I mentioned it was a pet peeve of mine when the media present financial information as universal when in truth it is only relevant from a particular perspective. The other panelist is a new investor, and I enjoyed listening to his comments also. Completely different perspective than me, he wants a lot of personal interaction with other users (which I vehemently want to avoid). But there were plenty of things we both agreed would be useful (if perhaps for different reasons). I think it was a productive call. Cake is rolling out some new features on Thursday, I'll be sure to check them out.

Both Mother and Daughter

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:32:00 +0000

Does anyone else feel like this? Last night I had to box up the wii guitars and hide the boxes behind our A/V cabinet so I would stop playing Guitar Hero III. It was actually quite effective, I'm sitting in the TV room now and have little urge to play since nothing is sitting out tempting me. But having to hide toy guitars so I won't miss the tax filing deadline?

On one hand, I feel like I'm some sort of truculent teenager who is irritated that I can't blow another week just playing video guitar, that I'm being unjustly oppressed. But on the other hand, I feel like an adult since no kid that I know would be expected to do the tiresome work of preparing and filing Federal, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia tax returns sometime in the next seven days. Plus filing the 2005 & 2006 amended returns I prepared last month, and amending the states for those years within the 45 days or whatever the rules are. And I don't have kids, but I imagine that hiding the video game in order to help your kid focus on a more pressing task is a standard parenting technique.

The definition of multiple personality disorder from wikipedia is:

Dissociative identity disorder, as defined by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental illness in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities, each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment.^[1] The diagnosis requires that at least two personalities routinely take control of the individual's behavior with an associated memory loss that goes beyond normal forgetfulness; in addition, symptoms can not be due to substance abuse or medical condition. Earlier versions of the DSM named the condition multiple personality disorder (MPD) and the term is still used by the ICD-10.

Well, I seem to have that thing about perceiving and interacting with the environment in distinctly different ways. But I don't have the memory loss. All my personalities know what the others are up to. My inner teenager knows that my inner adult has financial responsibilities, and my inner parent knows the teenager can't help but play the video guitar if it's just sitting there by the TV. So do I have a non-psychopathic form of DID (although that seems like an oxymoron), or am I "normal"?

If this is normal, we should all be aware how close we all are to a padded room in Bellevue, shouldn't we? Just a few misfiring neurons affecting our memory and it's all over, we're mad as hatters. How depressing.

As I was reflecting upon how my inner parent felt about depriving my inner teenager of the toy guitar, I considered telling my inner teenager that, "this hurts me more than it hurts you." But it doesn't at all. My inner parent knows full well that the inner teenager needs to get a grip and do the taxes and it's not really hurting anyone to put the game down for a few days, despite the venomous glares my inner teenager is giving my inner parent. So is it always palliative pap when parents feed this to their children? Why would discipline ever hurt the parent more than the child? The only thing I can think of is if the parent acts out in anger or frustration and metes out a totally unjust punishment then they should feel worse than the child since they know that as an adult they shouldn't have acted out. But the appropriate response wouldn't be "this hurts me more than it hurts you" but "I'm sorry." I don't get that one, maybe it's the sort of thing you actually have to be a parent to understand. . .

First Tournament -- Success!!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 00:17:00 +0000

I came in 37th place out of 348 in my first Guitar Hero III tournament. I played

Hit Me With Your Best Shot
Lay Down
Ruby
Stricken

for a total of 370,754 points. The first place finisher got 410,031 total points for those songs. That's almost 40,000 more points than I scored, but it wasn't distributed evenly per song. Most of that was for "Stricken" where I could only get up to 139,836 points. My best performance I hit only 547 of 549 notes and 10 of 11 power phrases. Others were getting 100%. I guess I'm not even in the top 10%, but I'm pleased to be in the top 50 contestants, and I'm in the top 15% at least. Not bad for only having the guitar for five days, eh?

I don't think I'm going to enter another tournament again soon, though. Despite my stated goal this morning of getting the taxes done and funding our IRAs, I did little but play GHIII. I'm not sure if I'm addicted or obsessed. I haven't worked on my new website at all for the past few days, and I couldn't be torn away from it last week.

I'm going to disassemble the guitars and put them back in their boxes. That will make it harder for me to just start playing. If I find myself still tempted, I guess I'll unplug the wii itself and put it back in its box. I'll play again when Terry comes home on Wednesday. I need to rest my muscles anyway, my fingers, forearms, and shoulders hurt from too much Guitar Hero. I read about it on the forums, people suggest icing them after play and heating them before play. I think I'll just give the game a rest so it doesn't come to that. . .

Dropped Down, As Expected

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 03:38:00 +0000

As I expected, I've dropped down as more participants finished their tournament songs. But on the bright side, I'm still ranked reasonably high (currently in 12th place), and I'm the second highest in my experience level (Rock Star); I'm 7,662 points behind "Alitar13" the Rock Star from Canada in 10th place. I think "Stricken" is the song I'll need to improve to move up. From a cursory glance at other competitors' high scores I'm pretty close on three out of four of my songs, but I'm significantly lower for "Stricken". I'm tired playing now, but I'll pick it up again sometime tomorrow. I've got to make IRA contributions and print out tax returns, etc. tomorrow, but the tournament isn't over until 8pm so I'll have time in the evening to try to improve my scores. I'll have a better idea where I'll actually wind up in the standings closer to the end of the tournament, also. If I'm going to be way down out of the top 100 I might not try so hard to eke out a better performance within the time limit.

My First Tournament!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 01:25:00 +0000

I finished playing the four competition songs for my first Guitar Hero III tournament, and went online to check my standings--I'm glad I did, since I'm in the top ten!!! Now, the tournament has only been open for an hour and a half so I suspect my position will fall as more entrants finish their songs--so I took a screen shot as a souvenir of my possibly short-lived fame.

And while Terry guessed that I would be competing against 14-year-olds, I suspect that the guitar player currently in first "dataguru1971" is probably, oh, let me guess, about 37? Some kid probably didn't use his parent's birth year in his screen name. . . Likewise, my competitors will probably guess that anyone with a screen name of "MrsThorsen" is probably not underage.

I've been playing other songs so I don't bore myself with only the four competition songs, but I still have some room for improvement, so I'll go back to them. We've got 24 hours to compete and our best scores on our four songs during that time are what the rankings are based on. To pull into the lead I've got to increase my scores by an average of 13,419 points per song. Ouch. I don't see how that will be possible since I've already nailed three out of four at 100%. But I guess I haven't hit all the "power" phrases in each song, so I'll try that. I suppose at this level every flicker of the whammy bar can make the difference between victory and defeat, so I'll try better.

GHIII%20Tournament%2008%2004%2006%207th%20place.pdf

I'm in the top 131,000!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 19:02:00 +0000

Not as impressive as my performance on Cake (where I've dropped out of the top 10 in my category since gold slid yet have picked up yet another "follower". . .), but I'm satisfied with my progress on GHII.

That's "Guitar Hero III", a wii game I picked up last week and have been playing nonstop since I got it. It's got this feature that I didn't know about when I purchased it where you sign up to have your stats tracked online in real-time (the wii console is wirelessly connected to the internet). I've been steadily improving, but see that I have a long way to go. Last night I finished one song in the "easy" level at 100%, meaning I hit every note properly. My 5-star review turned into five GOLD stars on the scoreboard, that was a pleasant surprise. I'm in 130,643rd place for my "career" as an easy GHIII guitarist. I checked what it would take to raise my ranking and was disenheartened to learn that I'd have to play EVERY song perfectly to even make it to the top 100. But I'll do it, just you wait. Top 100 is pretty good, that's like being one of the top two players in your state. Better really since the GHIII community is international. I don't know that I'd have the patience to practice until I was in the top 10. But who knows, it is a lot of fun to play and I seem to have an aptitude for it.

I made it through the songs on "easy" in the first day (I played for quite a few hours. . .), and it was harder to get through the songs on "medium" but I still finished most on my first try. "Hard" however is another story. I haven't been able to play even one song through on the first try. Or second. I have to go into "practice" mode and play the hard parts very slowly gradually increasing the speed until I get it, and even then I just learn it well enough to muddle through and not completely fail the song. I've only finished 2 out of 42 songs on "hard". I've decided I'm going to master the easier levels first before going further into "hard". It's better that way for tournament play; once you finish 80% of a level, you can only compete in that level or the one below it so I'd be locked out of "easy" tournaments if I worked my way through the hard level.

I play in my first online tournament tonight. I stay at home, and have to play through a set list during the tournament hours and my highest scores are recorded and compared against my competitors. It seems from the forum comments that several of the other competitors play the songs at 100% in easy, but I'll give it a try anyway. I'm in the 95%+ accuracy range for most songs, so I'll just see how tight the competition is. Whether my 95% accuracy puts me in the top 5% or in the top 75%, who knows?

The highest scorers have over 100,000 per song in the easy mode, I average about 70,000 points per song. There's plenty of room for me to improve. Although it is harder for me now. When I first played through all the songs in the level I averaged about 25,000 points per song, and was ranked down below 350,000th place. Now that I'm up to around 131,000th it is harder for me to beat my own high scores. Terry says I need to be patient, and that in a week I'll be hitting 100%s all over the place. We'll see. I guess I am impatient, I have only had the game for a few days now.

Also, I now see that the career scores aren't based on the scores from each time you play the song through--I thought that was how it was calculated at first and lamented that it would a constant game of catch-up against the kids that can play the game all day every day since despite my copious free time, I still must put the game down and get actual work done from time to time. The career score is actually just the total of all your high scores on the songs in the level. So if say I have a high score of 50,000 in a song with a career total of 1,100,000, if I play that song and score 65,000 on this turn my new career score is not 1,165,000, but 1,115,000. So that was encouraging since all I have to do is play very well to move up the ranks and not necessarily play a lot. And the highest scores (something approaching 5 million for the "easy" career) aren't going to be increasing constantly since once you get 100% of the notes right, there really is a limit to how much higher your score can go. At that point it is just a matter of strategically using your "star power" bonus juice to increase your multiplier on parts of the song that will result in the most points. I haven't yet figured out exactly how points are doled out, the documentation is pitifully lacking in that area. I'll have to have someone else play and I'll observe whether one gets more points for using the wiggle bar on the long notes or playing passages with many individual notes.

Very Productive Day!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 20:09:00 +0000

I had planned to go grocery shopping after my exam today, but wound up being even more productive. The med tech called early this morning to tell me I could come in and pick up my new APAP machine. I got a new mask while I was there, one that hopefully won't leave any red marks on my face in the morning. My old one was irritating my skin in two spots, making my skin look funny and break out. I'm glad to cross that item off my to-do list, it's a nuisance to make an appointment and they invariably take forever to complete a transaction.

I also got a "gator" bag for our new tree--it only holds 15 gallons, so I'll have to calculate how many times per week Terry's going to have to fill it up. At the pet store I got a large bag of the specialty cat food I prefer to give my beasts, I got groceries that should keep me through the end of the week, I filled up my tank at the Sam's Club gas station ($3.11/gal, which was considerably cheaper than the next-lowest $3.15 I saw at the East Coast) and got two pair of shorts, a pink sweater, and a black knit dress in my new larger size (I own an almost identical one that's smaller and I'm no longer as fetching in it). I got a magazine about rustic country gardening, and a book about decks and patios. AND, . . .wait for it. . ., I got

GUITAR HERO III LEGENDS OF ROCK!

I had delayed getting the guitar hero for the wii since I heard a rumor that the rock band for the wii would be ready in February. Well, it wasn't, and I haven't seen it anywhere since then. And the guitar hero box I saw included a variety of snap-on faceplates in addition to the game and wireless guitar. So I had to have it. After that painful appointment this morning I felt like giving myself a treat for enduring it. And Michelle is coming over tonight anyway, so we'll get to play a new game! I'm really looking forward to it. There's a chance I won't be able to wait and will play it before she gets here, but I've got to straighten up and cook dinner so I'd have to either work fast (fat chance) or be a total slacker and not straighten up (much higher probability) to fit that in. But I have already unloaded the car and put the food away in refrigerator and freezer, so there's nothing critical I'd be blowing off, just some niceties. . .

Painful Exam is Over

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 19:52:00 +0000

I had an HSG this morning, and I'm glad that's over with. It involved holding still and suffering through some painful cramping while my uterus was being x-rayed. Fortunately, the painful part didn't last too long, although I had minor cramping for hours afterwards. It was a good news/bad news result: the good news is that my uterus was not malformed by DES and my fallopian tubes are good. The bad news is that there may be polyps on my uterine wall that could be preventing any embryos from implanting themselves. I had one removed a few years ago, but it didn't help at the time. I'm going in for another test tomorrow (I think it's an "SIS" but I don't remember) which the doctor promises will be painless. It will more clearly show if the dark spots in the X-ray are indeed troublesome polyps. If so, I'm not looking forward to another laparoscopy. It took me weeks to fully recover from the first one, I was bedridden for days since it just hurt too much to walk around, and after that I was sore and my range of motion was limited until the wound healed and I got my stitches out.

I stayed up too late!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 06:21:00 +0000

Darn it, I stayed up too late since I've got to leave for a doctor appointment early tomorrow morning. But I've actually been making such good progress creating my new website I didn't want to stop!

After well over a week of excruciatingly slow progress and much frustration, I've finally learned how to

cut certain bits from my graphic design snapshot so they can be repeated and elements can be dynamically resized yet still look nice
query the SQL database tables to pull the information I want about various posts
embed html codes within a php script so I can present the information online

and I sort of learned how to identify what css settings control different elements on the website. I say "sort-of" learned since I can fix most things that I want changed, but since I don't understand how everything "nests" I'm probably doing more sheer overriding than necessary, and I can't really publish my theme for others to use since there's probably lots I forgot to update if I'm not using those particular sections (like a forum, etc.).

But I'm really happy with my progress, the end is in sight, and I should be able to go live very soon. Maybe even by this weekend! It will depend on how hard it is to set up a database where my website is hosted, I've never done that before.

100+ Women Who Care

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 22:01:00 +0000

I just got an email from a women I used to volunteer with about a new group she'd like to get going here. The basic idea is that 100 women who can spend $100 for a local charity can band together to make a large gift ($10,000). I think it's a great idea, a good way for the charities to get a decent bit of funding without spending a lot of time and energy on fund-raising so they can focus on their core mission.

Here's the text of the email. Call / email me if you want in on this:

A friend recently told me of a fantastic group of women who have joined forces to prove what we all know – women have power. 100+ Women Who Care began in Jackson, MI as a simple way to raise money efficiently and effectively for local charities. To date there are 3 other active groups in Illinois, Michigan & Ohio and chapters are being formed in Missouri, California and Iowa. If there is enough interest, I’d like to see the Charlottesville area be the first in Virginia.

100+ Women Who Care is exactly that - a group of 100+ women who care about their community. The members meet four times a year for only an hour and each member writes a $100 check at each meeting to a local charity that they help select. This donation is intended to make an impact. The purpose is to provide for those in greatest need in the community. Think about it ... 100 women would be able to donate $10,000! We have strength in numbers.

Quite simply this is how it works …. each charity that is under consideration is given 5 minutes to make a presentation at the meeting. Only 3 charities will be considered at each meeting and the presentation is made by a member of 100+ Women Who Care – not by the charity. By ballot, the members vote, the majority rules – even if you don’t care for the choice, you must still donate. Local chapters of national charities can only be considered if 100% of the contribution will stay in the community. In addition, any charity chosen must agree not to use the donor’s names for future solicitations or give the information out to the public. If they do not adhere to this condition, they will be removed from all future consideration.

GLD makes me so mad!

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:05:00 +0000

Grr! I've been avoiding looking at my charts for the past few days,
with good reason it turns out. GLD was declining, but then it turned
back up last week. Today it's down again! What makes me mad, is that
it's not giving me sell signals despite its decline! It isn't in a head
& shoulders reversal pattern because the volumes don't correspond, it's
trending down but without enough momentum to signal anything serious.
Other commodities are doing fine, the dollar is still weak despite it's
puny little strengthening today. So, grrrr, I'M MAD! I had considered
selling gold when it fell below a particular level of support, but since
none of the other statistics back it up, I'm keeping it. And it might
take a few months for it to climb back up over $100, but I'm just going
to wait. Until the technical movements signal a sell, I'm going to have
to stick it out.

My SDS has also taken a nasty turn for the worse today, but that I'm not
so upset about. Technically, it's not all contradictory like GLD. SDS
is fine, it's just down temporarily. It's still poised to go shooting
up sometime in the next few months. I'm perfectly content holding the
SDS. But that darn GLD is making no sense to me!!

My Spring Clothes

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 03:39:00 +0000

My plan from yesterday worked! I got up early this morning, finished reading the book club book, then showered, dressed, and was ready to go shopping before I had to move the car at 10:00am. I decided to go to the Loehmann's in Paramus and was there by 10:30am. I started in the Back Room. My methodology was to visit each rack and try on everything that met my criteria. My criteria?

The garment:

seems to be my size
does not have cap sleeves
does not have puffy sleeves
does not have epaulets
has either a V or scoop neck
is not belted
has a color or print I like
is made of a fabric I like

I picked up as many items as I could carry, then tried them on. Kept only the garments that were perfect. I tried on clothes from 10:30am through 7:00pm with only a short lunch break. I probably tried on over 100 items. I came home with: a denim skirt, linen pants that need to be taken in a bit at the waist, a beige knit pleated skirt, a coral tank sweater, a purple tunic sweater, a black knit top, and assorted undergarments. Since this is my only day designated for shopping, that's going to have to suffice for my spring wardrobe.

I've gained so much weight I don't even want to think about what size everything is, it's mortifying. But on the other hand, it had to be done. Since I look much better in clothes that fit properly rather than clothes straining to hold their seams, even if the clothes that fit are, um, beyond large. And I discovered I went up a cup size. That was unexpected. It's a large size, yet I don't consider myself to be particularly well-endowed, so it puzzles me. Yet it's the only size that fits, so it's true. I'm in the process of changing my self-image, you'll have to give me a moment. . .

Shopping Wears Me Out

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 00:03:00 +0000

I'm so tired. Shopping just wears me out, and I wasn't even trying things on today. I was pretty disciplined, I only bought baby clothes. It took a while since I was looking for matching outfits; 2T and 0-3 sizes for boys for my nephew and his brother-to-be, and 2T and double 0-3 sizes for my niece and her twin sisters-to-be. I tried to get some outfits that would coordinate so the older kids would look nice with the infants in the inevitable family photos that will be demanded and circulated once all the babies are born. I've got to imagine that neither Cindy nor Kristen has time for that kind of shopping, each around 7 mos pregnant and with a toddler running around.

I picked up some extra newborn items since some of my friends are expecting, it's nice to have some gifts on hand so I don't have to shop in Charlottesville. Shopping in C'ville isn't even that bad anymore, but I've less and less patience for the drive into town. From the farm, it takes me around 30 minutes to get to the WalMart or Rio Hill shopping center, 45 minutes to the Target shopping center, and about 25 minutes to Barracks Road shopping center. It's about an hour and a half out to Short Pump west of Richmond. Counter that with the drive times while I'm staying at the NJ apartment: 10 minutes to WalMart, 20 minutes to Ikea / Babies R Us / Jersey Gardens outlet mall, 20 minutes to the shopping mecca that is Paramus (several really nice malls plus Loehmann's), 25 minutes out to Wayne (there's a Loehmann's and Fortunoff's out there in addition to a regular mall). So it's just way more convenient to shop here. Better stores, closer, lower prices.

It's about 45 minutes via public transport to midtown Manhattan shopping (< 20 minutes by car midday, although parking is exorbitant if I drive in on a weekday). Although frankly if I'm going to spend 45 minutes getting to a shopping destination I'd prefer to go out to Short Hills Mall. They've got all the Madison Ave retailers, the same merchandise (or better) selection, and NO SALES TAX. That saves 8 3/4% right there. Plus ample parking (I think they even have valet parking, which I would use if I couldn't easily find a parking spot and I was in a hurry, but since I have the luxury of shopping on weekdays it's rarely a problem), which is key if I plan on buying a lot of things, who wants to schlep it all home on the train or a bus? I generally only shop in the city if I'm going to be in Manhattan anyway for another reason. And even then I prefer to limit my shopping to small items (books, makeup, jewelry, etc.) that are easy to tote around. Carrying bags of clothes and shoes is a drag, and unless I'm shopping at Century 21 it's not convenient for me to drop anything off at Terry's office.

But I shopped for over 4 hours including drive time, and I'm tired now. Tomorrow I once again have shopping on the agenda, but clothes shopping for myself this time. I've gained quite a bit of weight since last spring and my clothes from last year don't fit. I might be able to lose the weight by summer, but since I've put away all my "thin" clothes my closet is looking pathetically bare for spring, so I'll try to fix that. I don't need much, just a tailored business-y outfit, a church dress, a dinner dress, a lunch dress or separates, and maybe a few blouses. I purposefully parked in a spot across the street that becomes illegal at 10am as motivation for me to get up early and get out the door in the morning. Then I can shop, rest for lunch, shop somewhere else if need be, and return home before dinner. Or continue shopping if I'm really desperate, but I think I'll be able to find what I need in one day.

Tonight I'm going to play my turns on Scrabulous then turn off my computer and try to finish "Water for Elephants" since it's the book we're discussing on Friday evening, and I'd like to be done by then.

New Site Design v.1.0

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:37:00 +0000

I spent 1.5 hours cleaning the master bathroom this morning--just the part with the toilet and shower. It seems like a long time unless you already know my shower-cleaning routine is to avoid cleaning except when absolutely, positively necessary so it only happens a few times a year. So spending only six hours a year scrubbing the shower seems about right, I just don't break it down into 5 minutes a week or whatever.

When I was done, I rewarded myself by working on my new website design. I want to aggregate all my blogs and photos and stuff to one site. It won't be "Thorsense" but I think it will be better. And yes, I'll post the old archive Thorsense issues again. I'm surprised people still want to look back at those, but I did have tons of photos of everyone in there at the time.

I started with a template that was kind of close to what I wanted, but I barely know how to use style sheets and these had php all in them and I really couldn't figure out how to change things right. I realized I was putting the cart before the horse so abandoned that and set about just trying out a design, forget about all the code. Here's version 1.0:

The big photo will be randomized to change with every refresh. I might be able to make the big slogan change, too. That would be fun. I probably won't have quite that many tabs and they certainly won't have those titles; remember I'm not making the site just designing it. This would be the written blog page.

I'm using the website software, Drupal, and it automatically comes with a logon for users. I guess I could use that so people could post and comment. Right now I've got the site running locally and I get my new blog entries using an rss aggregator so I still post as usual to blogger and people can go to the "repcat842.blogger.com" site directly and see what they do now, but if they go to heidithorsen.com the entries will also be there, but all formatted to match each other. I haven't decided if I'm going to do away with separate blogs hosted all over the place or keep them and just add this as a "wrapper".

I was only going to spend one hour working on my site before I got back to cleaning but I guess I actually spent about 1 hr 45 minutes. Not bad, I think I got a lot done. Please comment if you like the design or have any suggestions. The only thing I know for sure I like is having the main part "float" over the background, and having the "tabs" be directly above the content and sort of big because I don't like navigation bars that are just text, it looks too much like ordinary links to me and I associate links with leaving the current site, and I just think the floating thing is cool and looks nice no matter how you've got your browser window sized.

Ouch.

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 21:46:00 +0000

I'm outta the top ten in my Cake category (I'm 11) so I don't show up on the first page of results. I take consolation in the fact that I'm still the highest ranked platinum market timer with a low risk portfolio. I lost over 6% this week. I did go ahead and sell some GLD since it was my plan to do so and I stuck with the plan even though I'm still bullish on gold. I've got another sell level which I will also stick to if it comes to that, although I'm also going to be ready to buy it up again when the indicators turn around. SDS and DBC are also down a bit, but their technicals are still strong in my opinion. GLD is wishy-washy since it's now 3% below it's last higher low.

How Did thinkorswim Rank So High?

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 18:59:00 +0000

Today, I started placing trades using my "paper" account on thinkorswim. It wasn't long before I discovered that they overstate portfolio gains by not adding commissions to the stock cost. They take the commissions out of the available cash, so why not add the cost to the stock basis? Once again I logged onto their "live chat" to discover that there is no setting that will enable me to quickly see true gains and losses, nor is there another screen (outside of the "profits and losses" screen) that I could use to find this out, either.

TDAmeritrade adds their commission to the cost of the stock right off so you can track your true gains and losses. This is such a dumb thing for thinkorswim to not do. They also have a number called "Net Liquidating Value", but all it really is is the current market value of your portfolio plus the cash in the account. I think a true "Net Liquidating Value" would take into consideration the commission fees to sell all existing shares. Thinkorswim shouldn't mislabel these things, I would be less annoyed if they were just upfront about the numbers they were presenting. How about "Current Account Value" and "Gross Profits and Losses" instead of "Net Liquidating Value" and "Profits and Losses".

I really don't know how they ranked so highly on the Barron's Survey. I might want to phantom trade based on TradeStation and see if I could still hit my target numbers with their fee schedule. The per-trade costs are lower, but they have a $99 monthly flat fee for use of their trading platform. But if it makes it easier to place good trades, then it might be a better deal anyway.

thinkorswim

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 23:15:00 +0000

The top-rated online brokers on Barron's survey this year are TradeStation and thinkorswim. I read the review and decided thinkorswim might be for me. I go through the whole registration process even though at this point I just want to use their "papertrade" feature to test the effect of creating a portfolio with individual stocks instead of indexes.

The screen is dizzying, I haven't seen any way to change the colors--that black background is extremely hard on my eyes. It's not intuitive to me, so I take the time to watch some of their demos and tutorials. Then I go to do a simple screen based on a slow stochastic, but couldn't find any information about how to do that so I used their "live chat" help. To discover their software doesn't do that.

I'm shocked and disappointed. thinkorswim (the whole web 2.0 we're-too-cool-to-use-capital-letters really annoys me) was rated higher than TDAmeritrade (the online broker I use most) in all but one category. Yet I was able to set up up slow stochastic screen using TDA's "Strategy Desk" software in under a minute. They have a nice wizard so I just searched on K% < 25 AND D% < K% then sorted the results by today's percentage gain and picked the top three with decent liquidity (BGP, BID, FTO). I was hoping to do the same using thinkorswim's platform so I can start paper-trading, but as I just mentioned, I can only do the 22 screens they've set up, and none of them particularly interest me at this point.

Now I'm sad since I had already seen that thinkorswim has columns for Industry Division, Industry Sector, and Industry Group which would be very helpful for me to see when researching what stocks to choose, and my current software doesn't have that. Waaah. Why can't I just get software with everything I want?

I know the answer to that one--because I don't feel like paying for it. Perhaps there are better professional systems out there but I'm not ready to start paying for them yet. I'm not ruling it out for the future, but for now I'll make do with what's available even though I don't like it and I have to duplicate efforts across multiple programs to track things the way I want to.

I Knew I Was Off-Course When. . .

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:01:00 +0000

. . .I realized I was picking teams for the NCAA tournament. I woke up this morning determined to NOT play any video games. I got a shower and made a plan to turn on the computer, read my emails and two technical trading articles I had flagged, then get dressed and eat breakfast.

My stomach growling and a tournament bracket on my screen I think back to how I got so far off-track; it started with a trading alert email. I had just updated my trading alerts last night (I do this every month or so) and already got an alert that GLD was down to one of my watch levels. Actually, it's down more now, I just opened a trading screen since I might sell the long-term shares. Anyway, I logged into my trading programs to monitor that, then also checked the charts for my other positions since the market is all volatile again today. And while I was reading this morning's commentary on Minyanville, I came across the Minyanville pool for the tournament and so clicked through and was merrily filling out my brackets when I realized I had gotten distracted. And GLD is down about $3 / share from when I first noticed. . .

Now I've got a trading decision to make on an empty stomach. Grrr.

The Day You've All Been Waiting For

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 05:23:00 +0000

You may have been wondering, where's the daytime TV? Where are the bon-bons? Well, here you go.

I finished correcting the 2006 Federal return last night, but had not yet started on the 1040X form when Terry called. He was giving me grief about it so I called it quits for the night and decided to play some Super Paper Mario. I got another "pure heart" but was caught up and wound up playing about three hours. I was too lazy to go upstairs so I slept on the sofa. I didn't feel like doing much this morning, so after breakfast I fired up Mario again and played through lunchtime.

I tried a new "6 o'clock Scramble" recipe for homemade fish sticks. They tasted fine, but they didn't really look like the fish sticks for which they were meant to be a healthy alternative. That made me feel disgruntled since the recipe said they'd be as good as frozen fish sticks but without all the additives. And they actually tasted better, but that's only half the point. I like the weirdness of fish in stick form. Plus the crispy. If I'd wanted to make breaded pan-fried fish I would've used a slightly better technique, I was hoping for actual fish sticks and so followed the recipe. I was duped. And so decided to play more of the video game until I felt better.

Um, by the time I noticed it was after 4pm, I decided to just commit the day to Super Paper Mario. I took a break for dinner (leftover "fish sticks") but otherwise didn't get off the sofa until bedtime rolled around again. I got all the "pure hearts" except the last one. I was trying to just finish the game and be done with it, but I continually thought I didn't need to go back to Flipside to get a bunch of extra heart food since there was a refill fountain at the beginning of the level. I was continually wrong.

When I started getting hungry again, I couldn't be bothered to reheat the steak fajitas I'd prepared yesterday (or was it the day before?), so I just dug into the candy bowl and started eating Reese's peanut butter cups and Kit-Kats. Terry called around 10:30pm to let me know he'd arrived in Salt Lake City. I considered playing through the call, but couldn't concentrate so I turned the TV off so I wouldn't be distracted but I kept the Wii on so I could pick up right where I left off after the call. Terry was off the phone within thirty minutes since he called me after he ordered room service dinner and then it arrived and he wanted to eat it. Fine with me, back to the game. When my eyes started getting tired I decided to call it a night even though the game wasn't over-over. Just in time to watch a little David Letterman. So I watched that, had a beer, ate more candy. Watched Conan's monologue--I liked the "instant audience upgrade" although if I got the upgrade I would've asked the page for free drinks. Decided to go to bed before the first guest (Ice-T) came on.

Tomorrow I haven't decided if I will finish off the game or do something more productive. I could continue my impersonation of Shaun-of-the-Dead's deadbeat roommate, or I could actually act like a responsible adult. I do have to leave the house to get more cat food. And if I want to go to New York next week, I really need to at a minimum clean the kitchen, fridge, and do the laundry. I think Terry's not going to be back until Thursday--oh darn it, I thought today was Monday. Hmm. I'll sleep on it.

Give the People What They Want

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:19:00 +0000

Now I'm starting to feel like a bona fide investment professional. I gained *another* follower, "Novadd" from Cambridge, MA. Now that I have as many followers as people I follow, I've started to feel a responsibility to do something for them. So I posted a few "journal" entries on the site. I shared my expert analysis (insert head shake and eye-roll here) of DBC's chart and why I'm not even thinking about selling despite the nearly 6% drop in value its seen so far today.

C'mon, so many of the traders and analysts all over the TV and web are full of $&*%. Sometimes I hear them on CNBC and I want to throw something at the TV they make me so mad. Sometimes of course I'm happy, especially when they're inappropriately fear-mongering since I'm invested bearishly and that helps my returns. But mostly I feel bad knowing there are actual viewers out there who will act on some of their dumb advice just because those guys are presented as "experts." So I feel completely justified sharing a bit of my thinking with the three people who seem interested.

Really, the only difference between me and someone on CNBC is that I'm doing my analysis at home, and not for some investment house in New York (with what happened to Bear Stearns, perhaps my analysis is BETTER than that going on inside a big fancy NYC investment house) so I'm not on the reporter's call list. Well, that plus a lot of highly intensive in-house training and a likely college major in finance plus several years experience, but that's really picking nits, now, isn't it?

Local Crossword

noreply@blogger.com (MrsThorsen) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:52:00 +0000

I was reading the Crozet Gazette this morning, and did the crossword puzzle when I was done. I thought, "I could make a local crossword puzzle, too!" and then I did it; it took maybe an hour. I'm not ready for the New York Times, I've got way too many two-letter words, but I'll submit it to the CG. Terry is trying it out now.

Terry found a few mistakes in my first version, but I fixed the clues and the corrected one is posted for you to try. I think if you click the image, then click it again to zoom in (probably depends on your browser) it should show up large enough you can print it from your browser if you'd like.