Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Three of Nine

Day 3 

10:00AM – En route to Blarney Castle

We checked out of the hostel at around 10:00AM. Breakfast was toast with jam and tea. We crossed a river to get to some of the shopping places nearby. Some of us looked to buy some souvenirs, but most places were closed because it happened to be a bank holiday. This was the first time I would be driving on the other side of the road. But, I was not nervous at all. After walking around the shopping plaza, we drove to Blarney Castle, which was about twenty minutes away from our hostel. Just before we hit the castle, we saw a “swap meet”. We paid the 2€ fee and started to walk around. Most of the things people were selling were junk from their homes. However, I did see some Germany military medals, old coins, and stamps. We stopped to buy some apple pie from some cute Irish girls. They seemed to be having a bake sale.

12:00PM – Blarney Castle and House

The castle was about an eight minute walk from the “swap meet”. We debated whether or not we should move the car, but by the time we came to a decision, we had already walked there. For the 12€ student price, we entered the huge ridiculous estate. It had to of been at least 20 acres. The castle and estate have been passed on generation after generation with the intent of never to be sold. Most estates are expensive to maintain, therefore have been converted into golf courses or museums. However, the Blarney Castle’s revenue from tourists has been able to fund the estate. The estate also has a river that runs through the estate called the Blarney River. Rumor is that there is a gold plate in the river, however it has been said that previous owners have tried to drain the river, but have not been able to find the plate. We toured the Blarney house and it was amazing just to think that people still live on the estate. It housed old paintings and portraits of the family. The youngest of the family born in 1991 have gone off to college. It is rather insane to imagine being born with that much wealth. Originally the family received the land from the King as someone in the family had led the country to victory in several wars. Surprisingly the couple prepares their own breakfast and they only have one maid in the house. One of the rooms has a lift that goes to the kitchen. Food was brought up directly from the kitchen. There was also a table whereby you would put money in a drawer and then it would go down into a vault. The house had old antiques that dated hundreds of years. We walked to the castle, which was at least 300M away. It was a legitimate castle made of stone. Then we climbed the narrow stone stairs up to the top and there we kissed the blarney stone. According to legend, kissing the stone endows the kisser with great eloquence or skill at flattery. It was pretty difficult to kiss the stone as we had to lean over the edge backwards. Rumor is that the king had put the stone in a difficult to reach place to prevent people being able to reach it.

4:00PM – Off to Kinsale

Kinsale is a small town south of Cork. We had heard from other tourists that there was a terrific seafood restaurant called Fishy Fishy. But, before heading to Kinsale we detoured to the Cork Airport to get our cigarette fuse box fixed to charge our GPS. While at Budget cars, we had to open the control box, which was underneath the driver’s steering panel. Then took out the fuse that was disconnected. It took the mechanic and us a while to find the correct fuse because we were looking at the wrong fuse box manual. When we did find it, it was a quick fuse swap and then we were on our way. We drove to Kinsale. My first impression was that it was similar to fisherman’s wharf in SF. Of course it was a bit smaller and crowded. The people in Ireland have got to be the friendliest people. We stopped a friendly drunk Irish man to ask for directions to Fishy Fishy. He had his arm around one of my buddies and repeated the directions twice to make sure we understood. We ate at Fishy Fishy and it was amazing despite the fact that it was a pricey meal. The group ended up playing credit card roulette and I ended up paying half the bill (45€) Then we got honeycomb ice cream, which tastes like vanilla and caramel bits mixed in. This is my favorite flavor in Ireland. If you do not know already, Ireland’s ice cream is delicious. My guess is that this is the result of the farm animals being so well fed. Literally the entire country is covered in green grass. I did not once see any yellow grass. In any event, I digress. After ice cream, I bought a 2€ scratcher, which did not win me money.

6:00PM – Headed to Killarney

It was a two hour drive to Killarney from Kinsale. We arrived at Neptune’s Killarney hostel at around 8pm. This hostel had nicer bathrooms than the one we previously stayed at. Like most other hostels we stayed at, breakfast was complimentary as consisted of toast with jam and coffee/tea. We immediately went to hit some bars. The first bar we went to was called O’Connor’s Traditional Pub. Evidently it was a touristy location as we saw a bunch of dollar bills hung from the walls. We went to a second dark pub and it had live music, but then immediately went to a third pub. The third pub was more traditional and had live old school Irish music. It was interesting, but we quickly became hungry. As you may have noticed already, in Ireland food places close at around 8pm. The only places still open were fast food places which served oily fries (chips) and burgers. After we ate at the fast food place, we went to another Pub called the Killarney Grand. This pub actually had an interesting mix of people. While there were young people, I also saw some older people. At the end of the pub, there was a nightclub, which went largely unoccupied the entire night. We ordered some Bulmer’s cider beers and then meet a couple other travelers. At around this time, the live band J90 started to play some sick music. They covered all the popular American songs and they were quite good. I met a French girl and we hit it off, so I bought her a Guinness pint. But then I had my eye on this other girl who ended up dancing in front of me. My buddy hit it off with a German girl. They exchanged emails and she even offered to have her cousin show him around in Germany. We finished the night at around 2AM.

Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Four of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Five of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Two of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Zero/One of Nine

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What is a Good Idea for a First Date?

First dates are nerve-racking. Where should I take her? What should we do? These are common questions we have especially if we don’t know what she likes to do. 

 Here is some advice. 


1) Pick somewhere chill. Not somewhere that is too loud (e.g. bar or club), but has a good fun vibe. It’s too difficult to hear in a bar or club. Personally, I dislike theater movies as first dates because you can’t talk during the movie. You come out of the movie not knowing anymore about her than you did going into the movie. 


2) Save the extravagant activity (i.e. wine tasting) for a third or fourth date. A cooking class or wine tasting will be difficult to follow up. If you set the bar high, then the expectation is that you keep that up. 


3) Invite her to dinner. If you see that the date is going well then you can suggest going to get dessert or coffee afterwards. That way if you are thirty minutes into the date and you want out, you know you won’t have to wait till after coffee. 


4) Do an activity (e.g. walking, hiking, or biking). Engaging activities can lead to great conversations. Plus it gives you another thing to talk about.

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Bank of America (BAC): How Do the Next Couple Weeks Look?

Bank of America performed strong the first part of the year by nearly doubling it’s stock value in less than three months from about $5.5 to $10. We all knew that this was not sustainable. Sure enough, by the end of March, the stock began to reverse and took a big tumble back to below $7.

The 20 day moving average crossed the 50 day moving average on the last week of April. There was a downward trend, which began during the last few weeks of March and continued until mid-May. The third week of May provided the first indication of a reversal. Since then it has moved up against the 20 day moving average of approximately 8.18. The move has been relatively strong, as indicated by the on balance volume or OBV. However, in comparison with the OBV earlier in the year, it does not look strong.

Below is the eleven month BAC weekly chart.

   

From the below daily chart, we can see that there is strong resistance at just below $8.5. Furthermore, we can see that it is overbought at the moment with the Stochastic Oscillator at 81. In the short term, there might be some tough headwinds to overcome for this stock to shoot up. But, we will find out soon enough as earnings reports are in early July.

Disclaimer: This article is written for informational purposes only and isn’t intended as investment advice.

Disclosure: I am long BAC.

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Big 4 Accounting Audit – An Introduction

Presenting…Big 4 Accounting Audit – An Introduction

Contrary to popular belief, being an accountant or auditor is not just working with numbers in front of a desk all day long. It is much more than that. You must be thinking, what else is it? 

Inside this seventeen page Big 4 Accounting – Audit introductory guide, we will answer the following questions:

What Exactly is Public Accounting?

– A simplistic break down for anyone to understand.
– More specifically this section answers what the role of an auditor fulfills 

What are the Benefits of Working in Public Accounting?

– Eight reasons why you should work in Public Accounting
– Learn what Public Accounting can offer that other industries cannot.

How to Break into the Industry (Public Accounting)? (Including Industry Specific Interview Tips)

– A brief but thorough breakdown of the entire interview process including types of questions asked
– Understand what the interviewers are looking
– Longest and most insightful portion of the book

Here are three pages for FREE!

What are you waiting for? Don’t pay $20 or even $10. For a limited time get this book for  only $7.95. Get the real deal!

Update: The promotional price of $7.95 will extend till the end of July 2012 and then will be raised to $10. Get it while it is at this price!

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Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Two of Nine

Day 2 

8:30AM – Woke up to a chilling 40 degrees F

We are not used to this chilly weather. I surprised myself by waking up so early. Of course the others were still sleeping. I walked down the stairs to get some complimentary breakfast in the kitchen. Don’t get too excited, this is not a five star hotel. Breakfast was cereal with milk and toast with blueberry jam. I met an older man. After speaking with him for twenty minutes, I found out that he is originally from Long Beach, worked in Silicon Valley, and lived in Holland for a while. He was maybe in his late 50s. That is my best guess is based on the fact that he said he had grandchildren. While chilling on the couch, I chatted with a young Australian chick. She had just graduated college and did a semester abroad in Barcelona. She just found a job in the Temple Bar area and has been traveling alone for a couple months now. Unfortunately, I didn’t get her name.

 10:30AM – Pick up our car from Budget

If you didn’t know already, most people in Europe drive manual stick-shift cars. Unfortunately none of us knew how to drive a manual car. We opted for the automatic, but even then we were in for a new experience. In Ireland they drive on the left side of the road and the driver’s seat is on the right side versus the left in the US. We took a taxi to the nearest Budget in Dublin. They have two locations in Dublin; one in the airport and the other downtown. We rented a Ford Mondeo Diesel, which seats five, for about 42€ a day excluding insurance and GPS. The GPS was about $13€ a day. It took us a while to figure out how to drive on the other side of the road. We took turns driving. The issue we ran into was that all of would stay too close to the left side of the road and thereby graze the side of our car against bushes. We picked up some burritos on the way to the Wicklow National Park.

1:00PM – Driving to Cork via Wicklow National Park, Kilkenny, and Rock of Cashel

Did I mention that the weather in Ireland is ridiculously cold? Our plan was to stop by the Wicklow National Park on our way to Cork. Our GPS didn’t have an address for the national park, but we did get an address close to it. The roads were narrow and lacked street signs, so we had one navigator while another one of us drove. We stopped by some scenic areas and even saw ruins of a castle. It was far too chilly and windy to stay long in the national park. We continued on to Kilkenny and stopped by Kilkenny Castle. Our first castle in Ireland! The castle was originally built for a military leader, but later became the house of the Butler family. The Walter families were butlers to the King at the time and were given 10% of all wine tax (imposed on all imported wine) and land. They had changed their name to Butler later on. Much of the castle is now house-like, which included a dining room and drawing room. Most of the items in the castle were from the time, but were not originally from the castle. They had one or two items that were originally from the castle in each room.

4:30PM – Early dinner and food run at The Field Bar

We stopped by the Field Bar, which was located across from the Kilkenny castle. We had a Kilkenny local beer. It was not as bitter as an IPA, I enjoyed it. The waitress was a short cute Irish girl. If I didn’t know any better, she probably must have been 18. We had no idea what to order, so we asked her what her favorite dish was. She said she was vegan and only ate sandwiches. When we followed up and ask her what kind of sandwich, she said BLT. I thought to myself, doesn’t the BLT include bacon. I must have misheard. In any event, we ended up sharing a chicken and steak dish. We met who seemed like the owner of the place and he asked how long we were staying in Ireland. He mentioned that he lived in California for a while and is a huge Portland Trailblazer fan and detests the Lakers. As we walked out of the bar, a band walked in. However, we did stop by another bar for a while to listen to live music.

6:00PM – En route to Cork via Rock of Cashel

By this time, most touristy places are closed. Nonetheless, our journey took us to the Rock of Cashel. As expected, the castle was closed when we arrived. However, we stopped by to see the castle from the outside. Surrounding the castle was green grass and what must have been forty sheep. The castle looked like it was partially under construction. We saw that it had some wooden sticks and plastic coverings at the very top. Like with most trips, they don’t go as planned. We noticed that our GPS was not charging in the cigarette lighter. After calling Budget, we drove to Cork Airport to get it fixed. By the time we arrived, the repair center had closed. So, we swapped our GPS and were told to come back tomorrow to get the fuse fixed. What a bummer!

Rock of Cashel with Sheep

9:00PM – Checked into Kinlay House Cork hostel

We headed to Cork and checked into Kinlay House Cork hostel late. This hostel reminded me of college dorms, except that it was not well lit. That part of it reminded me of an insane asylum. Especially since the doors had small rectangular windows in them. We had two bunk beds and our luggage barely fit inside the room. The sun had set already and it had to have been past 9:00pm. This meant that we would have a difficult time finding good food as most places have closed already. We met two girls from Canada, who were Dutch. Some of us played games this Dutch card game with them. They had already been in Ireland for two weeks now. Incidentally, we also met the old man we saw in our Dublin hostel. We headed out to get some dinner. It took us a while to find a place that was open that still served food. Most places that were open around this time were drinking places. The only place open was a shitty burger place. It started raining, so right after we headed back to the hostel to retire for the night.

Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Three of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Four of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Five of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Zero/One of Nine

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Outlook For The Price Of Gold

As far as investments go, gold bullion is one of the most interesting assets available, simply because it tends to operate with somewhat of an inverse relationship to general economic trends. This is an odd concept, but the reasoning behind it is quite simple. The value of raw gold bullion is far less volatile than virtually any other stock or commodity available for investment, which makes it one of your more stable options. For this reason, most people who invest in gold do so to preserve their wealth, rather than to enhance it. As economies and monetary values ebb and flow, gold remains relatively concrete, which means that whatever money you put into this resource remains unscathed by declines in monetary value.

The result of all of this is that when economies are unstable or the value of the dollar or euro is in decline, many people flock to various gold investment websites to start protecting their wealth. Invest in gold at Bullion Vault, for example, and you will have easy control over your assets, so that you can watch your value and withdraw your money or gold whenever you see fit. However, beyond the simple concept of why and how people invest in gold, is now a good time to do so?

So far in 2012, the price of gold has stayed relatively high, making this resource a strong investment. Meanwhile, the eurozone has been something of a mess, and the US economy has certainly seen better days. Furthermore, the US Federal Reserve announced early in 2012 that it would keep interest rates low for another couple of years. This, combined with general inflation, serves to create a sensible market for gold bullion investors. Simply put, it may be that for the next few years your savings would be better off in the form of gold bullion than in money.

There are, however, those who caution investors because the US economy is actually showing signs of improvement, and the dollar has strengthened in recent months. If these trends continue, it may actually be a good time to get out of gold bullion and trust cash value. However, particularly due to the aforementioned decision to keep interest rates low through 2014, most experts suggest that the US dollar will still be less than reliable over the course of the next few years. Generally, with investments that are geared more toward protection than gains, it is a good idea to keep an eye on the longer term outlook, which may mean that – if you trust that the US dollar will remain somewhat unreliable – gold investments may be a good idea for another few years at least.

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Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Zero/One of Nine

Day 0 

12:00pm – Arrived at LAX Airport

2:00pm – Leaving for Dublin Airport (DUB) via Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (4 Hr Layover; 12 Hr flight time)

KLM- Royal Dutch Airlines has surprisingly good airplane food. My first meal on this flight was scrambled eggs with potatoes, mixed fruits and yogurt parfait. Each of our seats included personal TVs, which showed recent movies and stored single and multiplayer games. This is standard on international flights.

Day 1

9:00AM – Arrived in Amsterdam – Schiphol (AMS)

The group debated whether or not to go into the city with a 4 hour layover we thought it was cutting it close to be entering a city we were not already familiar with. Instead we used the time to figure out the train routes into Amsterdam and how to purchase train tickets.

1:00PM – Flown from AMS to DUB (1 Hr and 30 Min flight time)

We exited the airport and immediately searched for public transportation. We took Bus 16A into Dublin downtown, which cost about 2€ (1€= 1.3 USD). We asked someone sitting next to us which stop was O’Connell Street. He said he didn’t have a clue. Luckily for us an older lady was able to let us know when we needed to get off. While in the bus, we saw some interesting restaurant signs. Apparently they call ‘take out’, ‘take away’ in Ireland. The street signs are impossible to see. They aren’t like those in the states. They have license plate sized street signs tacked on the corner of their buildings some three stories up. Who can see that? After we got off the 30 minute bus ride, like the tourists we were, we rolled our luggage to the hostel. This was when I wished I had a true backpacking backpack.

3:00PM – We arrived at the Liffey Hostel (aka Litton Lane)

The hostel entrance was in an alley, which made it extremely difficult to find. My first impression of the hostel was that it was a music studio artsy lounge. When you first enter you’ll see the reception to your left and then to your right you’ll see a common room. The common room held a couple couches, computers, and a TV. It was decorated with records and artsy picture of famous Irish artists including U2. This room led to the kitchen which was a fair size with a couple foldable tables and some chairs. The second, third, and I believe fourth floor had all the room and shared bathrooms/showers. When we walked up the stairs, on each floor you would see murals of famous singers. Incidentally, the receptionist mentioned to us that this used to be a music studio, however because the equipment became a pain to bring up and down the stairs it was converted into a hostel. This was the first time I had lived in a hostel. Generally speaking, people who stay at hostels are nice and outgoing individuals.

5:00PM – Dinner at Messrs Maguire in Dublin

We had skipped lunch due to our flight time overlapping with lunch. Although the flight from the Netherlands to Ireland is technically an international flight, the fact that it was only an hour and a half meant that a meal would not be provided. We asked people at the hostel what were some good places to eat. They recommended Messrs Maguire, which used to be a library, and the Church Bar, which used to be a church, but now is a bar/restaurant. We ended up in both places at the end of the night. Maguire was more of a pub like atmosphere than the Church, which seemed more high-end.

Church Bar 

8:00PM – Walked around downtown Dublin

Nightlife in Dublin is lively to say the least. Everywhere you turn there are packed pubs with live Irish music. People are walking all around. There is constant chatter in the cold air. We crossed the River Liffey to get to famous touristy places such as Temple Bar and the Bank of Ireland (IRE). Temple Bar was packed and has now become such a touristy place that locals no longer go here. Also, their beers are said to be overpriced. In general, beers in Ireland were around 5€ or $6.50 USD. The food was a lot more expensive. Generally speaking, the prices were 1/3 more than they were in the states. For example if a meal was $11.5 USD, in Ireland that same meal would have been 15€. If we adjust for foreign exchange that meal would have been about $19.5 USD.

Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Two of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Three of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Four of Nine
Ireland – The Emerald Isle – Day Five of Nine

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Prof Deepak Malhotra – Harvard Business School – Speech to Graduating Harvard MBA Students with Summary

Tragedy and Genius 

Deepak Malhotra is a professor in the negotiations organizations and markets unit at the Harvard Business School. Professor Malhotra has published numerous books including the most recent I Moved your Cheese has been translated into fifteen languages. His research focuses on negotiation strategy, trust development, competitive escalation, and international and ethnic dispute resolution.

Notable discussion points and quotes

Quit early and quit often. Be the best quitter you know. 

Close your eyes and imagine what you are going to be doing after you graduate. Ask yourself: Am I really excited about this? Is this what I always wanted to be doing at this stage of life? Is this what I dreamed of doing? Is this what I really really want to do? If the answer is no, I suggest you quit and you quit now. And save yourself some time.

Two things I’ll say about quitting before we move on to something else. First, I’m not saying quit something because its hard. I’m telling you to quit something because it sucks. It’s just not for you. It maybe for everyone sitting near to you, but it’s not for you. Quit it. Don’t spend years justifying why you got to do it. If you have the opportunity quit. The second thing, I’ll say. Quitting is not for the weak. Quitting takes strength. Quitting often takes more strength than perseverance. Cultivate the strength to quit and make it a habit. It allows you to say no to a lot of things and yes to the few things that maybe you didn’t even know were perfect for you.

Now of course after all this quitting you’ll have to do something in your life. What job should you take? Make sure what you are doing creates value. There are two kinds of people. There are those who figure out how to create value first and then worry about how much money they will make later. There are those who figure out to make money, but don’t really create value for anyone. We call these people thieves. Don’t be a thief.

Learn to see the world in gentler eyes. What does matter is how much you are willing to understand people on the other side.

Empathy matters most when you are dealing with people who seem to deserve it least. Before we have empathy, we have to have humility. Humility and confidence are not enemies. They are best friends. If you have one or the other you are in trouble. People with lots of humility and no confidence are not doing too much. But the people with all the confidence in world, but no humility. I see one of those people and I see a person about to go down in flames. You got to have both. Yes, it can be done. What are the limits that I can do on my own?

You got to get your learn on. We walk into a situation with preconceived notions about it is that I should learn. You are going to learn a lot more if you are not so picky about who you are going to learn from and what you learn. If you are open to the idea of learning from every experience that you are having.

Stay in touch with your teachers. They invest in a lot in you. Reach out and let them know how you are doing.

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