Online Stock Trading

Many years ago I worked on the personal management merit badge as a Boy Scout. One of the things I remembered is answering the question of what to do with $100 or some similar amount of money. I had to describe the various places to put that money and the expected outcome. The two choices that stood out most at the time were keeping it under your mattress or putting it in a savings account. The idea was to get the young boy to think about interest and that putting money in the bank is much better than putting it under a mattress. Last year I looked at my bank statement and noticed that I am not getting very much interest on my savings account and so one of my New Year's resolutions is to take a more active role in investing my money. There are lots of places to put your money and I remember them from my Boy Scout days.

My merit badge counselor was a life insurance salesman and he extolled the virtues of various life insurance products. I took his advice right after getting married and I have a great policy that allows me to borrow against the cash value in the event I need some extra money. I also have life insurance through my employer and so I don't want to transfer my savings into more life insurance.

I have toyed with the idea of purchasing a vacation home and renting it out on AirBnB or VRBO when I am not using it. Unfortunately I don't think I am quite ready for that. In looking at the various places I want a second home, I realize the giant commitment it would take and know I would soon become a slave to the vacation home. I might be able to handle that after I retire but not right now.

Ultimately I decided that I have had significant luck in the stock market and it is time for me to re-enter the world of online stock trading. Now the first thing anyone will ask you about investing is, "What are your goals?" I really don't want to actively monitor my stock portfolio and trade frequently. I really just want to put a little extra money out of each paycheck into something and let it grow over time. I don't want to lose any of that money and so I want to invest in solid companies that will be around for years to come. Sure I may miss out on some huge potential growth but I also don't want to worry about equally high risk.

My oldest son suggested that I set up a Webull account. One of the selling points is that they immediately give you 4 shares of random stocks: 2 when you create your account and 2 more when you put at least $100 into it. My son also received several shares of free stock just by referring me. If you click on the link above and create your own account, I will also get referral stock shares and so I really want a lot of people to create accounts for themselves. Don't worry, I won't feel bad if you don't. It would be nice though.

The real reason I created my Webull account is because there are zero commissions on purchases and sales. I can buy and sell stock at will and as long as I follow specific rules, I don't have to pay any fees. One of the rules is that I can't deposit or withdraw more than $50,000 in a single day. I can only hope that it becomes an issue in the future but for now, that is way more than I need to deposit or take out. Should I need to pull out $100,000, I will just have to plan ahead and spread the transaction across 2 days instead of 1.

There are many strategies for investing in the stock market and I don't pretend to know them all. I also don't want to give anyone ideas about where to invest as this is something I am doing to make more than the annual 10 cents per thousand dollars in my savings account that I currently am getting. Already I am up 10 dollars per thousand after only 2 days. No it is not enough to quit my day job but it significantly beats everything I earned last year in my savings account.

I must make one final note about online stock trading. I am not guaranteed to make money. I could do worse than my savings account. If you need money in the next several months, it is best to keep it in your savings. Only invest with money that you don't need for a year or more.

Night Rock Climbing

My youngest daughter had her birthday a week ago and so my wife joined me in the Uinta Mountains to spend time with her. This daughter is the director of climbing for a summer camp and spends her weekdays teaching Boy Scouts how to climb. On Friday nights they will do night climbs and last week's evening of fun happened to fall right on my daughter's birthday.

My daughter had explained night climbs before but I had no idea what a party the evenings turn out to be. My daughter's boss has a set of outdoor speakers that he sets up with the help of stored music on his smartphone. Then all of the boys show up headlamps ready to climb about 50 feet. When I first heard of the event, I thought there might be 10 or so boys. Nope, imagine the entire camp showing up. Throw in the loud music, bobbing headlamps, and excitement of 14 to 18 year old boys. The sight impressed me and seemed like a lot of fun.

Last week my wife and I really enjoyed our evening watching our daughter celebrate her birthday. Our daughter enjoyed herself as well. In a world where I imagine most teenage boys enjoy video games and technology, it pleased me to see such a large group outside having good clean fun.

My 2017 Vacation From Technology

I spent last week high in the mountains while the rest of the country celebrated Independence Day. One benefit of my trip is that I didn't have mobile phone service at all. I thought I would have technology withdrawls but surprisingly did not. I actually enjoyed not having to carry a phone around with me.

I had a number of different activities to choose from last week and didn't know what to do until the last minute. Finally I decided to spend a week with my youngest daughter in the Uinta mountains of Utah. She is the director of rock climbing at a summer camp and I figured it would be fun to spend more time with her. I packed up some clothes along with my guitar and headed to the camp.

One advantage of the holiday during the week is that most of the camp staff went on vacation. While my daughter normally shares her cabin with 4 other young women staff, she had it to herself. That meant that I could join her and didn't have to worry about sleeping in a tent all week. I also took the opportunity to join a session of leadership training known as Wood Badge that is put on by the Boy Scouts of America. I highly recommend the course as it is worth the cost and teaches skills useful in most careers as well as when dealing with young men or boys.

The week provided me with a lot of fun. I didn't even notice the lack of Internet connection. This allowed me to practice my guitar in the evenings and form lasting friendships with those around me. I miss some of those friends now and found it very difficult to go back to work. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and I found myself catching my usual Monday morning flight at 6:25am earlier this week. This was not my first vacation from technology and definitely won't be my last. I kind of enjoy getting away and hopefully you do as well.

E-Mail is Bad on Vacation

I just got back from a week in Hawaii and learned a very important lesson. I should say I re-learned a very important lesson: Avoid e-mail and as much technology as possible while on vacation. As usual, I brought my laptop so I could stay up on my e-mail. Each time I would turn on my computer, I would have at least one message that required immediate attention. It got to the point where I started getting mad at people for sending me work to do while on vacation. Then I realized that while some people knew I was out of the office, not everyone did.

Friends asking me to help with things in the neighborhood or with Scouts assumed I was just away during the week like I normally am. They didn't know I was trying to get some rest before the chaos that happens in the video game industry right as Christmas approaches. Once I realized that people were not going out of their way to upset me on vacation, I also figured out that the best way to keep from getting angry was to stop reading e-mail and checking my phones. In fact, I left them in my hotel room during the day and tried my best not to check them at night. I wasn't perfect, but it was nice to unplug from technology for a few days.

My 21-year-old daughter that came with my wife and I on this trip remarked how her generation found it difficult to unplug. She followed my example and left her phone in the hotel room as well. She noticed how others her age would float along on an inner-tube on the resort hotel's extensive lazy river with iPhone's in waterproof cases unable to refrain from constantly looking at the screen. She was disgusted with her contemporaries. I also noticed that younger children quickly snatched parents' phones the moment they were put down so electronic games could be played. Parents and adults were no better as they constantly ignored family members to stay in contact with their hand-held devices.

I enjoyed my trip to the islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. I especially enjoyed not being connected to the rest of the world. My hope that at least one person reads this and follows our example and disconnects on their next vacation. It may only be for a day or two but you will be richly rewarded.

Two Weeks Backpacking

My sons and I just completed a 2-week backpacking trip at Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. It was one of those character-building experiences that I think every young man should have the opportunity to experience. Every day you hike to a new campsite where they have various programs in which you can participate. Some of our activities included shotgun shooting, touring a mine tunnel 500 feet into the side of a mountain, rock climbing, repelling, and various campfire programs.

The only technology we took on the trip was our mobile phones in case of an emergency. While most of the time, they would not work, we could climb to the top of a mountain and get a signal and call home. One of the other boys on the trip brought a Goal Zero solar panel to charge his camera and it worked very well. All he did was hang it off his backpack while hiking and at the end of the trail, he had a fully charged camera. My oldest son was also able to use it to charge his mobile phone after discovering he had an Internet signal at one of our camps. After a couple of hours of Internet surfing and reading e-mail, his phone was almost dead.

I have to admit that it was good to get away from technology for a while. The only downside was that I had over 600 personal e-mail messages and 350 work-related ones when I returned. It took me a long time to get through all of my mail. Now I need another 2 weeks off. I just don't want to have to deal with that much e-mail again.

Hiking Yosemite

My son and I spent a week hiking around Yosemite National Park with my Scouts in California. It was a great trip and I highly recommend visiting our country's national parks when you have the chance. While my son has been to Yellowstone, Zions, and the Grand Canyon, he had not been to Yosemite.

My Scout Troop in California managed to get 3 campsites at the Hodgdon Meadows camp site where we set up a base camp. Two of the sites were adjacent to each other while the third was a short distance away. It actually worked out very well. We then had a number of hikes planned with one for each day we were there.

I relied on some of the other adults to know the trails and how to get to them. That was a mistake. We spent one day hiking all over Tuolumne Meadows looking for the trail head to Elizabeth Lake. I got home from the trip and did a quick Internet search only to get turn-by-turn directions on where to go. Had I done this same search before getting to Yosemite, my feet would have thanked me for saving them from a couple of extra miles I put on them that day.

My advice to everyone now is to do a quick Internet search before heading to any new place. Don't wait until you get there, do it before you leave. After all, we didn't have any phone service except in Yosemite Valley and so trying to use my iPhone's browser while I was there wouldn't have worked for this hike.

Scout Troop Websites

Last night I attended the monthly Roundtable for the Boy Scouts of America in the Pacific Skyline Council. The focus of the meeting was websites for scout troops. It was well done and I learned a lot.

The first presenter came up and showed his Troop's website. It was done using Adobe's Dreamweaver several years ago and looked pretty good. Unfortunately it was very technical and none of the Scouts even wanted to learn how to modify the information. That means that it is a task for Scoutmasters, assistant Scoutmasters, or technical parents.

The next presenter had two sites: one for the Pack (Cub Scouts) and one for the Troop. The Pack's website was more mature and done using Joomla. It was very functional and looked like it meets the needs of the Pack quite nicely. He then showed us the Troop site that was doine using WordPress. While it didn't have the depth of the Joomla site, it looked much easier to administer and there was interest by the boys in being able to maintain it.

The third presenter showed us his site which was created with Troopmaster. It was impressive because it integrated with their software to keep track of the boys advancements. As everyone knows, an Eagle Scout is a big deal and anything that allows parents and leaders to streamline the process is very welcome. Of the 4 technologies shown this far in the evening, this was definitely my favorite.

The fourth presenter showed a site created with Google Sites. It lacked the Scout tracking integration found in Troopmaster, but was very easy to use. I came home and recommended that my wife might want to consider it for her small custom sewing business.

Before the meeting last night, I had heard about all of these products but hadn't really given them much thought. It was a real eye-opener to see them in action and how people are using them to send out scouting information. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.

Help or Hurdle

Last week I attended a district roundtable in the Pacific Skyline Council for the Boy Scouts of America. Roundtables are monthly meetings were adult leaders are given instruction and help on how to run the various scouting activities. It was my second Roundtable in this council and was very different from the ones I am used to attending in the Great Salt Lake Council. Thursday night I came away feeling like the adult leaders here in California create hurdles for the boys while in Utah they try to help them.

Baden Powell, the founder of the worldwide scouting organization believed that the Scouts should be run by the boys and not the adults. Thursday's meeting underscored why: because adults will only screw it up.

The topic of this month's roundtable meeting was on the Eagle Scout project. Eagle is the most difficult rank advancement in the Boy Scouts of America and is made so by a leadership service project where the scout is required to propose, plan, and carryout a significant project to benefit the community. The reason behind the project is for the scout to demonstrate leadership. It is a big deal and should not be taken lightly.

There were two people at the meeting that are responsible for approving projects and helping the boys attain the rank of Eagle. One of them posed the question about where to go for project ideas. A few ideas got tossed out with some being shot down for various reasons. I suggested they take a page from the Great Salt Lake Council's playbook and set up a website where scouts could go for ideas. My idea was shot down because it made selection of a project too easy for the scout. I bit my tongue as the discussion continued. It was only my second meeting and I didn't want to be known as the troublemaker. In the end, they decided that it would be a good idea to have a list of previous Eagle Scout Projects.

I suppose I should be glad that the group saw some merit in my idea, however I think they missed the point. The adults in the Boy Scouts of America should be constantly asking themselves how they can help the boys succeed as well as the scouting program. While the proposed solution does make one step in that direction it misses on one very important aspect: attracting new members. The beauty of my proposed solution is that it provides an outlet for schools, cities, and other community organizations to list projects where they could use the help of a service oriented group. Imagine the difference it would make if everyone saw the Boy Scouts of America as an organization that made a difference in the local community as well as created leadership and strong ethical values in today's youth.