Last night I had the good fortune to
meet two inspirational people on the tube home. One had hardly any sight after
a bad accident years previously, his companion was completely blind from birth.
They were on their way to a dance class in Central London, navigating their own
way around the tube. You could see it was stressful for them but they managed
their way around with very good humour and grace, which was doubly impressive
given it was rush hour and the train was rammed. Despite the disability, they'd
obviously both made a decision to get on with life in the best way they could,
which was pretty humbling to be honest. Not only that, the gentleman who was
completely blind was a concert grade viola player and pianist. When I said wow
and asked how he managed to do that he just laughed and said "practice
every day".
Tuesday, 21 October 2014
Friday, 17 October 2014
Not a stock tip
I’m no Warren Buffett, but one of these shares feels a bit
like his famous purchase of Sanborn Map Company (““We got hold of assets at a
steep discount with a map company thrown in for free.”) :
·
Amazon.com (AMZN): internet mega retailer. Makes a measly 1% margin, pays no dividend, valued
at 804 years worth of earnings
·
Netflix.com (NFLX): internet streaming provider. Roughly 0.5% margin, no dividend, valued at 91
years worth of earnings
·
Seadrill (SDRL): rents out oil rigs for deep
water exploration. 50% margin, (very)
generous dividend, valued at 3 years of earnings
|
Company
|
Share Price
|
Mkt Cap
|
Revenue
|
Net Profit
|
Annual Dividend
|
Yield
|
Price/Earnings
Ratio
|
|
$305
|
$141bn
|
$74.4bn
|
$745 million
|
-
|
-
|
804
|
|
|
$343
|
$21bn
|
$4.3bn
|
$203 million
|
-
|
-
|
91
|
|
|
$23
|
$11.5bn
|
$5.2bn
|
$2.78bn
|
$4 per share
|
~17%
|
2.7
|
In the interests of balance:
Monday, 13 October 2014
Mr Money Mustache
I like this chap's blog: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/
It's thought provoking, entertaining and informative.
First post: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/06/meet-mr-money-mustache/
Classic Posts: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/category/mmm-classics/
All posts: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/all-the-posts-since-the-beginning-of-time/
It's thought provoking, entertaining and informative.
First post: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/04/06/meet-mr-money-mustache/
Classic Posts: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/category/mmm-classics/
All posts: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/all-the-posts-since-the-beginning-of-time/
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
One Day Like This a year will see me right, for life
At 5am on Sunday morning, in a muddy woodland in Sussex, I was
sleepwalking and weaving my way slowly round the 24 hour Ultra Trail Run
Challenge. 15 hours into the race but
still with 9 to go, we were bang on our schedule
but with no contingency whatsoever, everything was hurting, energy levels were
low, and all I wanted to do was stop and close my eyes for a few precious
minutes of sleep. My buddy James had
fallen in a pond and needed an entire change of kit, and my other buddies David
and Jamie were silently enduring their own agonies. For a while, our race and my dreams of
qualifying for Spartathlon (the others already had it in the bag) were hanging
by a thread. By 6am, we were virtually
begging for the sun to come up, knowing that we’d get an energy boost and a
rise in spirits. What we didn’t realise
was quite what a miraculous impact it would have, and oh boy were we grateful. Four quick(ish) laps of the 2.12 mile loop
later and we had a 17 minute buffer on our target, leaving us roughly a
marathon to cover in 6 hours.
As you’d expect, this had all felt so much easier a few
hours previously. A leisurely drive down
to Sussex with Rosie and the kids, arriving around 2 hours before the start,
meant plenty of time for pre-race preparation, fuelling and banter with the
lads and other competitors. The race
start was at 2pm, it was a joy to have my wife and two boys on the start line (the
little ones trying to join in with the race…. “you can do it Daddy”, “go
Daddy!!” ) and cheering us through the first couple of laps. Despite some fairly persistent rain, we
ploughed steadily through the first marathon in around 4:30 hrs, chatting to
other competitors and generally enjoying ourselves. Our main chats were with a fantastic chap by
the name of Colin Searle, who’d done Spartathlon twice and was preparing
himself for a mountain ultra called The Spine taking place in January
2015. We also made sure to give the
usual “well dones” to anyone we passed or who passed us, it’s a friendly sport
ultra running!!
The course loop felt fairly straightforward at first: flat
round a lake, ascending gently through woods to a reasonable hill which was
walking only right from the start, a little jog along a flat wooded section
then another uphill walk, turn left and crash downhill past an angry swan then
a long flat grind to the transition point.
As evening turned into night time, we kept chugging along, rarely
stopping at transition for more than a few seconds at a time to grab some food
or drinks. We were helped massively by
support from Anthony Baring late in the evening and then by Bruce Paterson in
the dead of night. Bruce ran a few laps
with us carrying bottles of electrolyte which was an absolute godsend (thanks
Bruce!!).
For the last 6 hours it was just a case of keeping moving and
trying to stick to around 30 minutes per lap.
Although we were all utterly exhausted I think we knew we had the result
in the bag for probably the last 2 hours or so.
Coming in to the penultimate lap the good feelings started to beat the
exhausted feelings… “just one more time up this hill after this etc etc”, and
for the last lap we knew we had it…. 41 minutes to do 2.12 miles, I smiled
inside every step of the way (outside it was still a grimace). Down to the home straight for the final time
and there were Rosie and the kids again….”you’ve done it Dad, you’ve got 9
minutes left!”…. I don’t think I have
ever been so pleased to finish something in my life, cue massive hugs, big
smiles and very good feelings all round.
We finished with a total of 112.36 miles, achieving the 111.8 target for
Spartathlon qualification by a tiny margin.
Big thanks to all our supporters on the day: Rosie, Sam,
Luke, Anthony, Kirsty, Bruce, Chevs, Holly, Maisie, Grace, Bailey, we couldn’t
have done it without you. Also thanks to
lots of people on facebook for the messages of encouragement and support, it
really does help us.
Finally, a special mention to the race organisers TL Sports
Events (https://www.facebook.com/TLSportsEvents?fref=nf
) . A friendlier or more professional
bunch of people you could not hope to meet.
Everything about the organisation was first class, from the food laid on
to the timing equipment. I was
especially impressed with the constant stream of marshalls patrolling the
course making sure everyone was ok and towards the end even running alongside
us with water. Thank you Lee and the TL
Sports Team, you were great!
Race results can be found here: http://www.uksportstiming.co.uk/Results/24%20Hour%20lap%20results%202014.xlsx
In transition in the dead of night with Jamie and Colin
Time to spare! with (from left), David Bone, James Ellis, Sam, Jamie Holmes, Luke, me
Thursday, 2 October 2014
Everything is Awesome…
….. in the Lego Movie and in the world
of Google. Last week’s London Atmosphere
event showcased several Google products, primarily “Google for Work”, a
rebranded version of the old Enterprise suite.
It’s the same set of ideas as Enterprise but seems slicker, tighter and
with some interesting new features like Google
Drive. Ideas such as collaborative
document editing have been around for a while and just get better when deployed
with tools such as Hangouts. Google
claims to have signed up 5 million businesses, which makes me wonder why I’m
still using Microsoft Exchange/Outlook and a Blackberry that feels like it’s
from the Ark.
Whilst the bulk of the event was taken up with Google for
Work presentations and case studies, the most interesting and inspiring part
came when they gave a glimpse of major new projects like Google Glass and the
Driverless Car. I’m not massively in to
the whole Glass thing….. the idea of having a display right in front of my eye
kind of leaves me cold. But the
Driverless Car presentation was incredible.
It showed the Car being tested at Google HQ in Mountain View,
California, with members of the public being brought in to have a test
ride. Mostly these people seemed to be
completely wowed and enjoying themselves, and there was an amazing moment when
the car was used by a blind man who was moved to tears by the freedom such an
invention could bring to him.
The Driverless Car project has been around for a while and
it still seems uncertain whether Google will commercialise a vehicle themselves
or license technology to car manufacturers.
Nevertheless, this thing is a long way down the road and it’s coming to
the UK for testing in 2015….. maybe science fiction is closer than we think?
More info:
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Pre Race Nerves
Feeling a touch nervous for this weekend’s 24 hour Ultra
Race at Ashburnham Place in Sussex (http://www.24ultrarun.co.uk/). Has enough training been done? How will I cope with the lack of sleep and
the sheer amount of time on feet? Will I
let my buddies James, Jamie and David down?
We’ll find out on the weekend, but there’s no doubt this race is going
to be an almighty challenge. The aim is
to run a minimum of 113 miles in 24 hours meaning a relatively stately average
of just under 5 mph is needed. 5mph
doesn’t sound too bad, but it doesn’t take much to go wrong to start threatening
that pace. Bad weather, difficult
conditions underfoot, a bit of stomach trouble or just plain old exhaustion
could be enough to put us under pressure.
All that being said, I’m really looking forward to the challenge and
hopefully getting it done. Training has
gone pretty well since R2TS in July, I’ve no major niggles to speak of, and the
weather forecast whilst not fantastic looks bearable for the weekend. In case anyone is interested (which seems
unlikely!), here is our pacing plan for this weekend:
Hour
|
Stage
|
Required
mph
|
mins/mile
|
Stage Total
|
50/50
Mileage Split
|
50/50
%
split
|
1
|
1
- Feeling Strong (2pm to 8pm)
|
5.75
|
10.4
|
34
|
65.5
|
57
|
2
|
5.75
|
10.4
|
||||
3
|
5.75
|
10.4
|
||||
4
|
5.75
|
10.4
|
||||
5
|
5.5
|
10.9
|
||||
6
|
5.5
|
10.9
|
||||
7
|
2
- Getting Tougher (8pm to 2am)
|
5.5
|
10.9
|
31.5
|
||
8
|
5.5
|
10.9
|
||||
9
|
5.5
|
10.9
|
||||
10
|
5
|
12
|
||||
11
|
5
|
12
|
||||
12
|
5
|
12
|
||||
13
|
3
- Dead of night (2am to 8am)
|
4.8
|
12.5
|
25.6
|
49.4
|
43
|
14
|
4.8
|
12.5
|
||||
15
|
4
|
15
|
||||
16
|
4
|
15
|
||||
17
|
4
|
15
|
||||
18
|
4
|
15
|
||||
19
|
4
- A second wind? But don't bet on it
(8am to 2pm)
|
5
|
12
|
23.8
|
||
20
|
5
|
12
|
||||
21
|
4.8
|
12.5
|
||||
22
|
3
|
20
|
||||
23
|
3
|
20
|
||||
24
|
3
|
20
|
||||
114.9
|
114.9
|
Wish us luck, please!!
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