I’m reading Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom right now. Excellent book, in my opinion. I had stopped doing any type of trading personally a couple years ago, but I have always found it interesting so decided to get active in it again.

I’m only going to “paper” trade for right now. This is “fake” trading to see how your performance is before ever risking any real money. A way to prove out a system somewhat to see how it would have done if you traded real money (though if you traded real money it would then have some “effect” on the market and may change the outcome).

“Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom” is a great book that isn’t about teaching you any specific system on how to trade, but it is more about how you evaluate the system you are using and yourself. It does briefly cover a variety of strategies and their basis. Not recommending one or the other, but discussing what is commonly used out there and why it may appeal to different individuals.

Personality

Chapter 3 has a great list of questions that you need to answer about yourself and try to gauge your capabilities. Items like:

• How much time do you have to trade? Do you already have a full time job?
• What is your risk tolerance? Will you lose sleep at night if you have money tied up in the markets?
• What skills do you have? Good at math? Good with computers? Analytical?

Analyzing the System

A lot of terminology is used here but explained very clearly. Reward to Risk ratio is commonly used to guage how good your returns are compared to the risk you are taking. Position sizing is touched on. I’m only 3/4’s of the way through the book, but it has been excellent. I recommend the read to anyone thinking of getting into it.

I recently purchased a used 2017 F-150 XLT 302A SuperCrew truck. I jumped ahead quite a few years from my 2006 truck I was previously driving. One thing I was pleasantly surprised about was the technology Ford has in its vehicles. In particular the Ford Pass application.

My brother-in-law has recently returned from living in France for the past decade. He earned his PhD in Canada before moving abroad and working in Labs in Nice, France and Monaco. He has over 15 years of experience in scientific research, publishing & peer-review for internationally recognized journals and teaching in the Medical and Biological Sciences.

Now living in Victoria, Canada, he is has launched his own website, S.K. Parks Consulting. He provides a variety of services such as:

• Manuscript Editing & Evaluation
• Research Consulting
• Guest Seminars
• Tutoring
• Translating Services (French & English)

Check out his site if you are interested.

I read this book during my last holiday and was quite entertained.

Basically, the author writes about his experiences being the first man to circumnavigate the globe on his own power. This means using his own strength. No sailing, no motorized vehicles, etc. He cycles, walks, and rows around the northern hemisphere.

Below is a paid link to purchase the book.

The book is interesting not just because of the physical trials and setbacks that he incurs, but also the relationships he has with his teammate and fiance (who later joins him on his travels).

I won’t talk much more about it here, but I definitely recommend reading it. It is an easy read with lots of interesting tales and trivia from around the world.

By the way, Colin Angus is from Vancouver, Canada.

I unfortunately broke a piece of the tailpiece off on my mandolin the other day. I was restringing it and was putting on some old strings (they hadn’t been used) I purchased a few years ago. I don’t know if that was the problem or not, but one the little pegs in the tailpiece that the eye of the string holds onto snapped off.

I didn’t know what to do, so I phoned around to a number of places in Calgary and no one wanted to deal with it. Replacement tailpieces were selling upwards of $100 on eBay so that didn’t look very good either.

I ended up phoning Long & McQuade here in Calgary (Calgary Long & McQuade) and they said to bring it by and they would take a look. Anyhow, I walked in and they have a replacement tailpiece of the exact same shape and size for $20. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was the same size as my original so I could use my Kentucky tailpiece cover on it as well. It wasn’t even stored in the back. It was a plastic wrapped item on a display shelf.

I own a Kentucky KM200S teardrop style mandolin. I purchased it back around 1995 or so. It is a pretty nice little instrument so I want to keep it in good repair.

Replacing A Mandolin Tailpiece

Replacing it is really simple:

1. Remove the cover of the tailpiece.
2. Remove any strings connected to the tailpiece. Either remove them from the Mandolin completely or loosen them enough that you can slip the string eyelets off of the tailpiece pins.
3. Remove the screw for the knob you connect your strap to.
4. Remove the 3 screws holding the tailpiece onto the bottom of the mandolin.
5. Hold the new tailpiece in place where the old one was. The angle of the mandolin tailpiece might not quite be right, so bend it a little so that it is touching flat on the bottom side of the mandolin and the on the top.
6. My old tailpiece had a piece of felt along the edge that the strings dug into, but the new one didn’t have this. I removed the felt and superglued it onto the new tailpiece.
7. Replace the 3 screws to hold the taipiece on.
8. Replace the strap knob and screw.
9. String up your guitar and put your tailpiece cover back on.

Overall, it was super simple, only cost me $20, took half and hour of work including the restringing, and I was able to keep on my original tailpiece cover.

This blog has been offline for a number of years, but I have decided to start back up again. Mainly to just keep up with my writing skills and document more of my personal experiences.

I will put back up some of my older and more popular posts from the past. Likely some may need some updating.