I’ve been so busy I nearly forgot to respond to being tagged by Chris (aka "the pirahna") Perruna, but then an hour ago I was tagged again, this time from a member of www.tagged.com which to me reeks of spam.  I have no idea who the person is that "tagged" me from this website but it served as a good reminder.  Yeah, I lean towards the optimistic side.  Anyway, on to a few questions that were passed on to me- what are my obsessions and why is that I do what I do?

Obessions

1. this site/my business – i’m a bit of a workaholic at times and have given up a lot in the last few years to build it so this may fall into the category of obsessive more than anything else

2. travel – love it, but haven’t had much time to do it – spent 6 weeks in Thailand a couple years ago and eventually plan to live somewhere overseas for 6 months out of year (my ideas are panama, mexico, ecuador, uruguay, argentina).  That plan has been pushed back several times!  Here’s me on the way to a camping trip in Thailand a few years ago:

3. music – living in seattle, i’ve been lucky to see some great local bands just a few steps from my door.  One of these days I’m hoping to put together a music page at the blog where I can share some of my favorite tracks of "undiscovered" bands.  The last show I went to was the Silversun Pickups a couple weeks ago.. probably one of my  top albums for ’07.  Not exactly "undiscovered" now, but still a favorite of mine.  Here’s a video from a set they did for Spin magazine.

 For more of a local flavor check out some friends of mine called The Maldives.  If you like your rock with a little bit of a country twang be sure to check them out and if you’re going to be in Portland in a couple weeks they are playing! They put on a fantastic live show.  They recently played a live set for the best radio station in the world!

4. the gym – does it count as an obsession if you’ve managed to get in there just 3 times in the past 8 months?
5. trading stocks – i think most people in this business would say the same thing.. it’s like gambling but with much better odds.  The downside? Void of cheap drinks and steak dinners.

Why Do I Blog?

1. helping others navigate and learn the markets – I sure wish investing blogs were around when I was learning this stuff!
2. interacting with other like minded people from all over the world
3. the hoards of cash I rake in from doing it (kidding)
4. hey, it’s not a bad marketing tool for the business I’m building
5. i enjoy it!

I’ll add one more question – An Embarassing (did I spell that right?) Moment

1. misspelling "street" (I said it so fast I said "d" instead of "t" ) at the district spelling be in front of several hundred people in 6th grade