My external hard drive failed and I lost about 5 years of pictures.

After looking at several companies, I decided to go with the least expensive, ECO Data Recovery and after 2 weeks they called today to tell me they were unable to recovery my data. They’ll be charging me $175 for the effort.

So I called Drive Savers, the most expensive and I’ll be trying them next.

As they explained the first time I talked to them, the first recovery attempt is always the best. So my chances of a recovery are slim, but I have to give it a try.

Obviously I would NOT recommend ECO Data Recovery. Drive Savers is about 3x as expensive. I hope they prove to me why. If so, I’ll be singing their praises for years to come.

I am disappointed. I voted for Bob Barr, but realistically wanted McCain to win. Not to be.

However, this is the positive side of an Obama presidency:

• He has the ability to emotionally charge the masses
• He may be a more favorable and likable president to foreign countries
• Liberals and democrats have no excuses to make things work–they have the house, senate and white house

And here is my promise:

I will not blindly or irrationally hate, dislike or badmouth Obama. I will judge him and his legislative branch on their actions and the outcomes of those actions. I will admit that I am very biased and skeptical, but I do promise to be fair in my judgment of this presidency.

We shall see…

It’s election day and I’m sick, literally. Upper respiratory infection, blah.

I don’t feel like writing much so I’ll just share a quick life tip:

When u visit your doc, ask him to write you a script for extra meds. I like to stockpile Allegra-D and antibiotics (z-pack is best!)

Sure popping pills isn’t always smart, but if you’re pretty sure you, for example, have strep throat, then you can start antibiotics while you schedule your doctor visit. If you were wrong, then you can stop taking them but most likely you just got a head start on healing.

And FYI I absolutely LOVE Allegra-D. It nukes allergies. Right now I have 60 with 3 refills waiting

(and yes of course I am nervously anticipating poll results tonight, I’m sure I’ll be posting about our new president tomorrow)

Today is Friday. Today is Halloween. I’m lightening the mood of my blog.

Although you’ll see no badass costume out of me this year (last year’s Vanilla Ice), you will see my efforts towards making Halloween a memorable experience for all the kiddos in my neighborhood.

IMO Halloween is all about the experience, and mostly, all about the CANDY!

I can remember sharing reports and rumors of the best candy houses in our neighborhood as a child, and as an adult I am hoping to have the house that is a “must hit” on the candy list. With over $100 in candy purchased and given out each year (to an average of 100-120 kids–yes I count), I’d like to think my candy per kid ratio is among the highest in the area.

Anyway, here are some pictures taken last night of what we’ll be offering at my house tonight:

House decorations

Our ‘scary’ jackolanterns

Our civic duty jackolanterns

The loot. The big bars are for the best older kid costumes.

Extras for the super small tykes. Glow sticks, bubbles, and fruit snacks.

Last night Obama said he wanted to protect American jobs, penalize companies for “shipping jobs overseas”, and give money to companies who hired American. This is all protectionism and its BAD for the economy.

Sure he can give 100 sob stories about someone losing their job and how their 8 kids can’t afford to eat and mother can’t afford prescription drugs. So get a new job.

The bottom line is simple:

Competition makes everyone stronger. Legislation that limits competition makes everyone weaker.

A US company should be able to hire the best worker for the job. If that adult worker is overseas, so be it. If they work for 5cents a day, so be it.  That US company will make a ton of money and be able to hire more US sales reps, or US tech consultants, or buy more US marketing–all of which will create more jobs and higher paying jobs in the US.

Protectionist policies sound great in emotional speeches, but they are extremely short-sighted.

Force that company to pay union wages of $20/hr (instead of say $1/hr in Mexico) and that company now has $19/hr LESS to work with. Contrary to liberal rhetoric, that $19/hr wouldn’t just go into the CEO’s pocket (it would be shareholders anyway), but it would most likely go towards hiring someone else to improve the product, improve sales, expand production, etc etc.

Why would a CEO care about doing these things? Aren’t they just selfish? Why do they care about creating job?

Its because THEY ARE SELFISH and their COMPETITION will blow them away if they simply pocket the profit.

They MUST reinvest the saved money to keep up with the competition. They MUST hire more people, expand the business and grow their business if it is to survive.

Unless of course, the government supports protectionism and endlessly bails out failing companies, then they have nothing to worry about. Then they really can just pocket the profits and let the company lag behind.

Protectionism is NOT the American way. It is the opposite of how we became a great economic powerhouse. It is horrible for the economy and I pray the American voters realize this in their vote for President in a few days.

According to Gallup Polls,White voters are split on Obama v McCain, 44% to 50% respectively.

Black voters however, favor Obama over McCain 91% to 4%.

With 38 million blacks in the US, accounting for almost 13% of our population, and Obama’s lead at just 9%, is it possible that racism will choose our next president?

Keys to remember:

• Racism doesn’t have to be whites discriminating against blacks. It can go both ways.
• I failed to find data supporting this, but I believe black voter turnout is significantly lower than white voter turnout
• Historically, blacks have favored the democratic party, so it may not be blatant racism

That being said, it sure is something to think about. 91% just seems ridiculously high.

Right now I am long the SP emini with a sold 900 Nov call.

I bought the SP emini at 884.50 and sold the 900 call at 35. Right now I’m down a bit on the trade, but have a nice theta and my delta is only moderate.

I like the bounce play but want some free cash and couldn’t resist selling those calls. The VIX is out of control right now.

Just my $0.02

Obama scares the crap out of me. He seems to be totally in favor of socialistic economic policy, and today’s Drudge Report release of Obama’s 2001 radio interview solidifies that belief.

For the record, if Obama is elected, and has support from Congress and is able to significantly alter our economy to favor socialism, I will either organize or participate in civil disobedience.

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Here is the video if you’re too lazy to click the link above:

As you know, my external hard drive failed recently—with all the digital pictures I’ve ever taken on it, and tons of video and lots of other documents.

I’ve decided to go with ECO Data Recovery.

I talked to people from them, Data Recovery Corp, and Drive Savers.  Although I felt like Drive Savers had the best chance of recovery (you should see their crazy success stories!), I choose ECO. The reason being that I feel that all 3 will have success, after talking to them, and ECO was the cheapest. Here were the costs:

ECO Data Recovery: $695 guaranteed
Data Recovery Corp: $895 estimated
Drive Savers: $1800 – 2700 (estimated)

Obviously if ECO fails to recover my data, I’ll be very upset with my decision and will be second guessing it for years. But after talking with each company, I feel like my problem is in the “very easy” end of the spectrum and all 3 will be able to fix it.

All 3 told me that the chance of recovery drops by about 50% on the 2nd attempt, so I really hope ECO can get the job done.

I will let you know how it turns out. Keep your fingers crossed!

We’re likely heading into a recession. Our likely next president’s likely tax hikes on the job-creators will likely push us further into a recession. So it must be a horrible time to start a new company or invest in one, right?

Not bloody likely. (“wrong”)

Andy and I started DaytradeTeam.com in 2000. We were giving stock trading advice shortly after the bubble had burst and traders were a dying breed. We started SUPER lean and were actually profitable on day 1. We didn’t know about funding, we only knew we needed to make money, so we did.

Over the next few months cash was king and we figured out how to stay profitable but grow slowly. This is when funding would have been a sling shot to our success. Unfortunately we were ignorant on the subject, so we simply just kept grinding out profits and slowly grew the business. 6 years later we sold it to a private investor.

The point I’m making is that when times are tough, the lean will survive.

Now is the time to focus on lean businesses that generate cash quickly. Prove you can be profitable within a few months then go get some funding. By the time the economy hits an expansion period, your business will be streamlined, profitable, funded and ready to absolutely blow up.

i.e. if you can make it now, you will be successful.