Opportunity knocks

Here's an anecdote I read in today's The Globe and Mail:

A shoo-in among the greats

Following the passing of Tom Bata, one of our country's giants ('Shoemaker To The World,' Bata Dies At 93 – Sept. 2), I have to add one of the most famous tribal stories of business, one told in many Marketing 101 courses. Bata, one of the world's largest shoe manufacturers, sells more than a million Bata-branded shoes every working day around the world. In the 1950s, when Tom and his wife, Sonja, were expanding their company, they sent representatives to Africa to see if that region represented a market for their shoes. One Bata representative went down the west coast, another down the east coast.

Both sent telexes back to Bata's head office. One read, "No business opportunities here. No one wears shoes." The other said, "Lots of business opportunities here. No one wears shoes."

When I asked Sonja Bata if this legendary story is true, she confirmed it is. She loves telling it.

Darcy Rezac, managing director, Vancouver Board of Trade

The story speaks for itself. Opportunity knocks if we can only recognize it as such.

I made $12,000 in the stock market!

Unfortunately, the $12,000 was fake money. It was all part of an investing exercise a few of the newer employees at Stockwatch took part in, where we could use a total of $100,000 to invest in no more than 10 companies at a time. I never used that entire amount, investing about $70,000 maximum, to get $12,000 in proceeds.

Not bad for a beginner, I'd say. Before starting at Stockwatch the stock market was as strange and arcane to me as driving a car would be to a dog.

I'd definitely recommend anyone interested in dabbling in the stock market to start by spending from three to six months setting up a personal portfolio of companies for an investing simulation before actually putting down any money. It's a good way to learn about investing quickly.

Another year older

Well, it's my birthday today. It's really not as big a deal as it was when I was younger. I'm getting to the age where I'd rather not say how old I am, but suffice it to say I'm in my 30s.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing for my birthday after work tonight. Lauren is planning something, but it's a surprise. I'd rather not have any expectations about it, so I haven't tried to guess at what the surprise is. I'm sure it will be great.

I've been doing some writing lately, for both Stockwatch and alive magazine. So far the writing for Stockwatch is nothing meant to be published, but that will change in a few months. My short articles for alive magazine will be published in the December 2008 issue, available at your local natural health food store.

As far as other things go, I've got some vacation time lined up for the end of August. Lauren and I will be going on a short camping trip to Vancouver Island. It's still mostly unplanned, and we only have three days for the trip. We'd like to visit some caves while there, but the rest is unplanned.

Investing exercise

I've finally gotten used to my new working hours at Stockwatch. They're from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., which means my day starts at 4:15 a.m. every weekday. As long as I get enough sleep, I feel great.

I'm starting the Canadian Securities Course this week, which will teach me all I need to know to become a stock broker. I'm not planning on changing careers, of course; I'm just taking one more step to becoming a business reporter. The home-based study course will come in handy over the next few weeks as I set up 10 portfolios to invest $100,000 total in 10 companies. The money is completely fictional, of course, as are the investments. The exercise in investing is meant to help me learn the market and gain investment strategies.

A couple of years ago I asked my uncle, real estate businessman Eric Trygg, what I should do to learn investing. He suggested something very similar to the exercise above. He also added that, since the stock market is so huge, I should specialize in one or two areas (such as mining) and really learn those sectors of the stock market instead of trying to spread my interests too thin. That advice is good for anyone getting into the stock market.

Not used to the new order

I think my body is rebelling against the hours of my new job. I get up every weekday morning at 4:15 a.m. now, and I never quite get enough sleep every night. Lately I've gotten home and felt a bit sick with a few symptoms around my stomach. I think I've either contracted a strange flu bug unlike any other I've had before, or my body isn't quite used to my schedule. This afternoon I feel better than I did the previous three afternoons, so I'm hoping that's a sign I'm getting used to the new order of things.

On the upside, I've been contracted to write a short article (due late July) for alive magazine's December issue. I'm still brainstorming ideas.

The Squirrel Incident

And now, let me tell you about the Squirrel Incident.

Yesterday, while I was preparing a dinner of tacos for two, and Lauren was having a nap in my room, I dimly heard her yell my name. I ran to the closed bedroom door and opened it to find Lauren standing on my bed and pointing to the window.

"There's a squirrel in your room!" she shouted. Sure enough, a black-furred Grey Squirrel was sitting on a pile of camping gear on the floor. It was probably a juvenile.

I ushered Lauren out of the room and closed the door. I've had a lot of experience with squirrels, after having volunteered for three years at the Wildlife Rescue Association. All I had to do was herd the squirrel back out the open window. This was easier said than done.

I used a stick to scare the squirrel away from each hiding place it squirrelled itself away in. Nothing was working the way I'd planned, as the squirrel was simply too scared to think about how to get out. It went behind my filing cabinet, under the bed, into a bookshelf, and then...

Well, then I lost it.

It was really strange. I couldn't figure out where it could possibly be. I looked everywhere around my room, but no luck. I knew it was still in the room, since I'd last seen it running away from the window and not toward it, but its location in particular was a mystery. I decided to leave it alone.

Meanwhile, Lauren was looking online for advice on how to deal with a squirrel. One page said to just leave the house for a couple of hours, and that it would leave its hiding place and escape back into the wild once it was sure that no one was home. That was the new plan.

We ate our dinner and prepared to go see a movie. I needed to change, though, and I went back into my room for some clothes. When I went to pick up my belt by the bookshelf, though, I heard a barely audible but distinct sound. I rustled a box where my belt had been, and I heard the sound again. Amazingly enough, the squirrel was beneath the bookshelf with only an inch-wide opening, and it was hissing at me when I got too close. I couldn't believe it had squeezed itself in, but it was definitely there. Later on, I realized that the opening at the back of the shelf was larger. Then, though, I just wanted to get the squirrel out right away.

Lauren told me to just drop it and let it find a way out on its own, but instead I poked my stick under the shelf and managed to get it out from under there. Then I simply backed away to the side of the room opposite from the window. Before, I had been too close for the squirrel to do anything but panic. Now, I gave it the space it needed to figure its way out.

Soon enough, it crawled up a blanket I'd set on a table and found its way onto the window-sill. The window was now wide open, but for some reason it didn't immediately leap out the window, but crawled along the ledge inside and behind the curtain for a moment before turning back and finally leaping onto a nearby branch. I suppose it wanted to find an easier way out. Probably, though, it was too scared to think. It was literally pissing itself, as there were a few drops of water where it had been on the window-sill. Squirrels are very clean, disease-free animals, so I wasn't worried about that. A bit of disinfectant spray and some paper towel easily cleared that up.

I've always liked squirrels, just not inside my home. This one was probably a juvenile, explaining its curiosity (juvenile squirrels are notoriously curious). As I previously noted, I've handled squirrels before, while volunteering for the Wildlife Rescue Association and elsewhere. I've fed them and even suckled a few orphaned baby squirrels with a baby bottle of milk formula.

They're wonderful creatures, and they belong in the wild. And that's the key. Too often I've seen people try to take wild animals and make them their pets, as if animals are merely here to entertain us. Rather, we should enjoy seeing them from a distance in their natural habitat, where they belong. Just as humans do, they too need their space.

Surprise party

Last night, Lauren threw a surprise party for me, celebrating the fact that I got my first ongoing job in journalism. It was truly amazing. Using my facebook account, she contacted a bunch of our friends (as well as an old friend I hadn't seen in almost a year) to plan this surprise dinner party. Her cover story was that she was making dinner for me, and that we'd then go out to see a movie, but I suspected something was up. I wasn't sure what that something was, but I could tell she was planning some kind of surprise. Still, my own surprise was genuine when we arrived at her place and saw everyone there.

It was great to be the centre of attention for the evening. A few of my friends told funny stories about me, and later on I shared stories about a couple of them. It was such a wonderful, thoughtful thing for my girlfriend to do. (Thank you, baby.)

Unfortunately, my camera earlier ran out of batteries, and I didn't have my camera-phone with me either, so I don't have any pictures from the evening. But I'll always have the memories.

UPDATE: Oh, and I must mention also that Lauren spent at least three days preparing for the actual dinner party. She went all-out by buying a specially made arrangement of flowers, making dinner and buying dessert for a dozen people, decorating the table-setting with tea candles and those little smooth glass stones, giving everyone a take-home napkin-bag of chocolate-covered almonds, and having everyone bring a bottle of wine so that there was ample choice for everyone. It was even more incredible by the fact that this was the first dinner party that she's ever thrown. Judging from how much everyone enjoyed themselves last night, I'm sure it won't be the last.