In Mountain View, just off the Shoreline exit and the Google campus, is a dive bar called the Sports Page. Now if you know anything about me, you understand that, first, I have absolutely no interest in sports, and second, I’m not the kind to hang out in dive bars. However, it just so happens that Sports Page is across the street from the Tesla Supercharger, so I like to hang out a bit in the bar with my crappy Dell laptop while my Model S is charging. A Blue Moon and some charts is a nice way to pass the time.

Since I spend my life doing nothing but work (notwithstanding eating, sleeping, and driving), I’m always the only person dorky enough to be hanging out in some loud bar with a laptop. The other night, as I was wrapping up the project to expand the SlopeCharts futures chart library by twenty-fold, I was quickly going from chart to chart, trying to find any problems. I was hoping that, as has always been the case, no one would try to engage with me.

This night was different, however. I heard a voice behind me: “Are you a currency trader?” I didn’t turn my head but just kept going through the charts, trying to appear as uninteresting as possible, hoping he would amble away. “No, I’m just looking at some futures, looking for bad data.”

But the fellow kept talking, asking questions, and trying to be friendly. To be clear, I never was rude to him, and when it was apparent he was the chatty sort, I tried my best to explain to him what I was doing. In order to not break my workflow, I decided to ask him questions that required lengthy answers, just so I could keep making progress on my chart inspection. So I asked him what kinds of things he liked to trade, since he made it clear he bought and sold stocks too.

“I just bought a bunch of Alphabet – – you know – – Google.”

“Oh? And what was your rationale for making that trade?”

“Huh?”

“Why did you buy it? Why did you buy that particular stock?”