A(nother) Brief Update...

Just to keep things moving, even only slightly, forward with my blog...

I'm still looking for a full-time, permanent job in the Philadelphia area.  I didn't imagine that it would be this difficult, but it would seem that transitioning my skills and experience as an Economist with the Federal government isn't as easy as I thought it would be.

I'm also still working on completing my graduate program, which seems to be going decently well.

This post was originally going to be a continuation of the voting statistics blog that I did in October 2016 has been rendered unnecessary.  The U.S. Census Bureau published an outstanding analysis piece on their website.

So, given all of that information, I am going to look for other economic/finance topics to work on for my next full blog post.

I expect to begin blogging after the fall semester ends and my work load lightens a bit.

I wish everyone a safe, fun, and happy holiday season!

Quick Update And A Graph About Oil Prices

It has been rather hectic of late:

1. My family and I have moved, and our former home has been sold;
2. I stopped taking classes at UMUC, a combination of not having enough of either the time or the money necessary;
3. I am looking for a full-time, permanent job in the Philadelphia area; and,
4. the boys take up a lot of my free time.

So, I am getting back into the blog slowly with this quick personal update, and (what I think is) a nifty little visualization of oil prices.  I'm sure everyone is familiar with the line chart:

Note: red line is average price over the series.

I found this to be an interesting way to look at oil prices.  It shows the annual variation in the per-barrel price of oil as a boxplot, with the overall average price imposed by the red horizontal line:

If you can ignore the change of price in the last ten or so years, the thing that may catch you eye -- as it did mine -- was that many years don't have much volatility in the price, with the obvious exceptions of 2007 through 2009.

As usual, my R code is in my GitHub repo.

More posts will follow, as I strive to make more time to express myself.  I would like to do a follow up/finishing post on the voter data.  Plus, I want to explore and analyze some other data of economic/financial significance.

Stay tuned.

A(nother) Brief Update

2016 is gone and I find myself nearly one week into 2017, preparing for several changes.

My family and I will be moving back to the Philadelphia area.  My wife and I are both from that area, so we are "going home".  This has been a shared goal of ours, and it has been realized by my wife accepting a position with her employer that is bringing us back to the area.  I am in the midst of job searching.  I have had several interviews and have a few more coming in the next week or two.  The next month or so will be hectic but should pass quickly.

Another, and perhaps more interesting change, is my pursuit of another bachelor's degree.  I have commented on taking (and completing) courses through Coursera in previous blog posts.  I completed the Data Science specialization offered by Johns Hopkins University (which focused on using R) and the Python for Everybody specialization offered by University of Michigan.  These were great for piquing my interest in programming.  After doing a little research, I decided to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science through University of Maryland University College.  They offer all of their classes online, so the move will not disrupt my class schedule much, and I am financing most of the tuition with my remaining G.I. Bill education benefits -- which would have otherwise expired in August 2018.  To make things even easier, they accept up to 90 credits for applicants who have already earned a bachelor's degree!  That leaves me with just the major requirements to complete the program.

The goal of this is to fill in the blanks in my knowledge and skills in a structured learning environment.  I will finish the computer science program as well as a graduate program in applied economics.  This will allow me to combine my interests in programming, data science, and economics... and hopefully open up more opportunities for me professionally, as well as my personal journey of exploration that I post irregularly on my blog.