life and all that good stuff

Some of you are probably wondering how the coaching business is going with the economy in a tailspin, people being laid off left and right, and the USD headed for debasement and devaluation. Triathlon coaching is much like personal training in the sense that it is a luxury for most. Our bottom line is down about 20% from the same month last year, which is painful but not debilitating. This puts us back in line with 2006 earnings. The crunch will slow our plans for acquisition of a mountain getaway.

From a business standpoint a period of economic malaise like this is a good time for healthy businesses to work on expansion and advertisement in advance of a rebound in one, two, or three years time. The survivors pick up all the customers of those companies that had to shut their doors.

Of course if this turns into a depression I will probably be picking up any additional odd jobs to help pay the bills. I am debating looking for a 3 or 6 month tech writing contract to help us out. That is a good thing about the technical writing profession, a lot of places prefer short term hires to help out with one-off documentation products.

In World of Marty Poker news, I finished up 75% at the Wednesday night game.

In the World of Marty Stock, ETF and Option Investing newsletter, I picked up 100 shares of USO at 28.65 and wrote a February 31 covered call. USO tracks oil and natural gas. Believe it or not we are up about 12% on our trading cash since beginning to take action in late November. If the SP gets back to 900 I'm going to get out of our domestic mutual funds for a while. If it doesn't we'll ride it out.

In World of Marty Survivalist & Armageddon Magazine, I checked out a Mossberg 500 pump action 12 gauge at the local sporting goods store today. BAM!

In World of Marty Training News, I am feeling tired today after having a 10+ hour 5 day week. Yesterday I ran 25 minutes with Bri in the AM, then rode 1 hour with an athlete, then rode 1.25 hours with Bri.

We are off to VA to hang with the niece for her birthday this weekend.

Weekend update

It has been a good week of trigeek training for me, but I am under the weather with cold #2. Bri got sick then I got sick then she got well then she got sick then I got sick again. I don't like using got that many times in a sentence, but sometimes you got to do what you got to do.

Tomorrow we're running a Powerstroke clinic 8-2. We're going to recapture the footage for the presentation portion, the sound and some other issues with our first two attempts were nixed by my crack design and presentation team. The Powerstroke DVD is going to take longer than planned to release, but having a good delayed project is better than a poor released project.

I made a little money with a couple ultrashort ETFs this week, bought them on Tuesday just before the close and sold them both the next day when the market went down. I've slowly averaged out of some domestic funds in our IRAs to free up some cash for trading.

I have found a couple nice small log cabins in the mountains, but can't justify the payment just yet.

I am stocking up on guns and ammo for the end of days.

Still trying to work out a way to get to the beach for a couple months this summer. That is harder to pull off than it sounds.

Do you ever think the word elite is overused? Elite this, elite that. It just means better than you. How about the Better Than You category at triathlons? Or the Better Than Yours Hedge Fund? Better Than Them Travel Agency. Hotter Than You Modeling Agency. You get the picture.