Man, the last couple of months have been fast. Since returning home from Europe, we've nary a chance to rest. It seems like something is always in motion. Hongyun is taking statistics nowadays. "Statistics?!? For an art major?" Well, yeah. She may be an art major, but she is one heck of a practical woman (she is Chinese after all). She is making sure her options are open when she finishes Cal.

As for me, I'm taking some classes in Sociology and Anthropology. "WTF? Soshe and Anthro for a computer nerd? What is this world coming to?" Hmm, good question. I'm not really sure, but figure that Hongyun gets more cash from Cal if I take these classes and I get some edjamacation on subjects I never took in college. It's a win-win for us.

I guess my official hobby these days are: driving, filling up my car, searching for wifi, and reading sociology and anthropology texts. To that, I will now add, religiously tracking my finances like pfblog. I'm not going to go quite as crazy in stock picking as pfblogger has gone and going to take a very long term view of things.

Up until last week, I really did not know my asset allocation and in fact, I had a totally wrong estimate of how much I actually have socked away (off by about -33%!!). So after I did the tally, not only did I discover that I had about 30% more than I originally thought (I now 2 IRA accounts and 2 401K accounts...no wonder I keep losing track of everything), but that my asset allocation was actually pretty dead on to ultimate buy and hold strategy over at fundadvice. I adjusted their 40% bond recommendations down since I think that's way too much for me. Anyway, I stuck to their allocations for international and domestic stocks for the "85% long term" portion of my retirement portfolio. I decided to allocate 15% of my total retirement for short and speculative plays. So right now I have a 1/3 of the 15% portion in PSQ, the QQQ short ETF since we're in record territory for all indices at a time of great financial upheaval--all it takes is the Fed to realize the extreme damage more interest cuttings will do in the long term and the market will tumble...boom PSQ pays out. I have another 1/3 in GLD, the gold ETF. I know it as moved quite a bit already, but again, if things go to hell in the broader market and financial markets roil, GLD should pay as well. The final 1/3 is hanging around waiting for me to pick a REIT or US microcap play. I think apartment REITs should kick some major butt over the next few years as the real estate spectators just hold on and watch the show and the speculators kill their credit rating and are forced back into rental living. Ahh..the dream of ownership! I also bought into a clean energy ETF for US micro/small cap allocation since that should be an area of great growth in the next few years. In the mean time though, I think I'll get back into my little darling CNE on another pull back into the 13s...right now it's around 15 putting it near the top of the bollinger bands. Anyway, if CNE comes back down, I'm in for another nice ride up along with the extreme dividends they pay out.

The main issue now is that I need to come up with a reasonable rebalancing schedule as I'm going to max out my 401K and that should mess with my allocation plan while my total net worth is still very low (relative to others around here) over the next few years. Most suggest a yearly rebalance and I tend to agree, but I think a 6 month review cycle is more beneficial. I'm worried that I'll get tempted to sell out of losers though if I keep too close an eyeball on things. While it's good to set alarms on stuff, I want to take a very long view of things and just keep adding to the pile on pullbacks and look in the 10-15 year time frame to sell.