All gave some.....some gave all!!!!

The soldier stood and faced God,
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining,
Just as brightly as his brass.


"Step forward now, you soldier,
How shall I deal with you?


Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?"


The soldier squared his shoulders and said,
"No, Lord, I guess I ain't.


Because those of us who carry guns,
Can't always be a saint.
I've had to work most Sundays,
And at times my talk was tough.


And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.
But, I never took a penny,
That wasn't mine to keep...


Though I worked a lot of overtime,
When the bills got just too steep.
And I never passed a cry for help,


Though at times I shook with fear.
And sometimes, God, forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.
I know I don't deserve a place,
Among the people here.
They never wanted me around,
Except to calm their fears.


If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand.
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand.
There was a silence all around the throne,
Where the saints had often trod.
As the soldier waited quietly,


For the judgment of his God.
"Step forward now, you soldier,
You've borne your burdens well.


Walk peacefully on Heaven's streets,
You've done your time in Hell."


It's the Military, not the reporter who has given us the freedom of the press.


It's the Military, not the poet, who has given us the freedom of speech.


It's the Military, not the politicians that ensures our right to

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.


It's the Military who salutes the flag,
who serves beneath the flag,
and whose coffin is draped by the flag.

PEACE and be safe in 06.

First bar trade ended the year with a winner.....

The first bar trade ended the year with a winner.......but the most interesting thing is olemickey's 3 bar opening trade. It never took out the high or the low the entire morning, and this is something that I have not ever seen before.

Then at 12:45 it triggered to the long side with a 3.50 point stop.....now that would take some thinking with a retracement of about half that.....and that is alot of heat to take on a slow day. BUT IT worked, go figure.

We had a little fun today in TraderHaven on relay7 in hotcomm.com, as DrBob went long for a nice little winner while some of us were holding the first bar trade to 673.50, which we got during the first hour range retest.......now that was fun and Great Trading Everyone.

CCI Sidewinder, I think I got it right this time.....

The other night I did an update using the 50CCI with the Sidewinder and talked about missing the best trade of the morning, then getting into a choppy period and by noontime was behind the 8 ball.....so to speak. I received several emails and blog comments about that article and that I had it all wrong. I thought it was simple, Sidewinder printing red....look for a ZLR to short. The Sidewinder printing green....look for a ZLR to go long and if it's yellow, well sit on my hands. I received several emails and a couple of comments in this blog that I had it all wrong. Green means to take ZLRs, Red means not to take them and yellow means caution or you are on your own.


So I went back with this new information and check out my charts. "A" was yellow so I am not going to throw caution to the wind, so I would not have taken that one. But this way of using the Sidewinder meant that "B" was a valid setup. Of course, if you could have made any money on that, without using hindsight, is something I would like to see, but that is another story.

SO, then we have "C", "D" and "E" and with the Sidewinder printing red, it kept you out of trouble....well that is good right?

Then we have "F" and with the Sidewinder green, means when the bar closes and the turbo turns down...SHORT. Oh yea, that would have been a nice one.....LOSER.

Now let's go to "G", since the turbo didn't get to -100 it was not a valid setup for my rules, but the Sidewinder was red at the time......so no harm, no foul.

By the time we got to "H" and "J" the sidewinder was a red as Jimsy's face when we showed him playing around in a chat room using other nicknames and being stupid. Wonder how Bernice is these days, anyways?

So I always couldn't figure out if these CCI setups gave you a 80% winners why on earth we needed the Sidewinder to filter out losers in the first place. But, using the Sidewinder we again missed the best morning trade, and had a breakeven trade at best and a flat out loser.

NOW I may not be the brightest light blub in the box, BUT IF THIS IS REALLY GREAT TRADING EVERYONE...........man are we all in trouble, but at least it's FREEeeeeee!!

A kiss is just a kiss

The Kiss...
He had just saved her from a fire in her house, rescuing her by carrying her out of the house into her front yard, while he continued to fight the fire.

She is pregnant.

When he finally got done putting the fire out, he sat down to catch his breath and rest.

A photographer from the Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper, "The Observer," noticed her in the distance looking at the fireman.

He saw her walking straight toward the fireman and wondered what she was going to do.

As he raised his camera, she came up to the tired man who had saved her life and the lives of her babies and kissed him just as the photographer snapped this photograph.

To all the police, fire fighters and EMT......THANK YOU ALL and have a Happy New Year

The sidewinder is just that.......WIND!!!!!!

Well, believe it or not...I do take everything that comes across my desk and check it out....and in great detail. So let's just take today as an example. If I understand this sidewinder thingie, it's when it is red....look to short. When it is green look for a long and when it's yellow, well you are on your own so to speak.

Ok, I understand that, I think even someone from say.......Arkansas can get this one.
Just busting and don't need any emails.....so relax. I like to trade the ZLR when the turbo (6) comes above 100 and turns down. If it doesn't make it up to 100 I wouldn't short instead I wait for the ideal setup.....that is also nice and simple for me to understand. I even have an alert programmed that will let me know when the CCI is below zero for 6 bars and then when the turbo comes above 100...it says....TURBO ALERT.

The problem I have is when you miss a great trade and then get killed in chop. Like this morning, if you were using this indicator, you would have missed the first ZLR for sure...because it was yellow at "A". Now OleMickey 3 bar trade worked just fine again after the First Bar failed, but that is another story.

Then we had "B", again the indicator was green, so pass on that one.
Then the Sidewinder turned RED.....and I was ready to jump all over this one. 5 bars later it took out the high of "C" and that was that.
Then there was "D", again the Sidewinder is red and so is the CCI so let's short this puppy. It took out the high of "D" and I don't know how you would handle this, but for me......I would have been gone.....of course 4 bars later it drops.
Then we have "E", again the Sidewinder is red and the CCI is below zero for 6 bars so SHORT this thing.

You would have missed the best trade (A), and got nailed on the next three (C), (D) and (E)....now that isn't "Great Trading Everyone"....no matter how you cut it.

So let's talk about using price to confirm a setup.......and not use the Sidewinder. You would have had 5 setups. "A" and "B" would have triggered when the low was taken out of the setup bar without taking out the high. "C", "D" and "E" would not have triggered since they all took out the high of the setup bar and voided the setup. So by using price instead of some secret indicator.....you would have had 2 trades, a nice one and a hope to get some.

But what a difference this would have made today.....instead of missing the good one and then losing money......yea that's right....losing money, you could have made some cash to take your honey out for a nice New Year's Eve party this weekend.

I look at it this way, no matter how I find a trade or setup if you like, if I want to go short......then what has to happen in order for me to have a chance at making money? The price has to go down.....PERIOD. IF price doesn't go down, then you are in a hope mode within minutes........no matter what the indicator is saying.

It's as simple as that.......so now you can delete some stuff off your charts and clean them up over the long holiday weekend.......ROTFL

Snooping eyes want to know!!!!!

When people log into this blog, alot of information is provided. During the time frame from 8:31am this morning up to 9:50am there were just over 50 vistors to the blog. What is interesting is what information they are looking for, here we can see that someone wants info on the plateau system and the formula or code for the sidewinder. Now why would someone want the code for that, we have looked at it and found about value as a shopping trip to K-Mart.


But, people are sure looking for information about my buddy Steve. 16 hits in about 90 minutes, now that is marketing at it's best. I can only hope, people check out the info posted here and make a clear choice before throwing money in any one direction.
So to the soldiers of the Army of Wood, that come in here everyday, sometimes several times a day....people are more interested in other things then you....and that is good. I understand thru the grape vine, that ABC news is doing a piece on people that use charities to promote themselves without actually making donations as promised. The only reason I bring this up is, the charity that has been mentioned is of course.....Make-a-Wish.

The main event we have been waiting for.....

All the posts and beams have been placed, ollied, and you name it...we have done it. Right after we placed the last ridge purlong it was time to start covering the roof.


The materials had been lifted onto the fourth floor and were wrapped to protect from any rain.


The ceiling will be covered with pecky cypress from the swamps near Natchez, LA. There are two kinds of cypress boards, the ones you find at Home Depot that a nice and grainless and almost clear and then there is the pecky stuff. Worm holes everywhere and very hard to get at certain times of the year. Like August for example, we found 6000 board feet that not been milled, so I had to purchase the entire lot in order to get anything because of the time of the year. The lot had different widths, and lengths just to make it more interesting to come up with ways of not wasting materails. They plained it, tongue and grooved it and shipped it in from LA. Right now, it doesn't look to pretty, BUT wait.


What you have to do, is sand each board lightly and then give it at least 3 coats of Watco clear lacquer. Why that product over some varish? Well, Watco brand of lacquer will allow the reds and purples of the wood to come out while keeping the rest of the wood unchanged. Also it will give a nice deep rich looking finish. My dad used Watco products for years and we never did anything without it. So they started on the back side of the great room, nailing it into the purlongs. We only used 4, 8, 12, 16 foot pieces and 6, 8 inch wide boards. You can see how beautiful this wood is when finished right.....but wait until it's finished and look at those pictures.


While we had some idle time, we continue to move materials into the house. Here 3 red cedar stumps that have the root system still in tact and are about 5 feet high were moved into the second floor.


Across the bridge each one came to the cherry picker or as we like to call it a cheap crane. We used the bucket of the cherry picker to lift it up to the second level since the crane was 24,000 pounds and the bridge is designed for 12,000. These stump will one day become the corners to the bar.


We will, in time, cut out a quarter section and trim the bottom so the stump flares into the floor and then grain it to match the 10 trees already on the second floor. I am hoping that the bar is something that has never been done before.....
We got a nice email from the window people wanting to take pictures when it's done for their next ad campaign........now how cool is that.

The CCI Bermuda Triangle Setup........

DATELINE Anthem, AZ., December 28th, 2005:
The CCI Club announced today the release, in time for the New Year, it's latest version of the popular Commodity Channel Index indicator. Version 14.1597a will be available for download before January 1st and will give trader yet another edge in their trading. This next generation indicator will also have the Mittens, Shamu, Ghost, Inverted Ghost, Trend Line Break, Vegas, Zero Line Reject, Divergence, Sidewinder and the ole faithfull Batman.

The Bermuda Triangle or BT, is a major step forward in software development according to the spokeswomen for the club. "This is a major step forward in software development", Cathy was quoted as saying. A new series of trade-a-long with be conducted during 2006 around the world in order for traders to have hands on training on how to trade this advanced setup.

Details are to be released soon.

"Trading Places" is just one happy family......

FUTURES MAGAZINE
(February 2006 issue)

TRADING PLACES
by Louis Winthorpe 111 and Billy Ray Valentine

The Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE) plans to introduce a boomerang contract. Product development spokesman Mr. Didge Ridoo stated, the only thing to be straightened out (no pun intended) is delivery at contract expiration. In trials for the new contract the receiver never gets delivery, since, it always goes back to the deliverer. We don’t want startup problems similar to the wool contract, where the receiver kept getting fleeced. It’s expected the new contract will make its debut in the second half of 2006.

Lord Russell of Buggeroph, Middlesex, England has threatened the Chicago Mercantile Exchange with legal action on two counts. The first count claims that the family had a Russell contract back in 1865 to trade the Button quail egg and Scotch eggs. The second claim is against the name mini Russell, since, he and all the male Russell offspring’s are now subject to ridicule and mockery concerning their manhood. The claimants are not seeking monetary restitution, just an apology and a contract name change to mini Twit 2001. The CME had no comment.

Chat Room, Tradershaven, is expected to go public with an IPO next month with Goldman Sachs, the lead underwriter. When asked to comment, Tradershaven, founder drbob, said,” I was more nervous when I had to construct my first bridge”. Analyst MarkB through his time expansion projections, expects the listing to trade on May 8 at 8:13 AM at an initial price of $ 2.35. When asked if that was a pre opening price, he said, “no my analysis is done on Pacific Time”.

Stanley Cup, Camille Filters and Avril Showers, from Saskatoon and Moose Jaw, are forming a Canadian Chat Room to be called, LET’S JUST TRADE EH! It will be sponsored by Moosehead beer and Tim Hortons, so there’ll be no fees as long as you live in Canada and understand the metric system. When asked to comment on the future of the Canadian Dollar, Cup said” all I know is it takes fewer loonies to replace a light bulb than before, ok.”

Several trading Chat Rooms are banning together to form a group called Moderators Against Whiners (MAW). Their motto will be IT’S NOT THE SIZE OF THE WICK, BUT THE AMOUNT Of WAX THAT COUNTS.

Trading Elements is set to sign a contract with XM Satellite Radio and go head to toe with Howard Stern on Sirius Satellite Radio. Jean Yus and Gio, admitted they might have to relinquish some of their moderating duties so that others can provide a more formidable challenge to Mr., Stern. When asked whether this meant lesbians would talk about touching support and resistance, transvestites talking about crossovers, midget human bowling balls talking about zero line rejects, lap dancers moderating volatility or the women from Scores showing everyone the three minute trade, Jean Yus said,” I don’t know, but let’s hope HotComm stays on and remember never sell a naked call”.

JAB

TradersParadise continues to move up the blog food chain

TradersParadise is still moving up the most visited blog on a daily basis, now up to 169 it still blow me away, and looking at the traffic and pages visited....it seems there is alot of interest in Mr. Matrix amoung others......:)

First bar trade with a twist......

Friday was a classic day you don't see that often. It is not uncommon to see an inside bar, just meaning that the current bar is unable to take out the high or low of the last bar or in our case, the setup bar. The most I have seen on a daily basis trading either the ER or ES is 7 inside bars.....so Friday was really pushing the limits on this one. But according to the rules, the first bar setup is still valid until either the high and low are taken out on the same bar to void the setup, or it actually triggers it.

The other point is, that there is nothing that works 100%, if you define rules that can be back studied. Both Friday and today it would have to hard to have made any money trading the first bar trade, it's as simple as that. OleMickey, likes to trade the first 3 bars, and has talked about this setup for quite a while. I really don't take a look at other people setups unless they have been trading for a long time and are solid in their thinking.

So let's take a look at this idea, what if you took the actual first bar trade and reversed if the first bar failed and the third bar triggered......what would be your results if you used the same rules to manage the trade......this I have down some back studies and also been watching it in real time.

Today, you would have gotten that short at 9:39am and had a nice trade under way......just something to study.....cost you nothing except some time.

Never fails, when they deliver something late.

The windows were ordered, and it should have been only 4 weeks, but 7 weeks later they came. Now the first problem is these windows weigh in a 910 pounds each, so just picking them up and carrying them is out. The cherry picker again is called into action to lift them out off the truck.


Then the crane was brought in lift them over the house on down to the second floor, man there has to be an easier way......:)


So here it comes, a 910 pound custom ordered forty-two hundred dollar window....come on down. The day was so clear we could see jets flying overhead.


We had to drop them between the third floor deck joists......which is only 14.5 inches wide.


Working it...until it clears the joists.


Hand signals were used to guild the windows to the second floor, Ray signaled Jason who then hand signaled James........we also had to clear the purlongs up on the roof system.


Carefully it came down to the second level, this took about half a hour for each of these two windows.....


Safe and sound, they arrived downtown.


So what do you do with a golden who wants to climb down the ladder, she climbed up it all the time, but this was so funny watching her try to figure this out. Finally, I went up and picked her up and threw her over my shoulders and down we went.

Steve Matrix and 16 emails at a time.....thanks.

Just got the lastest secret update from my buddy Steve. WOW, and he felt so strong about this he emailed it just 16 times......wonder how many Jackie got.

New License plate slogans for 2006......

Alabama: Yes, We Have Electricity
Alaska: 11,623 Eskimos Can’t Be Wrong!
Arizona: But It’s A Dry Heat
Arkansas: Literacy Ain’t Everything
California: By 30, Our Women Have More Plastic Than Your Honda
Colorado: If You Don’t Ski, Don’t Bother
Connecticut: Like Massachusetts, Only The Kennedy’s Don’t Own It Yet
Delaware: We Really Do Like The Chemicals In Our Water
Florida: Ask Us About Our Grandkids
Georgia: We Put The “Fun” In Fundamentalist Extremism
Hawaii: Haka Tiki Mou Sha’ami Leeki Toru (Death To Mainland Scum, But Leave Your Money)
Idaho: More Than Just Potatoes … Well Okay, We’re Not, But The Potatoes Sure Are Good
Illinois: Please Don’t Pronounce the “S”
Indiana: 2 Billion Years Tidal Wave Free
Iowa: We Do Amazing Things With Corn
Kansas: First Of The Rectangle States
Kentucky: Five Million People; Fifteen Last Names
Louisiana: We’re Not ALL Drunk Cajun Wackos, But That’s Our Tourism Campaign
Maine: We’re Really Cold, But We Have Cheap Lobster
Maryland: If You Can Dream It, We Can Tax It
Massachusetts: Our Taxes Are Lower Than Sweden’s (For Most Tax Brackets)
Michigan: First Line Of Defense From The Canadians
Minnesota: 10,000 Lakes … And 10,000,000,000,000 Mosquitoes
Mississippi: Come And Feel Better About Your Own State
Missouri: Your Federal Flood Relief Tax Dollars At Work
Montana: Land Of The Big Sky, The Unabomber, Right-Wing Crazies, And Very Little Else
Nebraska: Ask About Our State Motto Contest
Nevada: Whores and Poker!
New Hampshire: Go Away And Leave Us Alone
New Jersey: You Want A ##$%##! Motto? I Got Yer ##$%##! Motto Right Here!
New Mexico: Lizards Make Excellent Pets
New York: You Have The Right To Remain Silent, You Have The Right To An Attorney…
North Carolina: Tobacco Is A Vegetable
North Dakota: We Really Are One Of The 50 States!
Ohio: At Least We’re Not Michigan
Oklahoma: Like The Play, Only No Singing
Oregon: Spotted Owl … It’s What’s For Dinner
Pennsylvania: Cook With Coal
Rhode Island: We’re Not REALLY An Island
South Carolina: Remember The Civil War? We Didn’t Actually Surrender
South Dakota: Closer Than North Dakota
Tennessee: The Educashun State
Texas: Si’ Hablo Ing’les (Yes, I Speak English)
Utah: Our Jesus Is Better Than Your Jesus
Vermont: Yep
Virginia: Who Says Government Stiffs And Slackjaw Yokels Don’t Mix?
Washington: Help! We’re Overrun By Nerds And Slackers!
Washington, D.C.: Wanna Be Mayor?
West Virginia: One Big Happy Family… Really!
Wisconsin: Come Cut The Cheese
Wyoming: Where Men Are Men… and the sheep are scared!

Another day....another load of lumber cometh.

Day after day, it seems that there is a truck load of something being unloaded. Tennessee Timber Frame is delivering their beam support system.


Everything these days is cut with a computer assisted bandsaw, lasers or drills to insure that the pieces fit.....well that is the theroy.


The first order of business is to give each piece two coats of stain, each coat is wiped and rubbed in to help bring out the grains.


There are three people who work on posts, beams and odds and ends every day...all day. Staining each piece and then putting them together insures that the cracks or spacing between the pieces do not show bare wood.....everything is finished on all sides.


My grandparents were from Germany, when he came over to America all he had with him was a sawmill blade. This blade is about 5 feet in diameter and very expensive at the time in America. It wasn't long before, along with his brother, there was a sawmill that ran everyday up until the mid 70's. Each house that I have ever build has this signature design cut into the facial plates. The plates will be over the Great Room as soon as the roof system is finished. Believe it or not, but I personally cut these out.


Each facial plate is then filled with wood putty where needed and the entire piece is sanded on all sides. Once I am satisfied, the a coat of primer is applied.


Again I inspect each of the 14 facial plates and then 3 coats of life time paint is applied....so we end up with a factory type finish.


It winter here in Tenneseeeeeee, and that means lots of rain as storm fronts come over the Smoky Mountains. On the nice days, the guys sand outside to cut down on the dusk......sand.....sand.......and more sanding.


Inside, there is a huge 6 car garage, wine rooms and a nanny flat, everywhere you look there are rows and rows of materials waiting their turn to move upside and become part of the house.


The rockers have finished the fromt and both sides of the house and have moved down to the garage area and second floor decks.


Beams being moved upstairs, rockers laying stone, staining beams and on and on it goes everyday. The first crew of rockers had 23 errors on the bridge and retaining walls before the fire. This crew of rockers have made 3 errors, instead of using corner soldiers over the windows, they tried to blow one by me by just laying a flat stone under the window and a stone down and over the first stone.....it looked like crap. After I talked to the foreman and got no where, I talked to the salesman and got no where, so I called the company and talked to the owner and got .....well no where either. So the next day, I paid them in full for the work completed.....and gave them a cease and desist letter, listing the 26 errors and how they were in violation of their contract. They were not allow to lay any new stone until all errors were fixed, the interest part was that I had pictures of every errors.....and detailed it all out.........

The reason is very simple, every time I would complain about something, they would say ......."Oh, no problem and we will fit that". So the question is, when you are near the end of the contract and have laid 95-97% of the $175,000.00 project, is it cost effective to fit everything or just get that next to last payment and move on since the last payment mostly likely will be only a couple of grand. Past history suggests I would be stuck with 40 plus errors and have to hire someone else to fit it all.
It tooks them 4 days to fit everything, I even took a hammer and went around tapping each stone to hear if it was firmly attached and so on......it goes.....