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9:00 AM EST, Tuesday, April 28, 2009. We're entering the Summer doldrums. The saying is "Sell in May and Go Away." Not that I wanted you there (or here), anyway.

How I spent my weekend. It was 75, blue skies, perfect weather. Outside beckoned. But here we were inside. The neighbors are in for Sunday brunch. We impose on them to help us rearrange the living room furniture -- my wife's latest idea. The couches are heavy.

"No problem," says one of our guests, "I rearrange furniture in hotel rooms."

The good news: We now have more space in our living room than we have friends.

Salesmanship sells. We drove seven hours yesterday to hear my son and his partner make a five minute pitch to the Harvard Business School Business Plan Contest 2009. They did fabulously. Of the 124 teams that started back in January, they made it to the top four. They made runner up and won $20,000. Said Michael, "I can use the money." Which is good because Daddy's checkbook is running dry.

All teams used PowerPoints. I hate PowerPoints. You can't sell anybody anything with a flat boring slide, especially one as cluttered as this one:

To sell, you need to excite. You need to make eye contact. You can't when the people are squinting at a confusing slide.

The winner ran slides that had few words. They ran the slides fast. They talked fast and furious.

They got us excited. I promised to be their first customer.

The auditorium was awful. It had a terrible echo. Lights were non-existent. The speakers were in the dark. The school allowed no practice. And the clicker that moved the Powerpoints kept sticking. We should have been warned. The place was called the Burden Auditorium.

You have to move closer to the audience, do things with your voice and your body.

It's you, not your Powerpoints, that sell. My preference is no Powerpoints.

Here's the happy family (red eyes and all) celebrating Michael's victory yesterday.

From left: Anne, Claire, Susan, Michael, Harry and Ted.

God help us from Larry Summers. Larry Summers was president of Harvard for five plus years. During that time had made some of the dumbest financial decisions any college president has ever made. He squandered hundreds of millions of dollars of Harvard's endowment on dumb investments. I was reminded of his financial ineptitude by the five $2 1/2 million cranes that sit idle over a gigantic hole in Alston, MA, just behind the business school.

Mr. Summer is now Director of Obama's Economic Policy Council. God help us.

Portfolio magazine is closed. On Monday Conde Nast closed Portfolio magazine after two years.

The first issue

The current (and last) issue

News stories of the closure put Conde Nast's investment at $100 million or $200 million and a drop in advertising of 26% or 61% in the first quarter -- depending on which story you read. Reasons for the shutdown included "an unhealthy fixation with Wall Street and the hedge fund boom over other industries."

"Portfolio saw itself in the same vein as the Fortune magazine of the 1930s, filled with lush photographs and long narratives. But that formula doesn’t work in an age where business is about speed, not leisure or luxury. It also doesn’t work ... in the age of instantaneous business news on the Web."

I liked Portfolio. They paid first rate authors like Michael Lewis big bucks to produce great stories. I've instanced many on this web site. Portfolio's problem was not editorial. It was advertising. There simply isn't enough of it. When a recession hits, it's the first thing that gets cut. The second is people. Then real estate.

What's different about this recession is that companies are making cuts much faster. That means we'll be profitable faster, though at a much lower level. That's one reason I don't believe stocks are a bargain, yet.

Worst Slide Story: A Recession Sing-A-Long! If you didn't watch this yesterday, do so today. Turn up your speakers. Click on the picture, or here. Then cry.

This market stinks so bad that ...

+ There was a guy on the street with a sign that read, "Will manage your money for food".

+ My broker recommends only two positions, Cash and Fetal.

+ I am advising my mother-in-law to put more money in.

+ My dartboard got taken away in a margin call.

+ I wish I would have tried harder in my freshman chemistry class.

+ It's not even funny anymore.

This column is about my personal search for the perfect investment. I don't give investment advice. For that you have to be registered with regulatory authorities, which I am not. I am a reporter and an investor. I make my daily column -- Monday through Friday -- freely available for three reasons: Writing is good for sorting things out in my brain. Second, the column is research for a book I'm writing called "In Search of the Perfect Investment." Third, I encourage my readers to send me their ideas, concerns and experiences. That way we can all learn together. My email address is . You can't click on my email address. You have to re-type it . This protects me from software scanning the Internet for email addresses to spam. I have no role in choosing the Google ads on this site. Thus I cannot endorse, though some look interesting. If you click on a link, Google may send me money. Please note I'm not suggesting you do. That money, if there is any, may help pay Michael's business school tuition. Read more about Google AdSense, click here and here.