Welcome to the Nest

Who am I?

It has been over twenty years since I last considered the answer to this question. As I grew, the introspection that  had once frequented my five-year-old noggin was cut short by the responsibility of making my own decisions. Which stuffed animals should I strap to fireworks?  Which GI Joes should I strap to fireworks? Which of my hamsters should I strap to fireworks? The decisions grew in complexity, as did their answers.

But there comes a point in life when new decisions are harder to come by. The anxiety that riddles the untested heart is replaced by a wisdom that can only be obtained through experience. Now many of those questions have come and gone, freeing me to once again focus on my purpose.

My name is Robert Wise and I am a Christian. My faith is very important to me, though I do not always act it out in the most effective ways. I currently manage three things: people, money, and survival. While Darwin's theory causes the last to be the most difficult for me, I probably spend the most time considering the first two. I work as an area manager for the e-tail giant, Amazon.com. I run the shipping department in a 1.2 MM square-foot warehouse and manage a team of about twenty-five. I am the son of my two loving parents, Steve and Barbara, and one of four brothers. I am happily married to a brown-eyed, curly-haired beauty named Caitlin, and we have a three-month-old puppy who we believe may have been planted in our country by the Chinese Government.

We currently live in Richmond, VA.

How am I qualified to blog?

I am completely unqualified to blog. I did, however, take a crash youtube course in "blah-gging". Blah-gging is very similar to blogging, except blah-gging requires a good portion of the words to be spelled incorrectly and/or used in the wrong context. Sentences and paragraphs must also frequently be incoherent and will often end in "but...yeah". But...yeah.

So far as my credentials go:

• In May 2012, both Caitlin and I graduated from the University of Tennessee. I graduated Summe Cum Laude in Industrial Engineering with a minor in Business Admin. Caitlin graduated Summe Cum Laude in Nursing and will be proof-reading all my blogs due to my inherently bad grammar.  
• I have spent the past four years researching stocks and investing in them. I started learning about the stock market during my sophomore year in college, after I realized how little I knew about managing my own money. I now manage a diverified portfolio which ebbs and flows around the mark of 20 different companies and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs).
• I have also just finished skimming The Complete Idiot's Guide to MBA Basics (second edition) and get the gist of it.  

 Disclaimer I: "blah-gging" does not actually exist. It is a fictitious term playing off the word "blogging"

What is the focus of this blog?

This will be an financial blog with a heavy focus on the stock market. Before you fall asleep, please note that not all things financial have to be boring - just ask Bernie Madoff. Talk about scandal. That man has had more drama in his life than Robert Crawley. This blog will regularly pull from three primary areas of focus:

1. Education - Price-to-Earnings Ratio, Ponzi Scheme, Case-Shiller Index - What do they mean and why do I need to know about them? This information will be strictly factual and riddled with examples. I will also point readers towards helpful websites and tools.
2. Ideas & Thoughts -This is where focus is shifted to theory. My childish curiosity will ask "what if?" but my engineering brain often screams "PROVE IT". I plan to do both.
3. Advice - This will be fueled by the two previous areas of focus.

My promise:
My promise to readers is that the facts I give will be factual. My advice will be open and honest and will translate to either something that I have done or something that I am thinking about doing. I will keep things interesting - but to the point - and I will welcome feedback.

Disclaimer II: This blah-g is subject to change.
Disclaimer III: I try to be right a lot, but sometimes I am not right. Deal with it.