2010 Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas to Family and Friends, 2010

It is winter in Alaska again and that means Christmas is near. We are excited because the family will be flying north “over the rivers to grandmothers’ house” soon. Winter has been good – two big snows with a week of rain in between that made all the lakes great for skating for several days. Below are some events from 2010.

We were sad in April when granddaughter Emery moved to Tacoma, but Facebook and Skype kept us closer in spite of the distance. (Too bad we didn’t have this kind of communication 30 years ago for our kids and the grandparents.) John works with Operation Christmas Child for AK, WA, OR, ID and MT. Also, he’s been doing some writing lately for Christian Examiner. We are really looking forward to next April which is the due date of grandson Leeland! Grandkids are so much fun: )

July/August we had a great vacation down to Washington; along with a side-trip to see many Minnesotans for a week in the middle. Heidi and John’s apartment is in a good location, a block from a nice park and about a mile from downtown. So Heidi has a great place to take Emery for some fun and exercise every day.

Holly is making coffees up in Anacortes. She does a little rock climbing and sailing in her free time. She’s about 3 or 4 hours away from Heidi and they get together quite often.

Christoffer is an electrician working all around the oil and gas fields of the inlet and peninsula. He likes all motorized toys in his spare time.

Lois Ann is working half days at the elementary school and has become quite a painter at the lake house we are finishing. I am still retired and have been building and helping some friends a little on their buildings when not playing hockey or golf.

God Bless Everyone this Christmas and in the coming year!!! mstyns@gmail.com

Did your vote count?

I guess the opportunity to vote is better than not being able to vote at all, and i think it may help some... I heard that out east in some race each vote cost $90 (advertising); maybe they should just pay each voter instead.

Here is a list in no particular order of all the other 'forces or influences' in the ununited states and world that really have nothing to do with voting. Can our elected politicians really control these things?

FED and BANKS The fed is really independent of the government and makes it's own rules for our money system.

RELIGIONS vs ANTI-RELIGION Many religions and many ideologies for/against God and gods which is a big influence of what is happening in the world today.

REGULATORS There are so many regulations made by innumerable agencies maybe just to keep their jobs relevant, it's a wonder how companies can do anything, and how many are hired just to be sure all regulations are followed?

WORLD MARKETS and MULTINATIONAL COMPANIES The jobs and factories go where the most favorable and profitable conditions exist.

MILITARY I think it is the biggest item in the US budget. It seems we are becoming the police of the world and the military seems to protect oil much of the time.

MEDIA Lots of ideas - who is right/wrong? It is nice we can all say something on the internet...

JUDGES and LAWYERS Not elected, and yet they seem to be making many rules/laws that we have today.

OPTIMISM/PESSIMISM Most folks are naturally pessimistic yet we seem to be better off than 50 or 100 years ago.

What do you think??

Trade Mark

That's the name an uncle called me years ago when i was a little kid. Then i would see it on many different things when learning to read. So that has been in my subconscious mind for a loong time.

My dad did a lot of trading in the stock market and brought me along downtown to visit his broker from time to time. Dad worked for the phone company and was always reading articles about new ideas and products like the transistor and studied companies for new trading ideas. Maybe i should have paid more attention. He sure would have loved the computer and charts that we have today along with unlimited, endless information.

That was back in the 50's and 60's.

In 1970 i moved to Alaska. I was poor and sold any stocks i had left to build a house for Lois Ann and me. In 1976 i got a great job at the huge ammonia/urea plant. Anyone who works these types of jobs knows that you see LOTS of charts for pressures, temperatures, flows, levels etc. Eventually that kind of job; all tied in together with personal computers and discount brokers and 401k's and savings got me back into being 'Trade Mark' again. That was the 80's and 90's. Also, a gradual shift was taking place where more responsibility was given to each person to take care of their own retirement instead of the company or government doing it all for you.

We all had to learn about investments or trading, whether we wanted to or not. When you trade using charts it called technical analysis. This comes sort of natural because of 30+ years of looking at charts every two hours and more at work.

Below are 4 great websites that i check out almost every day when it is good to be in the market:

1. http://www.stockmarketmentor.com/ is a good pay site that taught me a lot about using Bollinger Bands to trade. Dan Fitzpatrick also trains you to use stops and become a risk manager. There is free info on this site also.

2. Richard Lehman at http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/Favorites.CServlet?obj=ID1399335 uses 5 min, hourly, and longer term charts with channels on many indexes to show you where the market is going. It is amazing how often these channel lines contain the price. The last chapters of his book explain this channel system. See his other website www.Channelist.com for more information.

3. Another great one from the public chartlist on stockcharts is Joanne Klein's "Above the Green Line" http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/Favorites.CServlet?obj=ID3387040 The Green line is a 250 day moving average and page 1 has the highest momentum ETF's and page 2 has the highest momentum stocks. The Relative Strengths are above 90. It is worthwhile to study her trading method!

4. http://blog.kimblechartingsolutions.com/ is a site you must see!! Every chart has a picture for us art fans. You learn about bullish falling wedges and bearish rising wedges, ascending triangles, support, resistance... and above all else, the best times to HARVEST!!!

During hockey season i do a lot of trading. Not so much in the summer. Just trying to make enough to stay retired and comfortable. Hope this helps anyone who thinks the stock market is a mystery.

Emery has moved

If most of you have been checking out Facebook you know that John and Heidi have moved to Tacoma Washington. John is now a regional director for Samaritans Purse - Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska. We are missing them and especially Emery. Hopefully we'll get down to see them often.

Grandma painting Emery's toes.
Emery looks a little sad about moving.
Showing Christoffer her doll.
One of my favorite things was watching Emery peel a mandarin orange and then divide it into sections. She uses all her muscles in her tiny fingers and hands, and concentrates on the task at hand. Grandpa taught her how to do it.

It was really great to have them up here for about 10 months and see Emery grow up. I had forgotten what it was like with our kids.