The MBA Experience

Round and round

2008-04-10T00:01:00.000-07:00

I was one of the 100,00 people stranded by the MD-80 debacle at American Airlines Tuesday. It was going to be a nice, easy trip to Boston for an important practice meeting to discuss how to grow a key client that I had been working with for months.

Having made it to Chicago on a pretty flimsy 757, I noted that my flight to Boston had been canceled. There was rain at O' Hare but not enough to account for all the cancellations on the American board.

The agents tried to help, but it was pretty obvious that this way beyond anything that American was prepared to handle. Long lines to talk to agents, lengthy waits on the 1800 numbers and I even got hung up on at the platinum AAdvantage line which has never happened before.

I was put on a standby list for a 6AM flight the next day, but the agent was good enough to let me know that the flight would also likely be canceled as it was another MD-80. Given the choice to take a flight at 2PM to try to get to a 9AM meeting, I decided to ask for a return ticket to Los Angeles instead.

Fortunately, one of my fraternity brothers lived twenty minutes from O' Hare so I crashed at his place rather than trust myself to the Sheraton that American's voucher would have sent me to. After seeing cabbies turn down taxi vouchers, I think I made the right call. I paid my cabbie in cash and offerred him the voucher as a freebie and he rejected it!

I was smart enough to check the flight status of my return leg to LA before heading to the airport and sure enough - CANCELED. I tried a general search on my company's travel site and found a United flight that left at noon... at $380 one-way, it seemed like a bargain.

I realize this is due to the FAA coming down extra hard on the airlines due to the pressure on them by the pols, but still - American has a lot to answer for. The whole experience is making me rethink my singled minded American focus... maybe spreading my eggs into another basket (e.g. United) might be worthwhile after all. I'll see what American offers by way of apologies... an upgrade to first on our BabyMoon trip to the Caymans would do nicely.

Bad Travel Day

2008-02-04T22:36:00.001-08:00

Today sucked lemons...

I arrived 30 minutes before my flight to Reno and the kiosk check in was disabled because the gate agent had closed the flight. I had this happen to me once before and I was able to get a standby boarding pass from a ticketing agent, run up to the gate and got on the flight with 10 minutes to spare. This time, a new ticketing agent insisted on reaching a gate agent before issuing me a standby boarding pass. After 10 minutes of trying to reach the gate, he spent 5 more minutes to get me a standby boarding pass on the next flight - four hours later. I made it through security and went to my original gate to see the plane pull away. 5 - 10 minutes would have made the difference and avoided four wasted hours. It's partially my fault... I could have woken up a bit earlier, but what is the worst that could have happened by sending me up without reaching a gate agent? I get turned away? I'm in the same boat I was in before.

Now, some of you are thinking I should check in at home, right? It's okay... I won't take it personally. I thought of it too, but I'm forced to use a travel service that doesn't register on the Southwest site and my tickets on Alaska are code shared with American which doesn't let you check in online for a code shared flight.

I set up shop at a Starbucks and rescheduled my morning meetings for the late afternoon.

I arrived in Reno four hours late and breezed up to the Hertz Gold counter. Normally, this is the best thing since sliced bread. You walk up, tell them your last name, show your ID and walk away with the keys. No paperwork, no need to sign anything, no questions about the insurance... nice and easy. But beware that you need to call them to reschedule your reservation if you miss a flight or they'll cancel your reservation and give your car away. I had a 30 minute wait till they cleaned a Prius for me. I would have been happy with any of the 16 cars that were parked in their lot, but those were allocated for other people. 30 minutes later, 10 of those cars were still there. I'm sure any reasonable person would have traded their Nissan Versa (one of the 10) for a Prius.

I made it through the day... and got back to my home away from home - the Courtyard Marriott and they had no internet service in my room. After dealing with the tech support for a half hour, they wrote the connection off and entered a ticket for a field engineer. I ended up leaching a wireless connection from someone who brought a mini-access point for their room. They're close enough to get a good connection - it's slow but it works.

But there is more to this post than listening to my complain about my hard day in a desperate quest for sympathy. I already did that with Rachel and she duly supportive. The point is that when served lemons, demand that they turn it into lemonade for you!

American is sending me a $25 voucher for my troubles.
After a bit of mild flirting, the receptionist at the Courtyard slipped me two Heinekens.
Hertz hasn't done anything yet... but I that's because I haven't asked them to do anything yet. I'll definitely hit them up on my way out.

Remember - you don't get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate.

Update: Kudos to Marriott for giving me a bonus 10,000 points for the snafu with internet access. It's great to see a company offer an unsolicited benefit when a cusotmer has a problem.

Customer acquisition costs and customer retention

2008-01-23T00:19:00.000-08:00

Customer Acquisiton Cost is the term marketers use to describe the number they calculate by dividing all the money they spend to get new customers by the number of new customers they picked up. It's impossible to translate expenses directly to the acquisition of any given customer because they include a certain percentage of fixed costs (e.g. the cost of leasing the office for the Chief Marketing Officer), but it is a useful metric to understand the value of reducing churn by retaining customers.

Someone was counting up the cost of all those mailers I shred every week. According to the Fortune, credit card companies have a customer acquisition cost of $50 - $75. So what? This means that it costs those same companies $50 - $75 to replace you if you leave them. The exact dollar amount will vary from company to company but the fact remains that they have to pay to replace your business. This coupled with the value you bring to them through the fees they charge merchants - average of 1.7% according to WSJ (subsctiption required).

Unfortunately, not all credit card companies are smart enough to understand these costs well enough to implement processes to benefit from or at least avoid getting hurt by them. Two case studies:

Discover - I typically run about $150 worth of charges through Discover every month so they make a middling $30.60 off our transactions every year based on the 1.7% rate above. I was a week late with a payment because they screwed up the electronic bills I get through my bank. I was traveling and tired so I missed the paper statement. I had a finance charge of $7.50. I called to see if they would waive the fee. The customer service rep (CSR) was a bit rude and said he couldn't do anything. I said fine... then I'd like to cancel my card. I was transferred to another CSR in a different state who looked at my account and asked why I was leaving. I related the same story and he waived the fee. I was happy and they kept a customer.

Chase United Mileage Plus - Rachel would typically spend $1500 per month on this card making Chase a very respectable $306 per year. After having done my homework on the AAdvantage card, I called Chase and asked them to waive the annual fee ($60). Not only did they refuse, but the CSR actually told me that I would have to cancel the card to get the recently charged fee reimbursed. That made an easy decision even easier. Two weeks later, Rachel got a preapproval letter for a Chase United Mileage Plus card. You just can't make this stuff up.

I can understand one bad CSR not having a grasp on the intricacies of marketing and customer satisfaction, but shouldn't the senior managers at Chase have enough sense to initiate a process for cancellation that makes at least makes an attempt to convert an unhappy customer? For the $60 annual fee and the 5 minutes it would have taken with a senior CSR, they could have avoided the need to replace a customer ($50 - $75) and kept the annual revenues ($306) they were getting from our account.

Valuing Mileage Credit Card Offers

2008-01-22T23:36:00.000-08:00

After years of bombardment by offers for the AAdvantage Mileage card by Citibank, I finally succumbed to their latest offer - 40K miles. Yeah, there's a catch...

20,000 miles - make $750 in purchases within 4 months
10,000 miles - make $10,000 in purchases during your 1st year
10,000 miles - make $10,000 in purchases during your 2nd year

But how do you put a value on those miles? Since Rachel and I usually travel to Boston to visit her family, I used a weekend trip to Boston as a guide. I picked three random weekends in the next year and fares averaged $388. American charges 25,000 miles for a similar economy ticket to Boston. That gives us a value of 1.55 cents per mile.

The AAdvantage card gives 1 mile per dollar spent so the total mileage you get if you make $20,000 in purchases on your card in the first two years is 60,000 miles (40K bonus miles + 20K earned miles). Those 60,000 miles have a value of $931.20 using the 1.55 cents per mile value above. On a spending base of $20K, that equates to very nice 4.7% cashback award.

There is the catch of the annual fee, but Citibank waives it for the first year. I expect them to waive it going forward based on a comment from a customer service rep I spoke with. If I get too much flack from Citibank when I call up to get the fee waived next year, I simply cancel the card and pocket the 40,000 miles for the $10K I spend on the card in the first year. Still a good deal with a return of 6.2% (the second year with a return of 3.1% dilutes the first year return).

The deal is pretty good on it's own merits but how does it compare to other cards? My other favorite card is my Costco True Earnings card from American Express. Costco offers 3% for dining out, 2% for travel (great for consultants) and 1% for everyday purchases. Not everyone takes American Express so the AAdvantage card which is offered as Amex or Mastercard offers the extra benefit of giving you a card accepted in most places that don't take Amex.

Given all that, how do I use my cards?

I use my Costco Amex card for all travel (3%) & dining (2%) expenses.
I use my AAdvantage card for all other expenses until I hit that $10K spending mark.
I then switch back to the Costco card for every other expense. While the AAdvantage card provides a higher return (1.55%) for those charges, I get plenty of miles from my travel now and so I'm not sure that I'll be traveling enough to use too many miles while I can never get enough to cover what I spend at Costco.

Thompson Out!

2008-01-22T23:13:00.000-08:00

Fred Thompson quit today. I liked Fred's economic issues and loved him as Arthur Branch in Law & Order so I was hoping his campaign would gain some traction. Of course, that didn't work out for various reasons and there are plenty of analysis out there on why not, but I think the best thing he did for the GOP was to split the evangelical vote in South Carolina which deprived Huckabee of a crucial victory there. Without the media push that he would have gotten from winning SC, I think Huckabee is going to be an also-ran after Super Tuesday.

Points, Points, Points

2007-10-15T22:29:00.001-07:00

I'm starting my fifth week of travel since I started at company A and the points are racking up. I belong to the following points programs:

Air Travel

American Airlines - my favorite carrier. They gave everyone in the Anderson class of 2007 instant Gold Status (Tier 1) and their program has been easy to understand and follow. I'm taking my first free trip this Thanksgiving when Rachel & I go to Boston.
Delta - they would have edged out American as my first choice this year, but they didn't count my miles on my trip to Thailand towards elite status so I stuck with American where I got bonus miles for being a Gold member.
United - Rachel likes United so I got an account with them as well.
Southwest / Continental - memberships, but no real mileage accrual
USAirways - dead last on my choice of airlines. Why? At the same time that American was giving me complimentary gold status, USAir expired 35K miles that I had racked up in previous years. I couldn't stomach the thought of paying a fee for one of their credit cards in order to get them reinstated. Did I make a mistake? If so, I take solace in that I will rack up 100K-200K miles per year from now on on USAir's competitors...

Hotels

Marriott - The courtyards have served me well. Free internet and you get to rack up points. Their first elite tier starts at 10 nights so it's fairly easy to get there. If you stay fifty nights in a year, you get free breakfast and room upgrades.
Hilton - A good alternative to Marriott. Their Hampton Inns also have free internet and throw in free breakfast to boot. When the Courtyards are booked up, I'll stay here.

Car Rentals

Hertz - Company A has a corporate deal with Hertz so all consultants get #1 Club Gold service. Hertz usually charges for this, but I get it for free. The gold service is nice - walk up and show them your license and your car is ready and waiting. No forms, no signatures... I can be out of the Reno airport (gate to freeway) in five minutes. They do have elite status, but the first tier requires ten unique rentals. Not ten days... ten rentals. Yeah... goat balls.

How to Work the System

I'm still trying to figure out how to work the hotel / car rental memberships (tips appreciated), but I've got some good advice on the frequent flyer programs. The best time to start is when you know you expect to take 2-3 cross country trips in three months. Call American and ask if you can take the platinum challenge. If you can accumulate 10,000 points in 90 days, you get the status. The trick is that not all trips are treated equally. You get extra points for flying first / business / full-fare economy, half points for deeply discounted economy and straight points for discount economy tickets. One discount trip to Boston and one deeply discounted trip to London and I'll have Platinum status by mid-November.

Not a good sign

2007-10-15T22:20:00.000-07:00

High on the list of things you don't want to hear when you fly - "Ladies and gentlemen, we need two volunteers from the first two rows to move to the back of the plane to help balance the weight." If a 380 pound shift in weight (the average weight for an adult man is 190 lbs) can make a difference in the safe takeoff of a plane, then I'm not sure I want to fly on a CRJ200 anymore.

14 Month Summary

2007-10-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

When we last saw our courageous hero, he had fixed his computer, been the guest of honor at an awesome bachelor party, and started work on his GAP project. What could have happened in a mere 14 months?

Got married... big success even though the groom showed up an hour and a half late. Not my fault - have you ever tried to round up the women in an Indian family for a big ceremony? How about when two of them have small children?
Honeymooned in Jamaica at Sandals in Ocho Rios... good time, but I wouldn't do an all-inclusive again... you eat too much.
Completed GAP! The company loved the work and are implementing the plans.
Interviewed with numerous companies during the formal recruitment period at Anderson.
Got a promotion at Company X to program manager... it was a small raise but I was the youngest program manager in the Division.
Graduated from UCLA Anderson.
Rachel got a promotion to corporate controller at her small public company.
Gave notice at Company X after getting an offer from the IT practice of a management consulting firm (Company A).
Made an offer on my first home.
Took two weeks to revisit Thailand and hit all the beaches I missed on the last trip - loved Ko Samet and would recommend it to everyone. Do it right and stay at the five star places.
Rachel closed on the house while I was on vacation! Yes it was a lot of work. In my defense, her commute is now ten minutes while mine is an hour when I'm not traveling.
Started at Company A and got shipped off to Reno for the rest of the year running solo on my first assignment!
Revisited my blog and was shamed into restarting my posting by a comment from Manik.

I'll expound on some of these a bit more and post some photos from the wedding, Thailand, etc over time.

He Lives!

2007-10-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

Has it really been 14 months since my last post??? Wow... I suck. But I did tell you that the FEMBA program was a tough one.

I took a look at my blog after seeing a post by Director Mitch (DM) celebrating his fourth year anniversary. He's averaged about a post a day... me not so much. First things first - congratulations DM!

The Power of the Internet

2006-08-04T19:13:00.000-07:00

My desktop froze on me today. Actually it was worse. It crashed as it was checking NVRAM. No response, no chance to enter boot, nothing. I typed in a couple of keywords in Google and came upon this post:

K7S5A Boot Problem

A friend has a K7S5A pro motherboard that hangs during a boot afterdisplaying "Checking NVRAM" on the monitor. The memory test thatnormally follows this did not display anything.I have a K7S5A and took out my memory to see if I would get the sameerror. The BIOS did not output anything at all to the monitor.Therefore I don't think that it's bad memory.Any ideas what would cause the BIOS to hang here?

One of the responses said it could be a USB device issue and to try to fiddle with them. I thought it was bullshit but figured it was worth a shot before I started tweaking the motherboard. I unplugged all my USB devices and it worked! A five minute fix... thank you Internet!

Emailing

2006-06-22T23:42:00.000-07:00

I decided to take down my email link since I found myself completely ignoring that account. I started feeling ashamed of finding six month old emails asking for advice... if you want to contact me, post a comment.

GAP

2006-06-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

We're starting on probably the most exciting part of our MBA careers - the Global Access Program. I'm still a bit iffy about how much I can publish about the details of our company so I'll keep it vague for now.

Here's a few bullet points

~35 companies have joined the program seeking cheap consulting from MBA students
the companies seeking to enter a new market - typically a foreign company entering the US market though there is one entering the China market
students form teams of five and bid on companies
tying bids are decided by the program directors
students get access to company executives and work closely with them for six months
an international trip is involved - my team is going to Italy

For now, all I'll say is that my company is a luxury good manufacturer that provides products to well recognized luxury brands for them to sell under their name. They want my team to come up with the strategy for them to enter the US market under their own brand...

More to follow.

Update

2006-06-22T23:01:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

The marriage plans are coming along nicely. We've got our vendors all lined up, 180+ guests arriving, and a two page to-do list before everything is finalized. We were even able to use what we've learned at Anderson in our wedding planning. Rachel just finished a negotiations course with Prof. Lippman and promptly renegotiated with our venue to bring in outside catering (something they swore they would never allow) brining our food bill down by $3K. Of course, she promptly spent part of it on an extended open bar and additional services, but we're still ~$1.8K up. What a girl... I knew there was a reason I'm marrying her.

My best man (my brother Kamal) and two groomsmen (Jeff & Damien) threw the most kickass Bachelor party that I have ever been too. Eighteen of my closest friends flew / drove to Vegas. Nine of us went to dinner at Smith & Wollensky on Friday night for a great meal which was made all the better when followed by two glasses of Louis XIV and cuban cigars (lawfully obtained of course). If you ever go, say hi to Tommy at the bar - he's got a good attitude and knows how to make a drink. We proceeded to carouse the strip for a few hours before heading to the Horseshoe for craps and poker. I caught a twenty minute nap before getting up to drive to Lake Mead for a day on the water in a houseboat. We also rented a powerboat and one of the guys brought up a jet ski. Being out on the water was the highlight of the trip and I would highly recommend it to anyone planning a Vegas weekend with their boys. Forever Resorts will do a one day houseboat rental (8-4) but you have to be persistent.

We were back in Vegas by six for a two hour powernap before heading out to the official Bachelor Party dinner at the Prime Steakhouse in the Bellagio. The food was better here but we skipped the Louis this time. Instead we started with Lagavulin 16 and ended with an Armagnac that was older than anyone at the table. Everyone piled into a stretch Navigator and... well, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

We got back to our hotel at about six in the morning and got six hours of sleep before checking out. Damien and I had flights out at five so we recuperated with brunch at Bouchon. I talked Damien into a final round of craps and we got a hot shooter at the other end of the table. He rolled for about a half hour and we each tripled our money. And, for once, I promptly left and cashed out leaving Vegas up for the whole weekend. Icing on the cake...

A good girl sends you to Vegas to party with your boys with a kiss. A great girl picks you up at the airport and gives you a massage to help you recover... Okay, I'm ready to get married.

Wedding Site

2006-04-16T23:05:00.000-07:00

I've been quiet for quite some time but that doesn't mean that I haven't been active online. Here's a link to the project that's taken up a good deal of my spare time this year.

Singapore rocks

2006-01-12T15:49:00.000-08:00

Rachel and I are on the way back from a three week trip to India. The Singapore airport rocks... You can spend a six hour layover here and have plenty of fun things to do. Right now, I've got my laptop plugged in at a sitdown kiosk with free internet access courtesy of CHANGi Airport. Singapore is a big change from India... more later. I took about 2000 photos so my blog hiatus will be broken with trip postings from the states of Punjab, Haryana, UP, and Rajastan.

Busy, busy, busy

2005-09-17T12:17:00.000-07:00

With school starting up in two weeks, I've been swamped with organizing elections and events for the FEMBA Council. Couple that with a my new job ramping up and I've had almost no time to make new posts. It's hard to doucument your life and live it at the same time. When things get hectic, one of the two has to suffer and so far it's been the documentation and not the living - the way it should be.

And of course, getting engaged didn't help the time crunch any either...

More on the engagement ceremony in the next post.

Officially a moron

2005-09-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

This woman has really lost it...

CINDY SHEEHAN CALLS FOR U.S TO 'PULL OUR TROOPS OUT OF OCCUPIED NEW ORLEANS'Mon Sep 12 2005 12:42:11 ET

Celebrity anti-war protester, fresh off inking a lucrative deal with Speaker's Bureau, has demanded at the HUFFINGTON POST and MICHAEL MOORE'S website that the United States military must immediately leave 'occupied' New Orleans. "I don't care if a human being is black, brown, white, yellow or pink. I don't care if a human being is Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, or pagan. I don't care what flag a person salutes: if a human being is hungry, then it is up to another human being to feed him/her. George Bush needs to stop talking, admit the mistakes of his all around failed administration, pull our troops out of occupied New Orleans and Iraq, and excuse his self from power. The only way America will become more secure is if we have a new administration that cares about Americans even if they don't fall into the top two percent of the wealthiest."

Sheehan is in the middle of a bus trip across America in support of her cause.

Idiot.

A little zest

2005-08-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

After a long delay at UPS, I finally got my lemon zester and proceeded to follow Vodkapundit's gin martini recipe. I usually prefer my martinis with olives, but this wasn't bad.

There's waiting... and there's waiting

2005-08-17T22:07:00.000-07:00

One more final and we're done with Operations & Technology Management (OTM) and the summer quarter. This was the most intense course we've taken so far - probably because the timeline was compressed. For the summer quarter, we had one class twice a week for five weeks instead of two classes once a week for ten weeks.

In one class, we went over the psychology of waiting lines. One of our readings went over the principles of waiting:

1. Unoccupied time feels longer than occupied times.
2. Pre-process waits feel longer than in-process waits.
3. Anxiety makes waits seem longer.
4. Uncertain waits are longer than known, finite waits.
5. Unexplained waits are longer than explained waits.
6. Unfair waits are longer than equitable waits.

I got to experience some of these principles first hand at both FedEx and UPS recently while waiting to pick up packages. The companies are similar on a lot of these principles, but there is one big difference in when the customer is initiated into the proces. FedEx does a good job of taking your information quickly so that you feel like you've started the process. At UPS, agents serves one customer from end to end leaving you spending a lot of time waiting in a line. The end result is that you feel like the wait at UPS is twice as long.

Ghost in the Machine

2005-07-13T22:09:00.000-07:00

I got the weirdest email today. The subject was "Fwd: Warning: could not send message for past 4 hours." and the text reads:

Naveen,
I am not sure who you are exactly looking for. The only Dean Cox I can find is Deborah Cox who is a Dean in the Engineering Department. Please check the online directory for more information. You can search by first and last name. I hope this helps.
-Farah

>Hi,
>
>I took a leave of absence this semester and I plan to return for the
>Spring semester. Dean Cox told me I should send him an email a few
>weeks before I planned to come back, but I have misplaced his email
>address.
>
>I am going into my senior year in the Arts and Science college. I am a
>Computer Science major.
>
>My student ID number is XXXXXX.
>
>-Naveen

This is a response to an email I sent about five years ago! It must have gotten stuck on a server somewhere and finally delivered to a very confused person.

Last Day in Bangkok

2005-07-02T14:36:00.000-07:00

I slept in on my last night in Bangkok. If I time it well, I should be able to stay up tonight, leave Bangkok at 7 AM, sleep on the plane, and arrive in LA at 10:40 AM on Sunday.

I walked up and down Sukhumvit road today and did a last bit of shopping before leaving. I was totally psyched when I found a pewter goblet with elephants molded into the metal. I’m going to have to throw more wine and cheese parties when I get back just to have more chances to use it.

I also came across a used book store and picked up four sci-fi books to read in case I have trouble sleeping on the plane.

Back to Bangkok

2005-07-01T14:34:00.000-07:00

I’m still amazed by the quality of Thai airlines. The Samui airport had free snacks, drinks, and internet access.

It also has a native cat population that seemed to enjoy taking the most comfortable chairs.

Our airplane was a jet so the flight time was only 45 minutes into Bangkok.

I tried to catch a flight on Friday to LAX, but nothing was available till Sunday. A nice rep from Thai airways let me change over to a direct flight that left early Sunday so I managed to save myself form a long layover in Japan. I had to pay for another night in Bangkok, but I saved myself from an 8 hour layover… well worth it.

I got a room at a cheap lodge on Sukhumvit road. It was a tourist area so there was numerous bars and restaurants. I wandered down a road and found a bar called Charcoal Grey. It had the feel of an old western saloon except with a live band in the corner. This was a place where Thais went to do live karaoke and some of them were damn good! One young Thai girl sang an amazing rendition of ‘I will survive” and a middle aged Thai guy sang “You look wonderful tonight.” The food was good too, but very spicy. Dinner with two beers and live entertainment cost 240 baht. #45 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck.

Back to Samui

2005-06-30T14:28:00.000-07:00

Jeff wanted to stay on Koh Tao, but I was ready to head back so I caught the morning boat to Samui. We stopped to drop off / pick up passengers at Koh Phangan. Very sweet Thai women sold drinks and sandwiches to the passengers for pretty good prices. They chanted “cheap cheap” to draw our your attention.

I had hoped to fly to Pattaya that same day, but all the flights were booked for two days so I booked a ticket back to Bangkok for Friday. I took a room at the Green Hotel (700 baht / night) which is where Amy had stayed all week. She was still there and bored stiff so we hung out all day shopping.

I bought gifts for my family and some close friends. Most of it was clothing which you could get pretty cheap if you bargained hard. We did find one store with fixed prices and it was refreshing to get good prices without having to bargain. I spent about 3000 baht on clothes there… for about 20 different pieces. Many of the shops sold DVDs for 100 baht each. I bought 12 for 1,100 baht. I’m sure they’re legal copies, of course.

On a completely different topic, Diet Coke doesn’t exist in Thailand. It’s called Coke Light… I have no idea why.

Sai Ree Beach

2005-06-29T14:21:00.000-07:00

Sai Ree beach seemed like a much better place to stay than the area around the pier so we moved up there for our last night on Koh Tao. We hired a jeep to take us to our next bungalow but the driver ran out of petrol on the way. Fortunately, these nice people at a roadside fruit stand called us a cab and we were on our way in under five minutes.

Seashell resort was 2000 baht per night and well worth the price. We were fifteen steps from the beach which you could see from the front porch.

Sai Ree has a five foot wide path that runs up and down the beach that serves as the main road for the community. We walked down the road looking for a good place to eat and saw this sign:

And on the beach, #37 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck:

We found a nice tapas bar on the Sai Ree road that was simply amazing. We ate seven tapas and every single one was delicious, and their sangria was incredible. It was our most expensive meal in Thailand – 1000 baht. Where else can you get a first class meal at a nice restaurant on the beach for $12.50 (US) per person?

The owner was a jackass. We complimented him on the food and he bragged about how his chef used to cook for royalty in Europe and that he had recruited him. His whole tone was just very condescending. We ran into the chef a bit later and he was very appreciative of our compliments and that helped us feel much better.

They also had hookahs available for rent so we splurged on a hookah and a couple of Singhas.

We polished off the evening by going back to the cool beach bar for a last round of drinks before heading off to bed.

Operation Fish Watch

2005-06-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

Koh Tao is renowned for it’s diving but since we didn’t have the time to get certified, Jeff and I settled for an all day snorkeling tour around the island. The prices were much more reasonable than Koh Samui. A snorkeling trip from Koh Samui sold for 1,500 baht. We paid 500 baht per person in Koh Tao. Also, you spend more time in the water and less boating to the dive spots.

Our boat stopped at four different spots around the island. The water was warm and clear. We didn’t see any sharks or sea turtles, but there was a good mix of corals, fish, and sandy bottoms.

Our last snorkeling stop was on the tiny island of Nang Yuan. This is two small rocky peaks joined by a white sand beach. There was a shallow lagoon between the two islands with a multitude of fish and crystal clear water.

Boats are forbidden to dock at Nang Yuan after 5 PM, but there is a resort on the island where you can stay overnight. As Jeff put it, it was a tiny island paradise off the coast of a small island paradise off the coast of a medium island paradise off the coast of Thailand.

During our walk back to our bungalow, we passed the same fruit stand where I had bought my lychees the night before. I decided to buy another half kilo, but I was shocked when the fruit girl asked for 90 baht per kilo! I wasn’t able to convince her that I had bought them yesterday for less than half the price so I had to do without lychees that night.

I had heard about a good massage place by the pier and I decided to try an oil massage this time. There was nothing sexual about the massage, but the masseuse definitely massaged areas that normally don’t get massaged. My gluteus maximus did feel better afterwards though.

Jeff and I decided to walk up to Sai Ree beach for drinks that night. We met two Brits (Dean and Charlotte) along the way and decided to hang out together that night. There are some awesome bars on Sai Ree beach. We found one that basically consisted of a bar underneath a tree, mats on the sand, beer bottle oil lamps, fire swingers, and some techno music in the background. It came in #29 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck.

On the way back to our bungalow, we came across a swing on a tree on the edge of the beach. You could swing out over the water… #33 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck. The photos came out a little dark, but you can make out Jeff swinging in the dark.

Operation Koh Tao

2005-06-28T11:00:00.000-07:00

Jeff and I had our final free breakfast at the Chaewang Cabanas before our taxi picked us up to take us the marina. It was a beautiful day for a boat trip.

Too beautiful to be working, as this Thai guy showed us:

The boat was packed with tourists coming back from the islands.

One guy getting off the boat had a shirt that read “No Sex Please.” I looked for a shop that sold them (now that would be a Thai souvenir!) but I couldn’t find one.

The boat was nicer than I expected. There was an upper deck where people could sunbathe / lounge and a seating area down below where they played Blackhawk Down for the passengers (a legal copy, I’m sure).

They pile all of the luggage in the middle of the boat and I was beginning to feel a bit self conscious of lugging around a suitcase when everyone else had backpacks. One of the shops in Koh Tao had one on sale for 950 baht which seemed like a ridiculous price for a Northface framepack (even if it was a knock off) so I bought one there. I needed the room for the gifts I was bringing back as well as the new clothes I bought for myself.

Merchant in Koh Tao were much more laid back than those in Bangkok or Samui. You could haggle the price down a bit (10-15%) but they were fairly reasonable to begin with so the merchants weren’t willing to budge very much. The price of commodities (internet time, overseas calls, boat tickets, airline tickets, etc.) seemed fixed across the island.

We used Jeff’s Lonely Planet guide to find a nice place to stay – the Koh Tao Royal Resort. It was a nice place, but I’m not sure that I would stay there again. It was a bit pricy (2,500 baht – down from 3,000 baht) and a little remote from the heart of the admittedly small town. The bungalow would have been good for a family – two stories with two beds / two baths. The views were very amazing and the hammock was very nice.

The owner / manager was quite the character. Here’s what his flip flops looked like:

Our bungalow had a fridge but it wasn’t stocked – the first time I’ve seen a hotel room without a mini-bar. Not a problem, there was 7-11 just five minutes away on foot. We bought our own Singha beers & water and filled the fridge.

Jeff’s bed didn’t have a mosquito net (this was the first place we stayed in that had them) so he crashed with me here:

We took the five minute walk into town and I finally saw Lychee fruit for sale. They were 40 baht for a kilo so I bought half a kilo to snack on that night… hmm, fresh lychee.

We stayed on the western side of Koh Tao so we caught the sunset as well… well worth the experience though I wish Rachel had been there to share it.

Muay Thai

2005-06-27T10:43:00.000-07:00

During breakfast the next day, we met a couple who were starting at Anderson in the full time program this fall. They had taken a couple of months to travel and had just got back form Koh Phangan and Koh Tao, two little islands off the coast of Koh Samui that Jeff and I were interested in seeing. They encouraged us to go the smaller of the two – Koh Tao. We booked our boat tickets at a travel agent (550 baht with pickup from our hotel) later that day – Operation Koh Tao was on.

I had gotten a bit scruffy as it had been a month since my last haircut. I had tried to get one with my stylist but she was booked solid so I took my chances in Thailand. Getting a haircut in Thailand is a risky proposition. It’s hard to communicate properly with the girls who do the cutting so all you can get across is “short” or “not so short.” Also, it’s a bit nerve racking when she pulls out a razor to give the back of your neck a really nice, close shave. It felt really weird when she did the same to my ears. Yes… she shaved my ears!

After the haircut, they put you in a shampoo chair where you get shampooed and conditioned. The haircut turned out fairly well and I needed a shave so I took a chance and asked for a shave. Barbers in India give nice quick, clean shaves so I wasn’t expecting a big hassle. She seemed to spend an enormous amount of time on my cheeks and chin but left my neck a bit ragged. My Mach 3 did a much better job the next day.

Muay Thai is a big sport in Thailand and Koh Samui had a stadium where super fights occurred three days a week. There were nine bouts with five three minute rounds. Most of the fights ended before the five rounds were through – usually when one of the contestants was eliminated by the referee for serious cuts or collapsed holding a sensitive area.

Cheap seats were 600 baht. Two other tiers were available for 800 baht (closer seats) or 1000 baht (padded seats). Beers were 100 baht.

The cheap seats were fine for the likes of us so the three of us parked ourselves there.

Most of the fights seemed professional, but they had some gimmick fights where either kids or women fought

They had a band providing live music for the action. I kept waiting for them to break into the Spiderman theme song, but they stayed professional.

All in all, it was an interesting experience, but I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re into marital arts. Amy seemed to like kicking ass so we had a good time.

Jeff was tired after the fighting so he walked back to our hotel and Amy and I continued on to the Reggae bar. It kicked ass and came in as #21 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck. It is a giant bar on the shores of lake Chaewang, and (I repeat) it kicked ass. There was a live band on a stage and a giant dance floor. They did covers of Lose Yourself and Crazy in Love while we were there. There was still a bit of an accent, but the band seemed to be into the music and everyone was having a great time. A couple of jack and cokes went for 120 baht so it was reasonable too. After walking Amy to her hotel, I headed off to bed to rest for Operation Koh Tao.

Tailoring

2005-06-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

There are a dozen Armani tailor shops on Chaewang beach. All of them would love your money. I saw one that had a shirt with white French cuffs and collar in the display so I inquired about buying one. Before I knew what was happening, I was being measured for a pair of pants and a shirt. I agreed to 2,100 baht if it could be made ready by the next day. They were an hour late, but the shirt fit extremely well. I ended up ordering five more shirts, two pants, and a suit (two piece) for 11,500 baht. I probably could have bargained a bit more, but if it was a good amount of clothing (custom fitted) for $330 (US). Everything was ready in three days and fit pretty well. The quality will show itself after a few washes.

Stray Dogs

2005-06-27T10:32:00.000-07:00

There are tons of stray dogs wandering the streets of Thailand. No one seems to mind and the dogs seem to have free run of the towns.

Random dog #3492 lying down in the middle of Ninja Crepes:

Gives a new meaning to term “How much is that Doggy in the window?” (random dog # 4231)

Random dog #4553 in Koh Tao:

Top dog in Koh Tao (random dog #4927)

Night Out In Chaewang

2005-06-26T19:41:00.000-07:00

Jeff, Amy, and I had dinner together at Ninja Crepes – where prices were cheap, the food good, a seat hard to find, and the amenities questionable. For example, the table had a hole in it:

And the napkins were a roll of toilet paper (and not the two-ply kind either!)

We walked into a Beer Bar to shoot some pool. Beer bars are open air bars where some Thai prostitutes ply their trade. We had Amy with us so they left us alone. The Iguana guy didn’t leave us alone. He walked up to us with a giant lizard and offered to sell us a Polaroid for 200 baht. I gave Amy my digital camera (loaned from Dr. Chuck) and took some great shots:

We had the guy take one of the three of us and the lizard and rewarded him with 100 baht.

I think that the iguana licked Jeff (#16 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck).

The most common way to promote events in Koh Samui is to have trucks equipped with loud speakers drive up and down the street, blaring your message. That’s how we first found out about the Escape party. Billboards were also put up in the back of the local taxis.

We went together to the party, getting a good deal on a taxi – 100 baht for three. It was set on the shores of Lake Chaewang in a large open venue. House music pumped through the humid air, but it hadn’t attracted many people by the time we arrived at ten even though the party started at nine. The decorations were amazing. Cool blue / green lights were set up around the dance floor and the tops of the coconut trees were lit up.

Drinks were reasonable for a secluded venue – 100 baht, and there was a raised platform ringing one side where you could sit and drink. I started to fade pretty early so I switched to water for the rest of the night. Jeff seemed to enjoy the dancing once it started even though he had to avoid all of the Thai prostitutes grabbing at him on the dance floor. I stayed safe and secure on the sidelines with my water.

We had a drunken late meal / early breakfast at Ninja Crepes - where seats were much easier to find at four in the morning.

You can tell that I was the one who killed the party... they were lucky that I could stay out as late as I did.

Jeff and I dropped Amy off at her hotel. The stray dogs were out in force so we started naming them as we walked. The one we named Diaz followed us all the way back to our cabana.

Chaewang Beach

2005-06-25T19:27:00.000-07:00

Today was amazing.

We got up and had breakfast at the Cabana restaurant (with the ocean view again – no bad seats there). It was mostly western style foods and the omelet bar was pretty good. Our goals for the day was ambitious… sit on the beach and read our books.

The beach was about fifty feet away from our front door. The beach had lounge chairs set up for hotel guests and we grabbed a pair and settled in for the day. You hardly had to do anything. The hotel staff would come by periodically in case you wanted to order drinks or to offer free watermelon slices, moistened towels, or water. Vendors walked up and down the beach offering everything from silk kimonos to beads to food. The vendors seem to operate under some sort of license. They had vests to identify themselves, kept away from the lounge chairs until a tourist indicated interest, and were polite and affable overall.

The grilled corn was delicious and sold like hotcakes for 30 baht (#13 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck).

Jeff and I bought silk kimonos for 500 baht each (talking them down from their 1800 baht asking price). We also picked up bead bracelets for 65 baht each. The guy who gave me the most trouble had something I actually wanted – bandanas. I had meant to buy a couple back in LA for mountain biking. The shaped ones fit snugly on your head, don’t interfere with your helmet, and keep sweat from your scalp from dripping into your eyes. I probably would have paid five dollars (200 baht) for one in LA, but I couldn’t resist the thrill of bargaining. The guy originally wanted two hundred baht for one bandana and I offered him one hundred baht for two bandanas. After a few minutes, he actually broke off negotiations! I didn’t see him for three hours, and we reengaged in negotiations. He was offering two for 140 baht to me when another tourist came and tried to join in my negotiation. I didn’t tell him the price the guy was offering me because I didn’t want to hurt the vendor’s negotiation. He ended up buying one for 80 baht so I broke down and gave the vendor 140 baht for two.

Operation Koh Samui

2005-06-24T19:18:00.000-07:00

I started on Angels & Demons earlier that evening when I found it on the veranda during my massage. Another Charlie House guest must have left it there and it was now part of their little library. I borrowed it and took it to my room to read before going to bed which ended up being pretty early – 8:00 PM. Unfortunately, I woke up five hours later and simply couldn’t go back to sleep… side effect from the Provigil? I went back to Angels & Demons and finished the book that night.

We had breakfast at the Charlie House restaurant and took a cap to the airport in hopes of catching an early flight to launch Operation Koh Samui. We took a cap to the airport and the cab driver actually put on his meter and we finally learned what the legitimate fare should be – 150 baht.

There’s always someone willing to help you in Thailand as long as they can make a baht in the process. We entered the terminal and were met by an official looking Thai guide who asked us where we were going and if we needed tickets. He then took us to a travel agency office located in the terminal to help us buy tickets. They were offering a discount over the fares we saw online (3500 baht one way), but only if we did a round trip and booked a hotel at the same time. We decided to buy directly from the airline since the place where we wanted to stay wasn’t on their list – the upscale Amari Reef Resort. The Amari was a bit pricy, but seemed to be worth it for the two days we expected to stay there.

The plane was an extended turboprop that seated about 70 people. The plane ride was only an hour but they had a meal and beverage service (#9 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck) – definitely not in Kansas anymore.

The Koh Samui airport looked like it belonged on Gilligan’s Island.

There were girls at the airport that could set you up with rooms at all the hotels, but they claimed the Amari was full so we decided to stay at the Chaweng Cabana Resort instead (2600 baht / night including breakfast). We made a friend (Amy) at the airport who had been traveling for a year through Southeast Asia. She wanted to share a cab with us which ended up being a non-issue as it seemed like everyone took the shuttle (100 baht) that ran from hotel to hotel.

We were met with chilled coconut milk in the coconut (#11 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck) at the reservation desk. It was a good sign. The room itself was pretty sweet – a free standing one room bungalow with private bath right next to the pool. If you look past the pool, you can see the ocean.

We met up with Amy at her hotel which was a bit more centrally located at the Green hotel. Her room faced the street and didn’t have beach access, but it was 800 baht and clean. It reminded me of our room at the Charlie House.

We decided to hit the Cabana restaurant for a nice dinner. It wasn’t five star but they had some good food at reasonable prices with an ocean view. The whole bill came to 1800 baht for food and drinks. Not bad when you order seafood and steak. The night turned into a drinking session and we got hammered for the first time in Thailand (or pissed as Amy would say).

Royal Palace

2005-06-24T18:59:00.000-07:00

The tour guide’s English could have been better, but the trip to the palace was a success overall. Here's a shot of our guide:

I couldn’t take pictures of the Emerald Buddha (not allowed), but I did get some great shots of the temples and the grounds:

I also took some good shots of the murals painted along one of the walls. They are scenes from the Ramayan, an epic poem about the story of the God Ram and his quest to save his wife Sita from the demon Ravan. The details were exquisite and I took some photos for my parents who would have enjoyed seeing it - they know the story a lot more intimately than I do.

The vultures outside peddling all sorts of stuff attacked us as we waited for our car. They sensed blood when Jeff bought a painting of the Buddha on silk (140 baht) because they wouldn’t leave us be. I decided to buy one to get rid of the guy pestering me and bought this portrait of Hanuman (a Hindu god featured in the Ramayan) for 140 baht:

The guy didn’t have change so I took this painting of Indira (another Hindu god) for my parents for 60 baht.

Another silk print vendor eventually offered me four prints for 200 baht, but I was done on them by this time. Lesson learned: don’t buy quickly.

Our guide next took us to a gem store…. Yes a gem store. WTF? The tour guides must get some sort of kickback from the store because it looked like there were a dozen guides bringing their passengers to the store. They had a slideshow (to music & a soundtrack) that told about how Thai emeralds and rubies were among the best in the world and I was given the opportunity to buy some jewelry. I declined as the only piece that caught my eye was a 5,000,000 baht ruby necklace. Rachel would probably like it, but I think she wants the next piece of jewelry from me to have a diamond instead.

By comparison to the 5,000,000 baht necklace, a 1,100 baht Jade Buddha seemed like a bargain. I’m not really qualified to tell Jade from green rock, but I figured that a store selling expensive jewelry isn’t going to mislabel Jade. I tried some bargaining, but the salesgirl sensed my weakness and wouldn’t budge. Barring unforeseen accidents, I’ll have this jolly guy brining me good luck at my next poker game:

We returned to our hotel four hours after we had started and made appointments for 2 hour body massages. The girls who gave us the massages were incredible. They used fingers, hands, forearms, and elbows for two hours straight. They give the massages on the covered veranda in the courtyard and the timing was just right. The sun was just setting so it was nice and cool. One hour into the massage, a heavy rain started falling and it provided a nice white noise in the background as we were stretched and squeezed. (Total cost 540 baht with tip - #6 on our list of things in Thailand that didn’t suck)

Bangkok

2005-06-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Thailand is hot. And humid. The room is fine because we have the AC turned on whenever we’re in the room. We’d have it turned on 24 / 7, but you need the room key in a slot in the room to turn on the AC.

I woke up after only five hours of sleep… jetlag probably. Usually, I can sleep until I catch up on the deficit I’ve built up over the past few weeks. Dr. Chuck (my college buddy – now graduated from USC medicine) had recommended Provigil to reset my Circadian rhythm and Jeff and I each took one this morning. Now I feel wide awake.

Breakfast was a typical Western breakfast at the Charlie House restaurant. The whole thing came to 160 baht (180 with a tip for the nice waitress / cook). The waitresses / cook was also one of the girls behind the bar. It felt like the episode of I Love Lucy where the gang visits a town and the only two people in the town run everything and change hats when they change roles.

My original plan was to find a guide at the airport to give us a tour of the city today, but it turns out that you can set up tours from Charlie House. Jeff and I spoke with the front desk people and set up a tour of the Palace for the afternoon. That gave us four hours to kill so we took a walk down the big street closest to us – Borommarat Chachonnani Road.

Bangkok has large streets that serve as arteries for the city with smaller streets (Sois) that jut out from the arteries. Borommarat was crowded with morning traffic. Countless street vendors served breakfast to students, office workers, and other going about their daily lives. The vehicles belch smoke so it’s probably not the safest activity you could participate in, but it was worth the experience.

We didn’t see too many Tuk Tuks, but we did see lots of motor bike taxis. I haven’t quite worked up the courage to take one of those just yet.

The streets had a fragrance that reminded me of my last trip to India. A combination of stagnant water, street vendor food, refuse, vehicle exhausts, and other intangible aromas assault the senses only to be blown away by a gust before returning.

We walked for about two hours, stopping at a little mini mart to buy two bottles of water and some gum (24 baht). There were scattered Hindu shrines along the street, a Buddhist statue here and there, and a girl in a Hijab as well. The big surprise was the number of 7-11s. We saw four along our walk. Their selection didn’t see much different from the mini-mart where we got our water.

After our return to Charlie House, we sat in a pavilion by the pool. Guests go there to have breakfast, chat, and relax. Three guests came by with their masseuses to receive massages. Massages! I’d forgotten how much I needed one. The front desk charges 500 baht for a 2 hour body massage… 500 baht! Rachel tips that much for an hour-long massage in Los Angeles. It’s on… after the visit to the palace, of course.

Made it!

2005-06-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

I had forgotten how much trans-Pacific travel sucks. It consisted of fourteen hours to Osaka, a half hour layover, and five hours from Osaka to Bangkok. However, some perks still exist – free booze and meals. I refrained from the booze (not a good idea when you have to sit still for fourteen hours) but the meals were okay. I was a bit apprehensive about flying Thai Airways but they had pleasant stewardesses and good service.

For some reason, the Japanese feel the need to put layover passengers through another security check. At least this time, I didn’t need to take off my shoes for x-raying. BTW, if you ever have a layover in Osaka on the way to Bangkok – don’t buy booze there. You can get it for cheaper at the Bangkok duty free shops. I picked up a bottle of 17 year old Ballantine for 6000 yen (they screwed me on the exchange rate – 102 yen / $) which is a nice relaxation after the horror of getting to my hotel.

I followed the advice I had read on the web and avoided all the “Taxi” pushers that attack you when you leave Customs. I went up to the departure deck and caught a cab waiting for passengers. I had printed out a map that had been posted on my hotel’s website, and the cab driver offered to take me for 300 baht. Half an hour later, I realized he was lost. We drove back and forth for twenty minutes asking directions before finally finding the place. The cab driver wanted another 400 baht and I was so grateful to still have my possessions and kidneys (we drove through some dark alleys) that I gave it to him.

Now I’m just waiting in my room for Jeff (who came on a later flight) to show up. I expect he’ll have similar difficulties, but hopefully he’ll be able to find the place (it is tucked away on a very small street) and be here by 2:30 AM.

My original plan was to get a guide to take us on a tour of the city tomorrow but I don’t think either one of us will be up for it. We’ll sleep in (easing the jetlag) and play it by ear for our one day in Bangkok before heading out to Koh Samui on Friday.

Tips Summarized:

1. Have your hotel’s telephone number with you (especially if it’s a small one)
2. Get a map to your hotel or arrange a shuttle service with the hotel
3. Bring ~$150 in cash to exchange for Bahts at the airport (40.28 / $ today)
4. Rent a cell phone at the airport – (or bring your own and pay through the nose)
5. Buy duty free in Bangkok – not Japan
6. Leave extra time for “emergencies”
7. You don’t need to pay for a visa if you’re on an American passport (saved 1000 baht!)
8. Don’t lose your kidneys. (Just kidding – the cabbie gouged me but he didn’t leave me for dead in a ditch, I probably should have haggled)

Just for fun, here’s a picture of $165 in Thailand:

Update: Jeff made it in at 2:15 AM, doing better than I did (only 300 baht).

Off to Thailand

2005-06-21T08:15:00.000-07:00

After a year of full time work and part time school, I'm ready for a vacation.

This'll do.

Or this.

End of 1st year

2005-06-14T02:12:00.000-07:00

I'm playing poker on PokerStars.net right now - relaxing after the last final of the quarter (marketing). The case was a tough one - Rohm & Hoss, but I think I did well given the tight time constraints. 3 hours just isn't enough time to do a case.

My section went out for drinks afterwards at Cabo Cantina - a nice little bar in Santa Monica, about five minutes from UCLA. Not bad at all... they're the only place I've seen in Los Angeles to have 40 oz Coronas.

The rest of the week is shaping up nicely too. We finished our first year (the Finance final was Saturday morning). Now we have a month long break before our summer quarter when we have one class twice a week for 5 weeks followed by another month long break.

FedEx Sucks

2005-04-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

Unmet expectations are the best way to piss off a customer. After reading all about wonderful service in numerous case studies, FedEx failed to deliver today (literally). The demo unit that didn't work in Syracuse was supposed to have been delivered to my Program Manager's house today so that we could work on it first thing Monday morning. I looked up the tracking info and noticed that the expected delivery date was 4/25/05 at 10:30 AM. Now, someone is going to have to go to his house to pick it up Monday since it'll probably be delivered after he leaves for work which means it probably won't be repaired and sent back to our customer till Wednesday.

A damn billing credit doesn't do me any good. Their new motto should be "When it absolutely, positively has to get there except when we cant!"

Returning Home

2005-04-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

My trip to Syracuse gave me the opportunity to visit the house and meet the new Brothers. The drive down from Syracuse to Ithaca is one I've done many times before, but I was surprised by how much it felt like going home. It had been three years since my last visit, but every turn was familiar and it felt good to see my house at the end of the trip. The front door combination was different, but I knew that the kitchen door tended to be left unlocked during the day... you know your home's secrets.

The trip gave me a chance to fulfill some official obligations as well. I was recently appointed to an executive position on the Alumni Council for my undergraduate fraternity. It was hard for us to grow the house during my years there because we lacked a strong alumni support network. That isn't the case anymore. We're working to prioritize the House's needs and get quotes to fulfill them. Then we'll approach alumni to help meet those needs.

I met most of the current brothers and I was very impressed by them. Many are involved with the ROTC program and they can get a bit crazy (the flamethrower was a bit much), but they also have discipline and commitment which is what the house needs. We're a small house and younger Brothers need to assume a lot of responsibility if we are to succeed and the ROTC program develops strong leadership skills.

Eight of us went out to dinner last night and for some reason, they thought they could pick up the check. Amateurs. I had slipped my credit card to the waitress right after the appetizers.

Another Travel Week

2005-04-23T13:02:00.000-07:00

I should be sitting in Finance right now, but travel and the opportunity to visit my alma mater prevented that. I spent two days in northern Virginia at a user's conference for my product. It's a low cost unit that can add functionality to many applications so all of the services are interested in seeing it. We had civilian employees of the Navy, Air Force, Army, and Marines in the audience as well as vendors who we would have to coordinate / partner with.

The conference was called by my primary customer (the Marines) who, of course, have their own self interest at heart. Volume is a strong cost driver and if they can combine orders with the other services, their per unit cost drops dramatically. While we appear to have a first mover advantage, this product space will have some strong competition. I even ran into a USC MBA.PM student who claimed to be working on a similar concept for another company at our recent networking event.

Everything went really well at the conference. Our unit performed well during the demo and the participants seemed excited about our product and our planned enhancements. After the conference, I flew to Syracuse to speak with a non-profit that develops products for the Armed Forces where things didn't go quite as well. We borrowed one of the prototype units we had sold to the Marines, but we had to check it in with US Airways. When we got to our hotel in Syracuse, it wouldn't turn on. Damn. The potential customer was still fairly excited about our products, and we'll probably arrange another visit to perform a demo with a working unit.

Airport Blogging

2005-04-23T12:57:00.000-07:00

I got stuck with a five hour layover in Atlanta with a five hour flight to Burbank ahead of me. I decided to kill two birds with one stone by buying a T-mobile Day Pass. For $10, I get a reasonably fast connection for 24 hours. I'll put it in my expense report and see if the company bites.

The T-Mobile Hotspot is in the Delta Crown Room Club (a VIP lounge), but my gate is right next to the Club's entrance so I have a decent connection (200-300 Kbps). I'm downloading season 3 of Red vs. Blue to watch on my flight.

The only downside is that I have to sit next to the trashcan during my layover. The outlets are next to the trashcans to power the trash compactors.

Viva Puerto Rico II

2005-04-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

Of course, you can't go to a tropical island and not have some fun.

I extended my stays by a day to give me time to do some snorkeling with one of my coworkers. The hotel sold us a tour that was run by a couple of locals that included lunch, drinks, pickup and dropoff service, and a six hour snorkeling tour of two islands. They picked us up at eight in our hotel in San Juan and drove us an hour to the east to the marina in Fajardo.

Along the way, we made friends with a couple from Miami / Manhattan. Jose was a Cuban who ran the duty free shops for Bicardi so we chatted alcohol on the way to the marina. We sat in the prow of the catamaran and enjoyed the trip out with a rum punch that one of the deckhands had brought us.

We passed the El Conquistador resort on the way out of the marina. If I ever go back for fun, that's where I want to stay. It's close to the marina, El Yunque rainforest, and while it is remote, the whole island is small enough to drive across in three hours if we want to go anywhere else.

The best part of the whole trip was when Jose had the driver stop at a roadside restauraunt on the beach that made incredible cod fritters (fried battered cod). We bought six of them and six beers for $15. Another vendor had chicken skewers for $1.75 each. That was the best food we had during the whole trip.

Viva Puerto Rico I

2005-04-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

One of the really nice things about my new job is the opportunity to take trips and see how other functional groups operate. I got to do both last week with a trip to visit a low-tech manufacturing subsidiary (subsidiary p) of Company X in Puerto Rico.

The manufacturing center for my division (high tech, high cost) is based in a nearby state and has a burdened labor rate four times higher than that of subsidiary p. My product is a low-cost (<$10K), high volume (~30K max) product. Our target cost would be impossible to meet if it were manufactured within the division so we're forced to consider new (for us) manufacturing paradigms.

The manufacturing supply chain will probably extend from component manufacturers through subassemblers (plastics, machined parts, integrated electronics boards) to the final assembly shop (Puerto Rico) and back to Company X for calibration & a sell off test.

I think I'll be doing a lot more traveling this year.

Spring Quarter...

2005-04-01T22:19:00.000-08:00

Spring Quarter starts tomorrow... Finance & Marketing. Both sound really promising.

Corporate Bureaucracy

2005-04-01T21:46:00.000-08:00

Director Mitch recently wrote:

Those of us on the front line in sales, marketing and program management are trying to meet the needs of customers, close sales and get products off the ground. In large corporations there are large, complicated bureaucracies trying to prevent all these things from happening (okay, not really, but it seems that way). I'll go over a few of them and their modus operandi

After four weeks of trying to ship a single demo unit, I finally understand how true this is. There are a hundred people that have to dance an intricate dance of corporate bureauacracy. Quality, Configuration Management, Test Inspection, Manufacturing, Shipping, and Contracts all need to have their forms filled out, their signatures signed, and their egos stroked. I think my new job is going to involve a lot more of this in the future.

Interviewing at Anderson

2005-03-13T00:42:00.000-08:00

When I applied to the FEMBA program, interviews really weren't stressed. They were an optional part of the application and I was worried enough at the possibility of having to face an interviewer that I chose not to do one. They are being stressed more and more as time moves forward and I suspect that they will become required at some point. This year, there are three Super Saturdays where roughly 100 applicants are interviewed. This covers 60% of the applicant pool so we're getting close to 100% coverage.

Dylan asked for some volunteers for the second Super Saturday and I gave up a Saturday afternoon to conduct interviews. They're half an hour in length and follow this general structure:

5 min intro (interviewer & interviewee)
20 min Q&A (guided by interviewer)
5 min Q&A (guided by interviewee)

There are some set questions that are mandatory for the interviewer to ask and some suggestions on other topics. The mandatory ones take up most of the available time but they're not particularly difficult ones. Make sure that you have your reasons for an MBA clear in your mind with particular emphasis on why an Anderson MBA especially fits your needs. It also helps to have a two to three minute explanation of your story. How did you get to where you are today and where do you see yourself in five years? It'll give a structure to your case that you can use as a skeleton when answering questions.

We don't read your application before the interview so feel free to reuse stories you used in your essays. The end work product is a paragraph of text and a rating (1-5). The individual answers you put out may not work themselves into your application, but the impression that the interviewer took of you in that 30 minutes will. Answer the questions... don't evade or answer a different question. If they ask you to move on if you're taking a lot of time to answer a question, do so. They won't ask twice, but they will note that you can't follow instructions.

Finally, relax and try to have fun. If you show your enthusiasm for UCLA and have your story clear in your mind, you'll do fine.

Orbitz screws up

2005-03-13T00:08:00.000-08:00

How do you lose ~400,000 customers in two weeks? Easy... sell the wrong guy an impossible itinerary and piss him off enough to get him to write about it on his site.

Orbitz has a serious problem on their hands.

The big problem with online travel agents is that there's little to differentiate the various services from each other so there is little customer loyalty to hold a customer to a particular site. If I have to pay the same $99 far for a ticket to Oakland whether I buy it on Orbitz or Travelocity, I don't really care who I buy from.

Orbitz, of course, cares if they get that $6.99 service charge. The marginal cost of providing the service is ~$0 so that $6.99 represents almost pure profit. The end result is that every lost customer goes straight to the bottom line.

How much do they stand to lose? 400,000 people have visited Maddox's site. The average internet user tends to be well educated and have a good income. Some may be influential in their companies whether large or small. It's not difficult to imagine that the group takes an average of 1 trip per year.

400,000 people * 1 trip per person * $6.99 / trip = $2,796,000 in lost profit annually.

One trip per year is a guess. It could be more. I've taken six trips in the past year and already have four personal trips lined up for the next year. I'm not including trips for work as I don't have control of the travel arrangements there. It could also be less, but even if only 1 in 10 people cares enough to boycott Orbitz, we're still talking hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost profit.

Valentine's Day (Belated)

2005-02-27T18:48:00.000-08:00

MBA life is much easier if you have an understanding girlfriend. It's even better if she's in the same program and has a similar schedule. It let's you do things like put off Valentine's Day celebrations for two weeks because you had mid-terms.

We're off to Lawry's.

New Job

2005-02-24T22:53:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks have been pretty busy as I adjust to a new job at Company X. This new role gives me project management responsibilities for an entire engineering team. I've been planning this transition for a year and was planning to move in summer at the end of my project. An unexpected opportunity came up when my friend who was in the role I wanted took a job with another company.

There were some catches...

- I had to start right away
- I had to leave without offending my old boss
- It wasn't clear if this was a lateral move or a promotion (more money?)
- I had to finish my old project under my old role

The first two weren't really problems. I wanted the job so I was happy to start right away and my old boss was a pretty understanding guy so he didn't hold any grudges.

I struggled with the if and how of asking for a raise to go with the new responsibilities. The issue was further clouded by it being "performance raise" season. Company X has the managers decide annual raises in January / February as well as when the raises will go into effect (Mar - Oct). It's not stated, but I'm fairly certain it's a rank and spank system where those who are ranked highest get their raises first. I got my raise last year in March so I was expecting to see a bigger check in March this year too.

In the end, I decided that it was better to take the performance raise now and wait till the job was secure before making a pitch for more money. I want the position more than a bigger check. At the worst, I'll be well positioned to transition to the next level (Program Manager) when I have the project manager title on my resume for two years as well as my MBA. If Company X doesn't reward me for that, I'm sure some other company will.

The really hard part is working on two projects at the same time. I added another twenty hours a week to my load and my day went from somewhat relaxing to hectic. But it's only for another two months and I think the sacrifice is worth it.

Google Maps

2005-02-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

The new Google Maps are up and they look pretty cool. They're larger and easier to read than Yahoo maps and they have a cool search feature that lets you enter keywords and map stores that match with those keywords. For example, you can find all Indian related stores in your neighborhood and have them mapped on one page with contact info in the sidebar.

Posting made easier

2005-02-05T20:25:00.000-08:00

Test post... I can now blog directly from my photo hosting site (Photobucket.com) onto Blogger.

Photobucket

2005-02-05T20:23:00.000-08:00

This is a test post from Photobucket.com

New BuckMark

2005-02-05T19:48:00.000-08:00

I bought myself a Browning Buckmark for Christmas. Kim Du Toit introduced me to the Buckmark in a post on his blog. I finally got a chance to take it to the range and Kim was right - it's a lot of fun to shoot. I went through 250 rounds and it was dirt cheap.

On to the fun stuff... here's my baby:

My first clip at 20ft:

After getting used to firing it, I put the targets as far back as they would go (50ft):

Just for fun, I bought a box of .45 ammo, rented a Glock, and put some silhouettes at 20-30ft:

You can see by comparing the groupings that the Glock was a lot harder to control than the Buckmark. The reason becomes obvious when you compare the bullets:

The only thing that really sucked was the after-market magazine (TripleK) I bought. It jammed whenever I had more than five bullets in it. They have a fit & feed guarantee so I'll see what they can do about it.

Show me the money

2005-02-02T23:05:00.000-08:00

Company X finally showed me the money. I got my first educational reimbursement check. After all the exclusions (parking, books, food), it came out to ~88% of the cost of my program. Throw in a complete lack of any commitment and you got yourself a sweet little deal.

Prospects

2005-02-02T22:58:00.000-08:00

Anderson hosting a "Bring a Prospect to Lunch" day last Saturday. It gave students a chance to bring friends and colleagues to campus for an info session, class visit, and lunch with current (and alumni) students. I brought two co-workers. I warned them to stay away from the stats classes. One listened and had a fun time in a soft course dealing with power and leadership. The other didn't and tried to sit through three hours of a stats course that was in its fourth week. She left after an hour.

If you're in the application process and have the opportunity to sit through a fun course, do so. Don't try to sit in on a finance or heavy quant course. It's just not that entertaining. I sat through a finance course at Tuck and it took two cups of coffee to prevent me from embarrasing myself by falling asleep.

Engineers - Better MBA Students?

2005-02-02T22:50:00.000-08:00

Engineering seems to be a pretty common background for FEMBAs specifically and MBAs in general. After the first four classes, I can see why. The quantitative pieces come pretty easily to us. None of the math I've seen in econ, stats, or accounting comes close to anything I did beyond my first semester as Com Sci major at Cornell. Even after slacking off for a couple of weeks on the reading, I can follow our stats lecture without any problem.

So remember that when you form your study groups - engineers deliver on the quant. It's even better if you get one that can explain it to you patiently one on one.

This is not an attempt to disparage the qualitative side of the equation. I would definitely not recommend a study group of six engineers.

Talk about service

2005-01-21T22:31:00.000-08:00

It's 10:30 on a Friday evening and I was cracking my head on a stats problem. I looked at the solution and it still didn't make sense so I decided to try giving Prof. Stern a call. Sure enough, he picked up in two rings and knew exactly which problem I was talking about even though it was from last week's problem set (they're not collected in this class).

Cat Abuse

2005-01-15T23:01:00.000-08:00

We finally got sick of all the hair and gave Tiger a bath... after prudently trimming his nails first of course.

Giving a cat a bath can be a painful experience. Don't try to do it with running water. It freaks them out. Get them in a tub with water up to their knees and use the bath water to wash them. It helps to have a bathtub with glass doors.

Taking Notes

2005-01-15T22:50:00.000-08:00

After my first quarter, I got used to taking notes on my laptop. The profs would put up the slides (one in Powerpoint, the other in PDF) a few days before the class, we would download them on to our laptops, and annotate them through the lecture. It made it easy to carry things to class because you only had to worry about your laptop. You could leave the heavy paper behind.

That's not the case this quarter. The stats prof likes to give lots of paper. He provides lecture notes for every lecture along with supplemental notes / examples / solutions. It makes it easy to follow things in the class - everything is provided, even example problems. You can concentrate on paying attention without having to worry about jotting down notes but you have to keep track of all the paper. The accounting prof does provide soft copies of the lecture notes, but they're in Word format which can be difficult to annotate... different profs, different tastes.

2nd Quarter

2005-01-09T20:54:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a tough quarter... Stats & Accounting. We had our first Stats class on Saturday. We're starting with probability which was one of the tougher topics during my undergrad work in computer science. The hardest part is becoming comfortable with the nomenclature and math. There's no real trick to it, you just need to do it over and over again till you're comfortable writing in math.

The professor certainly is open to helping students. He even gave us his home number! He also gives us source code (C) to his simulations in case we feel like testing them ourselves or modifying them for our own use.

He's also a fan of the "Let's Make a Deal" show. It's the one where contestants were shown three doors and asked to pick one. Then one of the doors that wasn't selected is opened to reveal some junk prizes. The host, Monty Hall, then offers the contestant the option of switching their choice. The professor asked us if switching made a difference and most of the class fell for the trick and said no.

Seems straightforward, right? You had three doors, now you have two... your odds should be 50/50. No. Monty always reveals a door full of junk so the revelation actually does provide you additional useful information.

Door 1 - Junk
Door 2 - Car
Door 3 - Junk

If you picked the right door (2), he can either show you door 1 or door 3. If you switch, you lose.
If you pick the wrong door (1 or 3), he has to show you the contents of the other junk door. If you switch you win. You'll pick the right door correctly 1/3 of the time and the wrong door 2/3 of the time. If you always switch, your odds of winning are 66.6%.

Holiday Dinner

2004-12-24T11:46:00.000-08:00

BDGP had a group holiday dinner at C&O in Marina Del Rey - good food with singing waiters.

Love

Good Friends

Serious Discussion

Drinks

Some Skin

For relaxing times, make it Santory time.

Grades

2004-12-24T11:15:00.000-08:00

BDGP kicked ass in econ (great grades all around) and yours truly kicked even more ass with an A+.

The grades for managerial perspectives weren't posted till today so we couldn't compare notes there. I was very happy with my A-. It's a tough course in which to gauge your progress. It's difficult to figure out what makes an A paper different from a B paper.

The only good piece of advice I can give to future students is to cite the studies in the exams (case studies).

It helps to create note sheets that let you quickly reference relevant readings. It's much easier to go over a three pages of bulleted notes than it is to skim an inch high stack of reading assignments. We split the reading among the BDGP members and everyone took notes on a different section and got the entire semester's worth of reading incorporated in three hours.

Notes are good for econ too even if it's only a formula sheet.

1st Quarter is done

2004-12-24T11:12:00.000-08:00

We had our final final on the 13th. The entire section (or at least most of it) went out afterwards to a crazy bar night at Cabo Cantina. They serve 40 oz Coronas. Combine that with rounds of shots and margaritas and you're in for some fun.

The highlight of the evening was a stranger asking if he could tickle one of my sectionmates. He saw us doing some tickling on the more ticklish people in the section. We told him no, but he went and did it anyways.

The look on her face was priceless...

Free Blogging

2004-12-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

I'm blogging from Rachel's parent's place. One of their neighbors was nice enough to have an unsecured wireless connection so I have a free fast connection!

Southwest Airlines

2004-12-02T01:52:00.000-08:00

We're heavy into our final project - a joint case analysis on Southwest Airlines for both econ and managerial perspectives. It's set in 1994 just after the announcement of the launch of Continental Lite and Shuttle by United - 2 'discount airline within an airline' competitors.

We're supposed to tackle the case from the perspective of both classes. The presentation has been pretty tough to tackle so far.

There's a pretty clear economic problem - how do you respond to the new threat posed by United and Continental? We have the benefit of hindsight (and Herb Keller's annual reports from 1994 & 1995) but the solution is pretty simple. Focus on being the low cost leader and rely on Southwest's lower cost structure to win a fare war.

But there's also a longer term threat posed in maintaining the culture that gives you the low cost structure as you grow and expand. You can get people to accept lower wages and be more productive if you can create an emotional bond between the employees and the mission of the company but for how long? The early employees can see the results of their actions and feel the effect of a charismatic CEO who sets the right example (one of the lowest paid in the world) and makes a bond with the workers.

But what happens when that smoking, drinking CEO retires or dies? Or when the company doubles its headcount? Is the heavily unionized labor force going to start demanding above average wages, especially when Southwest's owners have been heavily rewarded by their labor? Will management start asking for the perks bestowed on managers at other, less successful companies?

Southwest has several different programs in place to counter this trend - everything from hiring for attitude to culture committees to quarterly day in the field (real) work assignments for senior management. The trick for an MBA student is to come up with new solutions that are novel, actionable, and can be explained in a 15 minute presentation.

Two more nights of work ahead of us.

Feeling better

2004-12-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

I got sick just in time to spend my Thanksgiving break in bed... what a waste of a vacation.

Turkey Day

2004-11-24T22:48:00.000-08:00

Rachel and I are hosting my folks + 2 (little sis & my buddy Chuck) for Turkey Day this year. Rachel is in a frenzy of pie making tonight and I'm helping out by cleaning up and staying out of the way. The nice thing about hosting is that it got me to finally clear up the last of the boxes and make our entire apartment liveable.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone... especially those with loved ones in harm's way.

Networking with the big boys

2004-11-21T22:10:00.000-08:00

The FEMBA council organized a first-ever networking event with all three programs (EMBA, Full time, & FEMBA). FEMBAs were the majority of the participants (~60%) but sizeable groups showed up from the other two programs.

The initial feedback is that this was a no-brainer event - something we should have been already doing - so it is likely to become an annual event. We fumbled a bit on some details - the industry codes on the name badges were confusing to many people, but I think everyone had a good time and made some good cross program connections.

Full-timers got a chance to beg the EMBAs and FEMBAs for jobs and the rest of us got a chance to learn about new industries. Contrary to the general opinion, there are a lot of career switchers in the part-time programs (EMBA & FEMBA).

Turtle Racing

2004-11-21T22:05:00.000-08:00

BDGP had a group outing (minus Rachel who needed an afternoon off) at the turtle races in Santa Monica.

Isn't that illegal you say? Of course not...

Here's a group shot (minus the photographer - Damien) of us enjoying the races:

Quarters are Better

2004-11-21T22:02:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to like the Quarter system. This is the first time that I've attended a school using it, but I think it fits better with my style. I tend to start strong and end strong. If there's a large gap in the middle, I'm in danger of slacking off and playing catch up. Under this system, there's just no time. We just had midterms and finals are fast approaching.

Dynomite

2004-11-21T21:58:00.000-08:00

Midterms are over and I aced them.

Actually, everyone in my study group did well. Every single one of us broke the mean on both tests.

That's why they call us the best damn group period. Yes, I really mean it.

Halo 2

2004-11-10T22:36:00.000-08:00

Halo 2 kicks ass. I liked it so much, I went out and bought a component video cable for my X-box to really enjoy it.

Oh yeah.

Peter Pan

2004-11-10T22:20:00.000-08:00

Peter Pan is in Los Angeles at the Pantages for two weeks. My little sister, Sonia, is in drama at her high school and her instructor knows the director so we got free tickets for last night's show. I went out of a sense of brotherly duty, expecting to sit in the cheap seats and chaperoning a gaggle of teenage girls. It turned out to be a pretty fun evening.

The show itself was pretty good for one aimed at a young audience - much better than Beauty and the Beast (Rachel's idea). The seats were off to one side of the theatre, but they were orchestra. I brought my binoculars and, with those, I could see the harness under Cathy Rigby's (Peter Pan) tights. And the girls were fairly well behaved.

There were even a couple of stars in the audience. Jeri Ryan and Teri Hatcher came with their daughters.

Because of the teacher's connection with the director, we got to go on stage. Teri was taking her daughter to meet the cast and we passed them on our way to the stage. I really hate bothering celebrities when they do normal things like taking their kids to see a show, but I gave in this time. I told her that her new show (Desperate Housewives) was great and she was very appreciative. She was very friendly to everyone who approached her all evening. She even posed for the paparazzi outside.

Rachel and I are taking Sonia back to the Pantages at the end of December for Les Miserables. Orchestra seats - center - midway. That'll be fun...

Halfway there

2004-11-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

The midterm for econ was easier than I thought it would be. I'm sure I missed one or two tricks, but at least I understood the questions and knew how to tackle them. It helps that it was open book / open note. You could focus on learning the theory without bothering with memorizing the equations.

Grades come out in a week for both exams... a few more weeks and we'll be done with our first quarter. The next quarter should be pretty analytical - accounting and statistics.

Midterms

2004-11-07T11:33:00.000-08:00

We're in the middle of mid-terms. The nice thing with being in a part-time program is that you only have to worry about two exams at a time. The tought thing is that you also have to work a 40-60 hour a week job.

Managerial Perspectives - one of the more touchy-feely courses in the program - had its mid-term yesterday. It was a case about a woman who had just been hired to run the marketing department of the information services group at a mid-sized bank. She had to develop a marketing plan and hire a staff to implement it. The prof is big on a single problem statement that once fixed will take care of the remainder of the problems. Here's mine:

Susan Orlinoff must establish herself as an effective leader and design a creative, risk-taking team in order to develop a marketing plan for the Information Services Group (ISG) - to “identify customers, generate sales … pinpoint needs and thus determine the type of products that operations would develop and install.”

It's much more vague than I would like, but with only an hour to work with, it's tough to come with something that you can really take pride in. I filled up another two and half pages with analysis, recommendations, the challenges she faces, and identifying the knowledge she currently lacks.

Now I have to study for the Econ exam... It's a completely different animal. Either you're right or you're not - no ambiguity.

NBC for Bush

2004-11-02T21:59:00.000-08:00

NBC just called Ohio for Bush.

Bush Wins

2004-11-02T21:56:00.000-08:00

Drudge called a Bush win... no backing that I can see, but he's effectively the second guy to do so after FoxNews.

Ohio for Bush!

2004-11-02T21:42:00.000-08:00

FoxNews just called Ohio for Bush!

Once we get some confirmation from the other networks, you can stick a fork in Kerry... he's done.

Election Blogging

2004-11-02T21:37:00.000-08:00

I'm definitely a political junkie.

I'm watching the newscast on FoxNews, hitting two or three websites, sipping a glass of wine, and having a very nice evening.

Of course, a little something on the contest always helps to pique interest. The way things are looking, I'm going to have some extra pocket money tomorrow.

Ethics

2004-10-10T23:19:00.000-07:00

Two FEMBAs reneged on job offers last year - a major transgression in business schools. The dean of the program was pissed and the dean of the school had to step in to mend relations with one of the firms. The ramifications are serious:

- 2 jobs were lost that could have been taken by other FEMBAs or full-timers
- relations with two recruiters were severely damaged
- relations with two firms were severely damaged
- the reputation of the school (and its ranking) suffers

It will most likely be referred to an ethics committee that will decide what punishment to hand to these people.

My first thought was - what the hell can you do to these guys? They're graduating and they have jobs lined up. It turns out that you can do quite a bit:

- banned from alumni association
- banned from future use of the career center
- notify the faculty of the violations so they do not provide letters of recommendations
- a damaged reputation that makes it hard to use the alumni network to further their careers

And above all, it has to be public so that other students understand the importance of meeting their commitments. The actions of these two students reflect on everyone associated with the program.

Moving In Together

2004-10-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

After two and half years of dating, Rachel and I decided to move in together. It's a big step, but I think we're ready for it. We went apartment shopping today and found a nice condo in Sherman Oaks. The place we found is large (1600 sq. ft), centrally located (Sherman Oaks), and accepts pets (Haley, Tiger, and Cleo - Rachel's cat). Tiger hasn't had a friend to play with in three years so I think it'll be a nice change for him. Haley won't have a yard anymore, but she will become an inside dog and considering that Goldens love nothing more than to be near people, I think it'll make her much happier. It also means I have to wake up ten minutes earlier to take her for morning walks... oh well.

Okay, back to the apartment:

2 bedroom / 2 bath
New carpets, stove, dishwasher
Master bath was renovated - very nice
2 fireplaces (gas in master bedroom & wood in living room)
Walk in closet in master bedroom
~2 weeks free rent while moving in after paying the security deposit (1 month's rent) + 1st month's rent

Here are some snapshots:

Management Consulting Association

2004-10-07T01:16:00.000-07:00

There was a great speaker tonight at the MCA meeting.

He worked for 27 years at McKinsey & Co and left to become CFO of Amgen. His credentials were impressive to say the least.

Here's my random recollections of the evening:

A consultant relies on trust-based relationships so integrity is an important part of the job. "Client - Firm - Self" is my shortened version. The client's interests come before the firm's and the firm's interests come before the consultant's interests
Humility is a key trait for consultants - the clients know far more about their industry than the consultants and young consultants frequently forget that and come across as arrogant. The problem is that you need the client's help in diagnosing the problem.
In fact, the client frequently knows what the problem and solution are. You simply need to listen to them.
The client needs the customer for various political (too close to the problem) and psychological reasons (outside opinions are valued more)
The consultant provides the fact based analysis that backs up the solution.
Young consultants try to crunch numbers to find solutions when a Soccratic method (come up with hypothesis and attempt to prove / disprove) can do the job without killing consultants. Funny, I thought this was the scientific method - shows my natural sciences bias (thank you AP Bio!) I guess.
In MC, you move up or move out. This clears out the "dead wood" above and shows young consultants what is expected of them. If you aren't improving, you will be asked to leave.
If you're not getting several offers by clients every year, you're doing something wrong. It's easy to get out of consulting.
Consultants expect too much when going into industry. They expect to start as the marketing manager rather than a marketer. They also expect a high base salary - MC is a cash and carry business. You'll need to readjust your thinking.
You get little praise or recognition (clients rarely say good job).
This is not a field for people who like to make decisions (you're better off as a line manager role).
Clients will frequently challenge you as the first response to your ideas to test your conviction to the ideas.
It's too hard to really know everything in a business so senior managers judge people by personality / performance rather than managing the way they do business.

Sorry, I didn't take notes so that's all I can remember. Time for bed - goodnight everybody!

Opportunity Cost

2004-10-07T01:11:00.000-07:00

I'm getting too much into the econ. I actually used the concept of opportunity cost to explain my new willingness to pay more for services just to get them done quickly. Pre-mba, I might have shopped around for an oil change. 5,000 miles ago, I did just that and found a car wash that give me an oil change and wash for a great price. I had to keep calling back until they had the oil filter for my car in stock, but now I wouldn't even bother. EZ Lube can have the extra five bucks simply because they're on the way home. The opportunity cost of shopping around was limited when I had time to spare... now I don't and the cost has risen considerably. An extra hour is suddenly worth a lot more to me.

Bottom line: enjoy the postings - they're costing me dear!

Personal Time

2004-10-07T01:03:00.000-07:00

Rachel and I signed up for a few PE classes together. They're interesting in and of themselves but they also give us time together doing things apart from Anderson. I think it's going to be important to make time like this so that the b-school experience doesn't hurt our relationship.

What classes? I'm glad you asked...

1. Intro to rock climbing - there is a rock wall in a gym right by the Anderson school and this is the introductory course you need to take if you want to climb it on your own. (2 hours on a weeknight)

2. Sea Kayaking I (Beg) - learn basic strokes, rescues, and boating safety in ocean-touring kayaks. Sounded like fun. (9-5 on a Sunday)

3. East Coast Swing (Beg) - Rachel has been interested in learning to dance. I took a class at Cornell so I know the basics, but it makes her happy. Also, the girl to guy ratio in dance classes tends to be high - it's a great place to meet girls (for those of you on the market). (1 & 1/2 hours for one night a week for six weeks)

Overload

2004-10-06T23:53:00.000-07:00

Damn, all my spare time is locked up.

Class takes up Saturday morning and a weeknight.
BDGP* (my study group) will probably end up taking 1-2 evenings per week.
Club events will take 1-2 evenings a week.
Personal time with Rachel gets neglected - mitigated by joint PE classes.
Mt. Biking takes up 2-3 hours on Sunday.
Readings / problem sets take up the rest.

I've been able to scrimp on work this past week to make do. I went from 50/60 hour weeks to 40 flat.

And I consider myself fortunate! Some of my classmates don't have the luxury of easing up at work and others are getting deeply involved with clubs / social events. I took some good advice and refrained from making financial commitments to too many clubs.

The only club I joined at the club fair was the wine club ($45 / year). The Management Consulting Association (MCA) had an intro to management consulting event today and I was intrigued enough about the field to want to learn more so I paid the dues ($80 / 3 years). I'm on a few more mailing lists, but at least I refrained from writing too many checks.

I highly recommend that any first year MBA students leave their checkbooks at home during club fairs. Take the time to decide that you really want to join a club before signing up. Many of the really cool events (e.g. big speakers) will be open to the entire student body so there's no need to rush to join.

* Best Damn Group Period

Victory

2004-10-02T23:02:00.000-07:00

It was close, but I won the election. Now for a three year term as the Internal Rep for section 3 of the FEMBA class of 2007. Here's the job description:

The coordinating student leader and the “Keeper of the Vibe” for the section works with the social representative within the section to ensure a successful year in regard to all aspects of student life and involvement. The Internal Rep serves as a liaison between his/her section and the FEMBA Council, helping to shape school policy by making suggestions on behalf of his/her classmates. He/she serves as the section voice to the professors, working with them to make your classes as strong as possible. The Internal Representative will attend FEMBA Council meetings generally held the first Saturday of every month from 12:15 – 1:30 PM and will participate in FEMBA committees and events as needed. (3-4 hours/week)

The first council meeting is next Saturday (7:30 AM - yuck), but I'm soliciting feedback from last year's internal reps this week to find the best way to fulfill my duties.

I have a pretty good working relationship with the administration thanks to this blog and I've started expanding my contacts through my section and with the faculty. I'll have to establish some norms for people to submit formal ideas and solicit informal ones through social events.

It promises to be a fun three years and I'm fortunate that I pushed myself to be in the thick of things from day one. If any of you are currently thinking about an MBA program and are trying to overcome shyness / fear for public speaking, push yourselves to meet people early. A blog is a great way for people to get to know you and it makes it really hard for you to retreat from the group.

You'll learn a lot from the formal classroom education, but I think you can get a lot more if use informal experiences to improve those facets that you are not happy with. I intend to work on the following:

Get out of the weeds to see the big picture (a big problem for engineers)
Improve networking skills / Build a strong network
Explore different career paths
Learn how to guide / manage my career
Overcome a fear of public speaking / Improve presentation skills

This can be as simple as paying attention to the presentation styles of your peers or taking part in workshops. In fact, the Parker Career Management Center is working with FEMBAs on workshops that teach students how to manage their careers - a great offering for fully employed students but also something full-time students can learn much from.

Liberation

2004-10-01T01:37:00.000-07:00

The tyranny of Naveen Garg will soon come to an end. I'm #7 on Google when you search for Naveen!

I called for help in installing my benevolent dictatorship back in April and I want to thank everyone for their support.

Making a difference

2004-10-01T01:31:00.000-07:00

I just saved two people from being defrauded by an eBay scammer. Isn't Google amazing?

We don't need no stinkin' plumber

2004-10-01T01:18:00.000-07:00

A leak in a pipe off the main from the city caused a small flood in the front yard. The plumbers wanted $125/hr to dig it up and made us a generous offer to shut off our water for only $60! We had the tool to shut off the water so my brother and I decided to take a look at the leak ourselves. Shutting off the water was difficult, but being engineers, we added some extra torque by extending the handles of the tool to shut off the water with a three foot steel pipe. Here's the old leaky pipe:

My brother had experience working with PVC pipes so we decided to do the job ourselves. Here's a snapshot of the now repaired pipe:

It had to set for a few hours before we could turn on the water pressure so we rigged up a quick barrier:

The next day, there was no leak and the water pressure in the house was better than ever. Total cost : $35 for materials.

Good for ABC

2004-09-30T19:42:00.000-07:00

ABC just did something they called a "Fact Check" and called Kerry on the $200 billion claim on Iraq expenditures - it was actually $115 billion according to them.

Are you watching CBS?

Update : They just called Bush on the 100,000 number on the number of Iraqis trained to provide security - it was 50,000 according to them.

Summaries

2004-09-30T19:31:00.000-07:00

Kerry - I'm not a waverer, I served in Vietnam, Iraq was a threat but done the wrong way, I have a plan to solve everything.

Bush - Kerry is a waverer, Iraq was a threat and the world is better for removing Saddam, Iraq is hard work but we will win, stay resolute & stay the course.

Losing the debate

2004-09-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

So Kerry concedes that Iraq was a threat. I think that just gives away the debate to the president. If he admits that Iraq was a problem to be solved and instead chooses to criticize the way it was undertaken, he's going to lose. If Iraq under Saddam was a problem, Bush solved it - maybe not in the best or smoothest way, but he did and that's all that matters to most people.

N. Korea

2004-09-30T19:20:00.000-07:00

I can't seriously believe that Kerry actually supports bilateral talks with North Korea... Bush is dead right on this issue. China would love to walk away from this problem and we need their leverage to force North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons.

Scary eyes

2004-09-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

Jim Lehrer has scary eyes... reminds me of an alien.

Moral High Ground

2004-09-30T19:05:00.000-07:00

It's funny how Bush & Kerry keep attempting to get the moral high ground... Kerry did it first by thanking the moderator, U of Miami, and Florida; Bush followed suit with the personality traits problems by praising Kerry before bashing him.

Interruptions

2004-09-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

Is Kerry letting Bush walk all over him? It seems like Bush interrupting quite often and getting away with it.

Lockbox?

2004-09-30T18:49:00.000-07:00

Kerry's "plan" is starting to sound a lot like Al Gore's "lockbox" for social security.

Getting sick of it

2004-09-30T18:47:00.000-07:00

Kerry needs to stop talking about Vietnam.

Bush needs to stop talking about the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place.

Help is on the way?

2004-09-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

What the hell is up with the soundbites? Kerry's message to the troops is "Help is on the way?" Geez... it sounds pretty canned compared to Bush. Bush isn't polished by any means, but he has at least avoided the sound bites.

And the count is two references to serving in Vietnam so far... whoops, make it three.

Cohort / Section or Sleeper Cell?

2004-09-23T17:53:00.000-07:00

An analysis of group stability (h/t Belmont Club) as it applies to terrorist networks says that groupings of up to 80 people can be maintained without decreasing effectiveness. Of course they can't scale very well and require a state sponsor (e.g. Somalia / Afghanistan for Al Qaeda & Iran / Syria for Hezbollah) of some sort to form larger associations.

His analysis (replete with examples) shows that there is a gradual fall-off in effectiveness at 80 members, with an absolute fall-off at 150 members. The initial fall-off occurs, according to Chris, due to an increasing amount of effort spent on "grooming" the group to maintain cohesion. The absolute fall-off at 150 members occurs when grooming fails to stem dissatisfaction and dissension, which causes the group to cleave apart into smaller subgroups (that may remain affiliated).

Is it coincidental that sections / cohorts tend to be groups of around 80 students or have b-schools discovered through trial and error that this sizing of students keeps them cohesive without requiring intensive administrative support (a State Sponsor of collaboration)?