Back to the grind...

The dust is settling following the wedding (and so is my stomach after all that food!), and things are getting back to normal. We had a wonderful Brazilian dinner last night with a few friends from the wedding that helped us during the day, and our wedding photographer was in attendance to capture some of the happy moments. Too much meat has left me feeling slightly peaky today, but I should be right as rain tomorrow.

As for the CFA study, I am in week two now, having looked at Ethics last week. Ethics provide to be a little tricky, but not too challenging. Most seemed to be almost common sense, but there are parts where a candidate needs to learn to think like the CFA Institute wants you to, not as you might intuitively think. Nonetheless, Ethics accounts for quite a large chunk of Level I, and I need to make sure I get it licked to stand any chance of passing the exam.

I started on quants yesterday, only to find that my shiny new calculator kept giving me rather odd answers. The Stalla guide is fairly idiot-proof, and I was following the key strokes to calculate annuity payment, but was getting vastly different answers to those that the book was suggesting. Them, I just got a few error messages. So, quick as a flash, I switched to Economics (micro) to make the bets use if the remaining day. I sat the mock exam I have on CD, thinking that, given that I used to LECTURE micro-economics, I should be okay.

No such luck.

No study or revision, and I managed a measly 57% on the multiple choice. But several of the questions were fairly ambiguous, and given that my calculator wasn’t working I estimated many calculations involving elasticity and marginal product/revenue/cost et cetera. I’ll hit the books again tonight, and try to remember some of the formulas for elasticity.

Just as a final sign-off, if you need a laugh on a Monday, tale a look at this article. I should stress that the subject matter is not funny – but look at the author of the piece…

As a final note, I see that we are under 5 months from Christmas.

We'll, they're not that worried, are they?

The BBC reports today that:

"Australia has already started a wider A$40 defence procurement programme, amid concerns about growing instability in the Asia-Pacific region."

What are they doing, shopping on eBay?

The Good Husband...

Time for another joke....


Jack wakes up with a huge hangover after attending his company's Christmas Party. Jack is not normally a drinker, but the drinks didn't taste like alcohol at all.

He didn't even remember how he got home from the party. As bad as he was feeling, he wondered if he did something wrong.

Jack had to force himself to open his eyes, and the first thing he sees is a couple of aspirins next to a glass of water on the side table. And, next to them, a single red rose! Jack sits up and sees his clothing in front of him, all clean and pressed.

He looks around the room and sees that it is in perfect order, spotlessly clean. So is the rest of the house. He takes the aspirins, cringes when he sees a huge black eye staring back at him in the bathroom mirror.

Then he notices a note hanging on the corner of the mirror written in red with little hearts on it and a kiss mark from his wife in lipstick:

"Honey, breakfast is on the stove, I left early to get groceries to make you your favourite dinner tonight. I love you, darling! Love, Jillian"

He stumbles to the kitchen and sure enough, there is hot breakfast, steaming hot coffee and the morning newspaper. His son is also at the table, eating.

Jack asks, "Son...what happened last night?"

"Well, you came home after 3 A.M., drunk and out of your mind. You fell over the coffee table and broke it, and then you puked in the hallway, and got that black eye when you ran into the door.

Confused, he asked his son, "So, why is everything in such perfect order and so clean? I have a rose, and breakfast is on the table waiting for me??"

His son replies, "Oh THAT!... Mom dragged you to the bedroom, and when she tried to take your pants off, you screamed,

"Leave me alone, I'm married!!"

Broken Coffee Table $239.99
Hot Breakfast $4.20
Two Aspirins $.38
Saying the right thing, at the right time . . PRICELESS!!!

Who's been a naughty boy...

Here's me coming out of the cake shop after more testing - more info on our wedding blog. See you there!

A Really Bad Day

Time for another joke...

There was this guy at a bar, just looking at his drink. He stays like that for half of an hour.

Then, this big trouble-making truck driver steps next to him, takes the drink from the guy, and just drinks it all down. The poor man starts crying. The truck driver says, "Come on man, I was just joking. Here, I'll buy you another drink. I just can't stand to see a man cry."

"No, it's not that. This day is the worst of my life. First, I fall asleep, and I go late to my office. My boss, outrageous, fires me. When I leave the building, to go to my car, I found out it was stolen. The police said that they can do nothing. I get a cab to return home, and when I leave it, I remember I left my wallet and credit cards there. The cab driver just drives away."

"I go home, and when I get there, I find my wife in bed with the gardener. I leave home, and come to this bar. And just when I was thinking about putting an end to my life, you show up and drink my poison.

Boom.

Boom.

How many chickens....

This is best done in an Irish accent, for obvious reasons.

Two Irishmen met walking along the road; one was carrying a bag.
“What have you got in their?”, says the first.
“Chickens”, says the second.
“Will you give me one if I can guess how many you have in your bag?”, says the first.
“Hell, if you can guess right I’ll give you them both”, says the second.

Boom.

Boom.