The Radio Girl

'09 Numbers

Wrapped up in travel chaos, I didn't post my year end investment numbers for 2009.

 
Even in Mexico, I was online everyday playing with my stocks - except when we had sketchy internet service or the connection was completely down. 

Like many other investors, 2009 was my best year ever.  The biggest factor was a mad buying spree when almost every company was on sale in March.  It's true that it's impossible to time the market.  But if you even come close, the payoff potential is huge.

Blah blah blah, I could talk about investing all day, so I'll just get to the 2009 year end numbers:

• TFSA  +15.96%
• non-reg  +37.16%
• LIRA  +57.13%
• RRSP  +82.68%

Not counting the TFSA (which is only worth $5000 - max contribution per year) my overall average gain was 59%. Whoo HOOOOO!

Over the past fifteen-ish years that I've been investing, my average annual return has been roughly +13%.  My 2009 numbers completely blew that out of the water. 

Then again 2009 was a once-in-a-lifetime kinda year.  Pretty sure I will never ever Ever see these kind of annual gains again in my investing career. 

And don't worry.  I'm not getting a big head.

My January '10 month end numbers totally brought me back to reality:

• TFSA   -6.11%
• non-reg   -0.5%
• LIRA   -2.15%
• RRSP   -4.61%

February will be better.  Actually, it already is - because of the Big Project that I'm being so mysterious about.  All will be revealed next week. 

Unless I can't keep my yap shut and I spill the frijoles before then :)

Perezoso Blogger

Perezoso (pair - eh - zo - so) means lazy in Spanish.

Which describes my two week time-out from this site - got a little lazy  :)   We've been shacked up in a beautiful little casita in the Mexican beach town of La Cruz de Huanacaxtle. 

La Cruz is just north of Bucerias and about 25 minutes away from Puerto Vallarta.  The place we've rented is a block from the new marina in La Cruz and this whole area is quickly racing up the charts to become one of our fave spots in Mexico.

I need some more time to organize the gazillion pics taken over the past two weeks, but here's a glance at the center of commerce in La Cruz, the new marina:

The marina looks really busy from this angle...

 
But if you see it from the other end you'll notice only half the slips are full.  And this time of year it's usually packed with tourists sailing south for the season.

The current slowdown is a combination of the weak world economy and the fact that contractors are still working on Phase two of the marina in La Cruz.  Lots of big machines hauling rocks and digging dirt.  Fancy schmancy sailors hate the huge ruckus, but it's paradise for noisy little boys :)

There are quite a few local boats available if you wanna go fishing for the day.  "Se Renta" means 'for rent'.

 
And the fishermen in La Cruz make a very good living, by Mexican standards.  I mentioned that (our last stop) Teacapan, Mexico was a very poor fishing village with not enough fish to go around.  La Cruz is the opposite - deep ocean waters stocked with squillions of healthy fish.

The locals usually come home with full boats and big smiles.

I'm fascinated with the local marina and have a bunch of cool pics for tomorrows post about the Mercado del Mar, the fish market in La Cruz.

In the meantime, here's my new fave pelican pic.  We caught this little guy a couple days ago doing his Leo impression from the movie Titantic.

 
"I am the King of the Woooorrrld!  Squuuaaaawck!!!"

Viernes Playa Pic

We leave for Mexico in the next few weeks.

To get in the mood I've been posting a daily Mex beach pic.  Viernes (vee - air - ness) is Friday in Spanish.  And playa (ply - a) is beach.

 
This is another shot of my fave Mexican beach in Lo de Marcos, Nayarit.  It's a view from the lagoon side of the beach,  where the pelicans and gulls hang out. 

On the other side of the sandbar (far left) is the Pacific ocean, but the waves crash so hard on this beach that you can hear them all the way to the lagoon. 

It's like a lush, tropical movie set.

Wednesday Playa Pic

Playa = beach in Spanish 

This is the malecon (ocean front boardwalk) in Mazatlan, taken last December.  We usually make a Mazatlan pit stop on our way to points further south. 

Weekly Earnings Calendar

Four of my Canadian companies report second quarter earnings this week. 

Wednesday, August 5th:

• Altagas

• Killam Properties

• Russel Metals

Friday, August 7th:

• Manitoba Telecom

Looking forward to the numbers and hopefully some volatility, so I can top up my holdings. 

On a totally unrelated note, here's my new fave Spanish phrase:  "con la cruda (croo - da)".  It means "with a hangover".  It sounds so much prettier in Spanish.  :) 

Verbal Graffiti

Things I learned this morning:

#1-  35% of all socks and underwear sold in the USA are purchased at Walmart - BNN.ca

#2-  My fave Canadian income fund reported quarterly earnings this morning.  Armtec Infrastructure had decent results but took a big dip in price, so we snagged more units.   Armtec makes drainage pipes, highway guardrails and other structural products for roads, sewers and bridges.  (I really like this company because the Canadian government is spending wads of cash on infrastructure.  AND because the ticker symbol is ARF :)

#3-  New uses for vinegar:  clean the microwave (mix 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 water and microwave to a boil); remove mineral deposits from tea kettles; add vinegar to water when boiling eggs for shells that don’t crack; remove collar stains by spraying with vinegar before washing; use as an ant repellent - amoderngal.com

#4-  And the final thing I learned this morning...

... I subconciously wait for the 6:30am train to pass by before I eat my manzana every morning.  Not sure why, but it just occured to me that I have this very strange habit.

*manzana = apple in Spanish, and yes I do eat at least one every day

No More Hotcakes

My Fella makes breakfast every Sunday morning.

It's a little tradition he picked up from his Pa who has been in charge of weekend breakfasts forever, since My Fella was growing up.

Weekdays I only have fruit for breakfast - an apple, orange or nectarine.  Fruit is cheap and easy to eat at my computer while I peruse the morning biz news and the markets. 

On Sunday mornings we have a bigger breakfast, usually not until about 10:30.  We both used to have the same thing - pancakes, which I honestly never really liked but My Fella likes flipping them so I went along with it.  Until that fateful Sunday morning a couple of months ago in Mexico - we were eating pancakes from a Mexican mix we bought at the local mercado in Sayulita.

Everything tastes sweeter in Mexico - Diet Coke, fruit juice, syrup and pancake mix.  I think it's because they use sugarcane more than refined sugar, and sugarcane is a lot sweeter.

My taste buds don't do 'sweet' and I remember actually gagging after my first bite.  Now I'm totally off pancakes.  Or hotcakes, as they're called in both Mexico and the USA.

But I'm a huge fan of eggs, or juevos (huay - vos) en espanol.  I heart juevos. 

Editors note:  Juevos is also Spanish slang for testicles.  Don't confuse the two :)

Men At Work

We left Sayulita, Mexico just as road construction began on main street.

Crews had just started digging a ditch for new water and sewer pipes.  It also looked like they were putting in a center meridian, with a tropical row of palm trees to divide the lanes.

We noticed a couple large CAT diggers but the majority of the work was done manually with a shovel or pick.  And you rarely see one guy working hard, while the rest stand around chatting or smoking.  If you talk to a Canadian who has built a home in Mexico, they'll tell you that Mexican workers are infamous for not showing up the day after payday or on one of the many national 'fiesta' days.  But once they do show up, they work their buns off.  

There is no union to protect a lazy worker, and there is always another guy happy to get a good construction job.  The crews sweat for 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, and take home only a few hundred dollars a month.

Hombres Trabajando means 'Men Working' in Spanish.

Ocho Cinco Takes the Field

This sports news made me laugh out loud so I thought I'd share it with you. 

It was part of my '60 Seconds of Sports Stuff' for today's radio show:

"Some strange news from the NFL.

The National Football League has decided to recognize player Chad Johnson's legal name change.  Chad plays for the Cincinnati Bengals and he has decided to legally change his name from Chad Johnson to Chad Ocho Cinco. 

The receiver had his name changed in his home state of Florida last week, and if you're thinking Ocho Cinco is a strange choice, it means eight five in Spanish.  It's Chad's football jersey number.

When the NFL celebrated Hispanic Heritage month in 2006, Chad Johnson wore it on the back of his uniform for pregame warmups.  But he had to remove it for the game because of the NFL rules - it wasn't his legal name.  The 'player formerly known as Chad Johnson' asked the media to start calling him by his new name, but the Bengals couldn't change the name on his uniform until the NFL gave permission.

Changing his name to 'Ocho Cinco' is just the latest promotional move in Chad's NFL career.  He's also known for his touchdown celebrations, his golden Mohawk for one season, his race against a horse and his list of defensive backs who failed to cover him.

If you're interested, Chad Ocho Cinco is sporting his new name and new jersey today in the Bengals home opener against the Baltimore Ravens."

You know I kind of like the idea of changing my last name to a cool Spanish word. If the trend catches on I may soon be known as Kelsi Cacahuate (ka ka WA taay).

Cacahuate means 'peanut' in Spanish.  I've always liked that word.

Kelsi Cacahuate.

Road Signs

I was going over some pictures from our Mexican Road Trip and came across a bunch of road signs we passed while driving on the highway.

99% of the road signs in Mexico are in Spanish, but a lot them are pretty obvious if you understand even a few Spanish words.  And many words look the same in English.

Like this sign which says there's a "vehicle entrance and exit in 300 meters".

We saw this sign at least every 30 kilometers and I still don't know exactly what it means.  I know that cambio means 'change' in Spanish and luces are 'lights', but when I looked up the word conceda it means 'grant you'.  My guess is 'You are allowed to change your lights here', but that doesn't really make sense.

This one warns you to slow down - the direct translation is 'decrease your speed'.

Even if you didn't read Spanish you could probably take a wild guess that velocidad means 'speed'.

I knew niebla means fog, lluvia is rain and sus luces means 'your lights'. 

Not sure about the word encienda, but my best guess for this sign was "Turn on your lights in the fog or rain".

Most of the construction signs we passed were easy to understand except for this one.  I know proxima means 'next' and escalon means a stair or a step in a staircase.  But when I looked up rodamiento it translated to 'bearing'.  If you know what this sign says or have a good guess, I'd love to hear it.

And these are the signs we saw most on our road trip.

The first one says 'tollbooth in 1km', the second one displays the different toll charges and the third sign shows which of the lanes take credit cards.

We paid a total of $300 CAD in toll charges during our Mexican Road Trip and they were worth every penny.  The toll roads were all two lane highways in good shape, and a lot of them were being widened and repaved.  Plus, the toll booth attendants were smiley and pleasant, despite working very long days for very little money.

Driving in Mexico can be a little challenging, but if you can get over the very narrow shoulders and keep your eyes peeled for farm animals on/near the road, you'll be fine.

Just don't drive at night. 

In most areas, the roads aren't safe for night time driving because of the narrow shoulders and wandering animals. 

Oh, and the topes - which are huge speed bumps.  Sometimes you'll see a warning sign, but on occasion they pop up out of nowhere and rip out the floor of your car.

Yes I'm exaggerating.  But trust me, they're huge. 

*new words:

• topes (tow pez) - speed bumps
• niebla (nee eh blah) - fog
• lluvia (you vee a) - rain
• cambio - change
• luces (loo sez) - lights