RE: RE: Are most of the posters here I think somewhere along the way, I have posted this anyway but here we go.
I grew up oldest in a large working class family. I live about an hour from Dr Mike in the town of Waterloo, Ontario and may well have bicycled past his home on journeys that I undertake with my eldest daughter. My town is home to RIM, various sausage producers, Mennonites, several declining insurance companies and two universities. I studied electrical engineering with minors in theoretical physics and english. I suspect I can kick diamond's a$$ at "Calculous". Due to my adventures and background, I can communicate poorly in an odd mix of languages (Slovak, Tamil and Hindi but sadly very little french).
I'm a father of 3 girls aged 7,8 and 13. They keep me very busy. I worked in my field of training for about eight years although with an increasing emphasis on software over time. I started a business out of home when I went on parenting leave about 7 years ago. That has since evolved into a small company. We do custom website development and software consulting with an emphasis on e-Learning and commerce applications. Web marketing factors more and more into my business these days.
Investing has been a sideline for me for about 5 years. I read a lot and am self taught. I tried to invest by the guidelines suggested by my friendly bank advisors but quickly learned that was going nowhere. Last recession changed my trading style to very short term day and swing trading and I did well with that and also picked up a few plays on the cheap and held on to them. Over the past 2-3 years, I have shored up a respectable amount of capital compared to where I started. I've been making renewed attempts at being a "real" investor. I have been trying to shift towards more long term, value investing although I still trade quite a bit particularly as I try to "find bottom" on a stock..
I have no desire to retire by the time I'm 45 like Mr Tellier but I do have some hopes to take some of the educational aspects of my business towards a non-profit application helping make education more accessible in some developing countries where I have spent time. I am actually fairly far along in this process and am hoping my investing adventures will help fund some of it.
Oh, and I have had the Toronto Maple Leafs forced down my throat since birth by the CBC. Though I wish them well, they have not won the cup in my lifetime and I hold out no hope that they will. I am a Canucks fan and a Habs fan after my grandfather. However, I enjoy the success of pretty much all Canadian teams.
That's all you will get out of me. I hope this isn't enough information for certain posters to show up at my door in their martial arts gear because that would be truly SCAAAAAAREY :)
Mark