Weekend Reading: Happy Mother’s Day Edition + Announcing the iPad Winners + My Trip to Grenada and Some News

Hi everyone,

Happy Mother’s Day to all of the great mothers and grandmothers out there! Your job is the most important in the world: raising the next generation. Props to all of you. 🙂

Recent posts

It’s been a while since I published a weekend edition, so here are all of the posts that you may have missed:

• How These Mental Anchors Are Seriously Holding You Back in Life
• How to Register a Canadian Corporation
• You’ve Just Registered a Canadian Corporation: What’s Next?
• Top Personal Finance Posts to Help You Achieve Financial Freedom
• 5 Tips on How to Eliminate Distractions and Increase Your Productivity
• Getting Screwed Out of Your Hard-Earned Capital: How CDs and GICs Are Rip-Offs for Long-term Investing

News

I recently returned from a trip to Grenada. My girlfriend was there on business, and I joined her to spend the time together. Yes, I was spoiled with sun and warm waves. 😉 However, since she was there on business, I also worked during the day. It was really easy to get most things done on the Mac, though I didn’t find a reasonable replacement for Paint.NET so some stuff was a bit of a pain, like processing screen shots or doing diagrams for the book I’m working on.

During the evening we took a bit of time to swim at the beach or pool, and eat with her coworkers. The weather was really great the first week, though it started to rain every day in the second week. It was still warm and pleasant.

The resort was also quiet, since it’s low season now. The first day I managed to piss off a guy selling spice necklaces since I wasn’t interested. There’s more pressure on the local merchants since tourism plays such a big part of the economy, and the last cruise ship of the season docked while we were there. I ended up buying another necklace later from another beach merchant. For some reason, they all kept trying to sell me “Ganja” when they learned that I was from Canada. Do we Canadians have a reputation as being big potheads? 😉 Needless to say, I declined but I was amused.

The trip overall was really nice, and even though it wasn’t supposed to be a vacation, it was almost like a honeymoon for us, having that resort almost all to ourselves. The only real downside of the trip is that we got completely massacred by sandflies on the weekend we rented a car and drove up to Belmont Estate, an organic chocolate plantation. We both got over 30 bites on our legs each, and there were nights where it was SO itchy that we couldn’t get any sleep. That’s the downside of warm countries — the insects seem to be hungrier and more aggressive!

This trip is the main reason you’ve seen less weekend editions and stuff from me, as I focused the limited time I had on building the business. I think I’m going to take it easy with blogging in general, but don’t worry, I have no intentions of quitting. 🙂

I also ran into a couple of my old coworkers on the flight back home, which was a really big coincidence. They were coming back from Australia, where they had been on business. My old company is now a shadow of its former size, but at least they still have jobs and things seem better since the latest acquisition.

iPad Winners

I’m also happy to announce the winners of “Two Years of Blogging: My Thoughts, and an iPad 3 (The “New Ipad”) Giveaway + Other Great Prizes!“:

• Rebby
• Julian
• Katy M.

Congrats guys, and don’t forget to answer your emails so you can claim your prize!

Weekend Reading

Career

• Best Freelance Websites Reviewed
• Career Tips For Young Folks
• Don’t Quit Your Job To Follow Your Dream
• Is an MBA Really Worth the Cost?
• Let’s Solve Your Most Common Freelancing Problems
• Looking for a Job after University
• Taking A Sabbatical And Potentially Never Coming Back!
• The Difference Between Tech and Non-Tech Companies
• What Did You Learn From Working as a Teenager?

Investing

• Adding Gold and Silver to Your Investment Portfolio
• Das Gold der Notenbanken – Funktion und Bedeutung (An interesting take by a German Banker on the role of Gold in the banking system)
• Eagle Energy Trust: Permian Basin Asset Ensures Sustainability
• Why Hold High Yield Stocks

Miscellaneous

• 4 Tips to Boost Your Self-Confidence
• Benefits of the Great Outdoors
• Do I Look Like a Bathroom to You?
• On authenticity in blogging
• Restaurants Not Accepting Credit Cards
• There Is No Such Thing as a Free Lunch (TINSTAAFL)

Personal Finance

• How Much Money is Enough?
• My struggle with GDSR and TDSR
• Student Loan Debt Destroying Quality of Life
• ‘WHY ME’ THINKING IS TOXIC IN FINANCES AND IN LIFE

Retirement

• Retirement Reality Check
• Turning 60: Some Things To Consider

Have a great weekend, all! 🙂