I'm Back.... Sort of

I haven't logged in to these accounts forever, but now that I have, there are going to be some changes going on. I plan to start another blog that concentrates solely on radio. Yep, I said 'radio'. I figured if I'm going to write about anything, it's going to be something I have a lot of fun dealing with. Politics irritates me, especially these days. The weather, ugh, it's Alaska, so I'd rather just stay inside and try to pretend that there isn't any weather. Finance, well, I'd prefer to make money and not write about it. So that leaves only personal topics (off-limits for me) or radio. So there it is. Link to new blog coming soon, once I get things there situated.

Updates to Blog

I haven't posted in forever, but then again I haven't had much to say. When I am able to post to a blog, most of my time has been spent on my finance blog and trading, so this one has suffered. I have no intention of closing this one however, but when something really grinds my gears is about the only time I will likely post here. For now though, check it out, visit the other one, or check out my sponsors too. Thanks and God bless!

Wow, it's been forever

Since this is my personal blog and I have been busy with another blog lately, I haven't posted in forever. Looking back in the last month or more I see only two updates and one is now updated as well. I've been spending a great deal of time on my new blog at

realtruefx.com

Please stop by and check it out!

Rumble, Rumble

Another bloody earthquake here in Fairbanks Alaska. That's the second one in six days. Looks like it's centered about the same place as Saturday morning's quake. Not a big one this time, but scare nonetheless. Here's the info
http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/Seis/recent/sub/quakes/2009150_evid106962/evid106962.html

New blog

This has been a looooooong time coming, but I've added a new blog to my content. The new blog's focus is solely on investing stocks and Forex with a special emphasis on technical analysis. I don't have a particular strategy on updates, but believe it will be updated more often than this one is. The main idea is to help myself evolve as a trader and hopefully help others improve as well.

The new blog is at:

http://realtruefx.blogspot.com/

Maybe I should be like other white people

This post is a first expression of something I feel very strongly about, at least for this blog. I can't understand why there are so few people, especially white people, who care about what goes on in 'the hood'. I regularly read the Time Picayune online in one of America's most troubled cities, New Orleans. Almost daily there are stories about violent murders, mostly young black males. The comments section never ceases to amaze me. The vitriol and lack of compassion, along with blatant racism still astounds me! I have seen it for years and I know it exists, but it still bothers me.

Note to Conservatives: Just because we have a black President does not mean racism is over. It still is not acceptable to say "Get over slavery". It is not okay to lay all the blame on minorities for the struggles in minority communities. I could easily put together a long diatribe about this, which most ignorant folks would still ignore or not understand, but this post it not about that.

This post is about a story I just read.
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/man_shot_in_marrero.html

As a summation of the story, despite the headline saying a 'man' was shot, the event was involving a 14 year old boy. It is not okay for this to happen, not acceptable. Although I am a 'sensitive' guy and perhaps might cry more easily than all you macho types, I do not cry much. This story makes me want to cry though. If this happens just once, that is a major deal to me. Unfortunately, in the past two weeks, I've read about at least 2 children murdered in N.O., and at least 4 or 5 more between 18 and 25 years of age -- all with 'illegal' weapons. The boy above was murdered with one shot from an AK-47.

Unfortunately, I live in one of the most Conservative states in the Union where guns are a sacred right and the general lack of basic comprehension of societal issues is not understood or is not a concern. I see a general, let the criminals kill themselves or let me take a shot at someone if I am ever threatened, type of attitude here. Those people miss the point that the government is not our biggest threat right now. Hunting is not the most important thing you need to protect. I don't disagree with the right to protect one's self, in fact I believe that to be extremely important. The problem is this, if all you focus on is protecting gun rights and never for a minute worry about fixing the crime or drug problems, eventually you will be overwhelmed by the problems of society and all the guns in the world won't protect you from a collapse of civilization.

There are so many things more important than gun rights at the moment, but I'll only list one -- Babies are dying in the streets in every major city in the country. There are miniature wars, that kill more of our people yearly than have died in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, right here at home. Babies are dying in the street! So why don't white people care? Is it because they're not your babies? A child is a child-- bottom line. Man, I'm done, for now.  :( 

Cowards!

It seems like there is a daily 'mass shooting' these days. Is it that our nation is being torn apart by the very  threads that hold it together? Are we descending into a war where everyone is an army of one free to enact vengeance on whomever may have done us wrong or who might just be standing in the way of our bullets? Is it the economy? Or is it just that the media has picked a trend that has been occurring for awhile now and begun to bring it to the attention of the masses much more regularly? I can't answer any of those questions definitively, but I do know one thing. These acts of cowardice anger me.  I mean seriously, what in the bloody hell is wrong with people?

I'll tell you one reason, cowardice, plain and simple.Poor little Billy got picked on and never had the guts to speak up before or some girl decided she was done with him and suddenly it is okay to slaughter anyone within shooting range.  Seriously, how WEAK does one have to be to even begin to think that is a way to 'get back' at someone. Really?

To anyone who is thinking of shooting up a school, or a mall, or even a government building, I say this -- do the strong thing and cock that pistol or that shotgun or that automatic weapon and slowly, carefully raise it to your own brain and pull the trigger. It's not as messy to clean up one body, and other people, who often have nothing to do with your situation can continue to live a productive life. Better yet, get some counselling or some drugs to help your psychosis. I'm angry, but I'm not heartless. I think you too should be able to be a happy, productive citizen. Yes, I do. I don't think you should be miserable. I don't think people who might have hurt you should die though. See when you commit these weak acts, guess what? You lose! The hard thing to do is almost always the best thing to do. Is it easy to pull a trigger? Yes. That is precisely why you shouldn't do it, because in the grand scheme of things, you lose by killing. If you persevere and triumph, those coming against you lose. If you want vengeance, be strong and triumph, not by killing, but by showing everyone you are worth something and not just a WEAK coward.

As for killing innocents, seriously, army of one, that is inexcusable. You should pull the trigger on yourself long before you kill innocents. That's bottom line, no honor in killing anyone, especially innocent people who are minding their own business. Get over yourselves and stop being so WEAK.

The big problem with these assaults is that it masks the real problems in our society. I guess, besides the obvious anger caused by these brutal acts, my biggest problem is that we have for a long time been at war in this country. Ask anyone in the slums of New Orleans, Detroit, D.C., L.A., or any city from small size all the way up to the largest cities. This war is rooted in drugs, historical discrimination (no matter to what extent it may exist now, the legacy exists), and poverty. We have death tolls rivalling Baghdad in some cities and that is a city that is a legitimate war zone and there seems to be no attempt to change it over a period of decades.  So we have systemic problems, which I might cover some time in the future, but for now, I'm running out of time and have to cut this short.

So simply put--- STOP THE SHOOTING!

Blog therapy

It has been an extremely long time since a new entry. I don't think I have any real followers anyway, but nonetheless, this blog shouldn't have gotten to this state. I'm posting via email, so hopefully this won't look to horribly formatted. If so I guess I'll fix it when I have time.

Time, time, time. There really hasn't been much time lately. As usual there is family to take care of. That's a given and I accept that. I've also been plodding along in my forex travels. Unfortunately, that's not going well overall. I have been hanging in there and still showing promise, but still am missing some important keys to profitability and longevity in the industry. I had another temporary meltdown yesterday, so I'm recovering from that and trying to focus on moving forward. Still, I've halted trading for a few days. I plan to read, read, and read some more over the next few weeks. I may not trade until I've practiced some more and finished my course work. I've realized over the past several months, that I'm expecting success, but have yet to put in all the required work. I mean I didn't get started in my current career without a lot of hard work, why would forex be different? So cheers to hard work! I'm on it!

I'll try to blog more when I have time. It's a good distraction and therapy anyways. If I'm blogging, I'm not losing any money in trading. Also, I'm twittering. I'm not really sure why, but my plan would be for trade entries and exits at some point. I have some from the meltdown already up there, for future posterity and "look how far I've come" type stuff. Anyways, off to lunch!

The Bailout

Cue scary music! The bailout has just failed, well several hours ago anyway, and it's scary either way you look at it. I am absolutely astounded at the ignorance of the average American and the cowardice of our "leaders". Main street 'hollers' let the Wall St. bastards hang, we're not rescuing them. What is wrong with people.

This is not a Wall St. bailout. Yes Wall St. will benefit in the sense that they will probably have jobs still. Companies like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America will still exist. Yes they will still be around, more than likely, if the bailout would succeed. Guess what America? So will you. You will still have your job and home and way of life, for the most part. I know that a lot of folks will lose their jobs and already have. I get that. It's already screwed up though. Trying to hang Wall St. won't help you though. Vengeance won't do anything other than hurt everyone.

What most people miss, is if we have a series of calamitous events, rather these series of events continue then the system WILL collapse. When that happens we all will suffer. This is not just a Wall St. problem, Main St. helped create it too. People who shouldn't have had mortgages got them and then didn't pay them. As a result, greedy Wall St. began to suffer and the whole spiral developed and continues to do so. The problems are global now too, the markets around the world are suffering, and millions, if not billions are losing trillions upon trillions of dollars(yen, Euros, etc.).

I am a hard working person, and I happen to pay my mortgage on time every month. Even when I had to relocate for a job and couldn't sell my home, I still paid my mortgage. Abandoning my home and letting the bank take the loss was never an option. Working multiple jobs, eating Ramen noodles, and walking in -40 winter weather were all options. (I live in Alaska currently). Sticking it to the people on Wall St. is not an option to me. Why? Because we are all connected in one way or another. I may not know that man with the 8 figure salary and the Rolls Royce. I may or may not ever be that man myself. I do think he should be held accountable, but letting those businesses fail is NOT accountability. It's suicide. It's stabbing myself in the eye. It's cutting my own hand off. It's ludicrous!

The main reason is this, trickle down economics. I do understand that the theory is, if big business does well, it will trickle down to Main St. The idea is that if the big businesses do well, salaries will be higher, there will be more jobs, and everyone will be better off. This is not theory, it is reality, to a point. So the people in charge take more than their fair share off the top, but it still makes it's way down, even if it is crumbs. The problem is this though, when there is no money for the man up top, there is less for the man on the bottom.

When Wall St. has nothing, or big business has nothing, we all have nothing. If you doubt that, go back a hundred years, before Lehman Bros., before Ford, before Wal Mart. Go back to when big businesses did not trickle down and compare the standard of living. The vast majority of us will never be wildly rich and successful, so we hate the next man who is. For the love of God, or whoever you do love, WAKE UP AMERICA. If you kill your brother, you kill yourself.

I am just in awe of my fellow countrymen. I cannot fathom taking such a huge risk to make other people suffer, when the consequences for all of us could be truly profound. I know that we could have another Great Depression and in these days I'm not at all looking forward to that. I'm not being an alarmist, but it IS possible. I don't know if it's likely or if it will happen, but we should do what it needed so that we don't roll the dice. Then we can work together to fix the system that if profoundly screwed up without profoundly suffering at the same time. Think about it! Look at the options on the table and figure it out for yourselves. But please, please, please don't let your bitterness get in the way . Think for yourselves and get over the ignorance and mob mentality and let's work towards a real solution. Even if it is marching on Washington and demanding real action, that is better than the current solution of doing nothing. I for one, will pray for all of us, because we need some sort of intervention, devine or not.

Kinda sorta closed, but not totally

Nice subject ehh? The actual status of this blog is at the very least on hold. I haven't had time or motivation to continue to post in a while. I'm usually trying to make money outside of the blog as that portion never really took off. So feel free to take a look around at previous posts and post comments if you wish. I will respond to comments much sooner than the next time I might post. I'm learning a few new investing angles right now and that is my concentration. When I get that situated, I'll probably be opening a new blog focused solely on that. Until then, I'll make occasional posts here.

Until next time---

therealisttruest

Long time no see!

Wow, it’s been forever since I’ve had an update. Honestly, I haven’t had much time to worry about posting as I’ve been making every effort to feed my family. The financial crisis seems to have been avoided, for now, but it’s still touch and go. If one thing goes wrong we could be kind of screwed. There’s no savings, no credit, no one to turn to if things do go south so at the very least pray for us. I see light at the end of the tunnel and think we can keep everything manageable in the short term. I also have plans to make the financial situation more stable long term. The only real solution is to increase our revenue enough to dig out of the trench. When that does happen, hopefully within the next couple months then I expect my posts to be more frequent, though not necessarily on this forum. I do intend to leave this up and posts updates on occasion, but my grand plan calls for adding at least two more blogs on Forex and stocks as I gain a better foundation on those concepts and get more money involved in those activities. I’ll be starting out very small, but I do believe when I make that move it will work. This is only the beginning y’all. Be easy everyone, it gets better.

 

Also, no thanks to those who didn’t help out as I requested. I honestly didn’t expect much, but held out hope. To date not one single person came forward. It’s no big deal really though because I am an independent person. In an act of desperation I was trying to open any avenue I could to raise funds and that avenue did not work out. I only hope that someday I will be in the position to help someone in need and not turn a blind eye.

 

Therealisttruest

Cyber pan handling

I need some help. There are three ways you can help me.

• Please click on the 'Donate' button to the right if you have a PayPal account.
• If you need any web design work done, perhaps we could simply work together and I could earn it that way. Email me at the address to the right if you're interested.
  
• Finally, just forward the link to this blog to anyone who might be able to help or would even be willing to visit this blog. I have Google AdSense so even having more visitors would be very beneficial.

Well for those that have previously read this blog, mainly in December and early January, you know that my family is having some economic issues. Things haven't changed much and in fact look a bit worse than before. The mortgage crisis affected us, at least indirectly as we were unable to sell our home but had to relocate. Savings got wiped out, credit debt rose in order to continue to feed the family, a wife and two little girls.

Please Please Please, if you have a Paypal account click on the Donate Now button to the left. Throw in a buck, or two. I need to get at a minimum around $1000 in the next couple weeks to meet rent, electricity, food, and heating oil obligations. I probably would need about 10 times that to get out of this financial crisis, but even a little bit to start out would be helpful.

For those that have no sympathy, let me explain quickly. I do have a job, and in fact a good one for the future. It just doesn't pay enough to dig out of a hole. I'm tech savvy, could probably throw together a website if you need one, so I'll work for the money as well. I just need to desperately get out of this situation and keep above water.

I know this isn't the best approach, but I don't have weeks or months and I still believe that in the roughest of times, people still do help each other. Last time I asked, didn't work at all, but hopefully you guys are nicer and more sympathetic. If not, well at least I tried. God Bless!

Humbly,
TheRealistTruest

Obama Osama?

The picture says it all doesn't it? Vote for Osama so he can help his Muslim friends destroy the country. Oops did I say Osama, I meant Obama Osama. But wait just one second, what the hell is going on in this Democratic campaign?

Let's break down the truth first of all. Barack Hussein Obama is not a terrorist, right? This piece is for the truly ignorant out there. No he is not a terrorist. He's not Muslim either. In fact he is a Christian. No that picture is not a fake, but it's not him getting suited up in a suicide bomb belt either. He was presented with this outfit in a visit to Kenya a few years ago. It is basically a sign of respect to accept this apparel as gift from fellow dignitaries. He is in fact partly of Kenyan decent, as his father, a non-practicing Muslim is from Kenya. I don't remember what his mother is, ethnically speaking, but I do know she is a Christian as well.

What I don't understand is a Democratic campaign that is so dirty and desperate as Hillary Clinton's. I might expect this from the Republican side, destroying a Democratic foe, but for someone supposedly on the same side, this is crazy. This just goes to show what Hillary Clinton will do to win. It also goes to show how stupid her campaign thinks we are. I for one am a bit smarter than that, being that I have a college ejukatiun and all. I just really hope the folks in my home state of Ohio aren't that stupid. I hope the people in Texas aren't that stupid. If the Democrats of America have any intelligence at all (which I might question still regardless of the outcome) this will backfire on the Clinton camp and be seen as one of the dirtiest, stupidest campaign blunders ever. Go Obama! Beat Hillary! Then we'll see who's the better candidate Obama or McCain.

Alaska Weather

It was about 30 degrees today, above zero. Records highs of up to 45 above are possible on Tuesday. That is about a 95F degree difference from what it was in the first week of the month. I love Chinooks! For those not familiar, a Chinook is a wind that blows down a mountain range causing warmer temperatures. In this part of the Interior when a southerly wind blows over the Alaska range, we can often get dramatic warm-ups in the winter. It is not unheard of to have the temperature rise over 40 degrees in several hours when there is a Chinook. This warm-up happened a bit more slowly than that, but man is it nice! I had planned a piece on law enforcement in the Bush tonight, but that will have to wait until tomorrow when I have more time.

So SAD

Well the week is almost over and what have I got done. Ummm, yes that's right-- nothing really. My ToDo list is getting so long I might never catch up. I'm concentrating on making my time management skills better, but thus far still no extra time to be found. I've always been a procrastinator though, so that is no surprise. I came to the revelation quite some time ago that if I ever want to accomplish anything in my life that I'll absolutely have to conquer this time management challenge.

I think I suffer a bit from SAD(Seasonal Affective Disorder, I think). SAD is something people in the higher latitudes deal with in the winters, from the lack of natural sunlight. I have never liked winter, but since moving to Alaska over 5 years ago I have noticed the change in energy levels and mood from about November through March. I am really tired much of the time and just want to sleep. Oh wait, convenient isn't it, it's bedtime now and I'm overdue. Let me know via comments if you'd like to know more about SAD and I'll do some research and put together something for you all.

Less Cold

Well it is official, as many in the local area know. The deep freeze has made it's way out of the area. 8 straight days of -40F or colder. The coldest official temperature was -48 in Fairbanks proper. Outlying areas got into the -60s and -70s for most of those 8 days as well.

At least it's finally "warmed" up though. I tell everyone it hasn't warmed up though, it actually got less cold. I mean it is still around 0 outside. To me that is hardly warm. It's forecast to get into the 20s within the next week, so the cold will be bearable, even to a Midwesterner like myself. Unfortunately, the cold weather is now in the Midwest. Minnesota was around -40 within the past couple nights.

You know what I say, better them than us!

TradeKing final review... for now

For background information on this review please visit the two links below.
This is the third and final part of my experiences with TradeKing... at least for now.....
http://therealisttruest.blogspot.com/2008/02/trade-king-review-part-deux.html
http://therealisttruest.blogspot.com/2008/01/so-how-good-is-trade-king.html

The issue I was having with TradeKing now appears to be resolved. My account was able to receive transfers via ACH as of Friday the 8th of February. This was indeed 5 business days as was stated from the original correct setup. The first two setups were incorrect. The first of those was all my fault, so 3 business days were lost because of my incorrect info. The second was mostly my fault as well, costing 5 more business days. I say mostly because the feedback on the site, when giving the correct info, with incorrect formatting was a bit vague. I tried to input a dash, which was incorrect, but it simply told me the number was wrong. Thinking I did something else, I took off 4 digits before the dash as well. So that number was four digits short. Oops, another five business days.

Finally, after talking with TradeKing tech support and getting frustrated with them, and getting in contact with my other institution to verify the correct information, I got the correct numbers with the correct format (yes including the four missing numbers, minus the freakin' dash). I wish someone had told me that in the first place. Oh wait, yes the younger lady on the internet chat explained that in a vague fashion. Anyways, this was Friday the 1st that everything was setup. Time to wait another 5 business days.... On Sunday the 3rd I received an email stating I had an incorrect ACH profile, a- freakin - gain. WTF?!

I had never received an email about the second profile, so I ignored it and held my breath. Checking my records I saw that the original screwup by me also prompted an email by TradeKing on a Sunday. So it looks like these emails are sent on Sundays. That's a bit odd, I would expect to see it sooner, but whatever. What alarmed me is that I got a message about the second profile while waiting for the third one to go through. A less patient person would have deleted the third one as well thinking it was incorrect also. This is not what I did though. As I said I waited.

On Friday the 8th it was live. I immediately transferred funds into TradeKing from the third ACH profile. Tick, tock, time to wait another five business days, even though the funds are no longer in the other institution and TradeKing is showing the funds in the account, but uncleared. That means I might be able to trade this Friday, the 11th. So in all it will have taken me 18 trading days. Only 8 of those were fully or partially by my own error or misunderstanding.

So now I wait......
One final word though, is that even through all of this I would not dissuade anyone from using TradeKing. Mainly I am documenting my experiences for you. I am a beginning trader, so I can't speak about the interface or the research or even timely trades. Well I could speak a bit about timely trades in a few days and perhaps in the future I will do a full fledged review with specifics on different options trading, interfaces, research, experiences, etc. For now this is what I have. This is my final TradeKing review for the moment. Good luck everyone!

Therealisttruest

Good bye Mitt

It was nice knowing you, or at least the image you presented. I can't say I care a lot about Mitt Romney dropping out of the race. All I really saw was a politician who cared about himself and his image only. So basically he was the average politician that is already in Washington. He's obviously an intelligent guy and was very successful at what he's done, but there are a lot of people in the world like that.

So what is a Conservative to do? Seriously, all we have left is McCain. I'm not sure about him either. He is status quo, good ol' boy. Again nothing special about him. I don't see him being a visionary or a real leader that will change things. Truth be told he's probably almost the same as Bush politically, only without all the burned bridges.

I was sort of sad that Thompson dropped out, but he never got his campaign together either so he didn't have a chance. The presidential race now officially sucks. I'm a Conservative, and the best choice to me looks like Obama at this point. If he were Conservative, without reservation I would fully endorse him. Unfortunately, he's too far left for me, so at this point the best I can say is that I'm undecided. At the very least, I hope he get the Democratic nomination. Anyone on the ballot would be better than Hillary Clinton. I seriously can't stand her.

Anyways, good bye Mitt. It was nice knowing you!

Breaking area news!

Apparently, there has been a widespread power outage in the city of North Pole, about 10 miles outside of Fairbanks. As I was looking at the local Wunderground.com weather stations I noticed several of the North Pole locations were about 2+ hours outdated. Then I noticed a new post on someone’s Wunderblog explaining the situation. I don’t know much more than that at this time, but if I get more info and have the time I’ll update. It’s about -35 right now so a prolonged outage is a serious situation. Hopefully they can get things sorted out quickly if they haven’t already.

 

Temperatures in the interior last night were as cold as -70(unofficially) and -67(officially). In the Fairbanks area it was ‘warmer’ between -45 and -50. Brrrr. Keep warm!

 

 

It's freakin' cold!

And that's no exaggeration. Seems the Russians decided to send some Arctic air our way. The temperature in the last hour was -42F. It's forecasted to be as cold as -55F tonight in town, definitely colder in valleys outside of town. It was in the -60s the last few nights north and south of here. For anyone who has never felt that type of cold, I can only tell you that you'd have to experience to fully understand it. I'm from the Midwest(not the northern part like Minnesota or the Dakotas) so I am definitely not used to this yet either.

The clear skies in the mornings are truly awesome, that is only if you are up in the hills. Town was socked in by ice fog, yet another term I had never heard of before coming here. Alaska is truly a land of extremes. I can't wait until July when it's 70 or 80. Yes that's above zero, a swing of 130+ degrees. Crazy, that's all I can say.

Also, for those of you who have left comments recently, I am meaning to get to them soon. Hopefully tomorrow sometime I will address that. Also I've been wanting to add my email address to the page as well. That should be coming soon. Well I've got to get to sleep and prepare for the deathly cold tomorrow morning.