Shaine Mata Blog

It's late at night. I am listening to today's archived Dave Ramsey show. It replaces the Phil Hendrie Show on KURV . It's been on for about a week. I think I've seen his book at Barnes & Noble. I may buy one. After listening, and knowing that my financial position is undesireable, I am tempted to try some of his advice. For now, I want to get myself back into UTPA to finish my degree in Finance (ironic, isn't it?). Then, I want to start making money to pay back my debts. I had been in a funk the past couple days. I came to a realization after speaking to God for a while. I realized that people behave in the way that is natural to them. That is such a relief and disappointment at the same time. What I do is reflective of my nature, except that I can choose t change my nature. Anybody else can do the same. However, in general, most people don't pay attention to their natural behaviour and end up acting it out. My despair was short-lived. This week is not as...

Long day. Helped World Market Liquor & Imports move out. Learned some things. Alma's upset. Don't want to go home. Nobody to talk to.

Feeling a bit down.

Despite my optimism for the near end of my misery, I managed to have a lousy morning. I spent most of the morning putting out fires. On the bright side, I had the opportunity to order business cards for http://MissionTexas.net . I made them really simple to emphasize the site and not me. I got the cards with Annette Chavez over at PostNet by Quick Wok at Stewart Plaza. I ordered 1000 for good measure. I still have a ton of the Missionhsreunion.com cards remaining. I think the http://MissionTexas.net business cards should be easier to give away. I'll be working all day tomorrow and I have a morning delivery. After this post, I am going to bed. I've been working on the new http://thewoks.com website for the restaurants. It's going to take a considerable amount of hours to finish. Once that is done, I want to buy vinyl letters to advertise the site on the doors of the restaurants. Good night.

The crappy work is almost over for the week. Liz and Jason will be back by Wednesday evening. Due to my schedule, I'm screwed all day Wednesday. I need to drop off the kids, get change and deposit, and work the lunch rush at QM. Afterwards, I need to go to work at 3 PM. I'm really getting tired of this shit. It's like they rub my face in it. Here I am, doing everything in my power to keep the operations going. When you total up all the time I put into my work, I get less than minimum wage. My truck is falling apart. I can't afford to get somebody to watch my kids. I can't afford to quit. I'm screwed all around. I have to keep working. I'm glad that they are able to enjoy life. It's my turn. I'm not an employee. I can make a better living elsewhere. I'm with them to help them out and I get a big "fuck you" in return. Every once in a while, I get special treatment. That doesn't pay the bills. Definitely, I will go back to school and f...

I was up last night catching up on Andromeda. It appears that there won't be a season 6 of the show. They are sticking with 5 seasons, which is sufficient to go into sydication 5 days a week. Lucky for me there are episode synopses on the website that allow me to figure out what the whole show was about. I figured out that the first part of the show was about putting the Commonwealth back together. In later episodes, when they are in the Vedran system, I didn't really follow. I still don't know what's going on, but thanks to the site, I can figure it out.

Liz and Jason decided to skip town and head for Dallas. This last minute escapade has left me holding a lot of loose strings. On top of that, I have my own crap to take care of. Yes, I just ended a sentence with a preposition. This morning, I registered Tien at school, took the boy to grandma's, hauled ass home to pick up some stuff, went to PostNet for my mail, went and dropped off a check for Joe to pay the shrimp guy, picked up the change bag at Jason's, went to pay the sales tax, picked up the plumbing snake, gave Adrian (my brother-in-law) a ride home from school, then went back to McAllen to find a payroll processing program, and then I had to go to work where I took some time to calculate the payroll hours. I made some time to call Mission and Edinburg to call McAllen early with their list. When I get to McAllen to pick up the supplies, the bastards didn't have anything ready. So, I got out of there late, which made me late to leave Mission and Edinburg during the ro...

What was going to be a good night goes bad. I just can't get a break tonight. All kinds of stuff is going wrong.

While heading out to do the rounds, I call in a journal entry with good news and some optimism. Things are going good and I look forward to having a fun evening with my family.

The great news is that I will be going back to school to finish my degree. I imagined it would be so difficult for me to get current and go back in. All I had to do was go to CoSTEP, consolidate my student loans, which would bring my account current and defer payments. Now, all I need to do is get ready for the Spring Semester and go to school. I never thought I would be so happy to go back to school.

Today, I've got to do: Drop off kids Cash check Renew License Call mom, wish her happy birthday Deposit Visit CoSTEP , get deferrment I have until 3 PM, then I have to go into work. I could do plenty of this tomorrow on my day off, but then it wouldn't be a day off. I'll get as much done as I can today. I have a big list of stuff to do in case I finish early, but these are the more important items.

I just read an article by a Liberal bastard . What a stupid *$*, !%#@*^%$#%! Who the hell ever said that Saddam Hussein ordered 9/11? NOBODY. Here is the analogy. You live in a neighborhood. EVERYBODY in town knows that you provide shelter for thieves and killers. You don't tell them what to do. You simply help them with food, shelter, and help them out when they are sick. You don't tell them to steal, but they do. You don't tell them to kill, but they do. Does that mean we don't invade your house and bust your ass? NO! You're just as bad as they are for helping them. The same goes for Saddam. He did not order 9/11. I agree he had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. He did provide the terrorists safe haven. He provided them with money. He provided them with health care. So, when the cops (our armed forces) show up to break things up, the whole community (the friggin' planet) is safer. My sister went to Iraq. She did not want to go. Since she did have to go...

ZHK-76C is the license plate number of Juan Eduardo Martinez, a fellow classmate from the Mission High School Class of 1993 who scammed me out of money when I was down and out, the bastard. I found out later that he scammed a lady out of $40k and another friend of mine out of several thousand dollars. The way my friend put it, he's waiting for Juan to keep searching for the rope that will hang him. I'm going to give this info to the other scam victims.

I got the ball rolling tonight. I told Jason about my intent to leave Confetti . Tomorrow I will tell Liz. I like the people. Liz and Jason have been good to me. I really like working with Amanda and Krystal. They are probably the reason why I have toughed it out this long. Krystal, by the way, has informed us that she is pregnant. I'm sure she will be a great mommy. Anyway, I will tell Liz about my decision to move on tomorrow. I don't intend to split right away. I think I can hang in there until December. That will give us the chance to hire somebody and train him or her. Of course, whomever gets hired will definitely not be up to par with what I offer. I think both Amanda and Krystal together can fill in. The new hire will be extra help for them. Letting Jason know my intent has given me peace. I don't have the anxiety I have been feeling lately. In fact, after this entry, I will go to bed for a peaceful night's rest. What will I do? I don't know. Anything. I wo...

If I had a dollar for every time I said "shit", "dammit", "son-of-a...", or the f word today, I'd have a good lump some to set aside for retirement. I spent the night and most of today getting the work computers fixed. On the bright side, I recovered the main sales database and will be able to restore it. On the minus side, I lost all the other files. That's not so bad because we have a paper trail that we can use to rebuild those records. So, here I am, finishing up a complete reinstall of Windows XP and the point of sale system. I've got the XP part done. I am finishing up on the Norton Anti-virus install on one computer. The other computer is already done. I will have to wait until tomorrow to finish because I need to install a Quickbooks POS upgrade that's on a disk at work. I still have to network the computers and get them set up like they were. I will definitely make these computers non-Internet terminals. The crap I had to go throug...

After trying overnight to fix a BSOD (Blue screen of death) on the point of sale server, I'm at my wits end. Patience my ass, I'm gonna kill something!

Today I announced the 15th year reunion for my class. Here is the message: I want to announce the kickoff of the Mission High School Class of 1993's 15th Year Reunion. All members of the Class of '93 should visit the Forum Topic to participate in the planning.It is extremely important that you get the word out to as many of our classmates as possible. We want to start early and make this as good or better than the last one.Let's get the ball rolling! Link:

We went to see Stealth at The Border Theatre today. It was an OK movie. I reviewed it on Yahoo!. In the morning, I opened the restaurant and picked up the computers for some maintenance. I screwed up the computers at work. I have to get them restored tonight for production tomorrow. Gonna require some beer, I think. Still in a funk over my future. Don't feel motivated to do anything lately, except maybe write. Even so, my heart isn't into it. It's more automatic than anything.

It was late and I didn't want to start up the computer, log in, and write an entry. I congratulate Alma, talk about work, and go over my desire for more out of life.

I go over the progress I made on the websites today. Amor A Todas Horas Silva, Simon Buy this Art Print at AllPosters.com

I discuss plans for dividing up MissionTexas.net into functional subdomains.

I called in today's entry. Just a summary of what's going on.

Last night I totally disregarded cash management advice while doing a trade. The currency market spanked me for that. I lost about $300. Note to self: always use cash management techniques. I'm working to gain it back. Last night, before bed, I bought one of each currency and set a sell 5 point up. This morning, half sold, the other half went negative by a lot. So, I bought some more at the low price and will leave them alone until prices go back to something of a profit. Due to dollar cost averaging, my sell point will be lower than the high at which I bought.

In a series of currency pair trades, I made $213.16. That brings my margin balance up to $2826.16 overall. I started with $2000. That's a roughly 41% gain. This includes my losses while I learned the ropes. Of course, I'm not an expert and could easily lose a great deal if I don't practice good money management. I am satisfied with my work tonight. I'm going to bed.

In my last trade, I made $102. Right now, I am working on GBP/USD and USD/CAD. I don't want to risk my hard-earned profits, so I'm going to scalp these positions.

I made over $100 on a USD/CAD trade. When I started, prices were at 1.2139/44. They kept dropping into the 30s and then the 20s. I kept buying with each new low. I was sweating it a while as my unrealized losses went up over $200. The price just kept dropping lower and lower. I thought, "Oh, crap! I should have shorted." But, according to the charts, things were on an upward trend. Eventually, the price came back up and the gains from the lows overcame the losses from my high purchases. I cashed out when I got over $100. I could have waited until all my buys were profitable, but I'd rather lock in a sure win. This is dollar cost averaging on speed. My position now is $2188.00 Realized gains are $323.74 I have a position open right now with EUR/USD. It's not going anywhere. Trading has been flat since I started. My unrealized losses on the EUR/USD have been between $20 and $40 with $100,000 riding on the price swing. Once things get moving, the gain or loss will be h...

I am working the currency markets again on a practice account at forex.com. Today, I am up $96. I took a really big gamble on a short. I shouldn't do that. I shorted and the price kept going up on the GBP/USD. I was sweating, thinking that I had made a bad move. But the analysis pointed to a decrease in price, so I bought as the price climbed. All of a sudden, the price plummeted and triggered my limit order. Oh geez! That was a close one. I got lucky, I think. I decided to ride on the way back up. Now, I'm up to $104. Not much, as I am playing it safe. Still, any profit is a good profit. Update: 11:57 I am up to $137.26 on a USD/JPY trade. I could have made more; but, again, even a small profit is a good profit. I'd rather make a small, sure profit than a risky big profit. As the prices went up, I raised the limit a couple points for extra profit. As for losses, smaller losses are better. I'll put in a stop if I'm going to bed. When I am awake, I don't put the...

My Internet connection wasn't working this morning, so I called in my entry. Woke up alone. No web. Full day of work. Not much to look forward to.

I was trolling around for information when I ran across a post by Dos Centavos , and I must say "wow". DC is to be commended for quoting these people. From previous posts and comments on this post, I get the impression that he is a Dem. It takes guts to post info about the loss of Hispanics and Mexican Americans from the Democratic party. In my opinion, our people are becoming more educated than in the past. We can actually question the status quo, believe it or not. With the Dems, it's "what have you done for us lately"? Government programs only helped us survive. Except for student loans and financial aid, government programs haven't got anybody ahead. Our success is based on hard work and foresight. I think that those of us who are trying to make something of ourselves are seeing that and leaning towards Republicans to help us preserve what we have struggled to achieve. Before you say, "oh, you just want to preserve your wealth now that you got it an...

One of my favorite radio hosts, Phil Hendrie , has a blog at http://www.georgewbushisgod.com , where he will write his political views to keep them off of his radio show.

According to Tompaine.com, some of the RGV Reps voted for CAFTA. In the article, it is expected that organized labor will "retaliate" against defecting Democrats. Ha! Fat chance of that happening in the Rio Grande Valley. As is well known, the only political party in the RGV is the Democrat party despite the populace being socially conservative. It's an unexplainable phenomenon. Amongts the CAFTA 15, as the defecting Dems are called, are Henry Cuellar (D) from Laredo, Rubén Hinojosa (D) from Mercedes, and Solomon P. Ortiz (D), from Corpus Christi. My Rep is Lloyd Doggett (D), Austin, not one of the dissenting Dems. Notice that the Democrat Reps voting for CAFTA are along the border. Lloyd is an Austin boy, he doesn't get it and doesn't get us. Our districts stand to make some serious cash with more trade. Much of the goods made in Central America have to pass through the Rio Grande Valley. It will trickle down. First, the customs brokers make money. The trucker...

Utah House Majority Whip Steve Urquhart (R) wants to challenge Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) for the latter's seat. Urquhart is in for an uphill battle. Not only is Hatch a strong incumbent, he also has the support of Sean Hannity as mentioned earlier this week on his radio show. The only thing better than cheap press is free press. Orrin Hatch is a known quantity amongst conservatives. It is unlikely that one conservative will be discarded in favor of another. We shall have to wait and see how this turns out. I predict it won't be pretty for Urquhart.

This post is about finding a new job. I am interested in an outdoor job. It could be carpentry, park service, landscaping, or land surveying. I just want to do a job where I can be outside doing something with my hands. I am tired of being indoors all the time. I would appreciate any help you can give me in finding a job. Pay is not the issue, although it's not frowned upon, either.

Audio entry: I had been listening to Sean Hannity on the radio. He had asserted, with a Democrat agreeing, that the next big issue is illegal immigration. If the Dems were to take up this issue as a cause, they would be able to pierce GW's soft underbelly. The Republicans talk tough, but don't actually do anything about illegal immigration. They don't want to offend. In any case, my point is that former President Bill Clinton recently mentioned that our solution to the insolvency of Social Security is to bring in more immigrants. By doing this, the country increases its tax base. This in turn would bolster the Social Security system, which is about to have more retirees than workers paying in. Immigrants could help delay or avert this problem. The idea is this. We already have millions of illegal immigrants in our midst. GW Bush has proposed setting up a guest worker program, which would serve as a segue for them to apply for citizenship. Since they are here, basically, le...

I found out that I could download my avatar from Yahoo, so I did. Here is my virtual self. It looks kind of like me. I could lose a couple pounds here and there. In all, it's not that far off. It's pretty neat that people can do this. Today was theoretically my day off. I am using the time to package some books I sold on eBay and I was going to go for a bike ride. Looks like I'll just do some exercise at home; it's really hot and humid outside. I need to take the kids to the swimming pool later, so I don't want to be wiped out from a bike ride. I'm going to McAllen in a little while to drop off last night's sales and drop off the books at the post office. Then back to Mission to pick up the kids and take them to the pool. I need to get sunscreen.

I've been waiting for a swing trade to happen today. I put a limit order to sell Yen at 112.24 after buying at different prices from .12 to .23 earlier. It's slowly getting up to the sell price. It just drives you nuts to sit and watch. The order will go through if I shut down and go to bed, but I want to see it happen. So far, I've made $239 in the practice account using the $2000 they give you. I'll put in a stop before I go to bed as added insurance. Just need to be careful not to put the stop too tight. I'll go 2 pips below the low to prevent the stop loss from being triggered by trading noise. ---- UPDATE The Yen went the way I thought it would and yielded $36.53. I've opened a new position on the Euro this morning. We'll see how that goes.

I was just reading that Atkins Nutritionals, Inc. has filed for bankruptcy protection. It's sad that they have fallen on hard times. They should have seen it coming, they couldn't maintain the low-carb craze that long. People want variety. I feel sorry for those people who went out and bought low-carb franchises with companies riding the Atkins coat tails.