Election Day, $8 Coffee, and a Lawn Sign Surprise

I would like to take a moment to congratulate Justin Elicker who won the election on Tuesday November 3, 2009 for Alderman of New Haven's Ward 10. He ran a good, clean campaign based on the issues. I was very proud to be a part of his campaign and to be able to share in his day.

While it is sad to see our ward no longer be represented by an Independent, I am so pleased to know that Justin will be our Alderman. His commitment to stem crime and care for East Rock Park, as well as the way he plans to take on controversial issues like the new Worthington Hooker school opening and rezoning of out Police District.

Additionally, I would like to thank him again for helping me start the Upper Orange Street Block Watch(formerly the East Rock Block Watch). This group has given me the opportunity to become more involved in my community and meet new people.

NOW, Something has gone wrong with my local economy. I went to the little store at the corner that just opened up while I was walking around to help collect the candidate's lawn signs after the election had ended. I wanted coffee. The large cup of coffee with milk and sugar and maybe some foam and caramel syrup stuff, and a croissant: $7.69.

NO FRIGGIN WAY.

America, we need to talk. Alyson is unemployed. Mostly. Alyson will over-pay $7.69 for lots of things: movie tickets, burritos, books, The Economist, $5-foot long sandwich, even a box-o-condoms if it came to it. What? You should ALWAYS use protection people (= best advice ever). But a cup of coffee and a croissant, that's a maximum of $4.50.

So, little shop on the corner, you owe Alyson $3.29 in breakfast food.

And while I went around to collect lawn signs I noticed something fishy. I think there is a Lawn Sign Conspiracy in my district. I am going to describe the situation and you are going to tell me if I am on to something dastardly.

The Elicker Campaign had asked people if they could put lawn signs on people's private property a few weeks ago. The night before the election a group of volunteers put out an additional 100 campaign lawn signs in the tree strip, this put the total number of lawn signs just for the Elicker campaign to about 175 in a 10x10 block area. The campaign was going to organize volunteers this weekend to remove these signs.

Two days after the election (today) I walked for a mile and a half up and down the streets of my neighbor hood and saw TWO lawn signs belonging to the either Aldermanic campaign. I saw EVERY Mayoral lawn sign still in place, and many of the Aldermanic opponent's signs had been removed as well.

Technically putting signs on the tree strip is illegal. All of the Alderman signs from both campaigns had been removed from Ward 10 (but not Roland Lemar's in Ward 9).

I think there was a conspiracy organized by the mayor to keep only his signs up in our ward after the election.

Political lawn sign sabotage? I think so.

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

Melting My Brain

Recently there have been commercials for watching TV on my computer. TV melts my brain, agreed. There is something that melts it faster. Watching green and red numbers swish back and forth rapidly on my screen on my trading platform is both mesmerizing and addicting. For sure, constantly monitoring my portfolio is melting my brain, but I counteract that process by listening to This American Life all day. What's more is that this isn't something I need to be doing. I have a very small amount invested. I have trade triggers set for when I want to sell. Truth is, I really like watching it, it's soothing, and it makes me feel like I have a job, something to do.

Days when the market is closed seem boring and time drags on. Even on days when the Dow and NASDAQ are down are better than days when no trading happens. In the recession, the one thing that has actually been getting better in the last few months are the indexes. People on Wall Street are making money despite people around the country losing their jobs.

Let's keep you all up to date on the "frequently updated website" interactive factor: my ANX stock buy a few days ago. RIGHT NOW it's at $0.14. I bought 1165 shares at $0.13. It goes between 13 and 14 cents everyday. My target sell price is between 18 and 22 cents. It cycles into this range every few weeks.

Keep in mind, even if I sell at my target price, I'll make about 60$. :) Which is just... so much money... Just think of how many boxes of macaroni and cheese can I taste test with that!

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

Devastating Spam

When I was 14 I created a Yahoo account. I therefore have a yahoo email address. As a result, whenever I am on messenger, all the emails that I receive pop up in the corner of my screen with a little *ding*.

I never give this email address out and so usually they are spam. No, they are ALWAYS spam. I will be chatting away and then suddenly a little *ding* noise will sound and at the bottom of my screen with show "New email alert!, From: Suzy Q, Subject: Come make sexy time with me!" or something offering "Free pills FOREVER!" or "Want to Make 41 MILLION DOLLARS in Two Days?" to which I say, "um... yes please! Wait... you almost had me Nigerian scammers."

The reason why today's emailing scam was so heartbreaking is because lately, I've been networking in Connecticut regional chatrooms with my yahoo email address. I know... lame. Whatever, it could work.


Today I get this email, the most dastardly email ever. "New email alert!, From: Michael Vincent, Subject: ALYSON, I found you a new job."

I get immediately excited and rush to my inbox because I think that even though I don't know a "Michael Vincent" I must have networked with him in some chatroom at some point. No surprise, it is yet another scam to do those survey things online where you pay like 40$ to learn how to do surveys that end up not paying you any money. Does anyone ever wonder who originally came up with that idea? Think about how many times you have been asked to do a survey for free over the phone. Do you really think people are gonna pay you $75 for 15 minutes for your opinion? It's not a medical study. Come on people.

You know what my favorite part of this ad was? It wasn't the claim that I could "Ear $150,000+ from your place" filling out surveys online. It was the claim that one of ONLY TWO listed benefits of this job was the ability to "spend more time with your family." Yeah... They clearly haven't met my family. I want a job so I can move as far away as possible from my family. The other benefit kind of made no sense, "start making more immediately." I assume they meant money, but at the same time, this also assumes I already have a job. Even the subject of the email already assumes I HAVE a job, "ALYSON, I found you a new job."

What was even more quality about this email was that after "start making money from home" there was an asterisk, as if there was a special term or condition that needed to be explained, but no asterisk anywhere in the rest of the five line email to explain what those terms or conditions were.

Alas, despite my 3 minutes of hope, because that is how long it takes to log into Yahoo email, I am still unemployed.

What an adventure that was.

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya

How I got here

You know what this needs? I need to grab your attention with something snazzy and upbeat...

**FREE PUPPIES AND KITTENS!**

Did that work? Okay, back to business. As my first post I suppose you need some background.

I am a 23 year old woman. My name is Alya. I have a masters degree. I have traveled all over the world. Blah. Blah. Blah. Due to the recession I have not been able to find a job for five months. Despite the fact that I have sent my resume out to over 300 companies, colleagues, and job listings I get the same messages back. Either I am under-qualified for management positions, overqualified for entry level, or the position is no longer being offered because of the recession, but I would have been on the short list. (insert swearing here). Let's get to something less depressing.

As a result of these events, I have been forced to move into my old bedroom in my parent's house (pathetic, I know... ). We fight every day and my mother doesn't seem to understand that I send out another 3-10 resumes each day just to get the same three responses three months later. Therefore, she complains about me spending money on things like food... and then complains that I am not willing to splurge on shoes... more on that ridiculousness later.

In the meantime, I have taken $1000 and bought stocks. I've made about 15% over the course of two months. I'm not bad at trading, and I should consider a job in this. But the banking and finance jobs are the hardest hit sectors, and since many experienced people were laid off in those sectors, I can't very well break into it now.

Additionally, I also have started running, because that takes up about an hour of my free time every day, and at least then I'm outside. It's an activity that I can do that doesn't cost me any money. I'm trying to find lots of those to compile a list of "free recession activities." Once I've done that, I'll sell the book of free activities for $19.99! Genius! Um... if anyone else does something similar to this I have proof now that I came up with the idea first. Consider yourself foiled!

In order to be effective and set out the purpose of this blog-thing I should write some goals here. I plan to make this blog not only a record of my experience and a tool to advise others how not to proceed, but also to amuse people (mostly myself). I will record any lessons I learn about trading, job hunting, living at home, and dealing with parents who don't see you as an adult, probably some recipes I invent and things about cooking, and anything else I feel is relevant. I also promise not to take myself too seriously, and not to take you all too seriously either.

Thanks for reading and best regards,
Alya