I hope my broker didn't decide that today would be a good day to pick up some bargains. The market was up over 300 points while I was eating breakfast and then went up and down like a yo-yo for the rest of the day. At the close it added another 200 point loss to an unrelenting week of big declines. I don't even look at my stocks these days. It's just too depressing. Even stop loss strategies can't really protect you in times like these. In a volatile market like this you can get stopped out of a good stock in a matter of seconds when an unpredictable wild move triggers a sale that you didn't really want. You can't chase trends either, because they change too quickly. You pretty much have to stick with your convictions and weather the storm. I agree with Dot and Dash on this one. Weathering a storm is not much fun.
Today was pretty slow. Slow is good though. I wish things were even slower. I stayed busy by finishing a writing assignment and making arrangements for an upcoming photo shoot. There were several vet appointments I had to schedule for Dot in September and Dash was low on phenobarbital, so I made a trip to the vet to get another month's supply. That was about it. I kind of wish I had one new writing assignment each day and one new website to design each week. This would give me an almost ideal workflow with minimal boredom or stress. It seldom works this way though. Writing assignments tend to come in clumps and most of my website work is just maintenance and updates now. Designing a brand new website is much more fun. I don't even solicit photography jobs anymore because I hate carrying the heavy equipment. I'm kind of dreading my photoshoot this weekend and hope my shoulder doesn't go out again.
Don't get me wrong. I still like taking photographs, I just don't like hauling a ton of strobes, power packs, soft boxes and backdrops to a location shoot. I was actually kind of pleased this afternoon to capture two ducks gazing into each others eyes. It sure looked like duck love to me. Photos of duck bills don't pay my bills though. Luckily, I'm still pretty good at lighting, even though the equipment seems to have grown a lot heavier in recent years. Maybe I've just gotten grumpier.
I'm really starting to fade. When I played in a band, I used to lug our entire PA system, my guitars, and a huge bass amp to every gig. I couldn't even lift those large speakers anymore. Some of the equipment has gotten lost over the years, but some of it is still sitting in the storage warehouse. It will probably stay there forever, because it has become too heavy to move.
Getting old sucks. Just ask Dot. I'm sure she'll agree with everything I say. At least I can still walk normally. I thought switching back to Benicar would stop my cough, but it hasn't helped much. The cough must be something else. Do I go back to the doctor and have him add yet another drug to the laundry list of prescriptions I take every month, or do I just forget about it and live with the cough? It probably doesn't even matter. I'm inclined to do nothing and just switch back to the old blood pressure medication. It was certainly a lot cheaper.
Listening to the current crop of political candidates is certainly more entertaining than watching the stock market crumble, but it is equally depressing. I'd like to say "Not my circus, not my monkeys," but they actually are my circus and monkeys. I've got to vote for one of these clowns. So far, I don't like any of them.
Pinky is today's Dalmatian of the Day |
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