Dubya is made of Gold, and according to the U.S. treasury will have free reign of your bank accounts and finances.  On top of that, you can’t stop him!
For those of you who have been politically stimulated by the opening sentence of this post, I have bad news.  You’re thinking if the wrong Dubya.
I’m referring to the new “Golden” George Washington dollar coin that will hit circulation on Thursday.  The first of a new series of dollar coins, George Washington will face the initial release, and much like the state quarters, the coins will take on a new face every 3 months or so, paying tribute to United States Presidents….

Yesterday, I spent the entire morning and a couple hours into the afternoon organizing our taxes.

I separated everything we have into three groups:

The Oil Company
The Rental Property
Personal Taxes

Note that since the oil company is an S-corp and the rental unit is not held in a corporation, both of them funnel into our own personal tax return.

I organized everything in a “Summary Report” listing all the major activities, and adding up all costs for each possible category.  In effect, there should be no reason for my CPA to even whip out his calculator.

On my first year, I’m showing about a …

My Ford order went unfilled today.  My limit order was set GTC at $8.49.  Due to analyst upgrades of the automotive sector before the market opened, Ford never saw $8.49.

In fact, the stock opened strong at $8.82 and then slowly tapered off to close up $0.18 at $8.73.

My order for 200 shares is still in though, and I won’t waver on my limit.  If it doesn’t fill next week, I’ll cancel it and re-evaluate my entry.  I still think Ford has potential to reach the low teens, if not higher, but I …

I’ve got a small limit order placed for 200 shares of Ford tomorrow at $8.49 per share.  My original intention was to wait for a pullback to just under $8, but it appears that the stock is establishing a base above $8.10 or so.

Sentiment is starting to turn for the company as well, and they’re even getting some respect from their competition.

Today at the Chicago Auto Show, Jim Press, President of Toyota Motor North America had the following statement regarding Ford and its future:

“They’re going to get their share back and they’re going to get the image …

Read more…

Trisha at Building an Empire posted a video on a new trend circulating the internet called “Lock Bumping”. Evidently, by modifying a generic key, you can tap on it to open nearly any door you wish, leaving in question your actual security.

While I’m a firm believer that if someone really wants in your house, they won’t be coming through a door, this little fad makes it that much easier to breech security.

For those who know where I live, please call for an appointment to come visit my two new Rottweilers…

I got a call from one of my tenants on Monday indicating the pilot light went out, and she wanted me to explain to her how to light it.  A disaster waiting to happen: gas, a match, and someone who’s never brought the two together with the intention of containing the result.

So I told her to go to the water heater, remove the metal panel and look to make sure the pilot light was actually out.  Her response left me scratching my head.  “No, there’s a flame there”, she replied.

“So why did you think the pilot light went out? Did you run out of hot water?”

“No”, she replied, “the air …

It appears we have an astronaut run astray.  According to an article from the Orlando Sentinel, astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak tried to kidnap a woman who had also been seeing the astronaut Nowak pined for.

According to the article, Nowak “…was wearing a trench coat and wig and had a knife, BB pistol, and latex gloves in her car, reports show. They also found diapers, which Nowak said she used so she wouldn’t have to stop on the 1,000-mile drive.”

Only an astronaut would think to wear diapers so they didn’t have to stop on a 1,000 mile …

For the last week I’ve been working on upgrading to the new WordPress 2.1.  After a few glitches I managed to delete, upload, download, overwrite, edit, update and discombobulate all the files required to go from version 2.05 to 2.1.

I like the new version, but it will take some time to find and implement a few of the new features. One feature I particularly like is the ability to switch between the visual editor and the straight code editor. I also like (and appreciate imensly) the auto-save feature that saves my posts automatically when I write …

Expect some uneasiness in France today.

The French government just banned smoking in public places…