Kim’s giving away an iPad2 to promote her books
September 24, 2011 Leave a Comment
Dear friends and family,
If you’d like to win an iPad2 go to Kim’s site and register.
http://www.kimberlypauley.com/contest/
Good luck!
-Tony
Extracting data values from XML files using Excel VBA
August 25, 2011 Leave a Comment
Ever need to parse an XML file for use with Excel? Here’s a nice piece of VBA code that allows you create a custom Excel function that pulls the data values for a specific locale. Simply pass in the full path of the XML file and the locale name to the function and back comes the value.
Enjoy.
Function FindXML(filepath As String, findstring As String)
If Len(Dir(filepath)) = 0 Then
Exit Function
End If
nextFileNum = FreeFile
Open filepath For Input As #nextFileNum
FileContents = Input$(LOF(nextFileNum), #nextFileNum)
Close #nextFileNum
findtext = findstring & Chr(34) & “>”
startpos = InStr(FileContents, findtext)
If startpos <> 0 Then
startpos = startpos + Len(findtext)
endpos = InStr(startpos, FileContents, “<”) – startpos
variablevalue = Mid(FileContents, startpos, endpos)
Else: variablevalue = “#Not Found”
End If
FindXML = variablevalue
End Function
Locavesting
August 7, 2011 Leave a Comment
Just found a new book that I need to read Locavesting. I haven’t bought it yet but I plan to this week. I love the concept. I’ve been wanting to really go off the deep end on this topic for a long time.
Here we go.
I HATE CHAIN STORES. They are EVIL. E-V-I-L. I challenge anyone to get into an argument with me on this. Give me one benefit to society that they bring. One.
I’m an actuary and let me tell you chains set off all of the actuary warning whistles regarding risk. The main problems here is concentration of risk and the subsequent transfer of wealth.
Chains share a lot of common traits:
- They concentrate unemployment risk
- They concentrate default risk
- They concentrate economic risk
- They concentrate choice (and therefore reduce choice)
In the US, if a big box retailer comes to town, many businesses are doomed. They die quickly and the owners and employees, if lucky, go to work there. This all works well for the local economy for a small period of time. Prices drop and most folks feel better off (other than the old shop owners).
What is really happening is that all of the profits are being shipped out of the local economy back to Wall Street. This in a large way explains the shift of income over the past 20 years of from the middle class to the wealthy. We are all being led to the slaughter-house by the sweet smell of cheap goods.
By buying cheaper and cheaper goods, we force suppliers to reduce their cost base more and more. The consequence? Lower wages, no benefits. The consequence? We can afford less and require lower costs. The cycle continues. It is a race to the bottom.
We need this to stop. Those who can afford to pay more need to pay more. Buy local. Keep options alive. If we do not, then we will no longer have choices available.
When things go bad, and a big box retailer goes belly up, then we are all done for. We all lost our businesses and jobs when they came to town. We all work there now and it is the only place to shop. When they leave town we are all out of jobs and have no place to shop. The town as a whole goes bust.
This is in my opinion the largest single problem facing western countries at the moment.
Much more to come…
Livin’ la vida loca – UK Version – Castle Trust style
June 20, 2011 Leave a Comment
As you all mostly know we moved to London back on December. We’ve been loving every minute of it. I am the Chief Technology Officer for a new startup company called Castle Trust. We’ve been working hard to get this business off the ground now for several months. We have a few more to go, but the end is starting to be more than a mirage in the distance.
Kim’s doing great. Her latest book’s publishing was just announced this week. Go Kim!
Max is a real trooper. He’s taking all of the change really well. He starts school in September. For now he is in “football” class once a week and is having a personal skateboarding coach once a week with his friend Freddy. # year old skater boy. Who would have thought it.
Now that we are public. I’ll share a little more of our experience.
Mortimer…We’re Back!
June 19, 2011 Leave a Comment
Visas… a $bunch. Selling house at a loss.. a big $bunch. Moving… a $bunch. Being part of www.castletrust.co.uk – £priceless.
I hope you all got the title of this post. If not, shame on you. Google it, then watch it.
My apologies for the radio silence for so long. Big start-up, big backers, best to wait until the proper time. That time is now. We finally did the press launch today. We made page 2 of the Sunday Times. I’d share here but they are behind a pay wall. Write Mr. Murdoch and complain. He won’t care but it will feel good anyway. If you want to pay £1 you can read the article.
I can now, however, share our press release: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-06-19/j-c-flowers-starts-u-k-mortgage-business-to-share-cost-risk.html
I am the Chief Technology Officer at Castle Trust. This means that I am responsible for all things IT. If the phone doesn’t work, I’ll fix it. If you need a server farm, I’ll get it for you. If you need a custom stochastic model to simulate the performance of our products in the future, I’m your man. Such is life in a start-up. Everyone is a “jack of all trades”. This suits me perfectly and I love it.
We have a truly unique offering for the market and I think the market will jump on this when given a chance. Just a few more months and we will see.
Stay tuned as I share more of our journey.
Hello to everyone
April 10, 2011 Leave a Comment
A friend, Ramona, has been nagging me to post. Finally got a few minutes to do so.
Everything is going great with the Pauley’s except we’ve all picked up another minor cold (5 in 5 months…). The weather here as nearly perfect this week. Blue sky’s warm weather…”glorious” as they say.
We have been walking all over. Last week we walked all the way to Earl’s Court from Ladbroke Grove. Yesterday we walked from London Bridge to Nottign Hill Gate. What a great walk. We went through Borough Market, walked along the Thames (found lots of old animal bones, and I think a human finger or toe bone!), we then walked past Parliament, Westminster, Buckingham Palace (Played in St. James’ Park) and proceeded to walk the length of Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. We finally made it to Notting Hill Gate, where we had pizza at Portobello Ristaurante Pizzeria.
Work is going great as well. More on that later.
Happy Belated New Year
January 12, 2011 Leave a Comment
Sorry for the delay, but we’ve been VERY busy lately. We’re all moved into our new place near Portobello road. Max has his own room, we’ve got utilities, phone, internet, a bank account, sheets, pillows, kitchenware, food, … you get the idea.
Everything is really starting to come together both at home and at work.
Happy New Year to everyone. May yours be as fun and exciting.
Poor Max
December 29, 2010 Leave a Comment
I feel so bad today. Max has really been a mess since we got to the UK. Today he finally broke down and threw a little fit. He did not want to go back to the flat. He kept saying “I don’t want to go to that place. That place is not my home.”
I know we are doing the right thing here and it is the best thing in the long run. However, I wish I could make things better for Max sooner than later. He’s a really good boy having a really bad month. I hope once we get in the new place we can really do it up for him and make it a proper home.
Sorry for the doldrums.
-Tony
UK Health Care Rocks!
December 24, 2010 Leave a Comment
Ok the bad news…we’re all still a bit under the weather. Nothing terrible but enough to keep us inside and in bed more than we would like. I think I’m finally on the final leg of this thing, but Kim and Max still have a bit to go.
We finally decided it was time to take Max to the doctor today. Kim took him and herself to a nearby NHS clinic. There was almost no one in line, the facilities were nice. They saw Kim and Max and gave the diagnosis (viral infection…) Kim then tried to check out and pay. Turns out you don’t. You don’t do anything. No ID, no payment, little wait. What a difference from the US.
They gave her a prescription for Max. I took it to the local drugstore, Boots. I went to check out and they said “no payment for the prescription”. WHAT! You’ve got to be kidding me. The US is totally screwed up on the healthcare front. I can’t believe how nice the experience is here for routine health care.
We need more Americans to experience the difference. We would then get real health reform.
Thank you NHS. You really helped out my Christmas.
Getting Settled In – Kind of
December 19, 2010 Leave a Comment
Kim’s been out and about trying to find us a permanent home. We’ve found a place that we really like in Kensington on Bassett Road. It’s a little further out than we were thinking, but it is really nice and in a cool part of London. Renting, or should I say “letting”, a place in London is a lot like buying a house in the US. We now need to make an offer, etc, etc. Hopefully we get the place and can get moved in by early January.
Work is going well. Much to do this week before taking a week off for the holidays.
We took Max to Hamleys toy store yesterday. It’s a 250-year-old, 7 story toy store. He had a blast playing with all the doodads. The store was over on Regent’s street. It was a long walk in all of the snow but worth it to see all of the kids making snowmen in the park next to Buckingham Palace and to see all of the neat shop windows and street decorations.
Today is get a Christmas tree day. We need to find a tree and get some decorations. We need to keep it simple as we really don’t have that much room to store decorations. Maybe we’ll get a little creative. I have to get my Christmas shopping done today as well as I will be traveling a bit this week.
Now that I think we’ve found a place, Kim can stop running al over London with Max and they can start getting into a more normal routine. The past few weeks have really been rough on Max. Hopefully with the holiday week and everything we can get him settled down and back in the normal happy Max groove.
We’ll post some pictures up soon.
Tony Pauley
