the daily travails

the store

I've updated the reading material section and made it more easy to shop. Do check it out. (And if you prefer, the old version of the page is still available here.)

Happy holidays, everyone!

the move

I'm still looking for the right opportunity, so the current plan is to return to California and continue looking from there. I've also been playing around with Vox, and have set up daily travails 2.0 over there. Consider it a beta, since Vox itself is still in "preview" mode.

It's a new beginning. I hope you'll come along for the ride.

it's official!

I passed all my classes, so that's it... I'm really done, "graduated to the degree of MBA", etc...

In the past month, I've received two identical Hallmark cards that have "As You Receive Your MBA Degree..." on the cover. I had known that there are a lot of students in business schools throughout the world that are working towards MBA's, but the fact that Hallmark puts out cards that say such a thing says to me that despite it being an achievement and all that, there really are a lot of MBA's out there. Somebody somewhere in Kansas City must have run some kind of cost-benefit analysis and determined that it would be a good idea to produce that particular item, right?

that's it, i'm done!

Although it wasn't without drama, I am done with my last final! The printer in the computer lab, of course, ran out of toner just as all thirty or so of us went to print out our final exams. Fortunately, the professor's DBA is in Technology and Operations Management, so she recognizes that such snafus happen, and she accepted an emailed PDF with the required Honor Code statement in the body of the email.

The last two years have been both easier and harder than I had thought they would be when I first started on this journey (easier in some respects, harder in others). In the car this evening, I joked to C. that with few exceptions the classes I've taken in the past year or so have all pointed to the same thing: incentive alignment. Maybe it's a Chicago thing, because of the school's foundation in economics, but yes... the principal-agent problem and alignment of incentives. I wonder if the curricula at other schools boil down to different things in a similar manner, and if so, what those would be.

Some of you may already have seen this, but if not... check this out: it's like a multiplayer online game for MBAs :)

P.S. What does it mean if, after two years at a supposedly quant school, one still feels more at home in front of Word, Photoshop and Dreamweaver than one does in front of Excel?

podcasts! get your podcasts here...

It appears that the GSB has gotten into the act.

From the web site:
"We have created the Chicago GSB Podcast Series to share thought leadership on current topics affecting companies and organizations around the globe. From our world-renowned faculty members to guest speakers who are leaders in their field, youll be sure to hear ideas that are shaping the world of business."

To check out what's available and/or subscribe, go to:
http://www.chicagogsb.edu/multimedia/podcast/

It's great that the school has done this, since one can't attend every single one of the distinguished speaker appearances and other such events. I don't know that they'll be podcasting classes any time soon, though.

half a person

Early in my time as an undergrad at Berkeley, I wound up in one of those late-night bull sessions in the student lounge with about eight people from all different parts of the world, and the subject of the discussion turned to transportation, California's car culture, and how six of us were having trouble getting around because we didn't have cars. I was of the opinion back then that between AC Transit (the bus system in the East Bay) and BART, I could get pretty much wherever I wanted/needed to go on a daily basis -- the occasional concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater notwithstanding. My friend Sayed said that people who cannot drive are like second-class citizens, and that he himself felt like only half a person because he could not go where he wanted when he wanted. This struck me as odd at the time, because I never thought of Sayed as a particularly capricious person. But yesterday, on my $30 cab ride to the San Jose DMV, I thought about Sayed and understood what he had said all those years ago.

The DMV office itself wasn't so bad. There was a line out the door, which I understand is normal for Friday afternoon. But it moved fairly quickly, and the guy at the booth under the big "Start Here" sign didn't even blink when I told him my tale of woe. He simply nodded, reached over to a pile of forms next to him and handed me the one on top. "Be sure you check the box that says 'renewal'," he said as he handed me my number. "Have a nice day. Next?"

It was the shortest I've ever waited at the DMV. I was in and out of there in twenty minutes. It was the part after that took a while.

I picked this particular DMV office because it was the closest one to where the conference I'm attending is being held. It's not exactly close to Oakland Airport, which is where my rental car was being held for me while I sorted out the whole driver's license renewal thing. So while I walked out of the DMV into the nice sunny afternoon happy about not having to wait for six hours, I was also grumbling to myself about the possibility of spending $100 on cab fare to the airport. I then saw the bus stop right out front.

It was a relatively well-maintained bus stop, and provided nice shade in the afternoon sun. It even had a route map and numbers to call for trip planning assistance, so I called. The good news: I could catch the bus on the other side of the street at 2:37 and take it downtown, from where I could transfer to another bus that would take me to Fremont BART. The not-so-good news: "It'll take you about two and a half hours to get there." Whee.

By the time I got to the car rental center near Oakland Airport (three bus rides, a BART ride and a shuttle ride later), it was close to 6:30 and the woman behind the counter couldn't find my reservation. I had to dig out my laptop and boot it up to find the PDF of the confirmation page that I had saved. Her manager apologized for all the trouble and upgraded me. I'm driving a black Chevy Malibu. I feel like some kind of secret agent or something.