@Hermes, I couldn't agree with @Heathpack more. You'd make a great Jason Statham. Trust me!

The treatment is over pretty fast. It is more like the 4th repetition of a 2 minute interval where you think you may not make it.:D

For me, deciding how I look is more of an evolutionary thing versus binary. This event was too binary. One day you have hair and a few days later, there is a bald spot. So much like other autoimmune problems, the velocity of action is pretty fast so one does not have the time to intellectualize or adjust to a different and maybe even better reality.

If I chose to have a different hair style or lack of hair, that is different. Having it thrust upon one is more traumatic.

Part of the problem with this hair loss is that it balds spots the size and shape of silver dollars. So very short hair is better but it still looks odd and mangy. The only real solution if it does not grow back is no hair.

And there is always the Pantini look without the EPO.

http://i170.photobucket.com/albums/u...sunw49gyj.jpeg

Another good look! Without the EPO.

I totally understand the difficulty in adjusting to something that has come on that quickly. Give it some time. You'll decide what feels good to you, and that's what you'll do.

@sarals and @Heathpack Thanks for your support.

I'm totally against hair. Mostly because I feel abandoned. Starting losing mine in my late 30's, I have the hair gene of one specific branch in my family. All the others are buried with luxurious locks. Started shaving the dome around that time and never looked back.

Hugely easier to deal with. No product, no combs, no brushes, no helmet head. Sunscreen is easy to apply.

Downsides are you lose the cushion when you bang into something and it is a fair bit chillier in cold weather.

Which can also be an upside in hot weather.

I get that having your body give you the middle finger in any case. Hang in there.

Thanks. I totally get it. In reality, losing hair is no big deal. I have been losing mine via male pattern baldness for years. I thought about going short and shaving it all off. However, if I did not like it, I could always go back because hair regrows. Not necessarily in this case.

I checked the drugs being used on globaldro and they are both permitted in and out of competition.

The Boy Wonder raced a crit for the first time as a cat 2 today and came in 5th in his P12 race. Sixteen years old.

His Dad posted a pic on FB. I told him he looked happy-tired. He said he actually felt surprised-happy-tired.

:)

Noticed my feet were kinda warm...

https://im1.shutterfly.com/ng/servic...774429/enhance

A dog's life...

I've gone all Kelly Slater.

Different horses for different courses.

Hair status...

It seems to be growing back but meager and when I look in the mirror it does not look like me. I am behaving like Dracula avoiding mirrors.

Thanks for all the suggestions for different looks by different celebs. I will take a pic of one them to my hair stylist and say I want my hair to look like this guy.:roflmao2:

For our women...Financial Times https://www.ft.com/content/146a6c5c-...b-6bb07f5c8e12

I spend significant time managing our financial portfolio and many times consult my wife on potential investments. She has the women intuition thing that many times pays off. Maybe that is why women can outperform men.

Hedge funds run by women have outperformed a broader benchmark of alternative investment managers over the past five years, raising fresh questions about why there are so few female portfolio managers.

The HFRI Women index has returned 4.4 per cent over the past five years, compared with a 4.2 per cent return for the HFRI Fund Weighted Composite index, a broader gauge of hedge funds across all strategies and genders.

By all means, have more equal representation on boards and C-suites. But out of all the areas where gender parity would be welcomed, they picked hedge funds? I wonder if it represents societal progress when gender parity is reached for perps of grand larceny, b/c that's what the overwhelming majority of hedge funds are. My view on this is perhaps at least a little bit hedged. As it's the FT, it can assume the reader knows that hedge fund managers charge 2% (of asset under management) & 20% (of profit), which isn't mentioned in the article. That's how funds make money, and it's lousy, regardless of the gender of the person running the fund.

And with all that fee, one may enjoy the privilege of earning 4.4% per annum, which is rather atrocious given that the market has been on a 8 year upward bender (during which it has gone up 11% per annum for the past five years). I'm eagerly awaiting for the next report in the series on gender parity when it comes to insider trading and pyramid schemes...

I can't begin to comment. I've always said, and with good reason, people pay me to fly their their helicopters because I am a skilled, experienced, professional pilot. I did not sleep in a Holiday Inn Express last night, I'm the real deal. I know NOTHING about investing, so I leave that to the skilled, experienced professional money managers. And mine happens to be a woman. When she tells me something, I can understand what she told me. I like that.

As for whether or not I'm a better pilot because I'm a girl than otherwise, well, I won't go there.

Non gender related hedge fund anecdote:

The hottest news in Berkshire Hathaway’s 2016 annual report—posted just minutes ago—is that CEO Warren Buffett devotes almost five pages of his avidly-awaited shareholder letter to a scathing denunciation of hedge funds for charging high fees while delivering sub-par, if not miserable, results to their investors. There’s a bottom line, he says: “When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients.”

He meanwhile stingingly documents his case by disclosing the standings, after nine years, of a 10-year performance bet between his own investment pick—a low-cost S&P 500 index fund administered by Vanguard—and the pick of Protégé Partners, an asset manager who elected to bank on the average performance of five funds of hedge funds that it chose for the competition. The stakes, you might say, were large: $500,000 for each party, the total of which explains why this wager is sometimes called “The Million-Dollar Bet.”

And the envelope, please? After nine years, the index fund has registered a compounded annual increase of 7.1%. And the average for the five funds (whose names have never been made public) is 2.2%. In total gains, the index fund is up 85.4%. The average gain of the five funds is 22%. (The best performer of the five is up 62.8%. The worst performer—over nine years, remember—has been mind-bendingly bad: up only 2.9%.)

Do feel free to tell me to take a hike if this is intrusive, but you should ask her what her fees are and whether she's acting as a fiduciary for you. When she recommends an investment vehicle, you should ask her what her cut is. Whether or not she can explain things into things that a layperson could understand is beside the point (though granted, it is a very useful skill to be able to parse techno-speak to the layperson). If she can't answer you with a straight face, well... I also view actively managed funds with suspicion as they (as @Racer Ex alluded) rarely beat S&P 500 in the long run, and fees are just additional skimming of the top that goes on.

By coincidence, I was looking up the result of the bet just a few days ago and decided afterwards to read his shareholder letters. Btw, do you know if the 62.8% is after 2&20 or before?

So y'all might remember me posting about how when we went to that UCI World Cup track event, one of my sailing friends was posting pics from the racing too and it turns out his nephew is a cyclist named Chris Latham who is ranked 3rd in the world for the Omnium.

Today I saw that friend and we were talking. He was telling me how his nephew was living a pretty good life, his team gives him great bikes to ride and he's got this great fast car too.

I say really? Track cyclist?

Oh no, he's not just a track guy, he races the road too. He's raced in Tour of California and wants to race this year in the Tour de France too, if he can make the cut.

So I ask if that's realistic for him and my friend says Oh yes. In fact his roommate's raced in the TdF a bunch of times. He's even won it. Famous guy.

Really? What's the roommates name?

He couldn't remember. Really famous guy. Mark Something.

Mark Cavendish???!

Yes! That's his name!

Total LOL.

PS I do now have Chris Latham's autograph. So we all have to root for him if he races the TDF this year. :)

@echappist, she manages individual retirement accounts for employees of the company I work for. I don't know off hand what her fees are, and I'd have to read again what her obligations are to the company and vice versa. I am, however, very pleased with the personal advice she has given me as I've gotten closer to retirement. In other words, I don't know. I've never delved into the nuts and bolts of investment, I've always relied on the people who work for investment firms retained by the two companies I've worked for and had retirement accounts with to do right by me. Without having the paperwork in front of me, I can't say for sure what the fees are or will be, but I feel comfortable that I won't be overcharged.

Cavendish? Cavendish. Hmmm. I've heard that name. I think. ;)

I do not.

Interesting discussion and opinions on hedge funds and etc. I was trying to compliment our women.

For those interested in portfolio management here is a discussion of Alpha. Alpha Definition | Investopedia

Simply put, alpha is a measurement of a portfolio's performance on a risk adjusted basis compared to a standard such as the S&P 500.

Portfolio managers, hedge fund managers, investors and activist investors seek alpha. The more alpha one generates the better the portfolio performs and the more fees seem to be justified.

At times I think it would be interesting to have an investing thread to discuss making money. However, some of the comments here already seem to have biases. Biases of any kind cloud ones thinking and making money is very hard to do and needs clear, unbiased open thinking about available tools and investment vehicles. History and past success or failure is not predictive of future performance in the financial markets...although it may.

Much like FTP and performance enhancing discussions, biases and dogma inhibit learning and many time influence racers from taking advantage of strategies that would benefit them.

Recently, I got HBO to watch a new series. I was looking through the movies on demand and saw Steve Jobs.

I am late to the party seeing this movie but I read his book when it came out. I was an Apple investor back with the stock was $100 a share and before it split 7-1. I sold out my position a few days ago.

I like the movie and acting a lot. Jobs was a guy who could see around corners and able to see the future much in the way of other great people of the industrial revolution. Edison comes to mind.

Here is a clip with him and Scully. Where Scully learns about Jobs father and there is some great incite into Job's head. He talks about a bicycle and mankind. I thought some may enjoy it.

It was PoundSign Awesome at $50 before the split...

He was an 'interesting' fella for sure.

OK, I'll try to be more regular in posting here since I am retired as of yesterday. My last few weeks of work, combined with building our Green Dream Home (Home - lawville.org), trying to train, and posting on Facebook have left me scant time to even lurk here. Will probably still be busier than heck until we move into the new house and sell our current house but I am sure I can carve out some time to see how everyone is doing here and let you know what's up with me. Heck, I might even have a bit of knowledge to pass on now and then.

Carry on.

Congrats on the retirement, @Cleave!