Entries Tagged 'Uncategorized' ↓

The second half of 2009 was beyond busy for me, for a variety of reasons. I expect 2010 to be a little better. It occurs to me, however, that sneaking a small bit of writing into each day is not difficult and is healthy. It appears that many people even equate writing with thinking. Writing is a chance to really clarify your thinking on a topic. I’ve started blog posts in the past where I’d begin writing the blog post and eventually stop after I realized that I didn’t agree with the direction the post was taking.

In the past, I’ve posted random links on my blog (primarily Blue Sky On Mars, the blog I’ve had since 2001). I’m actually quite happy that there’s no need to post tidbits on my blog any more. I have Twitter for that, and my delicious bookmarks automatically get posted on twitter.

For those of you reading this blog and Blue Sky On Mars, you can expect to see more writing from me here in 2010 than in 2009, and I hope you enjoy it.

Gold has gone up quite a bit over the past few years. Generally speaking, you don’t want to invest in things when they’ve just had a run up. On the other hand, with the US government printing trillions of dollars to try to get our economy out of the toilet, it is a certainty that inflation will come along with that at some point. Maybe not this year, because things are a mess and there’s still a risk of deflation. But, sometime soon we’ll have to pay the tab on all of that printing/borrowing.

It turns out that it’s pretty easy to invest in gold, and you don’t have to have a stack of gold bars at your house (mind you, I wouldn’t mind it if someone sent me a stack of gold bars).

The most “virtual” thing you can do is invest in GLD. GLD is an exchange traded fund that is intended to track the price of gold. Right now, gold is $854 an ounce and GLD is $84 a share. GLD has the benefit of being easy to trade using your current investment account, and has a relatively small expense ratio of 0.40%.

Less virtual than that is a precious metals account at EverBank. You can buy your way in for $5,000 and put your money into a pool that is used to buy gold, which doesn’t sound entirely unlike GLD. Or, with a $7,500 minimum, you can have EverBank store actual gold for you. If you pay them some money, they will even ship it to you. But, the main point, is that you can put money into an account that is backed by physical gold that EverBank holds for you.

At work, I’ve been busy with our various products, and trying to squeeze in some time to prepare for my four (!) talks at PyWorks. Yowza.

At home, I’ve been busy with the usual things that one is busy with when you have a child, a wife and a house. In addition, I’ve been working on a top secret project that has been brewing (in my head, and only recently in reality) for a long time.

Blogging will pick up again. This is just the way things go!