Today I started with one objection in mind…. Find out how long it takes to drop 300 Entrecards. I started at 6:30 am. For one hour, with a few slight interuptions, I was able to drop 100 cards within an hour. For the next hour, I mixed house cleaning and dropping cards. Within that two hour period, I was able to drop 170 cards.

I didn’t want to spend my entire morning dropping Entrecards, so I said I would do a few more house chores and stop at 200. I did. After that, I took my bike to Starbucks and enjoyed a venti coffee.

I came back to do about 15 minutes more Entrecard dropping before going out again. The weather was way too nice to sit in my apartment all morning dropping Entrecards. So I took my guitar and bike out to the lake for three hours. I came back around 3:00 p.m. I dropped some more cards only to get to 250 before going out to get something to eat. I came back around 4:00 p.m. For the next hour I was going to try and reach 300. I started falling alseep at my desk (the bike riding wore me out). At 5:00 p.m. I plugged in a movie (Lions for Lambs),

watched for 30 minutes, put on pause and went back to my computer. It seems that Entrecard server was down. I droppped around 270 cards. It’s 6:45 p.m. now and I plan on coming back to finish it off.

The idea of dropping all these cards is to increase my traffic. I can say that it has worked. So far today, I have 53 hits coming from Entrecard. This is the highest traffic I’ve had so far this month. My goal is to drop 300 cards per day, along with some other techniques to see if I can boost my traffic past 200 vistors per day.

Welcome to the Life and Times of Eric P. Martin blog. 

 I’ve decided to change the shape/direction /content of my blog to a more personal diary that will encompass more about me and my personal trek in life. I thought about what I was writing about is more about my personal journey that making money. My interest lie in than just money or the my trades in the Forex, or internet marketing. I plan on writing about all areas of my interest. This will include books I’m currently reading, video blogging, musical journey, trading, investing, my education trek, and every other aspect of my life.

I got my new computer yesterday along with my 22″ monitor, Nikon digital camera, zoom lense and 1 terabyte external back-up drive.

I promised myself that I would not place another trade until I got my computer. I wanted to really understand the EUR/USD market.  Trade 003, would have been profitable if I had placed my stop 150 pips above the trade. However, I placed it 100 pips, it traded as high as 1.5815 and then slid 250 pips as of today.

Trade 004. is a sell @ 1.5551 and stop loss at 1.5675

Well, after a long Memorial day weekend, I walked into the office to see my trade get a closed out at 1.5800. I’m thinking, 150 pips might be next.

I had a much needed 3 days off. I came up with an idea that I think will put me in the frame of mind to get me closer to my goal.

What if? What if I lost my income starting in June? How would I survive?

On June 1st, 2008, I’m going to do a “simulation exercise” to prepare for me leaving my job to go to school full-time in January 2009.

After losing $200.00, I thought I would try to figure out what happened from last night until this morning where my trade went into the opposite direction. What made the market change?

1. U.S. Inital Jobless claims.

According to the Labor Department, first-time jobless claims had fell  9,000 to 365,000 from 374,000 the prior week.  This news came out @ 7:30 am EST. The EUR/USD was around 1.5735. Within an hour it had dropped by 40 pips.

I’m now going to start tracking/naming my trades. Yesterday’s trade is #2.

What did I learn. I lost $200.00. The trade was a buy @ 1.5800 and stop loss @ 1.5700. The trade was triggered late in the night and when I came to work the EUR/USD was hoovering around 1.5715. Then came the big drop to trigger my stop position.

After this happenned, I just sat at my desk thinking of why I can’t get this right. Making money isn’t easy as everyone would be making it. However, I can’t afford $200.00 losses. Either my profit trades have to be more frequent and much bigger or I’m going to continue to be out of the game here.

Quitting isn’t an option for me. However, the cost to stay in the game is too great. I’m going to have to figure out how to create some cash from other sources to put back into the Forex.

I did place another trade. Short EUR/USD @ 1.5700 and a stop @ 1.5800. I only placed one lot this time.

I don’t know, with oil over 132.00 a barrel, and the EUR/USD inching up, I felt it was time to place another buy. This time 2 lots @ 1.5800 and a stop @ 1.5700. Hopefully, I won’t lose on this one either.

Today, I walked in the office and closed my buy position @ 1.5753. I made $52.00. Again, my strategy is to close out profitable positions. $52.00 doesn’t seem like a lot but if I had enough money in my account, I would have bought more lots.

• 2 lots = $102.00
• 3 lots = $154.00
• 4 lots = $208.00
• 5 lots = $260.00

Next paycheck, I hope to add more to my account so I can place a two lot trade. If I have a 100 pip stop, I will lose $200.00 only.

Since my computer is out, I had to place a buy/limit trade over the phone (no cost) with 100 pip stop @ 1.5600. It’s killing me that I don’t have access to my computer at home.

This weekend, I had purchased Timothy Ferriss’s book, “The 4-Hour Workweek.”

After reading a few chapters, it seems the idea of “Thinking Big” has come up twice now for me. I had written about it when I read Amit Mehta’s e-book.

By Sunday, I’m super pumped with motivation. I set a goal to get $10,000 in 4 months. That’s $2,500 a week. That is certainly obtainable with trading the Forex.

As I develop my plan, my harddrive crashes. Now, I’m without a computer. I wonder when you begin thinking big, you create larger hurdles for yourself to jump.

  The Forex is too risky to trade at work. Luckily for me, I work for a computer reseller and I’m able to get a brand new computer and monitor on an employee purchase program.