Don't open that quarterly statement!!!

That's the best advice I think I can tell you this month. It's only going to cause you heartache and there's really no useful information for you right now. Do you want to move your money into a fund that's held up and performed well? No, you really don't. That would be buying high. Do you want to sell your funds that have lost a ton of money? No, that would be selling low and locking in your losses.

Now, under normal circumstances, I would be the LAST person to tell you to ignore your quarterly investment statements. These are not normal circumstances. So I implore you, just file your statements away while still in the envelope. Save yourself some heartache. If you do open it and your investments are better than a 22% loss, you're solid!!


Here's Amy Freeze's blog. There's an interesting sports theme entry today.

Today I was reminded of a saying at day camp, when I was a counselor believe it or not: Rain by seven done by eleven. It held true almost all the time. If it was raining at seven a.m., it rarely was still raining at 11 a.m. Why? Well, I imagine a four hour period of rain isn't all that common to begin with in any particular area. The front has to be moving relatively slowly. Plus, if it's raining by 7, it might have been raining since 2 a.m. for all we know. A nine hour soak is even more rare!!

Friday morning I had an appointment to see an ear doctor who was recommended by my orthopedic surgeon to discuss my "near" vertigo and my hearing loss from April or May. To refresh your memory, my hearing loss was dramatic this spring compared to the winter or even last year in the summer. Then, also this summer, I had some cases of near vertigo where I started to feel dizzy, but took some medicine and prevented any episodes.

Turns out that I saw this doctor three years ago! Back then, he wanted me to take another hearing test even though I had taken one a year earlier. I told him, "Look, I can't hear out of the ear and it's about the same as it was the year before. I don't need another test." He didn't take to that too well. No wonder it was so hard to get an appointment this time around.

Anyway, after a thorough discussion of my condition and some simple tests, he asked me to get another hearing test, but this time I acquiesced. I told him though that my hearing was MUCH worse than last year certainly and therefore much worse than 2004 as well. The woman who performed my hearing test was in fact hearing impaired herself! How ironic. She spoke with that certain voice that deaf people use. It made it difficult during the word comprehension section of the test! It wasn't that I couldn't hear her, I just couldn't understand her!! Fortunately, the rest of the exam was done by a recording.

Below are the test results.



This is the test from 2004. Hopefully you can zoom in on the grid. The bottom line is my left ear.

















Here are the test results from Friday. Notice a pattern? Yeah, almost exactly the same. My hearing hasn't changed in four years!!! It doesn't tell me what's wrong with the ear, but it rules out some conditions which would get progressively worse.

When he showed me this chart, it was like having someone take a blood sample after running a marathon and then having a doctor tell you that based on the blood sample, you don't need to hydrate. You just ran a marathon!! Of course you need to hydrate. Very, very odd.






So he thought my condition stems from a viral inner ear infection that I had a decade ago and seems unlikely to get better, but also might not get worse. My alternatives are few: hearing aid, bio-feedback contraption which I need to listen to for 2 hours a day for 6 months and costs $6,500, or they put a screw in my head and then hang some "apparatus" off of it which goes into my ear. Yeah, that's viable. Good Lord.