Investing in Chipotle

One of the first things I did when I got a job and started having regular income was put some money in the stock market. One of the things I regret is not investing as much as I could afford in Chipotle. Instead, I only invested a small amount in Chipotle and my portfolio overall has performed only slightly better than the Dow in these 3+ years.

 

You all know I love Chipotle and how it would make me so much happier if someone would bring one to Warner Robins.  I might well be able to afford to do it myself if I had put all my money in Chipotle stock for the last 3 or 4 years. Then again, if I could afford to open a restaurant, I wouldn’t do it here – I’d go some place where I actually want to live, like the Dunwoody.

 

And I’ve always heard that you shouldn’t invest in companies just because you like their products so I didn’t put much into it. There were doubters all around about how Chipotle could continue to grow so rapidly and those doubters have continued to be proven wrong.

 

Three years ago to the day, Chipotle stock traded for $60.31 per share and at the moment it is trading for $344.53 per share. Wow! That’s a 471% increase. In that time, the Dow Jones is up 1.17%.

 

Yesterday when Chipotle got to 335, I sold all but one of my Chipotle shares. There’s no way this can continue to go up so much and analysts have been saying for awhile that it’s overpriced and way overdue for a major drop despite the fact that it is perhaps the best company in the fast casual food industry.

Week 3 Rankings

Georgia Tech and Georgia both won big last weekend. Tech set several school and ACC records with their 768 offensive yard performance against Kansas. The ACC fared reasonably well in it's slate of marquee non-conference matchups. Clemson beat Auburn and Miami beat Ohio State soundly but Florida State was outclassed by Oklahoma and West Virginia barely held off Maryland.

This week, my computer rankings look a little more normal as Oklahoma is the clear #1.

A few computer predictions for week 4:
Georgia Tech 31, North Carolina 28
Georgia 33, Mississippi 24
Clemson 30, Florida State 24
Arkansas 31, Alabama 30
West Virginia 28, LSU 26

Fall Tournaments and Travel

August has gone by quickly and it's time to start looking for exciting things to do after the labor day regional this week.

August was fun (not as fun as July which is always the best month of the year) and included playing in 2 sectional bridge tournaments and 2 local tennis tournaments. This week I'll be at the regional bridge tournament in Atlanta, apparently playing 5 days, which will actually be the longest I've played at a regional, and my playing time will be split with Alli and Bryan.

For the fall, there seems to be a lot of interesting things. On the non-bridge scene, I wanna go see Third Day perform in Alpharetta on Oct 1. I want to go to GT homecoming against Clemson Oct 29 and the Thursday night game against VT Nov 10. Who wants to accompany me to any of those?

GT homecoming coincides with the Charlotte regional, which is disappointing, but I think GT homecoming will take priority, as long as some of my friends will be going too.

The game against VT is conveniently scheduled at the beginning of a long weekend (Fri Nov 11 is Veterans Day) so I'm thinking I may fly to a regional (Virginia Beach or Daytona Beach or Niagara Falls) the morning after the football game.

I guess I'll go to the Seattle NABC around Thanksgiving. That will be a good time to catch up with Hitesh, Arwa, and any of the others who migrated from GT to Microsoft.

I've always been disappointed the there are no regionals scheduled to end on Columbus Day (Mon Oct 10 this year) but this year there is one - Ottawa (Oct 10 is Thanksgiving in Canada). I really want to go to that tournament via Montreal with Shaz.

Sadly the league voted to keep the men's 4.0 tennis league Saturdays at 9:30 rather than moving to a week night so I still won't be making to to more than about half of the matches.

I also feel like I'm due for a Europe trip but that probably won't happen this fall.

Tournaments have a winner and losers

Last year I wrote a piece on flex leagues and why I dislike them. People don’t like to organize things and people are willing to pay for people to organize events so that we can play a lot and play against a variety of people. In leagues and tournaments you sign up and show up at the assigned time to play. Without leagues and tournaments, many of us wouldn't have the motivation to call up a friend or two or three and organize a game. Arranging doubles matches in tennis and teams for team events in bridge are quite possibly the two most stressful things in my life.

People play in tournaments for a few other reasons: they are competitive and want to have a couple of days immersed in whatever sport or game they play and they want to see and be seen.  To achieve these things, there must be a winner (and a bunch of losers) in each division/bracket/event and the winner must be determined in a timely-enough manner such that the other competitors will be around to witness it and the results should be posted online so competitors who leave the tournament early can find out who won. Tournaments are largely social events but part of the fun of tournaments is in getting to show off and having some sort of a crowd to watch the finals. If people want to just play for fun, not care about winning or getting tired, they’ll just play socially.

Andre going up for a serve.

If a tournament is said to be Saturday and Sunday, unless there is some natural disaster or loss of power or just an abundance of rain, by the end of Sunday, there should be a winner. This could go for any sport or game but in this case I am referring to a tennis tournament that was held this weekend at the new tennis center in Perry.

Before I go on with this rant, let me acknowledge that tournament organizers should be commended for getting it organized to begin with – it’s a tough job that most people don’t want and it’s almost impossible to satisfy everyone but there are some things that are essential to having a good tournament. This tournament in Perry was actually quite nice except that there are no winners – at least not any winners that anyone will know about. I fully intend on playing both of the finals matches that I am in even though scheduling them myself irritates me.

People like scores. Tournament draws should have scores. When we see that someone won, we like to know whether that person won 6-0, 6-0 or 7-6, 6-7, 7-6. No, we shouldn’t be concerned with embarrassing someone who lost badly. Matches should have staggered start times. Yes, most tennis matches take about an hour and a half but there is a wide variance. So, with 8 courts, if a match starts on each court at 9:30, should you schedule the next set of matches all for 11:00, and then another set of 8 matches for 1:00? No, the start times should be staggered. Schedule a couple of matches for 10:30 (some people will have really short matches), some for 10:45, and the rest for 11:00 or 11:15. For the next group of 8 matches, do the same – stagger start times between 12:15 and 1:00.

Those are both very minor complaints compared to this one: FINISH THE TOURNAMENT. Tournaments have winners, not just finalists. Don’t leave at the end of the last day of the tournament and tell the people in the finals to play the match on their own time whenever they can agree. I bet about half of these final matches won’t get played simply because of having to schedule it themselves. If the idea of the tournament is to not finish the weekend tournament on Sunday, schedule the matches for Monday. Schedule all of the matches to finish. And include in the advertisement that divisions with large turnouts may have the finals on Monday evening. I would have no problem with this other than the fact that it discourages out of town players from attending, but simply refusing to schedule the finals is absurd. Or you could start the tournament Friday night if the concern is having people play too many matches in one day. If the tournament flyer accurately stated that matches for the finals will not be scheduled, I would not sign up. If the tournament flyer said that some divisions may have Monday matches scheduled or Friday night matches would be scheduled for some larger divisions, I would still sign up with barely a second thought. I expect I am in the overwhelming majority opinion on these things but if I'm not, well, maybe I'm wrong.

Getting to Toronto

Third Day is an awesome band. I've had their song "Make Your Move" stuck in my head for a week now.

I'm off to Toronto for 11 days. It seems to be one of the nicer destinations for the NABC's lately. And one of the most expensive. But I'll be getting by pretty cheaply. Or rather, I'll be saving a ton on transportation and lodging so I can spend more on food and drinks. We're saving by flying into Buffalo, where flights are less than half of the cost of flying to Toronto, then bussing 3 hours (actually it took 4.5 for some unknown delays) from there to downtown Toronto (only $14 each way), and staying at a youth hostel for about 1/3 the cost of an average downtown Toronto hotel.

It's a little awkward that the hostel people put us in a room with teenage girls but really the bed rooms are for sleeping and nothing else - how it should be on a trip to Toronto. This place meets all the basic criteria I look for in a place to sleep on a trip: decently clean bathrooms, a bed, free wi-fi. It also seems to be in a really happening part of town. We checked in around 12:30am and were starving and thirsty. Fortunately there are numerous bars, restaurants, and night clubs just around the corner.

Now to go exploring, then chipotle, and bridge!

It's Your Move

The theme of River of Life this year was “It’s Your Move.” What will you do (after River of Life) to be more Christ-like, to serve others, and to be good to society? Will you be sucked in by bad influences or will you continue to strive to make the world a better place? Each year, speaker Brian Loper has a good message. He started out Wednesday spending 10 minutes teaching the proper way to side hug. Then he proceeded to say that he hates side hugs. It was a funny bit. Brian’s inspirational talks at ROL and videos from the work sites can be found at http://www.foresthillsmacon.com/media.php?pageID=66. 

 The other part of his talks that I remember vividly is that he claims “the greatest contributor to atheism today is Christians to profess Jesus with their mouth but deny Him with their lifestyle.” I used to have a rather negative opinion of religious people who would talk about going to church and Jesus but then be rude and sinful, seemingly not even trying to apply the lessons from church to their life. My opinions wavered throughout high school and college but when I met Hillery and started going to Forest Hills in January 2008, I realized a lot of good that comes from going to church and saw a group of people that has a good balance between work, service, family, fun, and faith.

It’s always good to see all these upper-middle class kids and young adults have so much fun, be silly, and still serve God and serve others. I’m not one for being silly and loud and talking a lot so I frequently found myself standing back observing, which is fine. And after a day of working/supervising/directing painters, I wasn't much in the mood for more social activity anyway.

 It’s a humbling experience and so good to help us all, especially the kids, get a perspective on life. My group included 12 kids and 2 adults and we painted 3 houses over the 3 days of work. Seeing the home owner’s appreciation was priceless. Many of them are elderly or disabled people who can’t do the home repairs themselves and can’t afford to pay for someone else to do it. Working with the kids and being outside lifting ladders and paint cans all day makes me thankful for the job I have, but also kind of sad that my regular job isn’t so fulfilling. I mean, it’s a lot of fun for a few days to paint but I never get so exhausted in my regular job. Kids are great and it feels so good to see them grow and learn, especially when you have a part in it, but I’m thankful I don’t have to be responsible for kids all day every day. Sitting at a computer writing computer programs (or just writing), while I am good at it, is not exhausting and leaves me craving some social activity. Where is the happy medium?

July is always my favorite month of the year. It starts off with the super sectional bridge tournament in Atlanta over the July 4^th weekend, a week or two later is River of Life, my birthday is the 22^nd, and the North American Bridge Championships are at the end of the month. It’s a close call as to whether I look forward to ROL or the NABC the most. They are vastly different events. River of Life is all about service, giving back to the community, leading children, and it is very fulfilling and emotional, but fairly stressful because it really brings me out of my comfort zone. It kind of justifies the week-long trip I will take to the NABC, which is a whole lot of the greatest card game in the world, eating, drinking, and socializing with people I relate to best.

"If you don't step out of your comfort zone and face your fears, the number of situations that make you uncomfortable will keep growing." In order to grow, we need to try new things because the old things (at least some of them) will inevitably go away. If we stay within our comfort zone all the time, we won’t be ready to get out into the rest of the world when our comfort zone is no longer or temporarily unavailable. Comfort zones are good to have but we also should be expanding our comfort zone. The only way to make a new comfort zone is to be uncomfortable.

Humans are creatures of habit. We like talking to familiar people, doing familiar things, going to familiar restaurants. But every time we move, start a new job, graduate, breakup with someone, or have a best friend move away, we lose one of our comfort areas and may be afraid of what will happen. Building that kind of situation or relationship again takes time and certainly requires enduring some uncomfortable situations. It is inevitable. Don’t shy away from something simply because you might be a little uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable sometimes is healthy and is a sign that you’re growing.

In the last couple of months I’ve seen myself in several uncomfortable positions including dinner and bridge with Richard whom I had only briefly met once, when he was passing through Atlanta, that Braves game I went to a few weeks ago with Laura and one of her friends, playing tennis with new people, starting a job in a new office, sharing a room (but not a bed) with Meg at the Richmond tournament.

River of Life starts today at Forest Hills UMC. For the next 4 days, 200 middle and high school students will be staying at the church, going out during the day with about 30 crew leaders and assistants to repaint, reroof, and do minor carpentry work on some houses for the less privileged people in Macon, come back and listen to an inspirational speaker and listen to the wonderful FHUMC band. It is totally funded by donations and the students pay around $100 to come sleep on the floor for 4 nights and work in the sun, and people like me use vacation days to supervise and lead them.

For many, it will be a very uncomfortable time due to being around lots of different people and in different places, being in the sun long hours, and sleeping on the floor, possibly next to several unfamiliar people. The kids will be fine – they can handle change and uncomfortable situations better than older people. The older you get, the more difficult it is to try new things. For all of us, it will make us stronger and feel better about ourselves for doing this volunteer work.