My Return

Back in Austin now... We got back to Houston around 9pm last night and hung out at my sister's place for a while after she picked us up at the airport. I got sick I think the second to last day of the cruise and I spent the entire trip back sneezing, coughing, and sipping on water b/c the air in the airplane cabin is really dry and it hurts my respiratory system. That's what I get for sleeping without a blanket for a few days and not dressed warm enough for those city tour buses with the exposed top deck. After being in transit for about 21 hrs I took a little nap and drove back to Austin at about 3:30 in the morning to go to work.

I'm not sure if it's b/c of the fact that I'm sick or that I'm still adjusting to being on land but I felt as if equilibrium is off. It wasn't a dizzy feeling; it was more like as if I'm still rocking back and forth with the motion of the ocean. Regardless, I didn't feel well at all trading today. My first trade I accidentally took about 1/3 more than the max size that I'm comfortable with and when I went to cover the position I over-covered as well. I pushed the position against myself and triggered my own stop. It's pretty stupid if you ask me. Sadly I spent the rest of the day trying to get back to even instead of catching up on my RSS feed like I intended. Pretty light volume but we still dropped 600+ point... craziness. I think I looked at a lot these index ETFs and they were only about 70% its relative volume.

Lots of stuff to do right now, not to mention the 800+ pictures from the trip I want to go through. Still a lot of stuff to do around the new house as well. Once I got the pictures ready I'll have them up in a separate post. I think I've gotten better... I dunno, I might just be spotting interesting things more readily compared to before. My dad messed with the camera and from time to time I would have problems with exposure and focusing... nothing too major though.

I got to thinking about the next step during the trip when I could get some peace and quiet. I'm going to start working on options trading strategies. I put in a request for an options account and it could take anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks I think is what the pit told me. I'm inclined to believe the later which is perfectly fine with me. Options is still pretty foreign to me but this gives me time to read more and refine my strategy.

I also spent some time talking to my dad about our business. We're probably going to try to make a run for it in Europe although consumer behavior or habit for our specific products might be a little different compared to the US and the market might be very fragmented. We got to talking a little bit about me starting to do more as well, on the financial and sales front with the family business. I don't think I would mind picking up some Spanish or German and try to enter the European market but there's a part of me that that doesn't want to family business. Growing up I always know people murmur that I'll probably turn out to be a bum and just rely on my parents' money and that's in fact been a motivator at times. Good part of me wants to blaze my own trails and do my own thing. At the same time, I know how much my parents put into this business and how hard they've worked to get to where they are. In a way it's their legacy and it's not something you just discard easily. If I can do that and trading while maintaining the necessary focus I certainly won't mind. We'll have to see how we can phase it over to me and if we do I'd have to concentrate on a different subject when I go back for my MBA.