Standing on the Corner

Standing on the corner
Watching all the girls go by...

--Perry Como

Well, it's not exactly the corner, it's the Green Carpet Room of United Airlines at Chicago's O'Hare airport, or is it a Red Carpet Room? I'm red-green color blind, but they let me in anyway. I have 4 1/2 hours before my flight to Denver, then back to Washington State for the new year of trading. What a fiasco UAL is, two of us flying out from the West Coast to the East Coast and back this holiday, only one of three legs went as planned, the other three a debacle of monentous proportions. As passengers, why is it that we know more then United about what flights are available, what routes and other airlines are open and doable and why holding one plane at the gate 15 minutes will save a dozen passengers from missing connections and having to stay overnight, and in one sad case, take a family 5 days to get from Chicago to San Diego? Probably the worst of it was last night, when a Customer Service rep for United printed out the wrong Hotel voucher, hand wrote "Hyatt Regency" over the incorrect hotel and said, "Don't worry, they will take it." They didn't. And it was pouring buckets, icy buckets and two long blocks to the other hotel. My bad, though. I knew better then to take a hand written voucher to the Hyatt. Back to my point, why do us passengers know more about how to run an airline then the angry, miserable creatures from hell who work there?

On to trading. I was asked by a friend, a very good trader, how my return was in my daytrading account last year, 2005. It looks to be a bit over 200% on my preliminary work-up. But that understates things, I rarely if ever used 100% of my buying power, usually about half of it. Still, he sounded disappointed, thought that based on all the time and effort I was putting into daytrading, it should be higher. What do you think? My guess is that most anyone in this business would give their right arm for those kind of returns. Yes, I wake up at 4:30AM (PT) and am not really done until an hour into the after-hours. But I also love what I do, with a passion, so I spend another 2-3 hours a day doing research, backtesting and evaluation of new ideas. That goes for weekends too.

My 17-year-old daughter's boyfriend totalled the 2003 BMW 330i I had given her to drive when I left 18 months ago. The guiltmobile. So I'm buying her a 2006 Honda Civic, Motor Trend's "Car of the Year." Guiltmobile II. This is why we trade. There is nothing in life that doesn't go better with wealth. Nothing. Even in death, those left behind are given upgrades to first class to soothe the loss, if the numbers are there. Like my father before me, I am determined to make those numbers work, I think its called a legacy. In any case, I had a nice eight days with my daughters, 17 and 15 respectively. I gave them some cash, bought them cell phones and clothes and a lot of nice meals, and despite all the materialistic overtones, we shared a visable, feeling, real love for each other. So what's a few miles got to do with it? Being apart, well, it's inevitable. Being a part of each other, priceless.

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