Traveling Thoughts

I’ve mentioned several times that on of my favorite classes while I was in college (specifically business school) was finance with Professor Jim. And I’ve mentioned that my favorite project in that class was the stocks project. I learned that I needed a portfolio with at least 18 stocks to get 90% diversification. To fully optimize that portfolio, we went a step further and used the Markowitz’s Modern Portfolio Theory (MPT). This takes and looks at the risks and returns of each stock and determines what the weight by share of each stock will be that will produce the most return from the portfolio. We produce an efficient frontier with our stocks and those stocks near the upper part of the curve on the efficient frontier are the best stocks because they give the greatest return for a given amount of risk.

We didn’t exactly have the curve we were looking for but I did choose 18 stocks. They weren’t exactly diversified either. My stocks were too closely correlated, which means that I had room for improvement in my portfolio. However, I had to note that there is a downfall to MPT and that is that no individual stock in a portfolio is completely independent of another stock within the portfolio.

With all the knowledge that I gained by doing the project, I wanted to go buy stocks. But stocks aren’t cheap, and I’m no pro. I realize that in order to gain I have to take risks. But there’s some days where money is a little larger risk than I’m willing to take. I am willing to play in the virtual market though. And there was nothing like the incentive of $100,000 in virtual money to help me along. I’m serious, MyWallSt.net gave me $100k in virtual money, to buy virtual stocks that follow the movements of the real stock market. It’s a learning environment. One that would’ve been awesome when I was in Professor Jim’s class. I was flying blind mostly when I was doing my project. I mean there were books and published articles that I was reading to help out in my research, but it was out dated.

It would’ve helped to been able to talk to people in realtime, to have had current opinions on stocks, to have been able to ask questions. I mean, I did go over and beyond on my project when I ventured into MPT but to have been able to ask an expert about it. Now that, would’ve been cool and the news would’ve been current.

I hope that when I have to take finance in grad school and we get to the section on stocks that I’ll be able to speak up and not only sound smart, but be smart because I know what I’m talking about because I’ve played in the stock market and I’ve had gains and loses and I’ve learned and I’ll have something to show for it with a growing portfolio on MyWallSt.net and that I’ve reached out and built business relationships with other stock traders. That would be ideal, to take what I’ve already learned, and grow on it, and learn so much more and have something to show for it. And maybe to go as far as eventually starting to play in the real stock market because of my learnings and friends at MyWallSt.net.

I live pretty far into the future, or I should say that my brain does rather live far into the future, it rarely exists in the moment.  This can be a bit of a problem and has been rather humiliating in the past. One such humiliating event happened not even a year ago when I’m sitting in class and the subject was that of voIP. We were talking about what it was and all the cool things that accompany it and at one point, my mouth opened before I even had time to think about what I saying…

“Video Phones are to us what the holograms were to Star Wars”

people just stared. Gawked actually. Mouths wide open wondering where I came from.

The professor:

“Courtney can you expand on that thought, please?”

I rolled my eyes thinking he should’ve known what I was talking about. I mean seriously, who’s not seen Star Wars. Who’s not seen Darth Vader talk to a holographic images of the Empire? (I did give him the benefit of the doubt and didn’t even let my thinking head near Episode 1 in which Darth Sidious is a hologram talking to nimrod and nincompoop, or in Episode 3 when the storm troopers are holding the little device and the hologram appears and they receive their orders to terminate the Jedi.)

“Well, at various instances within the Star Wars Trilogy you see Darth Vader talking to Empire Palpatine who isn’t present in real life he’s just present in holographic form. But you can see him, you can see the movements he’s making, you can hear him, if he were to turn around I’m pretty sure you’d be able to see his backside. That’s no different than the current technology given to us with voIP and video phones. As long as we’re in view of the camera, the person at the other end can see us, see whatever we’re doing, hear us speak. It’s the same thing just a different era in time.”

Everyone pretty much nodded and went on about their individual conversations leaving me with my group who were like, we get you Courtney, we really do, we’re just not sure they do. I don’t think my group got me either. But work with me here, and if you don’t get it go watch the Star Wars series and then come back to me.

This is the difference between me telling my minions to do something and them seeing me tell them to do something. Seeing a person tell you to do something has a little more impact than just hearing it. It’s like when I was a kid and mom would call to tell me to do something and I’d be like ‘yeah ok’ while thinking ‘whatever’ and rolling my eyes. This is the difference between me being able to communicate with my commanding officers (up to two at a time) and them knowing that I mean business.

Of course with a name like Tango it’s difficult for me to be completely serious with my cohorts. Good thing it’s not always business when I talk to them. And since they can see my expressions when we Tango they’ll know that I’m not talking business.

I already have everything I need to add more fun to my phone conversations. I have a regular phone and I have High-Speed Internet (DSL to be exact). It’s great when new toys are plug-n-play. I just have to connect it to a modem, my phone, and plug it into the wall for power and BAM! I’ve got the power!

It’s really nice that with the Tango Video Phone I get smooth full motion video on a 5″ TFT LCD Display at a rate of up to 30 frames per second. They get to see me perfectly because I can rotate the camera 180 degrees to make sure that they’re seeing what I want them to see. And everyone get’s to hear each other as we’re speaking because the Tango video phone has delay-free audio.

It’s portable so I can take it with me wherever I go: home, work, when I’m out playing, when I’m away on vacation. And portability makes new toys incredibly appealing to me.

Packet8 Internet Phone Service has got some great phone packages too. I personally would choose the Freedom Unlimited Residential Service Plan because it meets my needs (I don’t have people to call all over the world so I don’t need all the locations of some of the other plans) and it’s low priced.

So, I’ll take my futuristic thoughts, and the little Tango and pretend that it’s a holograph of whomever I’m talking to and we’ll enjoy the added vision to our phones and passion to our conversations.

So, school starts next week…for all the people that are still students. For me, school is just a memory, but it’s one that’s on the forefront of my mind. One of my favorite classes last fall was finance with Professor Jim. This man, he was funny. He was one of the few professors that I can say impacted my college education in a good way.

We had two massive projects in finance that really just consumed my life, the first one I don’t remember, and I hated it, loathed it. The second, I remember as though I was still working on it, it had to do with investing in stocks. My knowledge of stocks then was limited and still is limited, so I need all the help I can get.

There’s so many different programs out there to help trade stocks, but like anything else, I wonder what’s behind that software. Kind of like what’s going through the heads of the actors/actresses on the soap operas, and some of those characters have blogs. Wizetrade is a powerful stock trading software program and stock research tool used to conduct stock market analysis and quickly chart potential entry and exit signals on any stock symbol. And Wizetrade has a blog such that I can follow along with their product, their people and the events that they hold.

Blogs like Wizetrade’s connect me to them, and that makes me feel special (yes, even though there are a million other readers), it makes me feel as though they’re writing to me, just for me. I like blogs like that, and when blogs like that back up a product, I tend to like the product…

I just graduated, and the program that I want to get into for my masters is not open until 2009 but in the meantime, I’ve got no desire to stop learning. In the computer industry there’s no room to stop learning, you’re outdated the minute you receive your education, there’s something new always coming along.

In the last two jobs that I’ve been in, the systems architecture has been solely based on Microsoft software. In regards to this, I think it would be cool to have MCSE certification training attached to any future resumes that I may have to put out, I mean it’s highly marketable as it’s recognized all over the world.

If nothing else, there’s many other certifications I’d like to obtain, the last certifications that I got were back in 2000 when I got the Microsoft Office User Specialist (MOUS) certs in Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, and Outlook. In fact, I had master certs in Word and Excel. But those are of course old and out dated. It has been after all 7 years. And not much has changed in the programs and I could become certified on a more recent version of the office suite, but you know what, that’s not so much what I care about.

I’m more into the programming certifications: .NET 2.0 Web-based Application Development would be great because that’s what I’m programming in at work. SQL Server 2005 would be beneficial because that’s where we’re headed, like i said everything is forward moving, and as technology progresses so do we in the workplace.

I can remember my first job, I was the trainer, and I was training people to get certified in the various Microsoft Office products and there was another trainer and he trained the people to the point where they could get their A+ certifications and I’d really like to be on the other side of that training. I didn’t need to be trained for my MOUS certs, I had the knowledge and just had to take the tests, but there’s a benefit to being trained. It would be fun I think.

There’s just so much to learn and being certified in anything can never hurt it can only help. So, it’s a toss up, do I take classes at the community college or do I get some of these program at PrepLogic and start learning so that I can worldwide approved certifications. It’s something worth thinking about since there’s a world of opportunities out there and I think I should be able to be included in them and capitalize on them as well.

Today in my first class, we had to meet and greet people (network) and once we had met someone we could put our name tags on.  Most of us put our name tags on our left side.  There were a few people who put the name tag on their right side.  When we were asked why we put our name tags where we did, none of us had a good answer.  For those of use with them on the left it was because that’s where our heart was, and where we put our hands when we said the pledge or sang that one song, so that’s where we put our name tags.  The comment for the people that had them on their left side was “unless you’re left handed and then it goes on your right side.”

It turns out that the name tag belongs on the right side of your chest because when you shake hands that’s the line of sight.

So as I was moving my name tag, I turned to my friend and said, “but that one’s named Alyssa.”  At which point giggles broke out.

The point here being though, when you’re wearing a name tag, it needs to be on the right side of your chest…