About 1/6th of the people who trade on the stock market do so before or after the market is open. So 5/6ths of the total participants are missing during these times.

So when the Nasdaq closes at 4PM eastern, when companies post their results those specific stocks are volatile for about 20 to 30 minutes and begin to settle. Around 5 to 10 minutes after close, the general trend is evident. If it is going up, you can buy some stock at 4:10 pm and sell them at 4:20 pm. Usually for a profit. Or keep them until next morning. The pre market session will raise the price a bit more.

If you just want to see a list of stocks that are going up after hours, you could look here https://www.tradingview.com/markets/stocks-usa/market-movers-after-hours-gainers/

Yahoo finance is a decent place to find the upcoming earnings. But there is a lot of crap there too because these are not confirmed. A more decent place is https://www.earningswhispers.com/calendar and one even more decent is probably msn.

Update:

Don’t pre-purchase

I was tempted to buy some stocks in advance of the earnings call to get an extra margin of profit. Turned out to be bad because they just went down. So the lesson is to just wait until 1:05 and only buy the ones that go up. Software companies will continue to go up until 1:30 Eastern.

Update:

Nope. What they say about volatility is true. 1:05 is too volatile. Just wait until after 1:30. And stay diversified. It is not true that software companies will keep going up. Distribute your eggs into many baskets. Long term is better than short term. Invest and forget is likely best.

The best career change move for you will depend on your unique skillset, interests, and goals. However, some popular career change options include switching to a more flexible job that allows you to telecommute, or working in a field that is experiencing growth.

My dearest cousin Georgy

Mike Tyson in his heyday, was once asked by a reporter, I believe before he was going to fight Evander Holyfield, “you are probably the most analyzed athlete in history. Your opponents have reviewed your every move in slow motion and probably planned counters to your every punch. Then how do you keep winning?” Tyson replied, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”

But until we get punched, a plan is good to have. So hopefully these tips will help you make a plan.

Must visit places:

Sintra

At a place called Sintra - Pena Palace and Garden, Castle of the Moors, Quinta De Regaleira.

Sintra is one place you cannot miss. Going to Sintra is a train trip. This is on a separate train that is not part of the metro. I think it cost roughly $2.5 per person one way. So take a round trip tickets so you dont have to waste time when you come back. There is no discount. Children are half price.

Lisbon has an excellent public transport system. But when you go to Sintra, don’t depend on their public transport system. You don’t have enough time, and as a bonus at the end of the day will be easier and much cheaper to just call Uber.

You will have enough time to visit all three places and shop as well. But get there early. But not too early because all the palaces only open at 10 AM.

Pro tip: The roads are just one big circle. So go to Pena Palace first on Uber and visit there.

ALT

Pena Palace, overlooking the bluff (above), and inside (below)

Then walk back to the castle of the moors - don’t get on a car or anything.

Castle of the moors

Next go to Quinta by Uber.

Quinta De Regaleira

Each of the three places have an hour or more of walking involved.

Sintra will take one entire day out of your trip.

If you decide to take the bus instead of Uber at Sintra, then make sure you go to the very front of the train when you get in. That way you will get to the bus before the others - who can line up behind you. Get off at Sintra (not Portela de Sintra which is the previous station.)

Line 28

This is a 7 mile tram ride through the City. You can do just one trip, or break it up into many smaller parts. It takes you through many of the historic parts of the town.

Belem Tower

This place is very famous, but we did not go. This is closed from time to time. And you have to stand in line to get tickets first, then stand in line to go inside. Since this is a small place, they only send a few people in at a time. We visited, but did not go in.

Belem Tower, Lisboa, Portugal

Monument of Discoveries

Experiences

Now that you have covered Sintra, you can spend as many days in Lisboa (Portuguese for Lisbon) as you like. Everyday is filled with some of the best experiences. There are many places to visit, and we did visit them. I will list them. But more importantly there are things you can experience in Portugal that you cannot anywhere else.

Cobblestones

The moment you step outside, you will see cobblestones on the road. The only constructed places you will not see cobblestones is on asphalt paved roads - which are not too many. Most of the interior roads and all the sidewalks are cobblestones. Normally, this would not be a big deal. But in this case many of these cobblestones are over 500 years old. Pretty much means all these roads were there in the same place for 5 centuries or more. It is not just outside your home, or street, or the entire city. The cobblestones are everywhere in the country.

Pastiche de nata

What is one thing you can eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner, tea, or snack? Yes, it is pastiche de nata. Just keep eating it. If you want to bring anything for your beloved cousins, that is what you would bring. (they last up to two days).

You must eat them at this restaurant also. https://pasteisdebelem.pt/en/ That is where they started making it in 1837. Go inside. Don’t worry if you see a long line outside. Those people are waiting for the to-go orders. You can go inside and there are a thousand seats. If you keep going in, there are more and more rooms.

They also have an excellent menu. I think we ate a lot from that menu. After we ate all those things from there (in the photo above), we ate more of the same. But I don’t recommend you buy the OJ from there. For that see another tip below.

After you have eaten at the Pasteis de Belem, you can visit Mosteiro dos Jerónimos which is right next door.

Orange Juice

You may have seen at Jamba Juice how the machine squeezes the oranges. At the local supermarket, “Pingo Doce”, you can use that machine to squeeze it yourself and fill it into amazingly beautiful bottles. And the price is half of what you would pay at Costco. Delicious juice. I would go back to Lisboa just for the Pastiche and the OJ.

Next time we go to Lisbon, we will not carry any water. Instead we will walk into any Pingo Doce we see and get more orange juice.

Fado restaurant

This is an experience unique to Lisboa. So at least one night eat at a Fado restaurant. They have some live native folk music and songs, accompanied by excellent food. They are all good places. There is a Fado district that is easy to find on the map once you get there.

You cannot miss the Fado dinner. In the photo above, I think that guy owns the Fado restaurant we went to. And that guy in the back is his son.

Seafood - especially the octopus

Oh man. Even if you don’t like seafood, Lisboa has some of the best seafood. Codfish Croquettes. Grilled Sardines. Octopus Rice. And I forget the name - I think it starts with a C - seafood+rice.

We used this website for a reference.

Bakeries

Delicious bakeries.

Tuk Tuk

Many people don’t recommend it. But we did take it. We got a private tuk-tuk. It looks like a big auto-rickshaw. But don’t think it will make a sound like ‘tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk’. It is fully electric and sounds like your Model X. The tuk-tuk has three independent regions it can cover. We went to two of them. The third one was a larger route which we did using the metro and buses.

Metro

The bus and metro system is awesome. On the days you plan to go anywhere away from your stay/hotel, just take a day pass for each of you. It is well worth it. We bought a Lisbon Card online. And I think we activated it when we got on the bus, and they gave us a day pass I think. https://www.lisboacard.org/discounts/

March 14

Not all experiences were fun. One was disappointing. I don’t know if you know, but on March 14, Starbucks gives me a free drink. Since I was in Lisboa that day, I went to the Starbucks for my free drink. But apparently they don’t do that in Portugal. Very sad.

Private tour of their April 25 Bridge

This is not something everyone gets, but we were there early just as they were opening. So Joshua and I got a private tour of the bridge. Eerily similar to the golden gate bridge.

This is inside the bridge. These are the cables that suspend the bridge.

Stay

We stayed at

Rua Nova do Almada 81.
1200-289 Lisboa
Portugal
Room: 5-D

We usually left at 9 AM and did not come back until almost midnight. Yes we did come back from time to time, but we stayed right in the middle of the city, so it was always very easy to come back.

Covid

I don’t know if they need it anymore, but when we went earlier this year, we had to get a negative covid test, and upload the results here. When we came back we had to take an antigen test from there. That is easy. Just go to any pharmacy and ask where you can get it. Plus they had mobile stations in all the big parks.

What we missed

We wanted to go to Cascais. This is another place about an hour away (as Sintra is). We wanted to go there, but later changed out mind. It is a small seaside town that looks much like Foster City. The city apparently provides free bikes for you to bike around if you want. But it is walkable all the same.

Note, the metro day pass will NOT cover the trip to Cascais or the trip to Sintra. Those are a different kind of trains.

Other places we visited

1. Elevador de Santa Justa (Don’t waste time standing at the bottom of the elevator trying to pay to go up. Just walk up around it (or come from above - I forget the street name, but you will end up there very often) and walk over to the top of the elevator.)
2. Tile museum - It is short bus ride away, about half hour. An old church was converted to be a tile museum.
3. We also walked around several places (and museums) around the Jeronimos Monastery as well as near where we stayed and went into the attractions, including an Egyptian museum I think.
4. Time Out Market. This is a crowded place full of tourists who want to taste any possible food. It is like a huge food court.
5. The Lisbon cathedral
6. National Pantheon
7. And lastly, I think we went to all the food places around where we stayed - breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert!
8. Oh, also around the corner from where we stayed was the world’s oldest bookshop still in operation. We bought a few books as gifts from here.

Distributed cloud is the future of the cloud.

The future of Security: centralized policy and orchestration - distributed enforcement.

I see a lot of people on the Internet complaining about the shortcomings of any and all Apple products. I on the other hand am always finding ways to be grateful for what Apple makes. They may or may not put much thought into the little details.

So I am grateful that the USBC ports that I use to charge and extend the MacBook Pro are available on either side. Depending on which side of the bed I am sitting on, I like the cable to be on the left sometimes and on the right at other times.

PS: Sometimes, which side of the bed I am sitting on depends on my orientation relative to the bed - even when I am sitting on the exact same location on the bed.

Stay true to who you are. You have a dream. You have a vision. You have an idea. You feel the world would benefit from that idea. Stay unbelievably committed to that idea. But then be willing to challenge every how. So ask yourself everyday “Is there a different way? Is there a better way? Is there someone I can learn from?” And always pursue different alternatives to try to get to that vision but never give up on that vision.

My favorite CEO - Brad Smith.

You may have taken a break from your career because you chose to dedicate all your energy to take care of your family, or because of some other life changing event. In any case, when you decide to come back to the workforce, it is not very easy. 

In many cases, several years have passed and you have lost touch with what is happening in the industry. Especially in the software industry, where transformations are so rapid, that even those who go to work everyday find it difficult to keep up with the current technologies. You may not have the confidence to imagine that you can make it back to the workforce.

Fortunately, there are good employers out there who understand your situation,  respect your choice to take a break, and are willing to give you a second chance. Intuit is one of those companies. Intuit introduced an initiative in 2015, called Intuit Again that inspires and provides an opportunity for technologists to return to work after taking a break in their career for caregiving purposes.  Check it out at https://intuitagain.com/.

Thanks to its success in India, Intuit has introduced the initiative in the US this year.

How else can I improve my skills?

But what if you did not take a break for caregiving purposes? Well all is not lost. Intuit is not the only company out there. Fortunately for you, there is a tremendous shortage in the industry for software engineers at all levels. If you are willing to start over at a junior level, just pick a popular language or platform that you are comfortable with and attend a bootcamp. Or even learn on Code Academy or Pluralsight or Udemy a whole host of other web based training sites.

Read up on the new technologies and pick any one. It does not matter which. Look for open source programs/applications on github. See if you can contribute to them. Pick a project you are passionate about or your friends in the industry recommend, and see if you can contribute to it.

No matter how difficult it seems, don’t let the difficulty or other fears dissuade you. Stay encouraged. Very often, it is just a numbers game. Once you have rebuilt your skills, contributed to open source projects, etc., it is just a matter of time before someone snatches you up.

I have built up my skills, what else can I do?

You have to now actively try to land a job. Create a good one page resume. Ask your friends in the industry to review it and make it better. Then search for jobs on Indeed. You can also sign up for Indeed Prime - I think it is free. Create a Linked In profile if you don’t have one. And finally start attending Meetups in the area of your skill. It could take some time, but don’t give up too early!