| | November 20, 2001 | |
 |
It has been a busy year for me! Most of my time has been spent getting my firm ready to roll, which has meant quite a lot of programming: at last count there were approximately 40,000 lines of code in my analytical programme (written in C++), which is designed to determine which preferred shares one should own, given their individual characteristics and their price in the market. |
| It is quite an exciting project: I am one of the few people in Canada to be analyzing preferred shares on a full-time basis (most of those who analyze them at all do so as an adjunct to sales) and my experience doing much the same thing with government bonds convinces me that I have the most sophisticated analysis available. So, it's nice to have something unique. The problem will, of course, be actually selling the product, but I am confident that this will proceed apace. Now that I have the analytical engine working, its product can be repackaged in any number of ways: I now offer only conventional account management and pooled fund management, but products on the horizon include three iterations of a web-based analytical service: for individual small investors, for stockbrokers servicing large numbers of the small investors, and for large institutions with $10 million or more invested in the preferred share market. I shall be very interested to see just which (if any!) of the products takes off! | |
|
On a sadder note, Judy moved out in April (at my request) after we had lived together for such a short while. It was for the best, but it was disappointing for both of us that our visions of life together should have proved to be so incompatible. I miss her little girls. | |
| I have had great fun building things around the house this year, ably assisted by brother Andrew. Our first project was framing the inside of my garage: a two-door monstrosity of masonry construction that I hope to convert into a workshop someday if I can ever get it clear enough to walk around in! We insulated it and put pegboard around all the walls - next summer I hope to rebuild the loft as a proper storage area, put a vent in the roof and GET IT CLEAN! |
 |
| After we had finished that, we resurfaced my front porch with flagstone (it had previously had an extremely slick painted surface) and then started on the main work of the summer/fall: resurfacing my driveway! The problem with the setup of my house is that the garage is at the very back of the property with access from the front, using a lot of space. The previous owner had laid tarmac many, many years ago: it was not only an old surface but hadn't been of very good quality when new, so, for instance, when shoveling show one will continually lift up large pieces of scale as the surface continues to deteriorate. I was unable to convince "next door" to go splits on resurfacing the entire driveway (we share the front part), but, as I did not feel myself able to bear looking at all that expanse of old asphalt for the rest of my life, had eight tons of brick delivered, got a contractor to put in a bed and commenced laying brick (Andrew playing a superb role in doing the edging and acting as hod-carrier extraordinaire!). I was only able to complete about 400 of the 510 square feet that is "wholly mine" before putting it to bed for the winter, but it looks very good, if I do so so myself. Next year I will be putting an arbour over the portion extending from the garage to the point where the driveway narrows to "one lane" and planting roses on it. | |
| And that about wraps things up for this year! I can only hope that next year goes as well: I have greatly enjoyed living in Toronto again after so long in London, grumbling over the sad shape of the house, visiting Claire and the kids almost every other week, and seeing a lot of Andrew. Drop me a line! |