Long Timey No Posty

Greetings, fellow tubers.

It has been a while since my last literary regurgitation. Much has happened since then.

As a highly-liquid and mobile citizen, when I became dissatisfied (yet again) with the management at my previous employer back in November of 2010, I elected to be quickly presented with a number of options at greener pastures, and pounced on one of them in early January. After another busy paid-for-and-full-service move, the family and I have relocated, once again, back to the province directly adjacent to Alberta (to the west, not gross Saskatchewan). On a brief side note, the town I live in now is about the same size in population as my high school was.

I have now worked for 4 different employers since my graduation just under 3 years ago, and while some may scoff at that, I have had offers to return at each of my previous employers, and I have more than doubled my salary since 2008. So, moving with a frequency that some may find excessive, in my case, has paid off quite handsomely. The reason for this, of course, is that many people reduce their mobility and liquidity, and hence their ability to capitalize on opportunities elsewhere, and the pool of available candidates ends up being extremely small.

As another example, 2 days into my new job, a headhunter called asking me to move to Brisbane. It's good to be in demand, though at the level we are seeing, we must be approaching the next down leg.

What all of this also tells me, however, is that we are essentially mirroring the path of 2007/2008. With the TSX cresting 14,000 in the last couple of days, we are following the path right along to $150/bbl oil and a hell of a crash.

See: Average Canadian Household Debt Tops Six Figures, Report Says

Anyway, I don't want to rant too much because I am rather busy these days, but my motivation to post today was sparked by my thwarting of Bell Canada. Without a nearby Wal-Mart as a daily muse, I have run short on inspiration and motivation to post. Today, however, changed all that.

To start, I have a corporate plan, through my association, with Bell that I've had since sometime in 2006. It gives me $0.10/min long distance North America wide, unlimited texting, voicemail, call display, a lot of local minutes, and a bunch of other stuff I can't remember. The awesome thing about this plan, is that it costs $29/month, all in.

However, since 2008, I have not lived in the city in which my phone number is based. I have never had the will to change it, because with my long distance rate as low as it is, it doesn't really cost me anything to use my phone moderately every month, wherever I happen to be.

Today, I was able to add unlimited long distance to my amazingly cheap corporate plan. Bell informed me that I could still go over on local minutes, which is their ace-in-the-hole for raping me on the bill. However, since I don't live in my area code, I NEVER use local minutes, so I basically have unlimited minutes forever for a very low fixed price.

Being too lazy to switch area codes for the last 3 years ended up being a FANTASTIC move. Highly recommended.

On a quick investment note, I mentioned I was getting into oil back in late August (right near when I was talking about silver). I am up 25% on my oil holdings a mere 5-ish months later. I figured the geopolitical strife would center around Iran, but this Egypt thing and its fallout has been very healthy for my portfolio, and while I have reduced my position a lot, I will ride the remainder through the summer on the hope that we follow the insanity of 2008 once again.

On the long term front, I am rehashing my language abilities in Mandarin, as I have emigration to Asia on my time horizon. It is truly the new land of opportunity. I have a vision of millions of North Americans sailing to Asia to start a better life in a strange country with their families, in a similar fashion as the Europeans who came to North America in the 18/1900s.

STAY LIQUID AND WATCH THE HORIZON! Be careful how you leverage yourself in this environment, there is no sense having your real money compete with easy credit when the bond market is close to flipping everything on its head, as massive inflation and higher interest rates start coming down the pipe. Also, this isn't the 1950s. You have to be able to move to where the work is/goes. Look at what happened to Windsor, Ontario, as an example.