About me, I suppose.  I don’t really want to talk about me.  I’m a university graduate with a degree in Art History (heavy on the classical archaeology), and a CFP (Certified Financial Planner).  I had a career in computers and computer networking and communications before moving to finance.

I’ve chosen a cow as my mascot because a cow is a placid, peace-loving creature, and a vegetarian…which mostly I am.  A cow’s main aim in life is to eat, and I can claim that as well.

The key reason for my choice, however, is that the cow is a ruminant.  She will not completely chew the food she eats; it will go to the larger of her four stomach partitions, the rumen, where it is stored and broken down into balls of ‘cud.’  When she rests from eating, she will regurgitate her cud and chew it until it is sufficiently broken down to move into the next phase of digestion.

The process of re-chewing the cud to further break down plant matter and stimulate digestion is called rumination. The word “ruminant” comes from the Latin ruminare, which means “to chew over again.” [Thank you, Wikipedia.]

I thought that that was a great analogy for the way my mind works.  I’m not one of those people who can instantly absorb information.  I have to chew it over a few times until I’ve gotten the full benefit of it.  For me, this is the way to associate many things and gain a greater understanding of them…sort of like the exam papers we’ve all written that told us to ‘compare and contrast.’

So there you are.

Hail and Welcome!