Tyler Hansbrough sighting

I am at the House Undergrad Library today trying to get some work done. Just a few minutes ago, I was working diligently on managing my MySpace account when I heard a soft man’s voice say “hello … I am at the library.” I looked up at the table diagonally across from me to give the offender a “please shut up look.” Then my jaw dropped when I realized that the man was none other than Tar Heel number 50 Tyler Hansbrough. He quickly got up and walked away.

 

Seeing him in person on campus is much different than seeing him from hundreds of feet away at a basketball game. Now I know why there is Facebook group called “Tyler Hansbrough, I want tall babies.”

Hitting the teens

Kenan-Flagler rose two spots to number 18 in latest U.S. News & World Report business school rankings. I am glad to see our progress, especially since we were at a pathetic number 21 when I started my first year. Last semester, I began to get the feeling that our business school was finally beginningto get its act together. More companies are recruiting on campus and the ones that came the previous year returned earlier in the school year. Extensive work is being done on the second and third floors (where the classrooms are) to give students more study space and to give the floors a more modern feel. The first floor of McColl still feels more like a high school than a professional school but major renovations are scheduled to begin this summer that will radically transform the entire floor.

 

There are still many areas that need to be improved for Kenan-Flagler to be considered a top business school. Having to carpool to school is a hassle takes up at least a half an hour of the free time of many first years. To my knowledge, the classrooms have not had a major upgrade since the building opened in 1999 and are beginning to show their age. The school should borrow a page from Johnson (Cornell) and Darden (UVA) and promote the UNC Kenan-Flagler brand by placing advertising in media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek Online. Our admissions office should be given more money for events such as the MBA Experience Weekend – at least enough to pay for the plane tickets of the alums who come in to speak at the career panels.

 

When Business Week came out with its recent rankings of undergraduate business programs, it mentioned in the magazine that undergraduates at Kenan-Flagler can take MBA level classes. While that’s a great thing for the BSBA (Kenan-Flagler undergraduate) program, it’s a killer for the MBA program, especially when the information ends up in Business Week. The folks in the MBA program office should know that marketing is all about adequately conveying the value of your product. That means that even if some of our MBA level classes are not significantly different than their BSBA level counterparts, we should not boldly proclaim that information by allowing undergraduates into MBA classes.

Switching gears

As Mod IV continues, me and many of my classmates are becoming more aware that the end of our business school days are near. Yesterday I added a gadget onto my Live.com customized web page showing me how many days, hours, right down to how many minutes, until graduation. The mindset of many of my classmates is also changing. Classes and academics are beginning to take a backseat. It seems like every time I walk into the Career Management Center Library, I end up participating in a conversation about the latest episode of Lost or 24. I overheard a second year student tell someone yesterday that all he wanted were “sleep, alcohol, and girls.” I assume the conversation was about his priorities at this point in his life.

 

I too have been taking stock about what my priorities should be. On Tuesday I mentioned to a classmate that I was taking four classes and she reacted with a bit of shock. Even though four classes may be a lot for a second year in Mod IV (three is the minimum), the four that I am taking do not require an overabundance of efforts. With global supply chain management having met for the last time on Saturday, there are now only three classes that I have to regularly attend and I will have every Thursday and Friday off from now on. This has gotten me into thinking about how I can best use this new chunk of time to fulfill the priorities that are in my life and what these new priorities should be.

 

There are a couple of things I would like to accomplish between now and whenever I find and start my new job. These include areas of personal, spiritual, and professional development. On the personal front, I would like to there like to get my act together and find a ranch or a farm nearby to start taking horseback riding lessons. Yea that’s right, I want to learn to ride a horse. A lot of my classmates are really into playing golf but golf has never interested me. Riding a horse, on the other hand, is something interesting that I want to learn and to talk to other people about. Equestrian is also the only sport that involves the participation of another animal. On the spiritual front, I really need to start getting back into the habit of regularly praying and having discussions with God about the various issues in my life. During first year, I was praying and reading the Word more, much more, than I am now and God has used that opportunity to reveal a couple of things to me that are pretty profound. I have not been doing that nearly as diligently this year, and that secularization is reflected on this blog, where I don’t write about my faith and its impact on my decisions and reactions as much as I did before. This is one of the more important priorities that I wish to fulfill before I move onto the next stage of my life. On the professional front, there are a couple of what I call non-MBA MBA skills that I wish to acquire. I use that term because these are things that MBA students should know but aren’t taught in the classroom. I noticed on a couple of internet job postings that the company wants “an ideal candidate” to know Microsoft Visio and Microsoft Project. I have since added them onto my mental shopping cart of things I wish to learn in the future. But perhaps the most ambitious endeavor of all is to learn mandarin Chinese. I have blogged before that the best advice I have ever received came from a Kenan-Flagler alum who said that people make certain assumptions about the skill set of MBA graduates and you need to be aware of what these assumptions are and tailor your education to fulfill these expectations. This has led me to take classes in areas I did not consider taking such as marketing (which I ended up liking) and supply chain management. I have ever explicitly disclosed this on the blog but I am an American of Chinese descent and the assumption many people make upon meeting me is that I speak Chinese. Having a halfway descent command of conversational mandarin Chinese will not only preclude me from disappointing them but combining that with my excellent command of the English language will give me a rare skill set that will give me an edge in the employment market.

 

So these are the areas I have outlined where I want to focus my time, efforts, and energy over the next months. They may not be as exciting as “sleep, alcohol, and girls” but I am hopeful that their rewards are longer lasting and more eternal. At the very least there is no risk of waking up the next morning trying to make awkward conversations while nursing a hangover.

AOL déjà vu?

Back in November I had a second round interview in New York for a job in the credit card division of a major financial firm. I didn’t get the offer and in the almost four months since, I kept going back and forth between wishing I had gotten the offer so I wouldn’t have to worry about finding a job and feeling glad I didn’t get an offer because I would be a much rather work in the technology field.

 

Today I saw an article in the front page of the New York Times, below the fold, about some changes that are taking place in that financial firm. The recently announced plan calls for 26,000 out of 327,000 jobs to be either eliminated or reassigned.

 

 “(name of the company)’s consumer and credit card operations will bear the brunt of the job losses, but the cuts will also extend to its other main businesses, including its investment bank.”  (emphasis my own)

 

Now if I had gotten the offer, I probably would have accepted, and might be a bit concerned right about now. But then again when I worked at AOL there were layoffs almost annually and all my friends and relatives would be worried for me when the reality was the planned layoffs were nowhere near my organization and the media was only interested in reporting big numbers to sensationalize their stories.

A weekend of finalities

My global supply chain management class met for an entire day on Friday and on Saturday. Going to class for two days in a row was rough, I now have a new found respect for students who attend executive MBA programs. On Friday we had a guest speaker who spoke to us via telephone from Bangalore. His name is Vivek Kulkarni and he is the CEO of Brickwork, a business process outsourcing firm that we visited in May when as part of the India global immersion experience. He is a well known businessman within India and was mentioned in Tom Friedman's The World Is Flat. Saturday was grueling and toward the end, I had trouble keeping my eyes opens. And for some strange reason, after the class ended, I got the urge to run out to the nearest Wal Mart.

The good news is that, with the exception of one multiple choice final exam and a group paper, the global supply chain management is pretty much over for the Mod. On Sunday there was a finality of a different sort. I was at House Undergraduate Library working on my assignment for acquiring proprietary technology when I ran into a friend of mine and together we went over to the Frank Porter Graham Student Union to watch the UNC Georgetown basketball game. We had a pretty good lead well into the second half only to see it evaporate in the last two minutes of the game. In the last five minutes the crowd at the union just got bigger and bigger and we were all sitting on the edge of our seats. During the overtime round that followed, the atmosphere in the room began to feel like that of a wake as we witnessed Georgetown scored 14 unchallenged points during the round and realization began to set in that our team would not be going into the Final Four.

One final (unfortunate pun) bit of sad news to report. In church yesterday, we took time out to pray for Jason Ray, an undergrad at Kenan-Flagler who was in critical condition after getting an accident on Friday. Ray worked for the past three years as the UNC mascot Ramses and performed at many football and basketball games. He was in New Jersey getting ready for Friday’s game against USC when the accident occurred. I don’t think I have ever seen Ray at McColl but he seems to have been a well known and well liked member of UNC’s undergraduate Christian community. The Lord called him home this morning.

Photo courtesy of Tim Cupery via Facebook

Looking beyond the placement statistics

Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal’s Taking B-School column had an interview with Jeffrey Rice, the executive director of career services at the Fisher College of Business at Ohio State University.

 

“Starting salaries continue to rise. This year at Fisher with about 70% of our second-year students having accepted a job, we are up 10% from last year to a median base salary of $88,000. While starting salaries are always a factor, students are getting much more focused on compensation over the first five to eight years on the job. They aren't necessarily taking the highest monetary offer if they believe the compensation trajectory is higher at a company with a slightly lower initial offer. For example, in consumer packaged goods, if a student starts as assistant brand manager or brand manager, he can expect $80,000 to $90,000. But in five years, he could become a senior marketing director with compensation of $150,000-plus. So he may recoup the costs of the M.B.A. degree quicker on that career path than on another where the compensation rises only $20,000 in five years.”

 

This reminded me of something that's been on my mind lately. When I came to Kenan-Flagler (almost) two years ago for the MBA Experience Weekend, there was a presentation by the then Office of Career Services about the Class of 2005’s placement statistics. I remember writing down and circling the class’ employment percentage and starting salary numbers. That presentation was the most significant event of that entire weekend because it was that presentation that gave me what I call a “safety comfort level” about attending Kenan-Flagler.

 

As someone who had a really tough time looking for an internship last year and who is becoming more anxious about the full time career search, I can tell you from personal experience that these numbers do not matter. If you are a second year without an offer, it doesn’t matter how many of your classmates have something lined up, what matters more is that you are not a member of that club.  The same is true for first years who are still looking for an internship.

 

To all the applicants and perspective students from different schools who read this blog, unless a school can guarantee that in two years time you will be part of that percentage of students who have accepted an offer and the offer is near the median starting salary, do not get emotionally blown away by the numbers given to you by its career office. Think more about how attending that school, taking its classes, and having its name on your resume, will get you into the field that you want to go to.

Being at the right place at the right time

Earlier today I was making the 2 minute trek from Lenoir to Davis Undergrad Library and I was about ten steps from the library when I saw, sitting on a bench right in front of me, none other than Apprentice contestant Kwame Jackson. He was talking to a couple of ladies and after they left he stood up and I approached him to introduced myself. I told him I am in the MBA program and he said he graduated from the BSBA (undergraduate) program there. I am really glad I ran into him because the first season of The Apprentice was my favorite and the show has gone downhill in the seasons since.

My timing was not nearly as fortunate, however, later this evening when I went jogging. I ran by the well and noticed a satellite television truck parked on the sidewalk. I got closer and saw a camera crew from ABC News packing up. One of the cameramen told me that just moments ago they did a live report on World News about the Elizabeth Edwards cancer story. As I jogged away, I couldn’t help thinking that if only I had jogged a little faster I would have gotten there in time to see the live feed. But I guess you can’t win them all.

Guess who I just saw - details at 11

Consider this the blog equivalent to what the television broadcasting industry calls a tease. You are watching the latest episode of Law and Order and right before the show comes back from commercials, the newswoman comes on and says “shooting at the local deli … details at 11.”

 

Details (and a picture) at 11, or whenever I get home.

Jumping the shark?

We are almost two weeks into Mod IV and so far there is something about this Mod that doesn’t feel quite right. Of the four classes I am taking, taxes in finance is the only one I am completely happy about. Acquiring proprietary technology is taught by a pretty smart guy who has an engineering degree from NC State and an MBA from Darden. Yet he still has not setup a class web page on Blackboard for us and so far we have had to rely on our notes and our memories for what he wants on the assignments we have been working on. Managing in the high tech sector is taught by a pretty popular professor but I don't find that class nearly as interesting as I had expected.

 

I have gotten into the habit of managing my taxes in finance class by going to the Tuesday session and instead of attending the corresponding Thursday session, I go to the second half of the Wednesday session immediately after managing in the high tech sector. The Wednesday session is twice as long and covers the entire week’s worth of material in one sitting.  This saves me from having to go to class on Thursday when I will get to sleep in as long as I want.

 

And tomorrow morning sleeping in is what I will be doing.  I feel like my concentration and energy levels are not where they were when we were two weeks into Mod III. Even though I was taking six classes in the previous Mod, I had much more at this point in January. I was also more fired up and motivated. I am not sure why that is. It may be that a lot of the class work, especially in the global supply chain management class, are front loaded. Or maybe I am just tired of school and at thispoint in my life, I am much more interested in jogging, hanging out on main campus, and observing the carnival-like atmosphere that we have at UNC than in spending time in the classroom.

 

Oh and while we are on the topic of jumping the shark, maybe I will come back tomorrow and tell you what I think the latest plot twists on 24.

Dodged the bullet on that one

Last week I was offered an interview slot at the Southeastern MBA Schools Interview Forum in Atlanta. The interview was for a general management rotation program in a retail store. I had until Friday to decide whether to sign up for an interview or not and eventually decided not to do it because I didn’t think it was a good idea to spend my own money to travel to Atlanta and to spend the time required to prepare for an interview for a position that is no tin the area that I am looking for.

 

Two hours ago an email went out saying that that particular company has decided to cancel its participation in the interview forum because of “scheduling conflicts and unclear personnel needs.”

 

Now if I had signed up for the interview and made reservations for Friday, I would really be pissed. I might even be tempted to recoup my losses by perhaps shorting the company’s stock. Shorting the stock would not be such a bad idea .... go ahead ... "you can do it, we can help."

Getting burnt and becoming jaded

In September I had a conversation with a friend who’s a graduate student at UNC. I casually brought up that his program has an unusually large number of attractive women. He said that a lot of them are either dating someone, married, or about to be married. He then mentioned something that I never really thought about before. He said (paraphrasing) “when many of these girls are young and in college, that’s when they are looking to fall in love with someone. But as they get older and have more experience, they become jaded.”

 

Later that week I was at the Duke UVA football game and was talking to someone who is a recruiter for a company in Raleigh. Earlier that week she was at UNC interviewing some of my friend’s classmates. I asked her if she has observed any noticeable differences between students who “go straight through” (students who begin their graduate program immediately upon completion of their undergraduate degree) as opposed to those who have spent a couple of years in the workplace. She said she has definitely noticed that those who have worked “have been burnt” and instead of talking about what they are excited about doing, are more likely to talk about what they don’t want to do and ask specific questions on things such as working on the weekends. 

 

The two conversations got me thinking about all the idealism I had when I was in college and how over the past nine years much of it has morphed into cynicism. I am at a loss as to explain how this happened. I cannot attribute this to any single reason or one particular event. Most likely it’s the result of various experiences I have had over the years; experiences at work, experiences with different people, experiences with relationships, even my experience at Kenan-Flagler has made me more pessimistic about society at large (hopefully at a later date I will get to blog about some of the specific encounters that I am thinking about).

 

When I see undergrads at UNC with all their youth, energy, and idealism, it is their idealism that I envy the most. I cannot help but to think that this idealism almost amounts to a type of innocence – a virtue that they have from being unaware of exactly how the world works or from not having experienced firsthand the meanness that man is capable of.  What I fear most for myself is just how the next nine years will span out. Will I become more jaded, continue to get burnt, and become even more cynical? Or will things happen that will restore my idealism and also my hope in mankind. While I consider the latter to be unlikely, I do have reasons to be optimistic. With all the stuff that I have experienced, the fact that I continue to do many of the things that I do (like write this blog, for example) is a testament that I am still an idealist at heart.

Someone may want to alert the U.S. Secret Service

I saw this bumper sticker earlier today at the Bell Tower parking lot. I was going to post the picture and talk about how ignorant some people are that they don’t even know our next presidential election is not until 2008.

Then I thought about it a little bit more and realized the deeper meaning. That Nancy Pelosi is currently second in line to the presidency and the only way for her to become President in 2007 is for something to happen to the President and the Vice President as to make them physically or legally unable to serve.

I don’t know if the owner of this bumper sticker should be reprimanded for wanting something that drastic to happen to our political system or should be commended for having a firm grasp of the line of presidential succession.

Oops I did it again

Why do I keep doing this? Even though I know there are certain things I should not do just yet, I keep allowing myself to be seduced by temptation and lured into falling off the wagon.

This past weekend I was looking at the web site for next Friday’s Southeastern MBA Schools Interview Forum in Atlanta. I saw a job posting for the rotational management program of a retail store based in Atlanta and before one could say “you can do it, we can help,” I sent out a cover letter and resume. I learned today that I have been offered an interview.

The interview poses several dilemmas. By accepting it, I’d have to travel to Atlanta next Friday at my own expense. And by going to Atlanta, I’d be missing my global supply chain management class next Friday. Since the class meets for an entire day only three times this Mod, I’d be missing one third of the class and may have to possibly drop it.

But the biggest dilemma is just what was I doing applying to a job that is not in the field that I really want to work for. I thought I have already decided that I am not going to apply to a job unless it is in the technology field. I guess since we are about 7 weeks out until graduation, I am getting a bit anxious about my “I don’t have a job” status and it doesn't help that second year students are being constantly bombarded with information from the Career Management Center about the latest employment statistics. I really need to remind myself that I should not going settle for a job unless it is something I really want.

Just out of curiosity, I emailed the supply chainmanagement professor asking him what would happen if I were to miss one class. His response was that I’d be okay as long as I submitted all the reportsand assignments. Since this is the same professor who taught the doing business in India class, I am wondering if maybe his response was a subtle reminder that I have still yet to hand in my final paper for the class and therefore the IN (incomplete) he gave me has still yet to be changed into something more respectable.

Unintentional humor

It’s been a pretty interesting first two days of classes so far. Yesterday, I got to my 2pm class a little bit late. I walked in at around 2:03 and the professor had already begun talking. I discreetly snuck up to the front of the room to grab a syllabus from the box of handouts, picked a seat on the front row, and sat down. About 30 seconds later, it became obvious that something was wrong. I noticed that there was a major error on the syllabus, it was titled managing business turnaround and yet the class was supposed to be managing in the high tech sector. It was then that I realized I must have been in the wrong room and attempted to cut my losses by attempting to make an exit that was as discreet as my entrance a minute earlier. I managed to get within half a step of reaching the door when I looked straight ahead and saw in the door’s glass window a reflection of the professor looking straight at me. I turned around and said, “I am sorry this is the wrong class.” The room erupted into laughter as I walked out of the room with my tail between my legs.

 

Today was less humiliating. My only class was taxes in finance. Because I sat in on this class for one week last year before deciding to drop it, most of the material from this morning was a repeat for me. To illustrate the importance of having the right vocabulary, the professor told a joke about vacationing in Mexico and trying to bargain with the street vendors and instead of saying “how much,” he said something in Spanish that meant “I want cheese.” The joke was as unfunny today as when it was a year ago. He did say something that was quite hilarious. He was announcing that twice this Mod we will have class at Koury Auditorium (he did not do this last year) and kept referring to the auditorium as “coll-roy.” The more he kept repeating the mispronouncing, the funnier it got. Bythe third time, I had to put my hands in front of my face to conceal the smirk that was getting more obvious by the seconds.

 

I can’t wait until Thursday when he tells the joke about how he’s been writing to the broadcast networks suggesting that they create a show about federal agents from the U.S. Treasury Department who investigate tax crimes. I believe he said he wants the main character to be either played by him or modeled after him.

The lives for former Presidents, on 24

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS OF LAST NIGHT’S EPISODE.

I bet I was not the only one watching last night’s episode to predict in the seconds before it happened that Martha was going to stab her ex-husband, the former President of the United States. It was pretty obvious, they were sitting in the living room waiting and Martha had just returned from the kitchen where she was going berserk using a sharp knife to cut up whatever fruit she was going to serve to her ex-husband and to Aaron, the former Secret Service agent now turned boyfriend. Then the camera zoomed in on the knife that she left on the plate in the living room and before you knew it she drove that knife into the right chest of Charles Logan.

But I am going to bet that I am the first one on the blogosphere to point out that in the world of 24, bad things tend to happen to current and former Presidents. David Palmer finished out his one term and met an assassin’s bullet with his forehead. John Keeler was on board Air Force One when it was shot down by a missile from a Stealth Bomber. You already know about what happened to Logan and Wayne Palmer is currently in critical condition after getting blown up by an assassin’s bomb.

I personally don’t like the current Vice President on the show and am hoping that Noah Daniels will meet the same fate. As a matter of fact, I think if the Vice President were to die, more lives will definitely be saved. Now why dothose words sound so familiar?

Starting classes for one last time

Today marks the beginning of Mod IV and the last seven weeks of classes before I graduate, which will take place two months from tomorrow. There are four classes I am interested in. They are acquiring proprietary technology to start your entrepreneurial venture (I will refer to this as “acquiring proprietary technology”), managing in the high tech sector, taxes in finance (this is the class that I sat in on for about a week last year this mod before I dropped it), and global supply chain management.

 

In addition to the above four, there are a couple of other classes that I signed up for that I am going to drop. I first chose my classes back in December (we bid on classes for Mods III and IV at the same time) and in the time since, I have decided that some of the classes that I did sign up for I really do not want to take. One of them is marketing strategy. When I realized last week that it was being taught by the same professor who taught the pricing class I just took during Mod III, it took me an entire two seconds to decide to drop it. I think the professor does a decent job teaching, he just gives out a bit too much work.

 

My next class is not until 2pm. I think I am going to go out for a jog.

Say it ain’t so!

I was jogging yesterday morning when I ran by the Pit on main campus and saw Gary Birdsong standing in his usual spot. Birdsong is a preacher who goes to different college campuses in North Carolina where he will find the most visible spot on campus, take out his Bible, and preach at the top of his lungs. He is controversial because he tends to present the gospel in ways that don’t necessarily conform to modern day norms of what’s socially acceptable. But among all the preachers I have seen at UVA or UNC, he is by far the most entertaining. There was one time in November when I heard him speak (picture above) and he was complaining about women who want to see other women “nekkid” and about men who hang out in the bathroom trying to look at other men through the holes in the stalls.

But yesterday was different. Instead of being surrounded by students who were laughing at or mocking him, the students were mostly silent. The ones engaging Birdsong this time were three officers from the Department of Public Safety. Apparently a student group called Carolina Adventures had a permit to use the Pit and felt that Birdsong was infringing upon its rights by standing there practicing his schtick.

The officers asked him to move, he refused. They stepped back and the lead officer used his cell phone to ask for clarification. Meanwhile Birdsong turned to his audience and started telling a story about one time when he was in Raleigh and some restaurant owners called the police because he was talking too loud onthe sidewalk. The officers returned and the lead officer as politely as possible told him they would arrest him for trespassing unless he agreed to move to the other side of the Pit. When Birdsong asked to see Carolina Adventure’s permit, he was denied. Eventually he agreed to move and as he was walking said to his audience “ya see … I abyde by da law!” It was at that point that I figured the show was over and returned to my car.

So imagine my shock this morning when I opened the Daily Tar Heel and saw the headline on the front page, above the fold, “Police remove Pit Preacher.”

“Birdsong finally agreed to move, but Yeargan (that’s the hippie from Carolina Adventures who was standing by the tents hoping to preach to students about the virtues of living in the woods) said he moved only five feet and refused to move again - opting to take the punishment rather than accept the attempt to regulate his speech.

Officers then wrote the warning and escorted Birdsong off campus, amid jeers from students about violation of free-speech rights.”

The article said that unless Birdsong wins his appeal, he would be barred from setting foot on UNC for the next two years. It would be a great shame if he is not allowed to return. Birdsong is a bit of an institution at UNC, where he is commonly known as “the Pit Preacher.” He has his own entry in Wikipedia and judging from some of the pictures of him on the internet, he has been doing this for at least 20 years. I was really counting on him toprovide endless hours of entertainment during Mod IV (which begins on Monday) when I’d much rather be entertained than to do school work or worry about finding a job. I have seen video clips of him on Youtube where he is on another campus saying he wouldn’t allow his daughter to marry a non-white and I was hoping I’d get to ask him if he’d rather have his daughter bring home Clarence Thomas or Bill Clinton.

“I have no idea what you are talking about Dad”

There comes a time in every man’s life when his father asks him a question and the implications of an honest answer are such that it is much better for him to feign ignorance than to tell the truth. I arrived at that moment on Sunday evening when my father gave me a ride home from the bus stop.

 

I had gone to a bar to watch the UNC Duke game with a friend of mine from college. My father picked me up from a bus stop about half an hour from where my parents live and about five minutes into the car ride, the car had stopped at a red light when it occurred.

 

“What exactly is linjury?”  When I asked him what he was talking about he pointed at the neon sign at the store across the street. I looked over and saw an establishment called Planet Pleasure. The sign said “DVDs, Video, Lingerie.” My dad goes on to say “I know what a DVD is, I know what a video is, but what is “linjury?””  

 

“I really don’t know” was all I could muster. I figured since he never gave me the “birds and the bees talk” and left me to figure out certain stuff on my own, I am completely justified in not telling him the definition (or even the correct pronunciation) of the word lingerie.

Coming soon!

When I was on West Franklin Street on Friday, I saw the above sign right across from Panera Bread at where the News and Observer building used to be. It looks like one of my favorite fast food chains from my former life in Virginia has finally decided to expand into the Old North State.

According to the web site, Chipotle currently has four locations in North Carolina, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, and two in Greensboro. With the Chapel Hill location “coming soon” (hopefully, emphasis on the “soon”) that gives the McDonald’s owned subsidiary five more locations in North Carolina than in August, 2005 when I started at Kenan-Flagler.

I was going to end this blog posting by saying I hope it opens before May 13th when I graduate. But somehow I have a feeling I will still be in Chapel Hill well into the summer.

An interesting arbitrage opportunity

After dining on Boston clam chowder at Panera Bread this afternoon, I went across the street to Ram Book and Supply and offered to sell back my books from the pricing and sales classes. The cashier only offered $20 for the pricing book but offered an entire $9 for the sales book. It just happened that I bought the sales book brand new on eBay for under $7 (including shipping). So needless to say, not only did I fork the book over I will be returning to eBay to see if there are any more such deals.

Quality time well spent

I just got out of my data, decisions, and tools exam. Since it was open book, I didn’t study too hard for it. Originally I was going to spend the morning at McColl and have lunch dining on the fabulous food at Café McColl. But instead I ended up going with a classmate to Penang’s on West Franklin Street.

 

The exam was pretty much what I had expected, I am glad I didn’t spend too much time on it. I suspect that if I start working on my final exam assignment for entrepreneurial marketing class, I can get enough work done so that when 7pm comes around I can go over to Sunset Grill in Durham and watch the UVA versus Virginia Tech game with the UVA alumni club.

 

Hopefully I will get the chance to do that. And if the situation permits, I want to propose a toast to one of the greatest New Deal historians of my lifetime – Arthur M. Schlesinger died last night. I remember in high school running out to Waldenbooks to buy a copy of The Disuniting of America, a great essay on why he prefers the melting pot concept over the multiculturalism approach to diversity.