Bubble Boy

Shorting the Markets--Fun Times

As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to take profits on all my stock positions and put in sell orders first thing this morning. I waited in cash until the market rallied late in the day and then shorted both the S&P (through SDS) and the Nasdaq (through QID). Sure enough, the market followed previous closes and sold off at the end of the day. I have sell-limit orders at 3% and 5% and will be happy with a quick profit when those trigger. The markets are still settling so some of them might have triggered already.I was hoping to get out of them today instead of waiting to see what the market does in the morning. Regardless, I have a little buffer to play with.

My plan from here? I feel like I have been gambling a little bit with the market moves. So far I have been hitting them perfectly, but it just takes one wrong move to give back the profit. So after I get out of these short positions I think I am going to stick with longs for the foreseeable future. I am going to go back to taking positions in companies that I feel are oversold and undervalued and sit on the stock until such time as it makes sense to move into something else. Not nearly as much fun as trading the volatility, but the risk is much lower and it fits with my default investing style. 

Market Approach for Today

I am expecting the markets to continue to rally this morning in response to the 2nd day of increase on the Nikkei and the largely anticipated Federal Funds Rate cut. However, I don't think the rally will continue much longer. So I am going to sell the rest of my holdings into strength and wait in cash for a pull back. I might short the S&P through SDS, not sure yet. 

Puzzling

Lindsey working on a Halloween puzzle.

What A Day!

The markets opened strong this morning (following an overseas rally) and rallied in the last hour for an increase of almost 900 points (almost 11%) in the DOW, the second largest session point gain in history. The .VIX (measure of volatility) dropped which is a good sign. The key question is whether or not the rally will continue or if people will take profit and drive the market back down. I am betting on the second, although I hope the rally will continue. But I don't think it is over yet. We probably have a few months of volatility to go through before we can start trading on valuation.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I took advantage of the rally and put in sell orders for about half my positions so I could lock in the gains. Tech and Energy seem to be the sectors that lead the rally. I had positions in both areas. I am still waiting for my account to settle to see where I ended for the day, but definitely a very profitable day!

I still like the stocks I sold today but I will wait in cash and will purchase them again on the next pull back.

Market Update

I am expecting a good opening today. The futures are up and overseas markets rallied. I expect the rally will tempt me to sell. If I see any big gains I will probably take them as I do not think the volatility is over yet. So sell on the way up and repurchase the same stocks when they pull back. We'll see.

More Technical Reliability Problems at University of Phoenix

I am scheduled to start another class tomorrow at University of Phoenix Online. I typically log in a day early so I can read the instructor's syllabus and prepare for the class. But as you probably guessed, the University of Phoenix classroom is down, AGAIN!!!!  

Here's the message this time:

We're sorry, we are currently experiencing technical difficulties. We are working to resolve the issue. Please try again later. For more information, please visit http://status.phoenix.edu.

So I went out to the status site and found the following message:

Some students and faculty members are unable to access classrooms. Operations is aware of the issue and is currently working toward a resolution; however, there is no ETA at this time. Academic Affairs has been notified of this issue.

This is starting to get a little ridiculous. University of Phoenix continues to have reliability problems with their technology. I am very disappointed in the lack of reliability with the University of Phoenix's technology, and more so with the lack of an explanation or published plan from IT management. Incredible.

Shooting Hoops

My son and I went and shot some hoops tonight. It was a nice night, very cool weather, a nice break from the Texas heat.

I'm In!

I was able to take positions on most of the stocks I mentioned in my last post, all except Walmart, Google, and another I can't remember right now. I am a long term investor and I think a lot of the companies I mentioned are a steal right now.

I put in limit orders for the other stocks I didn't get but I am unwilling to overpay for them. I will be patient!

Pumpkin

At the grocery store!

Hoops

Andy and I are out shooting hoops!

Market Prediction

As I head to bed, I am thinking about the markets opening tomorrow. We had a bad day on Friday, finishing down 312. The overseas markets aren't doing much better so far this evening. Most if not all are down also. The DOW futures is heading down at this hour also. Not very promising.

With that said, I think the markets are starting to find a bottom. I was in cash for the last few months waiting out the downturn. That was a good decision, but I also don't want to miss the rebound. I am getting back in.

Who do I like? The tech names...

Microsoft (MSFT)

Qualcomm (QCOM)

Research in Motion (RIMM)

Cisco (CSCO)

Apple (AAPL)

I also like...

Walt Disney (DIS)

Novo Nordisk (NVO)

Coca-Cola (KO)

Colgate-Palmolive (CL)

Exxon Mobile (XOM)

Nike (NKE)

American Express (AXP)

John Wiley & Sons (JW.A)

Bank of America (BAC)

Walmart (WMT)

I also love Google (GOOG) but I still think they are a little too high for me to jump into right now. Hopefully they will come into range, under $300 would spark my interest, but I doubt they will get there. I almost pulled the trigger when they hit 311 about a week ago, but wimped out. A missed opportunity? Maybe.

I will start posting updates on my investing activities, both good moves and major brain farts. As a disclaimer, I am not a financial advisor. I post these messages for my own record and not as advice to anyone. Make your own investment decisions.

Picture Test

OK, here is a picture test using the new Blogger Mobile. Well, I guess it isn't new, just new to me!

It Works!

Another test. It appears using Blogger Mobile has fixed my issue with line breaks. Now when I send a message the breaks are where I put them. That gives me much more flexibility with my posts.

Previously I would limit my sentences to three lines on my BlackBerry screen so the line breaks would not end up in the middle of my paragraphs. But now that it works, I am free to write as desired

It is a beautiful thing!

Now to try pictures.

Another Test

Well, I signed up for mobile blogging. Apparently I can send mms messages from my phone and Blogger will send them to my blog. So this is the first test to see if it will format properly.

Test

I have been trying to figure out a problem with posting to my blog. If I
send an email from Gmail Mobile to my blog and the message is longer than
about three lines, a break is inserted into the text. This does not happen
if I send an email from Gmail directly, only from Gmail Mobile. This
message is an example. I wrote the message as one large paragraph. But as
you can see it is broken up every few lines. Is there anyone out there that
could share a solution? Would greatly appreciate it.

University of Phoenix--Continued Reliability Problems

The classrooms at University of Phoenix are down again--at least access to my classroom is down. I receive the following error:

The system has encountered an error. Please log out and try again. If the problem persists, please contact Technical Support for help. We apologize for the inconvenience.

 

Well at least they are polite about it.Regardless, the reliability problems with the technology at University of Phoenix are starting to become irritating. 

The last time I posted a message about the continued reliability problems at University of Phoenix I received a comment from someone at University of Phoenix advising me to call tech support! Well, if you are reading this and you are from the University of Phoenix Technical Support, consider this your call. I am not going to bother waiting on hold so that some 1st year help desk person can take 15 minutes to perform basic troubleshooting on my system when we both know it has nothing to do with my system.

The last time the University of Phoenix system was down I sent an email asking them for information on their plan to improve the reliability of technology at University of Phoenix but they did not respond. So I can only conclude that either they do not have a plan (unlikely), are unwilling to share it (more likely), or didn't read the email to begin with (probably because their email system was down!!!!!). 

Maybe they will respond to this post. Or maybe not.

Timber Town

The kids and I are at Timber Town this morning.

Balloon

Lindsey and Jane saw this on their way home from shopping.

This message was sent using the Picture and Video Messaging service from Verizon Wireless!

To learn how you can snap pictures and capture videos with your wireless phone visit www.verizonwireless.com/picture.

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Reading With Dad

At the school in the ice cream line.

Best Source For HP 75 Tri Color Inkjet Print Cartridge (CB337WN)

In my last post I mentioned I was waiting for a response from a vendor on volume purchase discounts for printer ink, specifically, the HP 75 Tri Color Inkjet Print Cartridge. They responded and are unwilling to reduce the shipping costs on combined orders. So I will look for another supplier. But until then, they are the lowest cost supplier for the HP 75 Tri Color Inkjet Print Cartridge. 

I will update my blog and include a link to the new vendor if I am able to find a lower cost solution. Any suggestions?

Review: HP OfficeJet J6480 All-In-One Printer

Following is my review of the HP OfficeJet J6480 All-In-One Color Printer.

I recently purchased new computers for my wife and kids. Once set up I realized the color printer I had was not compatible with Windows Vista. I checked the website but Lexmark does not make a Vista driver for my model of printer. Shame on Lexmark. They have lost a customer because of this.

I have had good experience with HP printing products. I use an HP LaserJet 3030 in my home office and it has worked great. So I decided to look on HP's site for color printer replacement options. I basically had three criteria. First, I wanted the ability to network my printer so I could print to it from all my computers. Second, it needed to print AWESOME photographs. Oh, and the third criteria... it had to be inexpensive (you know, that budget thing!).

After a couple of hours of research and reading reviews I settled on the HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One Printer.

Anyway, when I received my shipment I plugged it in and attempted to set up the wireless network. The setup process was a little goofy, but it worked. I was able to print from my laptop to the printer wirelessly. But when it was said and done, I decided to keep the printer in my home office, next to my desk (for easy access when printing photographs). My router is about 3 feet away from the printer location, so I just plugged it directly into the router. Then I loaded the driver on each of my computers and BANG--I have a networked color printer!

As for the quality, I was not originally impressed. There seemed to be a significant difference between what I saw on my screen and the printed copy. I mean, SIGNIFICANT! I get that there will be a difference between what you see printed on reflective paper and what you see on your screen, but this was way out there. After doing some digging I realized that my color management settings were incorrect. I was telling the printer the wrong profile for my paper type. As a result, the color mangement built into the printer was trying to adjust the image to support the paper type I had selected. Once I switched to HP Premium Plus Photo Paper and matched the paper and the profile--WOW. The color is UNBELIVABLE. It is better than any of the professional labs I have used to produce prints for my photography. I am VERY impressed--which doesn't happen very often!

So, great printer. Strongly recommended. But at the risk of finishing on a negative note... the ink is very expensive. The color cartridges run about $19 from your local office supply store, or about $15 (with shipping) from an online vendor I found. I estimate I get about 30 4x6 prints out of a color cartridge, so about $0.50 per page for the cost of ink. I sent a message this morning to the online vendor asking if they will reduce the shipping costs if I order in qty 5 or 10. I will post the response once I hear back.

Anyway, I am very pleased with the HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One Printer. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a home-based network printer that produces high quality photographic images. Oh, and as a side note, you can also use it to fax and scan!

Recommended Products:

HP Officejet J6480 All-in-One Printer
HP 75 Tri Color Inkjet Print Cartridge
HP 74 Black Inkjet Print Cartridge
HP Premium Plus Photo Paper

Strobist Lighting 102: Unit 1.1 - Position (Angle)

I am following an online training course on lighting. I have decided to document my progress here on my blog. To see the actual assignment for this post, go to Strobist.com. 

In this assignment we were asked to photograph an object while moving the off-camera flash to a different location for each shot. Then, we are to document our observations. 

For this one I set one of my daughter's dolls on a table and shut out the lights (I have the lights on in the room setup picture below, but the overhead was out for the shots). I have the blinds open behind the setup so a little natural light is coming into the room. 

I exposed the initial frame with just natural light. I kept the image under-developed so that I am able to see more of the effects of the flash. In addition, my thinking was to use the natural light as the fill light. That is a key concept I have learned through Strobist... to set your fill (or expose for ambient first), then light the subject. 

OK, so here's the pre-flash shot with just ambient light.

Next, I added off-camera flash, no filters or diffusers, just straight flash so I can see the shadows. The first shot is from camera right. 

I can immediately see the main shadow behind the doll's back running off to camera left. This tells me that the main flash is on camera right. I can also see the shadow under the doll's right leg. Notice the shadow runs along the left side of the doll. This tells me the flash isn't aligned directly with the legs but slightly to camera left of the legs. I also like the slight shadow on the left side of the doll's nose. The doll's head is turned slightly to its right. I also like how the shadows on the left side of the face drop off into the neck.   

Next, the flash is still camera right, but moved a couple of feet closer to the camera. I can immediately see a difference in the facial features. This face appears flatter than the other. However, the skin tones appear smoother. Look at the shadow on the left side of the doll's right leg. The shadow is now closer into the leg, indicating the light has moved to the left. I can also see more shadow on the back wall now as the flash is moved far enough for the doll's shadow to enter the frame. The hair appears to have more detail with this angle. But as I said, the image appears a little flatter. 

Now the flash is moved just to camera right. Again, the image seems to get flatter, but the skin tones continue to get smoother. There is a more prominent shadow behind the subject. It also looks like I have lost some of the detail in the dress--at lease it is harder to detect the movement of the material. 

The next shot is with flash on the camera axis, directly over the camera lens. If you look at the doll's right leg, you can see a shadow slightly underneath. This indicates the flash was slightly above the lens (which it was). If this were the only picture I looked at I would say it was well done. Everything is nice and smooth. There are no distracting shadows. It looks like a normal picture. But I think that is the point that Strobist is trying to make. This is what stuff typically looks like. Uninteresting. Undetailed. Flat, flat, flat. The point is to get the flash off camera so that you can use shadows to create the 3-dimensional aspects of the subject. Without the shadows, you might as well be taking a picture of a picture. 

On the next shot, the flash is to camera left. I think the flash is a little hot too. I might have moved it a little closer than the other shots. But that isn't the purchase of this experiment. Instead, we are looking at the affect of the position (angle) of the flash. I can immediately see the big shadow behind the doll on the right. This tells me the flash is to camera left. I also see the shadow on the right side of the nose (doll's left side). Not sure that shadow adds any value. The shadows have moved further under the legs. The material on the dress is more defined than the last picture, giving it some texture. I now see a shadow under the doll's right hand. This is the first time we have seen the shadow here. I also see a shadow on the left side of the doll's face blocking out some of the hair. Again, first time we saw the shadow here. 

Now the flash is moved further to camera left. I can see a shadow cast by the nose. The doll's left side is now going dark and we are starting to lose some detail in the doll's left arm. Also, the front of the dress is starting to lose some detail because the shadow is draping across the dress. 

In the next shot the flash is almost exactly beside the doll on camera left. The doll's right side is much brighter now than the left side. I definitely see more of the 3-d look in the face. But the hair seems to be blocking more of the forehead and casting a shadow. The doll's left ear doesn't appear any darker than the previous picture. I like that we lost the shadow in the background.

The next show is directly beside the doll, at a 90 degree angle to the lens. We have light on the left side and shadow on the right side. This doesn't appear as flattering for the doll's face, or the clothing for that matter. 

Now moving slightly behind the doll. The face and dress become darker. But I like the affect it has on the back of the doll's hair.

Last shot, almost 45 degrees behind the doll. This darkens out the front but further lights up the hair. This might be a great setting for a two flash setup, where the second flash is used as a hair light. Notice the background is darker now. This creates further separation between the doll's hair and the background. 

OK, that was my first assignment. I learned that the placement of the flash can make a significant difference in specific details of the subject as well as the  3-dimensional affect. I don't think there is a correct position for the flash, but instead, choices for you to select from to create the effect you desire. Can hardly wait to get into multiple light situations!

Later.

Lindsey B&W

Thomas Kennedy

Lindsey Shoots

Lindsey was taking some pics with my phone.

I think she has a gift here!

New Playland

Lindsey and I are at a new mcDonalds Playland in Lewisville.

Shane and Valerie

I did some engagement pictures for a friend yesterday. Shawn and Valerie were great to work with. We did the engagement pictures in Flower Mound, TX in a wooded area with a creek running through it. It was a really nice spot. Here's one of the head shots.

When we arrived there were three other groups taking pictures in the area so we had to do a little "dancing" with each other to make sure we stayed out of each others shots. This was my first time shooting at this spot. I think it is an excellent location to shoot engagement pictures in Flower Mound, TX.

The water in the creek was COLD... at least that is the impression I got from Shawn!

To see the balance of the pictures from the shoot, go to www.KennedyFoto.com.

Hard At Work

I did a photo shoot for some friends today. Before the shoot I asked Lindsey to help me with some test shots. I asked her to stand on a rock and look at the camera. Well, she was standing on the rock, and she was looking at the camera... so I guess she got it right!

Gymnastics

We are at the American Airlines Center in Dallas for a gymnastics event.

Scoping A Scene

I am shooting an engagement picture tomorrow.

Out tonight checking out the location. Should be good!

2005 Heritage Classic

I was cleaning up some pictures from my hard drive and came across one of the Harley Davidson I used to have. It is a 2005 Heritage Classic. This was taken on a trip I took in late 2005 around Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. 

Some day I will get another Harley--probably another Heritage. 

Playground

Lindsey and I are at a playground. Fun stuff!

Test Shots

I am planning to shoot some engagement photos over the weekend for a friend. At lunch time today I went out to scope out a location. I found an interesting spot on Lake Grapevine and took some test shots to get used to the light. Should be a good spot.

Yea, that's my ugly mug.  : )

Up a tree

During a wind storm a few months ago a branch on the top of one of our trees broke off. I am finally getting around to removing it.

I was able to cut the branch off but I can not get it clean of the tyer to bring it down to the ground.

I can't just leave it because I don't want it to come down on the kids.

What to do?

Herman Miller Tops Aaron Chair

How cool is this? Herman Miller has announced the successor to the Aaron chair, the Embody chair. But at $1,595 list, will it be the same massive hit as the Aaron?

More on Fortune.

Let It Fail

I haven't chimed in yet on this $700 billion bail out that was approved last week. I get the concept behind the bail out... buy up all the bad assets on the books of banks so they become more liquid and can start lending money to people and businesses. Yes, nice theory, but in my opinion it doesn't get to the root cause... greed!

 

That's right... the reason we are so buried in debt as individuals, businesses, and our government is greed. Instead of living within our means we borrow so we can get now what we can't afford to pay for later. It is pure greed.

 

So how do we fix the problem? Stop trying. Let the banks fail. Let businesses fail. Let the economy sink into a deep recession or maybe even a depression. Let thousands or millions of people lose their jobs. Let people lose their homes. We need a big reset button. We need to get back to basics and learn to live within our means--to live responsibly. Is that too much to ask? Probably.

 

However, it really doesn't matter. The government won't let that happen because it will cause too much pain. It is that thinking that got us to this place to begin with. Avoid the pain--seek the gain. Bah, humbug!

 

I say let it fail.

University of Phoenix--Major System Problems

I am working on completing my BSB/Finance degree through University of Phoenix. Over the last few weeks we have experienced some major system issues. About two weeks ago we were unable to login to our classroom. The problem lasted for about 3 days. Now, the system is down again tonight. There is no message on the tech support website explaining the problem, just a generic message telling us to try again later.

I sent a message last night to tech support asking for them to share their plan for improving the reliability of their services. I have not hear from them yet. If they actually respond, I will update this message with that information. But I am not holding my breath.

 

I must say I am pretty disappointed with University of Phoenix at this time. I hope the problem is temporary and will become a distant memory. If the problem continues, I might need to consider looking for an alternate online University to finish my business degree.

 

Any suggestions?

Go To 10/16 Post

Water

Having some water while waiting for church to start.

Window Shot

Andy and Lindsey sitting in a window at church.

Church

The kids and I are at church this morning.

Waiting for the 11:30 am service to start.

Gotcha!

Andy and mom reading in bed.

Reading Time

I tried to get a picture of Andy reading tonight but he blocked it.

Getting camera shy?

Cup cakes

Andy watches as momma makes some chocolate cut cakes.