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A teacher at Manchild's school gave an assignment that would have really torqued us had it come from his last school. Before we give you the gory details of the assignment, it would help if you know the situation. Consider if you will, you had to write a story 26 lines long where each line has to start with the subsequent letter of the alphabet. Demanding as that assignment might be, our current schedule and quality of life made this challenge fun. Even as Jack and I discussed it on the way home from his school, we were joking about the cool possibilities. For each letter we came up with clever ideas, but forming them into a cohesive flowing work of literature might prove difficult, but well worth the effort. Gathering 26 ideas or comments to construct the piece will be a stretch for Jack. Having him show such positive energy is a big change from the situation at Santa Margarita Catholic High School. I just wonder how hard it would be to take on that challenge myself. Just thinking about the idea of having to make a story out of 26 lines with each line starting with the next letter of the alphabet would take hours. Knowing that you have to link the next letter with the next line in a flow that makes sense and holds the reader's interest would scare me to death. Like it or not that is the type of assignment our kids are getting now a days. Many parents would confront the teach and say, "Are you out of your mind?" Not us. Our goal is to support the school regardless of how hard the homework might be. Putting Jack's grades ahead of play time and family time is something we got used to at our old school. Quarreling with teachers and administrators became the status quo. Recently, however we have had such smooth sailing that this assignment has kindled a mindset of "Why Not?" Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and go for it. Today was one of the days. Unfortunately, Devin and I were stuck at the new house so we could not help Jack with the assignment. Virtually all of our spare time after we picked up Jack from school was spent dealing with the trials and tribulations of the new house. When we got home we could smell an unusual odor. Xenon must have been leaking from the crust of the earth or Jack was working real hard on the crazy assignment. You would be surprised what your kids are capable of if you let them. Zeal and energetic euphoria oozed from the boy when he completed the assignment.
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And You've Got ...Volatility
New home sales and some nice earnings reports (HD, M, and SKS) gave a little spring to Mr. Market's steps this morning allowing him to quit worrying about Italian Election fallout. That means we had to work quickly to get everybody out of the VXX call options we told you about. I hope you followed us on that adventure as we made a group of folk some nice profit in one day. Even with the catastrophic VXX losses last year, this was a well telegraphed and easy to pick play.
The good news is that we are still two days way from the reason why we bought the options in the first place. The sequestration deadline is Friday. The market came back today and the VXX came down a little. We might be able to replicate the magic again.
We will be watching the May 28 dollar call to see if we can get in below $2.50. More negative scare tactics by the White House, or more bad news out of Europe could give us another near double in a few days.
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Salve Lucrum
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