A couple of weeks ago I went to the Seattle area for the Microsoft MVP Summit 2010 – below are a few pictures.
Month: February 2010
CES 2010 in Pictures
Logan’s First Solid Food: What Fun We Had!
A couple of days ago we introduced Logan to solid food for the first time, and I snapped some great pictures of the experience. He’s still pretty iffy on this funny tasting stuff, but each day he seems to be swallowing more of it. Check out the full gallery here. I confess I had a hard time culling the set of photos, so some are very similar, but I figure 23 photos isn’t a ridiculous number…
“Demands From Islam” – A Video Opinion
As a person whose faith is extremely important to him, I’m very careful about “faith bashing”. I don’t believe that people should be criticized, mocked, belittled, or attacked for what their spiritual beliefs are. I may not agree with your spiritual viewpoints, and you may not agree with mine, but so long as our respective faiths don’t impede the rights and freedoms of others, we should be allowed to hold them and express them however we wish.
Radical Islam, however, troubles me greatly – I believe it may be the single greatest challenge the world will face over the next 50 years. I loathe fear-mongering, but I really do think that as the power of radical Islamics grows, the Western world will have to respond – and I fear that the conflict will not be one easily resolved. The video above is an eye-opening opinion piece on the very real danger that radical Islam presents to the world. Note that I’ve used the word “radical” preceding “Islam” here, because the Islamic faith as I understand it – and I’m truly no expert – doesn’t promote the same types of things that the radical Islamic extremists do. If your faith means you’re going to wear a head scarf as a woman, that’s fine – but if your faith means you’re not going to treat patients as a dentist unless they’re wearing head scarves – even if they’re not Muslim – then you’re discriminating against that person.
I should note in closing that I’d never heard of this Pat Condell fellow before this video, and based on what I’ve seen of some of his other videos, I’d disagree with him quite severely (I think he’s the “attacking atheist” type), but in the video above, I think he has some very valid points.
“The Crumbling of Concrete Equities” by Alberta Venture
This is an incredibly well-written and well-researched article about Concrete Equities – I’m not sure how I missed it when it was published in September 2009 (maybe because I was in new dad mode), but it’s worth a read for anyone involved in this debacle. This paragraph is particularly apt:
“Recently returned CEO Dave Jones played the absent founder; current president Vincenzo De Palma, whom you might recognize from Concrete’s TV ads, drew from a background mostly spent selling lumber out of Prince George, B.C.; 20-something executive Vinnie Aurora’s qualifications included being the son of a colleague of Jones; and, along with experience as an investment industry veteran, office manager Dave Humeniuk bore the albatross of a lifetime ban from selling real estate in the province of Alberta. The result: a corporate environment poisoned by infighting and finger-pointing and which produced no significant financial reporting, a lapsed mortgage, allegations of impropriety and incompetence, no dividends since the start of this year despite purportedly cash-positive properties, and, because of it all, more than 2,000 investors raring for a fight.”
If ever there was a cautionary tale for investors, this is it!
If for whatever reason the link above isn’t working, a copy of the article can be found here.
The Little Canuck
The Most Beautiful Sound in the World: The Laughter of my Son
CBC News Story About Exempt Markets
A CBC news reporter, Dave Sims, contact me about a week ago for a story he was working on; he wanted permission to use photos of the Concrete Equities protests that happened in June of 2009. They weren’t my photos, so I couldn’t give permission, but thankfully Sims found someone who had some photos for his article, which you can check out here. I spoke to Dave on the phone about my opinions about exempt market funds, and it was summed up as follows:
“Jason Dunn, another Calgary investor who has lost at least $10,000 in the Concrete Equities collapse, doesn’t share that view. He wants investors to have as many choices as possible — even high-risk ones — but he does agree that investors should be protected against fraud.”
What I meant by that statement is that properly informed investors who are qualified to take the risks (accredited investors) involved in exempt markets should be allowed to do so. I believe that people should be able to do what they want with their money, even if it’s high risk.
However…when non-accredited investors who shouldn’t be investing in the first place get advice from their financial consultants to invest with a company that has financial links back to the financial consulting agency in question…when officers of the company in question engage in business practices that bankrupt the company…and when outright fraud is committed by officers of the company who take money for one investment and use it as a down-payment for another investment…something is obviously very wrong with the system. These people either believed they were too smart to get caught, or they weren’t afraid of the penalties.
I’m unsure of whether or not the current laws are strong enough to keep these types of people in check, or enough to protect investors until it’s too late – it certainly wasn’t enough to deter my financial consultant from signing paperwork saying we were except from the investor limitations because we were “friends or close business associates of the firm”. I’ve learned many hard and painful investing lessons over the past five years…the biggest of which is to never take any financial consultant at his word. Always investigate on your own; even a Google search on the names of the people involved will give you some measure of understanding about their track record in the industry. It amazes me – in a shameful way – that I spent hours researching which digital camera to spend $500 on, yet spent zero time researching the people wanting me to invest thousands of dollars with them. One of the many lessons I need to teach my son as he grows up…
Logan’s Working on his Keyboarding Skills
Logan absolutely loves banging on computer keyboards, so I decided to give him a cheap wireless keyboard I had sitting on my shelf as a toy. And now he loves playing with it – so while we’re not letting him use a computer yet, he’s at least getting familiar with the equipment. 😉
The Father/Son Perspective
One of the interesting things I’ve noticed since becoming a father – more specifically, a father to a son – is that my perception of all things “dad” related has changed. Before Logan was conceived, I looked at stories and images of fatherhood in an “Oh, that’s nice” sort of way. After we knew Logan was on his way, and especially after he was born, I’ve found my perception of fatherhood to be radically altered. “No duh!” some of you might be thinking – but, honestly, until you’re a father to a son yourself, it’s not something you can comprehend. I know I couldn’t. Not having a daughter, I can’t make a comparison, but I’m sure it’s a similar sort of thing. I find myself looking at TV commercials, movies, books, magazine ads, etc. that depict fatherhood and feeling impacted by them in a big way. I really wasn’t prepared for the way my perceptions would be changed, but I’m so very grateful for the new thoughts and feelings that come with this new role in my life. Being a father to my son is something I look forward to with great anticipation, with all the ups and downs that come with it.
This particular issue has been on my heart lately, but was catalyzed today by the passing of my friends son who was born via c-section today at six months of development. He didn’t survive, and my heart breaks for my friend and his wife.