Catching up..

It's been a busy week. I was so involved in the investment tournament that I missed making a couple blog posts. So today we'll get caught up with what was missed.

Normally on Fridays I do a feature called "Friday's Finds" where I share some fun and unique websites that I have happened across on the web. I've missed it a couple time so in the spirit of sharing.. here's a short Saturday episode of Friday's Finds:

1. Create a Simpsons-style avator.

2. Virtual Etch-a-Sketch.

3. Calvin and Hobbs Forever!


To update you on the results of my investment shoot-out, my wife made 10 transactions on friday but couldn’t reach the pot of gold in her battle with me. She ended the tournament with $162,186. I was able to grow my portfolio by nearly $7k on friday for a grand total of $181,101.

We both started with $100,000 last monday. By winning this week, I move into the Championship round with the CEO of Big Smarty Wallstreet. Wish me luck.. I can use all the help I can get. Of course I have the anaylitical power of "The Mentor Center" which helps to identify stocks with great buy signals. So I am sure I will do great. But win or lose, it's an honor to have made it this far.

Please stop by and join us in an upcoming weekly tournament. We are mostly non-professionals with an interesting in helping each other make better investments. We have weekly, daily, monthly tournaments and we play other games like Wallstreet BINGO and Lucky 7. All the games and tournaments are FREE so don't be afraid to register and keep an eye on us! Use the BigSmarty links on this page to find us.

Civil Wars - It had to come to this

My wife and I have been participating in a wall street investment "shoot out" tournament for the past few weeks. We knew that if we continued winning in our respective brackets that we could end up going head to head against each other. Well, it happened. This next week will see us battling each other to see who can grow a $100,000 investment portfolio the largest in one week.

We usually help one another to find the best stocks for our different portfolios. Next week we will be doing our investigative work in secret. It should be interesting. Actually, I think my wife will win by a landslide. She takes greater risks but often sees the greater returns because of it. I am more conservative but able to make steady gains. I'm excited to go head to head with her.

I expect that we will both do well. Come watch our portfolios grow. Better yet, join us in a weekly tournament to test your investment strategies. The tournaments are FREE. We'll set you up with $100,000 virtual dollars that you can invest in the real stock market. Join our community and learn to make money on Wall Street.

Click here for a free membership to BigSmarty Wallstreet.

Look for the Shoot Out Tournament. My ID is EZ Money.

August's Outdoor Barbeques

We are nearing the end of August and children are preparing to go back to school, the temperatures will be dropping soon (we hope), and vacation time is coming to an end. But there is still a lot of time left for outdoor barbecuing.

I've been known to step out on the back deck in a freezing snowstorm to light up the grill and barbecue dinner so there's really never a time that you can't enjoy the wonderful flavor of a meal cooked on the grill. Here's some tips before you get started:

1. Scrub the grill (or rebuild it, if you have to).
2. Scour the ice chest.
3. Provide comfortable seating:
Re-strap patio chairs with vinyl webbing
Pressure-wash plastic outdoor furnishings
Fix wobbly benches
4. Provide shade or improve the shade you've got:
Buy a sun umbrella
Clean the vinyl sun umbrella that you already own with an automotive convertible vinyl-top cleaner
Repair the crank mechanism
5. Keep the bugs at bay:
Buy bug spray repellent and repellent wipes
Buy food tents to keep the bugs off the food
6. Keep the garden hose and a spray nozzle handy for anything from hand washing to plate rinsing.
7. Hit the deck: Remove and replace loose planks or rusty, protruding fasteners.

Also see: 180+ recipes for the grill from MSN

What are YOUR favorite grill recipes? Share them in the comments!

Slow Down

One of the problems with our world today is our need for speed. Rush, rush, rush is the order of the day. Maybe the solution to a lot of our problems is to slow down. Afterall, life isn't worth living if you can't occassionally stop and smell the roses. If you're so busy trying to provide that you don't have the time to enjoy, then you're not really living up to your potential.

If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing slowly. Here's some ideas to help you slow down and enjoy life:

1. Put your feet up and stare out of the window. Warning: don’t try this while driving.
2. Spend some quality time in the bathtub.
3. Write down these words and place them where you can see them, “Multitasking is a Moral Weakness.”
4. Try to do only one thing at a time.
5. Do not be pushed into answering a question right away. Take your time.
6. Try the “One Minute Slow Exercise.” Whats that? It's when you slow down for just one minute. If you are walking, slow down the pace. If you are driving, ease up on the pedal. Slow down your rate of speech. Did you notice anything different?
7. Yawn often. Medical studies have shown that yawning may be good for you.
8. Take a nap and spend at least an hour extra in bed. You deserve it.

Just slow down.. you move too fast,

Loose Ends - Some Days I Just Feel So Old

Now that we have the humor out of the way for today. Here's a great article that I reccommend for your reading: What matters about Romney's Religion.

Visit this site for more information about the Mormons basic beliefs.

Veggie Art

Maybe it really is okay to let your children play with their food. They might grow up to be a serious vegetable artist and create memorable masterpieces like these:

Maybe it worked too well...?

Loose Ends:

The old saying “the best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry”comes from a line by Scottish poet Robert Burns. It means that no matter how well a project is planned, something may still go wrong. In the case of these plans, what went wrong was…they worked.

Wild Turkey in California

THE PLAN: In 1959 a program was started to aggressively introduce wild turkey populations to California. Officials hoped having the game birds would mean big revenue from local and out-of-state hunters.

IT WORKED…By 1969 there were enough turkeys for a regular hunting season. By the 1980s, there were tens of thousands of them.

…TOO WELL! In 2003 California officials began introducing programs to get rid of wild turkeys. There were more than a quarter million of the birds living in the state, and they were wreaking havoc. Biologists said they were invading habitats of native birds, consuming endangered species of plants and animals, damaging crops, ruining gardens, fouling backyards—and sometimes even attacking children.

Klum to Model Swimsuit for H&M

THE PLAN: In May 2003, German advertising firm JC Decaux presented fashion chain H&M with a marketing plan for a new line of bikini swimwear. The idea was simple: plaster the country with posters of German supermodel Heidi Klum wearing the sexy swimsuits.

IT WORKED…The Klum ads became one of the most successful advertising campaigns in the country’s history. H&M reported huge sales.

…TOO WELL! More than half of the posters were immediately stolen. Not only that, people smashed display cases to get them. JC Decaux president Hans-Peter Bischoff said, “We put up 750 small posters, and they were all gone within a few hours. It’s madness.” The company had to hire guards to protect the display boxes while they figured out a solution. The solution: H&M started giving the posters away for free.

Sunscreen Ad Campaign in Australia

THE PLAN: After a hole was discovered in the ozone layer above Australia in the mid-1980s, the government began aggressive ad campaigns to warn people about the risks of getting too much sun. The ozone layer acts as a filter against the dangerous ultraviolet rays in sunlight, and the country already had the highest skin cancer rates in the world. One of the most popular campaigns was “Slip, Slop, Slap”: “Slip on a shirt, Slop on sunscreen, and Slap on a hat!”

IT WORKED…National health associations credited the campaign with making sunscreen usage a normal part of life for many Australians, saving countless lives.

…TOO WELL! In 2000 officials announced that nearly 25% of Australian adults were vitamin D deficient. How do you get vitamin D? Primarily by exposure to sunlight—the skin produces it in reaction to the sun’s rays. Lack of the vitamin can cause a host of health risks, including osteoporosis, and is believed to be linked to breast, colon, and prostate cancer.

Boost the Economy with Credit Cards

THE PLAN: To get its citizens to spend money, and thus boost the country’s faltering economy, in 1999 South Korea instituted a program making it easy for anyone to obtain a credit card.

IT WORKED…The nation’s economic growth climbed by 10% in the first year alone.

…TOO WELL! By 2003 the average South Korean worker had four credit cards and consumers had rung up more than $100 billion in debt. There were so many unpaid credit card accounts that the nation’s largest credit company had to stop issuing money from their ATMs and had to get an emergency loan just to stay afloat. Credit card debt was also blamed for a rash of suicides, thefts, kidnappings, and prostitution cases. “Koreans ate a poison pill,” economist Kim Kyeong Won told Time magazine, “It tasted sweet at the time, but was still poison.”

Reprinted from Uncle John’s Slightly Irregular Bathroom Reader. ©2004 by the Bathroom Reader’s Press.