Etown

I went to a live radio taping for etown last night that featured Beau Soleil and Ben Kweller. It wasn't just music, but interviews with the artists as well. It was fantastic!

Giving Notice

I gave notice today. My last day at work will be April 10th.

It's a weird feeling. I realized after I had done it, excluding high school and college summer jobs, that I had never actually given notice before. After high school I went to college. After college I went to grad school. After grad school I joined the military. After the military I joined Qwest.

Nine years at Qwest. Wow.

Anyway, I need time off. Like, a month to just to get my head straight until I've decided what I want to do with my life.

Gamefest at T&R, March 2009

This month's games were Roads & Boats and Le Havre. I didn't enjoy Roads & Boats at all. It's just too long and fiddly for what it is. Le Havre, on the other hand, was quite enjoyable even if I didn't do that well. The first game is always going to be tough until you get an idea of what all of the buildings are.

And, as usual at this monthly game fest, good company, good food and good times.

More on investments

I decided to put some extra cash into my Ameritrade account and buy some more stock. So far, so good. I gambled on Citi at 1.98 and so far it's paid off - it's now over 3. In fact, I'm up on all my selections so far. I diversified a bit, too. I'm up to 10 stocks. I've got a few others I'd like to add, but I'm pretty happy where I'm at.

I'm not worried about losing, either. Ameritrade lets you setup triggers, which can be used to buy or sell X number of shares on certain conditions. In the case of Citi I'd hate to lose what I've already gained, so I've setup a trigger to sell it all if it drops to a certain point, but one that's still more than what I paid for it.

Investments

I really wish someone had taught me investments 101 back, say, in my senior year of High School. You know, a course on what a stock is, what dividends are, what P/E, beta and EPS all means, and why it matters. And why DRIPS are pretty much what everyone should be doing.

Anyway, I spent a couple hours on Ameritrade last night, doing the research, reading up on the terminology (thanks Wikipedia) and figuring out just what I want to invest in. Here's what I've decided.

First, tech stocks are crap. In fact, any stock that doesn't pay dividends is crap. Google? Apple? Forget about them. They might be cool companies that do cool things, but they don't pay dividends.

Second, drip, drip, DRIP! There are a lot of good stocks out there that pay good dividends. Some of them are unexciting but steady - Coke, Pepsi, General Mills and so on. The Oil & Gas stocks can pay out great dividends, and many pay out monthly, but they're riskier. But, whatever path you choose, you should be reinvesting them back into your stock, not collecting the dividends. The goal is, basically, to setup a second paycheck for yourself.

So, this year, I'm going to pick about a dozen stocks, invest about $500/month, and see how I'm doing at the end of the year, and continue to track my progress afterwards. My first milestone will be when I collect enough in dividends per month to buy groceries - let's say $200/month. The second milestone will be the mortgage payment - about $1000/month. The final milestone will be the "I don't have to work any more if I really don't want to" - about $4000/month.

And, in case you're wondering about my portfolio, right now it's only 4 stocks - BMY, PEP, VNR and PBT.

Wish me luck.