The picture is from the Bannie Fire last July. I probably mentioned it at the time but it was the longest hike I've been on to go fight a fire, the terrain getting there was pretty close to vertical and although not captured in the picture very well the hill the fire was on was also steep. The actual fire was not a big deal at all even by our standards; less than an acre and not a lot of flame (you can see some just to the left of me as you look at the picture).The reason for the picture today is to make a point that hopefully has use in investing and other aspects of life. On my right hip you see a big black thing, that is my fire shelter which is essentially an aluminum foil sleeping bag thing that one would deploy as a last resort in a wildfire.
Yesterday I participated in an all day regional fire exercise. I was decked out as you see me in the picture all day as we did various related field exercises. For someone who is just going to be working on a fire for a day the fire shelter is going to be the heaviest thing by far they have on them at least for me it is. As Friday wore on I started getting a cramp of sorts, more like an ache, near the shelter. So I thought about it for a minute and realized, duh I'm lopsided. The reason to have the shelter where it is, instead of at the back of the fire pack is that it is much easier to get to right there.
As day today was just an exercise and not a fire there was zero sense of adrenaline and so I never noticed before. When I had a minute I reconfigured the pack to put the shelter behind me (still easily reachable because when a firefighter does deploy they are supposed to take their pack off. I made a funny comment about it (making fun of myself) to a couple of guys on the crew I was assigned to and one said "it changed your life, didn't it?"
While we'll see what happens this summer (or hopefully not), maybe the hike to the Bannie fire would have been easier had I been a little smarter with how my pack was configured. I have had the pack configured that way for the last six fire seasons (had a different pack before then) and did not know it was making it more difficult, a couple of minutes reconfiguring and bam, it changed my life.
However savvy one might be with their portfolio construction and cycle navigation there are probably little things they do that creates the effect of causing an unnecessary ache, so to speak. My little discovery came after 20 minutes of working on a fire line where there was no fire. A similar type of discovery about investing is unlikely to come so quickly which is why it is important to continue to invest time learning more.
11 comments:
Roger, for what its worth. From time to time it is a good idea to check your birth certificate for a "born on date". One day that little ache will be in the form of chest pains and that could possibly be a "black swan" event. Good luck and thanks for the work you do-on and off the field.
my family has only one heart attack (one grandfather) but there are moderate cholesterol issues. I get about five hours a week of vigorous exercise a week in during the winter (plus snow shoveling) and add another 2-3 hours for hiking on Sunday's during the warmer months to try keep healthy.
Keeping a light exercise schedule, and doing such things as parking a block or two from where I am going and walking, as well as taking beach walks where the sand is a not tight suits me. Importantly, having a forgiving temperament and doing good works such as volunteering to reduce stress have as great an impact upon longevity as sweating out at some workout facility.
My goal is to be shot dead at age 114 by a jealous husband.
T
you bumped it up from 110?
LOL
I have quoted you several times on that.
I relish finding small changes that are all faster, lighter, cheaper, or all around better!
Got an "adjust the backpack" idea you may find interesting: Low debt/GDP ratio countries are not all created equal and should be divided further into low and high surplus countries when re-balancing/re-weighting because high surplus countries have additional risks due to the fact they are export-oriented countries vulnerable to the economic policies of the countries their trading partners whose debt/currencies they own.
Martin Wolf at http://tinyurl.com/yj63j8j states the problem this way:
"Behind all this is a fundamental divide. Surplus countries insist on continuing just as before. But they refuse to accept that their reliance on export surpluses must rebound upon themselves, once their customers go broke. Indeed, that is just what is happening. Meanwhile, countries that ran huge external deficits in the past can cut the massive fiscal deficits that result from post-bubble deleveraging by their private sectors only via a big surge in their net exports…..
In this battle, the surplus countries are most unlikely to win. A disruption of the eurozone would be very bad for German manufacturing. A US resort to protectionism would be very bad for China. Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. It is not too late to look for co-operative solutions. Both sides have to seek to adjust. Forget all the self-righteous moralising. Try some plain common sense, instead."
Now the interesting question is, what low debt/gdp ratio countries remain?
OT: Sympathies to the guy rooting NW bracket, Washington couldn't hold on. And where did Butler come from?
Norway, Denmark Finland per Bill Gross' ring of fire
Norway, Denmark, Finland...
OMG - damn socialistic places have captured your fancy. You are not a patriot if you invest there.
Those dens of inequity will be your ruin AND they are secretly planning to take over the United States.
enjoyed this story. thanks for sharing.
mt
Agree, great story Roger. Keep up the good work with this blog, it's always been one of my favs
Anon 11:23, you are right! No, wait, I mean you are left ...crikey, they're even taking our language away ...Wouldn't surprise me if those crazy Keynesians were secretly behind it all, probably hiding behind Queen Margrethe's skirts, the sneaky buggers.
Whoa now, wasn't Keynes who said, "[I]f you owe your bank manager a thousand pounds, you are at his mercy. If you owe him a million pounds, he is at your mercy." :-O
Jingoistic socialists and nefarious economists aside, training global capital flows onto those tiny Northern markets would probably be like filling a thimble with a fire hose so ...any other low-debt countries out there w/o extremely large surpluses?
Probably makes more sense to look at the reserve mix to judge how vulnerable a surplus country is to specific trading partners and then assess the probability of any given trading partner defaulting, becoming protectionist or monetizing. I've always found the China Financial Markets blog at http://mpettis.com/ useful and his topics now seem particularly timely. Back to the drawing board.
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