Who am I? I'm wondering after having been utterly unable to log in to my very-long-time LinkedIn account using my own email addresses (all of which feature the words "sarah" and "gilbert" prominently). While it's true I keep no extraordinarily private data in my account profile (the fields for "social security number" and "mother's maiden name" aren't yet a feature of the social networking site that's been valued at $1 billion), still, when I discovered that a complete stranger was accessing my account using her own very different email address (her first name is "Kristin" and we have a few friends in common, but absolutely nothing else), I was rattled. This is both bizarre and troubling.

She found my email address through one of our common friends, and sweetly sent me her password, so I could actually be me for a bit. I approved a couple of pending connection requests. I sent an urgent, full-of-exclamation-points email to LinkedIn. [As of mid-afternoon on May 27th, I've still heard nothing from LinkedIn, and a scan of recent Twitter messages showed scattered problems.] I asked my friends if they'd heard of anything like this, and found one similar problem (as far as I can tell, it was unresolved). I'm so fortunate that it was a friendly connection and not someone bent on masquerading as me (which could have ranged in dangerousness from the mild -- wildly recommending people I don't care for, maybe -- to the seriously fraudulent). What if Bill Gates had his identity gifted to someone else? Salacious, no?

However mild or serious the result of this security breach, it's not something to be taken lightly; and a bug like this could turn off professional users who trust LinkedIn with their resume; it's certainly not befitting a billion-dollar company built on the concept of identity. News Corp., are you still interested?

It was June. I was a little broke. And my Mercedes SUV, that I'd purchased when I was single, young and foolish, got a flat tire. The tires were ready to be replaced anyway, and there was no "patching." It was dead.

That wasn't all that was wrong; I'd done a mental list of nits and major issues (like, the front windows wouldn't go up or down; the windshield was leaking; the rest of the tires were pretty shot) that added up to between $1500 and $3500, depending on how far I wanted to go. Really, it was $1000 to get the car in working order again.

I had two children, ages four and one. My house was within a few blocks of three bus lines. The whole family had bicycles and we live in a city that values alternative modes of transit. I was starting to really freak out about global warming; would my kids even have wineries nearby by the time they reached the age of consent? The papers said no.

The next day, a friend emailed. "Would anyone like to participate in a car diet?" There were freebies; a bus pass, use of a Flexcar, some goodies for our bike. We handed over our keys a few weeks later in a ceremony, with the mayor and the Channel 8 news crew standing by.

Most of what I write about draws on my experience as an investor over the last four decades, and my investment company interests. However, my role as an architect has taught me many valuable lessons as well. One of my most cherished lessons comes from the United States Marines Corps.

Constant Mission Improvement
The concept of Constant Mission Improvement was presented to me in early programming and design meetings for an aircraft maintenance training facility at the U. S. Marine Corps Air Station, Camp Pendleton, CA. There is nothing complex about the concept. Simply stated, everything shall be reviewed on a constant basis for potential improvement, and if something can be improved then strive to make it happen. This means that each team member, owners representatives designers, engineers, managers and the rest shall be on the look out for ways to make the project better all the time.

Think of Jack Welch's adoption of the Six Sigma program; disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects (driving towards six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process.

Think of what eBay (EBAY) should be doing and is not.

Lunch at O'Brien's Irish Restaurant & Pub: six bucks (drinks not included) -- oh my! In Santa Monica, with Wilshire Boulevard rents yet -- unbelievable!

Sarah Gilbert and I have been finding little bits of information here and there (Economic indicators coming from more unlikely places) that support the notion the slowing economy is being felt by the "little guy" first, as usual. Small business owners see it first because they have very flat enterprises. (Venice Beach as a leading economic indicator) Owner and staff and that's it. Sometimes just themselves. Employees receiving a paycheck see it early and have the least options to adjust to change, and fixed income seniors -- they're totally stressed out.

Large companies have so many levels of management that by the time the guy at the top feels the pain (assuming he ever does) of the guy at the bottom he has already collected his bonus for his underperforming company. By the time the guy at the top responds to the needs of the guy on the bottom (assuming he ever does) the guy on the bottom has already figured out what he needs to do to survive and has helped himself.

Composing this post in my head walking back from lunch I wondered about how much attention we pay to Wall Street data each day, even though that data really comes to us second-hand from everywhere else.

We're all trying to figure out, why are stocks up today. Sarah Gilbert and Sheldon Liber have been IM-ing in search of answers. He says it's all because of Barron's cover story. She might agree. You'll see Sarah's comments in blue.

Powerful Media Influence + Facts = Real Market Boost. This weekend's Barron's cover story is "Time to Buy" and this morning the markets moved up in excitement. On page 21 the spread outlines numerous factors which may produce big gains in the stock market. In particular, Andrew Bary makes the case for S&P growth. The market has been held back for a number of reasons, creating uncertainty. Uncertainty is bad.

Specifically; interest rates have been rising, energy costs have been rising, war has broken out in the Middle East, Iraq remains a powder keg and North Korea is run by a power-mongering, risk-taking nut case. Add to that concerns about global warming, a weakening housing market, heat waves and hurricanes and the plain old summer market doldrums -- so what would you expect? Even I -- a woman who usually pooh-poohs the effects of international politics on investments like eBay and Starbucks, some of my favorite stocks -- have been made nervous by the Mideast crisis. When Melly Alazraki sent an email this weekend telling us she was fleeing her family's home in Israel, I was shocked to the core and about as far from a buying mood as you can be.

However, Barron's makes a case for light at the end of the tunnel. Large companies have been building shareholder equity for four to five years, but company valuations have stayed put, so P/E ratios are looking low by historic comparisons and have actually shrunk. Earnings growth, has outstripped gains in the stock prices. According to Bary, growth has outpaced stock prices for 12 quarters.

We've asked each of our bloggers to introduce themselves and talk a little about why they love the market and what positions they call their own. We encourage our bloggers to own common stock and abide by a common code of conduct.

Who are you, and why are you passionate about stocks?
I was eight years old, and I always had my nose buried in a book. One day I picked up a children's novel with a eight-year-old hero who (like me) was on the brainy (read: nerdy) side. This hero's reading matter, though, was the Wall Street Journal, and his investments were as precocious as his vocabulary. Since then, I've been fascinated with the concept of owning stocks and the products, people and strategies behind the paper.

Companies, I believe, have a personality and it is by understanding this personality that financial success and failure can be divined. The beginnings of this theory were born during college, where I majored in journalism and honored the beauty of the middle column of the Wall Street Journal. Once I graduated, I took my study to the halls of finance, working as an investment banking analyst in the Loan Syndications group at First Union, and later as an associate in the Global Finance group at Merrill Lynch.

After getting my MBA from Wharton, however, I followed the siren song of the dotcom and puddle-jumped from one gutsy startup to the next, learning the ways of the venture capitalist and doing such interesting things as meeting Meg Whitman and creating financial projections for seven different ways to avoid bankruptcy.

In the midst of this all, I had children, and began blogging about them, and about my string of gutsy startups. Soon I was working for Blogging Baby and writing around the clock. When Weblogs, Inc. decided to work together with AOL Money & Finance to launch a group of stock blogs, and asked me to make it happen, I jumped at the chance.