Monthly Archives: May 2012

Investing

Posted on by

So, this past week I finally took the plunge and rejiggered most of my investments for retirement based on an accumulation of readings over the past few years. The last kick in the pants was doing more Bogleheads reading.

Other influences:

Biggest changes:

  1. Bond (mutual funds) out of taxable accounts into tax deferred accounts (I had started buying bond funds slowly over the last 18 months but they were all in taxable accounts.)
  2. Bond (mutual fund) allocation (drastically) increased
  3. Expense ratios (ER) brought down with last high ER fee sold (all funds now are sub-0.30%, most are closer to 0.10%, weighted average is 0.19%)

Anyhow, my biggest wish was that I had acted sooner. It has been nearly two-or-three years since I got the (good) advice to add some bonds (mutual funds) to my portfolio, but I sat on the sidelines for too long and when I did do it, I allowed classic behavioral economics errors to sideline me from putting the bond funds in the right place.

Rio, Paraty, and Foz do Iguaçu

Posted on by

I went hunting for pictures from our 2009 trip to Brazil… Hours later I found a bunch. We visited Foz do Iguaçu, Rio, and Paraty. Here are some pictures from that trip.

Carnival Towel Animals

Posted on by

Couple of examples of Carnivals “famous” towel animals. Come for the cruise, stay for the towel animals. If you’ve ever done origami, the towel animals are basically the same idea with towels. You take a few basic patterns with different sized towels and you can create a variety of animals. These were from the Carnival Splendor, Mexican Riviera cruise in April 2011.

Fall by the Wayside

Posted on by

I’ve also picked up a number of wooden jigsaw puzzles by non-Stave crafters and artists. This puzzle entitled “Fall by the Wayside” was painted, designed, and cut by Andrea Farnham of Thingamajigsaw.

I have done a number of Andrea’s puzzles and she has both excellent artistic talent and a lot of smarts about how to design and cut a puzzle. My favorite puzzle ever is an Andrea Farnham, “Time Traveller”.

“Fall by the Wayside” is a a traditional puzzle with a circular shape and irregular pieces.

Photos around Paris

Posted on by

In 2011, I was fortunate enough to spend a fair bit of time in Paris, France. The food was of course outstanding. These are photos of a couple of well known places, Eiffel Tower, Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, and the Zero Point outside the Catherdral of Notre Dame.