New Theme, Updates Soon
I’ve changed the site theme to Tomodachi. It’s going to take some tweaking (links are sized incorrectly) but I like it. I’ll be updating a lot of things around the site, including the static pages, plugins, and more.
I’m going to shift some of my posts to cover my observations and ideas on web development, design, hosting, and related topics. I already have some topic ideas, such as “What To Look For In A Web Developer / Designer.”
What’s this? A post?!?!?
That’s right my friends, a new post after a year and 3 months of nothing. Recent ideas rekindled my interest in this site. As I’m heading off to the gym in a few minutes I don’t have time for a major update, but here are a few high points that occurred during my off time:
- Graduated from college with an AS in Business Administration in April ‘07.
- Sentenced to probation with community service and restitution for my past crimes in April ‘07
- Landed a web development job in November ‘07.
In: Education / Learning, Goals, Health & Fitness, My Websites
I’m Back!
I decided to switch to a new, cheaper server. I’m now up and running on the new VPS. I wrote a new post on the old server by accident and it didn’t get moved over 
I’ll try to summarize what has been going on with me.
I’ve been participating in a 12 week fitness competition, Body For Life. I’ve been keeping a daily log on the bodybuilding.com forum. The log can be found here: http://workout.thedanexperiment.com
I have a few things to post about in the blog so watch for updates soon! I promise!
Another Trade – WIT
One trading strategy I wholeheartedly believe in is CANSLIM. I’m not going to go into details about the method, you can read about it at the link provided and all over the web. It’s a fundamentals based strategy that relies on great earnings and great companies. When I was researching CANSLIM months ago I stumbled onto Pitbull Investor. I used their free trial with demo trading and had decent results, somewhere around 5% in one month. I finally ordered the system a few weeks ago. It’s basicly a simplified version of CANSLIM with the addition of the cup and handle chart pattern. Every week their automated system publishes a list of stocks that fit their guidelines. The past few weeks have created very small lists and none of the companies jumped out at me. Then this weekend the new list was longer. I found two stocks that interested me, WIT and MEOH. Both are fundamentally great companies but WIT is in a cup and handle chart pattern. They were also scheduled to release earnings today. I used the rest of my cash account to buy WIT yesterday at $16.96. Today they beat the predicted EPS of $0.10 by $0.02, pushing the stock up over 4% to $17.84 as of right now. I’ll be holding this stock until it reaches the target of $20.62, it goes sideways, or I find a new stock that I feel has better potential.
Investing again…
It took a while but I’m finally back in the market. After selling my house I decided to put aside $5,000 to open a new brokerage account. While OptionsXpress has a LOT of great features their fees are a bit high. I’m keeping $1,000 with them as a backup account and for the tools they provide (free L1 streaming quotes, calculators, market scanners, etc). I put the $5,000 in a ChoiceTrade account. I haven’t decided if I’m going to stay with them yet but I’ve begun trading. Their website is bare bones and they don’t allow anything beyond basic options trades (no spreads, etc). Their fees are very low though, only $5 for stock trades (unlimited shares including penny stocks) and $0.75 per options contract ($6 minimum).
Sorry About The Downtime
Sorry about the downtime everyone! Due to issues with Amex the bill didn’t get paid like it was supposed to and the site went down while I was 350 miles away visiting my parents without access to the proper card to pay it. That’s also one of the reasons why I haven’t had any updates in a while. Now that it’s back I’ll be posting more regular updates. I have a bunch of images to add to the gallery as well.
The Dream Journal Works
I’ve been keeping a journal of my dreams since December 16th. The goal is to have better recolection of my dreams and increase the frequency of lucid dreaming. Prior to logging my dreams I would remember a few a week. I almost never had a lucid dream, and the few that I do remember were only partially lucid. I realized I was dreaming but didn’t choose to take control. Typically the characters in my dream would do whatever I wanted but I wouldn’t try something outside the realm of the current dream. Whenever I wake up and remember a dream I write it down, along with the time I went to bed and the time I woke up.
I Wasn’t Quite Ready
About 35 hours into polyphasic sleep I realized I wasn’t prepared well enough. I didn’t have enough to keep me busy and the motivation to pull through. I woke up from my 2AM nap today very tired. I had trouble falling asleep for most of my naps and hit REM in very few of them. I could have kept going as I managed to make it to 5AM before giving up. At that point I made the decision that I need to prepare better before continuing.
Polyphasic Sleep – Part Deux
It’s that time of the year again. The birds have flown south, nice cars are packed away in garages, and winter vacation is upon us (or more specifically me). I have 5 weeks off of school with some projects I want to start and TV / movies I want to watch. It’s time to polyphasic sleep again! I learned a lot the first time around so I’m trying to avoid making the same mistakes twice. I will not be taking any extra naps or extending them. Instead of slowly phasing it in with core sleeps and naps I’m jumping in head first. Last night I slept 6 hours and I took my first nap at 6pm. I got some light sleep but not much. I’ll be following the same nap schedule I started with last time on the 2, 6, 10 hours. Meals will be an hour or so prior to naps. This is so I can exercise and drink my post workout shake right afterwards.
The End Of Another Semester, The Beginning Of Vacation
Today marked my last day of school in the fall semester. I’m not sure what my grades were for all of my classes but I expect that my overall GPA will be at least 3.8. More importantly I am now on vacation until January 22, 2007. I now have plenty of free time to pursue other interests such as polyphasic sleep, cooking experiments, my new website, and more. Watch for posts in the near future addressing each of these topics.
The spring semester will be my last at Monroe Community College. I’ll be graduating with AS degrees in business administration and computer science. I’ll be applying to “real” colleges soon to pursue a BS with a double major in economics and finance or something else business related. My target school is Columbia, with the University of Rochester as one backup. I believe my other backup will be George Washington University but I’m not 100% on that yet.
In: Education / Learning
