chriswelch.com

As I'm sure you've noticed, I haven't posted recently to the site. This is largely because I've spent a considerable amount of time working on my current hobby: investing. Ever since I was a little kid I've been fascinated at how rich people make money. I can remember when I was still in elementary school trying to sell paintings or little terrariums on the side of the road, and I'm pleased to say that I've never outgrown it.

About 8 months ago, this interest led me and my friends Jason and Frank to build what we have dubbed InvestorGeeks, a site dedicated to the pursuit of understanding how to make money on Wall Street. Having just recently begun to actually purchase stocks, I can't really give you a status as to how I'm doing, but I can say that overall I'm breaking about even. (which actually means I'm down a little bit :)

I really think this is one of the most fascinating things a person can do and I invite you, when I'm not posting here, to come check out InvestorGeeks as there's always a flurry of activity happening over there.

What's with George Bush's hands? Why can't he stop moving them when he speaks!? They're all over the place! Did you see his "Victory in Iraq" address tonight? Honestly, to say nothing of his public policy, what a terrible public speaker. Where the hell is Martin Sheen when you need him?

Leaving evidence of my existence is the true reason I write. It is why we all write. For what other purpose would I chronical my life for the world to see? Even in private our desire lives that some day our hidden passions may be uncovered.

In our digital universe are millions of people desperately endeavoring to leave evidence of their individual existence -- their uniqueness. We create art so that remenants of ourselves will remain for our decendants.

We are a race of explorers fueled by the desire to leave our mark above all else; a mark that we are not unimportant; a mark that we are not insignifcant; a mark that, all told, will speak to the true nature of our individual spirit.

We are frustrated at our daily endeavors because we are unsatisfied at the meaninglessness of our daily routine. What does it mean if we make someone else a dollar? We thrive for social contact so that we might leave our mark on others. So that we will not remain unimportant, without impact.

Could our worst fear be that of the castaway on a desert island? That we would be deprived our ability to create anew? What is the enjoyment of life if it does not leave a permenant record? How can we progress if no one ever moves us forward?

But our desire to create is our curse because we confuse it with the need to gain possessions. We say, "How can my mark be left if my life ends without artifacts?" So we work to acquire possessions, failing to make the mark we truly desire to make - a mark that enriches existence, and not just quantifies it. Possessions are artifacts of the most generic design. They are mass produced evidence of our desire to consume, and not create.

We are builders, explorers, creators, patrons, friends, and lovers. If we spend any part of our time not leaving a mark in a way that truly matters, what is its purpose? We may climb many mountains, we may excel in our professions, we may live free from care, but if we do not make a lasting difference then what was the point of our lives? We leave, at the end, with little else to show for it than ash and bone.

I finished my first Sudoku puzzle tonight! Woohoo! Although it was only a medium puzzle, it took three games before I could figure it out. It's nice to play a puzzle that you know you can always win if you're careful. Now I just have to be more quick about it.

Visit The Daily Sudoku 

As I mentioned in an earlier post, time is of the essence. With that in mind, I've been trying to come up with a list of things that I really want to focus on in my free time. Other than having a life, these "hobbies" are the things that I think are most important to me at the moment.

Hobbies of the moment

1. Stock Club. Myself, Frank and Jason (a friend of Frank's), started putting together a stock club (located at InvestorGeeks.com). We believe that the way to wealth and a good retirement lays in the ability to invest wisely and beat the street with solid returns every year. However, as novices to investing in securities we've all been struggling individually for the last few months trying to learn what opportunities are out there. The purpose of our group is to help each other pick out the high growth industries and companies within those industries that will outperform the market as a whole. Additionally, we hope to create a readership for ourselves that will also help in our discussions. I've really been pumped by it recently and I hope you'll stop by!
2. Stay Current. While many people dismiss reading about current events and topics in newspapers and magazines as not really reading, I think that successful people as well as successful investors need to understand the zeitgeist of the nation in order to really see where society is headed. As such, I will continue to read my favorite magazines and news from around the world.
3. Trip Planning. Costa Rica is only a few short months away! It's time to start planning and there's no time like the present.

I was talking with some guys at work a few weeks ago, and one of them was saying how little time he had to do the things he enjoyed. When I was in college, I had time coming out of my ears. Now don't get me wrong, I was busy, but it always seemed like I had time to do things I enjoyed like working on my web site, or read a book - maybe cause I had no friends, but that's just a guess.

So here I am, now in the real world, and after being at work 50 or 60 hours a week, going out with my friends a couple times, and poof! There's my week. What, with the other activities I'd like to do, like reading, working on my web site, and try to learn this stock portfolio thing, I really am very restricted to only one activity a week. It's aweful. Perhaps if I worked less.

So anyways, I'm going to Costa Rica in February and we're going to be doing some volcano hiking, so I've started walking/running to get in shape (not a light undertaking mind you). What am I to do? Excercise is a really big time commitment, isn't it? I have to block out an hour a day 4 days a week, and not to mention waking up at ungodly hours of the morning... it's going to be a struggle to fit it in, and get motivated on top of it.

Am I a pessimist? Possibly - although I like to think of myself as a realist. I have 3 months, and I've heard if you do something for a month it becomes a habit. If that's true, let's see how this next month goes.

[This will be the first post following me as I upgrade ChrisWelch.com. What follows will be an overview of the project, and later posts will describe the various steps along the way.]

As I mentioned in my previous article, I wanted to start experimenting with WordPress 1.5, a blogging product. Having built 90% of this site by hand, my needs were quickly outpacing my ability build features to support them. After a fair amount of research, I narrowed my choices down to WordPress and MovableType, both running best on Linux platforms. WordPress seems to be a great mix of flexible customization, robust features, and ease-of-use. Although it only supports one blog per site at the moment, I'm sure multiple blog support is in the works. MovableType, although supporting almost all of the features I wanted, can be pricey for the Basic (US$69.99) and Unlimited (US$99.99) versions, whereas WordPress is free.

After reading up on WordPress, I've also decided the whole site needs a bit of a touchup. I'm a little bored with the monochromatic color scheme, so I think I'm going to spice the design up a bit (kick it up a notch, if you will). I'm also going to improve the photo albums, enhance my calendar, improve navigation, et al. And with WordPress, there will be a whole slew of new blog features such as TrackBacks, PingBacks, RSS Feeds, Comment Moderation, Categories, Archives, Posting via E-mail, etc.... It's all very exciting!

My goal in this redesign is to code as little as possible and just integrate as many features as I can using only the best free or almost free software out there. I want to see if I can build a highly managable site without killing myself, or my wallet.

After choosing blog software, the most important thing a person can do who wants to setup a site for themself is find a competant, reasonably priced hosting company to store your website. I can easily and highly recommend 1&1 hosting. 1&1 is one of the largest hosting companies out there. That means although you may not expect 100% of the personal support you'll get from a small company, you can expect really good FAQs, great documentation, and better features for the same or less money.

The Business Linux plan that I just signed up for offers for US$10/mn the ability to host up to 150 web sites (100 registered domains/50 subdomains), a virtually unlimited number of e-mail accounts (with 1GB mailboxes each), a 100MB database, etc. Plus they feature either PHP4/PHP5/Perl/MySQL (Linux) or ASP/ASP.NET/SQL/Access (Microsoft).

I was trying to figure out what took me so long to start implementing a real blogging system, and I guess it all comes down to wanting to do it all myself. Now that I've suffered the cuts and bruises of DIY, and learning how a blogging system works, I can finally move past myself and start building off of someone else's work.

Anywho... I was looking at some other WordPress driven sites and I'll leave you with a few blogs to browse...

• http://9rules.com/
• http://www.chrisjdavis.org/
• http://aphotolog.com/
• http://chrism.us/photos/
• http://phonophunk.phreakin.com/news/

One of the things that constantly frustrates me is my inability to have one place to share my life with those that I care about and those I don't know. ChrisWelch.com has been a 4-year project to publish a cross-sample of my life to the public, but as I become more mobile and my needs become more sophisticated, I often find myself needing an interactive place where I can not only share but also manage my data such as my calendar, files, and photos.

With this site, which is largely built from scratch by me, I find my time is dwindling as my digital needs increase, leaving me with a deficit of features that I really do want and need. In my perfect life I would be able to have a site that I could manage all the information that I need in my life, so that I can edit and view it no matter where I am in the world. Unlike "briefcases" which are small and can only store a limited amont of files, I advocate that each person be able to pack a "suitcase" for themselves which would store all kinds of data in it.

What would my suitcase contain?

• My Blog(s)
• My Profile
• Projects & Writings
• Shared Files
• Quotes
• Personal Portal
• Links
• Calendar
• Contact Form/Information
• Address Book
• Books on my Bookshelf
• Shared Photos
• My Friends
• My Groups

Between Yahoo!, with it's My Yahoo! and Calendar, Briefcase, and other integrated features, and ChrisWelch.com, which I'm moving to a new hosting company and installing WordPress as my new blogging software, I'll be able to integrate "my suitcase" together with a mimimum of hassle. Even at that, my data will be in 2 different places, both on ChrisWelch.com and Yahoo!. In years to come I hope to see companies that offer digital suitcase products and then give users the ability to attach a Web Site to it, which provides visitors a unified way to view a person's suitcase.

Imagine a company providing their users the ability to publish their blogs, modify their calendars, check their mail, and then share files, and it automatically being published to their very own domain. The possiblity is exciting, especially with the ability to share suitcases among sites with RSS and other XML formats. I'm looking forward to the day when I no longer have to build my own personal suitcase here at this site, and pay a company to do it for me.

Being a long Republican, I arrived at that point in my political life where I found myself struggling to uncover the soul of the Republican party. I needed to find a message that was deeply meaningful to me, a truth that guided my ideology, that I could use as my own young republican mantra.

While talking with friends recently, most serendipitously, I happened upon it - what I think most encapsulates all that is good, righteous and conservative; the most quintessential grain of truth that I feel embodies the Republicans and everything that makes us great. That bit of truth, the zen of the GOP, is found in the simple phrase "Not my problem."

In three words all that is conservative is revealed, exposed in all its glory. Income tax cuts dismantling your social programs? Not my problem - there's more money in my pocket. Federal disaster area bringing you down? Not my problem - the ocean's not in my backyard. Pollution and toxic waste killing your kids? Not my problem - my grass is green.

Magnificence. A moment of celerity that will be recorded for the ages. Young republican brethren, hail our new slogan from the roof tops! Unite under a banner of self-righteousness and indignation!

And if you don't like it? Well, that's not my problem.