A place for me to share my thoughts and hopes as I go through life as a young adult professional in Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the greatest nation on earth.
you’re writing your paper for acquiring proprietary technology class. Sharing the same table are two undergrads whom you have never seen before. A friend of theirs stops by to say hello. The friend looks at you and says “hi” and you realize it’s the same girl who sat across from you the night before when you were at the same library, same floor, different section, working on the same paper.
But all kidding aside, even though this paper is due tomorrow, I feel like taking as much time as I need writing it. After all, it is the last written … snip snip … assignment I am going to have to do before I earn my MBA.
Yesterday was an amazing day. If I could, I would put it in a bottle and save it forever. It was the last day of classes and the type of day that reminds me of just what school could and should be.
At around 5 o’clock, I walked to the Old Well and heard the UNC Clef Hangers perform its annual Old Well Sing. The sunlight bouncing off the South Building onto the a cappella group was at just the right angle and gave a resilient glow the members and everything and everyone around them. When the group performed its last song, I decided to film it because of the song’s significance to the theme of this blog. It was only later that I realized that I have heard this song many times before and yet there was something about the way this group performed it at the Old Well that made it different than every other time I have heard it before.
I left the Well and went to the last FOCUS meeting of the year. On the way there, I stopped by Whole Foods to buy something for the potluck dinner. While waiting on line I recognized a man walking by. It was Larry, a guy who lived downstairs from me last year when he first moved from Chapel Hill. Larry is a senior citizen and needed help with a couple of things and there were a couple of times when I helped him out of a jam. He moved away about a year ago when he bought his own place and we have since lost touch. We caught up on old times, exchanged contact information, and he offered to take me out to dinner to celebrate my graduation.
Unfortunately I had to leave the FOCUS meeting early to go the 2007 Kenan-Flagler Follies but before Idid, I had the chance to partake in the tradition the group has every year for graduating seniors, the group collectively prayed for me. Hearing some of those in the group pray for my job search (I told them about my upcoming interview) and offer praises for some of the traits they see in my character made me realize how fortunate I am to have known this godly group of people.
I arrived at the Follies just in time to see the beginning of my skit shown. I won’t give away the joke but it’s about the Career Management Center coming up with a new process for students to practice for job interviews. I played myself and after receiving some honest feedback on my resume walk, decided to break into a very funny song and dance. My name came up again later in the evening when I was nominated for the “Box of Chocolate Award,” which the presenter explained by saying “because with some students, you never know what you are going to get.” For once in my life, I was relived when I was not chosen.
After the Follies everyone went out to the Martini Bar where I had a couple of classmates compliment me for my role in the skit. I spotted a cutie wearing a short skirt and a black shirt with the word “POLICE” on the front. I later found out she was actually a police officer and joking asked where she hid her handcuffs (it always seems so funny when I hear that used in the movies). I left with a bunch of people at around 1 and went next door to Hector’s for something to eat. This is thesame location where Off Franklin used to be and where I used to hang out when I was here during ASW (that’s the Kenan-Flagler pre-MBA session). I remember feeling sad when Off Franklin closed down during my first year but last night I realized why. At 1am, Hector’s had much more business than Off Franklin ever did during the time I was going there.
Today is the last day of classes at UNC.I am spending the day on the main campus working to catch up on my blog, start writing my paper for acquiring proprietary technology, and do other job search related stuff. If I get the chance, I may return to the steps of the Wilson Library later today and turn on the camera one last time like I did on Wednesday.
It’s been a while since I have given you a job search update. For the past three weeks, the professor in managing in the high tech sector class has been bringing in guest speakers from different technology companies in the area. This has served as a great networking opportunity for me in terms of meeting people who work for local companies that I may want to work for. Last week I met the CEO of a small local start up firm and while the name of his company is little known, the type of work it does is fascinating. I mentioned that I am jobs searching and he asked me to email him. I emailed him the following weekend and he wrote back saying “let’s touch base.” I am going to hold off“touching base” with him as long as I can because it can easily lead to a job offer and a job offer from his company at this time would be problematic. It’s problematic because while I am interested in working for his company there are probably a few other companies out there I would much rather work for and I would not consider working for his company until I have exhausted these other options. This is typical of the dilemma faced by contestants in the television game show Deal or No Deal where they have to choose between locking in on what they have now and holding out for something better.
There has been another development on the job front that appeared on my radar within the past three days. During my first year, I interviewed for an internship at the internet division of a cable television network based in Atlanta. The interview went really well, I certainly felt that the interviewer was impressed with me and he even hinted toward the end of the interview that I got it. Needless to say, I was crushed when I learned that I was not chosen. This was the one internship that I interviewed for that I really wish I had gotten. On Tuesday I saw on that company’s web page a position that is almost ideal with what I am looking for. I quickly applied over the web. I then spent the next 36 hours deliberating over whether I should contact my interviewer fromlast year and tell him that I am still interested. I was embarrassed about it because I failed to keep in touch with him afterwards and don’t want him to think that I was contacting him only when I wanted something. I sent him an email yesterday afternoon but thought long and hard about its wording. I changed “I interviewed with you last year for the summer internship” to “we talked last year about the summer internship” and replaced “although I was disappointed that I didn’t get it, I am still very interested in your company" to “although I didn’t end up interning at your company, I am still interested.”
This is a line I remember from growing up and it seems appropriate on a day like today. The last day of classes is Friday and since I have no classes tomorrow and on Friday, the last class of my MBA career took place earlier this afternoon.
This morning in acquiring proprietary technology, the professor ended class by giving every student a copy of his business card. Glued to the back of each was a five leaf clover, a topic which is a personal hobby of his and which he has spent some time discussing in class. Later in the afternoon we had a guest speaker in managing in the high tech sector. In the beginning of class, I was getting a bit nostalgic about the class being the last class I am probably ever going to have in my full time academic career. As the class went by I found the speaker’s topic to be so boring that could not wait for it to end.
There is one writing assignment for me to hand in between now and the completion of my MBA studies. It’s amazing how quickly the time went. Yesterday afternoon I went over to the George Watts Hill Alumni Center to see a friend of mine. I knew thisguy at UVA and when I saw him at our class reunion I asked him what he was doing and he said he had just accepted a job working in alumni relations at the UNC. When I was here during ASW (that’s the pre-MBA summer session) I went over to his office one afternoon to surprise him. I decided I was going to surprise him a second (and for one last) time. I walked into the lobby and it was almost an exact repeat of what happened during ASW when I asked to see him, the secretary said he was out at meeting, and I waited for him outside sitting on a bench. The only difference was back then I passed the time by reading the corporate finance textbook and this time I entertained myself with some extracurricular reading.
When I finally got to talk to him in his office I gave him my membership application for the UNC General Alumni Association, something which he oversees. I updated him on what’s happening in my life and when it was his turn he mentioned that he will be leaving his job this summer. It was nice to see him one last time and hearing him tell me he was leaving was a good reminder that all good things must come to an end.
Around this time yesterday I came to main campus (I had to wait until 5 o’clock to be able to find a place to legally park), sat on the main quad (also known as Polk Place) under a tree and spent an hour on an extracurricular reading assignment I have been working on. I returned here at the same time today to get my thoughts together to write a blog posting about my last day of classes.
On the way here I was thinking that I wish there is a way I can describe what an awesome place the main campus is and why I come here as much as I can. Then it dawned on me that there is a way for me to do that.
Right now I am sitting on the steps of the Wilson Library in front of Polk Place. I am going to put my Cannon PowerShot SD 400 down on the steps next to me and set it to record. It will record the scene going by until its SD card runs out. Then I am going to transfer the file to my laptop and hopefully I will be able to move the file onto the blog.
Please check back here later tonight and we will see if it works.
Update 6:35pm: OK the bad news is the camera did not capture as much video footage as I had hoped but I was able to successfully upload it. Here is the video. If you listen carefully, you will hear the bell from the Bell Tower chirp at exactly 5 o'clock.
In between classes today, I walked to main campus and was in the audience when radio host Ed Schultz broadcast his radio show from the auditorium of the Frank Porter Graham Student Union building. Today’s show was billed as a “Town Hall meeting” with John Edwards because one of the three hours featured an appearance by the North Carolina presidential candidate.
I got there about ten minutes before the show began. The one thing that I noticed right away was that the demographics was not what I had expected. I arrived expecting to see mostly a young college crowd but what I saw was an audience made up mostly of senior citizens. The crowd’s demographics was the complete opposite of what I saw at Memorial Hall in December when MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews came down to UNC to interview John and Elizabeth Edwards. I am not sure if this was a reflection of the enthusiasm (or lack of) for Edwards among UNC students or the demographics of WCHL, the local radio station that sponsored the event.
The festivities began at noon when WCHL morning host Ron Stutts (picture above) got on stage and welcomed everyone. He managed to finish his introduction just in time for Ed Schultz to come out on the stage and begin his national program at the appointed time. Edwards did not appear during the first hour and the first hour pretty much consisted of Schultz talking about current events. He played a clip of the President this morning reiterating his support for Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, interviewed Pittsboro (a town 30 miles southwest of Chapel Hill) mayor Randolph Voller who complaint about having an “MBA president,” and spent his commercial breaks tossing WCHL plastic footballs into the audience.
It wasn’t until around 1 o’clock that more college students came into the audience and the auditorium began to get crowded. Schultz introduced John Edwards, who gave an update form the campaign trail and took questions from the audience. At times I felt like Schultz was covering for Edwards. One woman in the audience mentioned about Edwards’ trip to China and asked whether he’s had the chance to makesimilar trip to other countries and before Edwards could answer, Schultz jumped in and rephrased the question to allow him to give an answer without listing exactly how many countries he has visited.
I left at around 1:30 to return to McColl for class.
On my taxes in finance take home final exam, the bonus question asked for my favorite movie or television series. Without hesitation, I wrote down James Bond.
I came across an interesting trivia in the New York Daily News last week about my favorite movie series:
“He is the answer to the trivia question: Who was the first actor to play James Bond? Before Sean Connery was tapped to play the British agent on the big screen in 1962's "Dr. No," (Barry) Nelson played Bond in a one-hour TV adaptation of "Casino Royale" in 1954.”
I am sorry I have not blogged in three days. The senioritis that began to set in a few weeks ago is beginning to spread o other areas of my life as well. Since I don’t have the motivation to come up with anything profound, I am just going to tell you about some of the sights and sounds that I experienced in the past three days.
On Wednesday my bible study met at this guy’s house which is located on a farm outside of Chapel Hill. I have been out that way before because this is near where the financial accounting professor lives and he has invited students out to his place on several occasions. On the drive down Old Greensboro Road, I saw a white picket fence with the words “Go Rudy Giuliani 2008,” realized where I was, and immediately pulled over.
John Edwards, Chapel Hill’s full time media hound and part time presidential candidate, recently bought a stretch of land off of Old Greensboro and built the county’s largest house there. In a recent interview his wife Elizabeth mentioned her neighbor across the street with the Rudy Giuliani sign and described him as a “rapid Republican” who chased trespassers with a gun and kept his place “slummy.” I had recognized the sign and the property from a story on Inside Edition. I stopped the car, took some pictures without getting out, and saw a man walk out in front of the auto repair shop (from the Inside Edition story, I know that the owner rents part ofthe land to an auto repair shop) and stare at me. After taking my picture, I walked over to gentleman and talked to him a little bit. He said the sign has been vandalized and just the night before some people showed up with chainsaws. He pointed at the two trails across the street that go into the woods and said they both lead to the Edwards property. He said the marble stone that was guarding the entrance to the second trail was installed in the past week and had to have cost around $12,000. Looking around, I imagine that stone probably cost more than some of the vehicles that were being repaired on the lot. I thanked him for his time and drove away.
Earlier today I was at the Undergraduate Library working on my take home final exam for taxes in finance. I walked across the Pit for lunch and walked by a man who was painting something. Twenty minutes and some Chik-Fil-A waffle fries later, I was on my way back to the library and saw that the painter had gathered an audience. Turns out he was a preacher and was using his painting skills to convey his message. He was not nearly as entertaining as the Pit Preacher but the students seemed to take him more seriously. I wonder if the shooting at Virginia Tech on Monday has made students more receptive to hearing the Christian message.
Next week is my last week of classes and hopefully I will be more motivated to blog. I have to finish my taxes in finance take home final exam this weekend. If only I can do on the exam what I just did on this blog, insert a bunch of pictures, write long paragraphs, hit SUBMIT, and hope for a P (pass).
This past weekend was a milestone of sorts for various reasons. Friday began my last month before graduation. We are now down to the last four weeks of my time as a full time student. These consist of two weeks of classes (including this week) followed by one week of exams and one week of nothingness followed by graduation weekend.
As far as my mental state of mind is concerned, my Mod IV (and my MBA career) is pretty much over and I am not the only one feeling this way. One of my favorite classmates has endearingly nicknamed this mod as “ASW 3.” (ASW is the summer workshop for incoming first years and there are two separate sessions, ASW 1 and ASW 2) and the nickname has caught on. I was telling a professor yesterday morning that it feels like there is a lot going on and at the same time it feels like nothing is going on. Part of me wants to do nothing but to set the auto pilot and coast for the next two weeks. Yet another part wants to make the most of every opportunity that these dwindling number of days are offering me – try to shoot for the H (high pass) in every remaining class, attend every business school and campus event, and sing like no one is listening.
I tried to do just that this past weekend. On Friday I attended the beginning of the Executive Alumni Seminar, an alumni event for Kenan-Flagler’s weeknight, weekend, and OneMBA programs. The following night I went to the Taste of Chapel Hill dinner we held as part of the MBA Experience Weekend and met many accepted applicants who are considering or have already decided to enroll in the MBA program. Both these events gave me a perspective by allowing me to contrast where I was two years ago when I was an accepted applicant attending that year’s MBA Experience Weekend and where I would like to be years from now when hopefully I am professionally successful and future students will be attempting to kiss my as … I mean network with me.
While we are on the topic of me singing like no one is listening, the annual Kenan-Flagler Follies will take place the night of the last day of class, April 27. Last Thursday I participated in taping part of a skit that hopefully will be included in this year's event and will earn me a place in the eternal Follies archives. In the meantime, a preview of another skit has been released on the internet. Check it out.
I was leaving for lunch with a classmate and we were approaching my car when he saw my UVA license plate frame and asked if I had heard about the shooting at Virginia Tech this morning. We spent the drive to Franklin Street listening to the radio's simulcast of the Fox News Channel . My immediate reaction was Columbine and a shooting more than ten years ago at the University of Iowa where a Chinese physics graduate student was angry because of a dissertation review that didn’t go the way he wanted and he shot about six people in his department and most of the killings were premeditated. I thought about all the Virginia Tech students and those who have loved ones there who are, at this moment, uncertain as to whether they are okay.
During the drive back to McColl, I couldn’t help thinking that life on a college campus after today will probably never be the same. Just what is this world coming to when you cannot feel safe on a college campus.
Jeff Greenfield will soon become the senior political correspondent for CBS News and made his debut on the CBS Evening News last night. Literally the first sentence out of his mouth contained something that was factually incorrect.
Katie Couric wanted him to comment on the history of radio hosts getting fired for racially insensitive comments and his immediate words were:
“Race has truncated the careers of lots of people - very popular New York personality Bob Grant called the African American mayor a washroom attendant, he was let go by the station.”
Bob Grant was not fired for calling the former mayor of New York “a washroom attendant.” He was fired (and later rehired by another radio station) because when he heard news that there was a survivor in the crash of the plane that carried the then Commerce Secretary Ron Brown, he suggested that perhaps that survivor was Brown, and then added, “maybe I just feel that way because I am at heart a pessimist.”
Between Couric’s producer copying straight out of the Wall Street Journal and Greenfield not getting his facts straight, CBS is redefining its “experience CBS News” mantra. Perhaps the network should worry not so much about its effects on (reading from its press release on Don Imus’ firing) “our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society,” it should be concerned about the integrity and reliability of its news division.
I don’t want to go to sleep. Because if I do, sometime around 8am my clock radio will come on and 850 the Buzz will be playing something other than Imus In the Morning. With all the news overage given to the reaction to Don Imus’ on air racist comment, the termination of the MSNBC simulcast, and now the cancellation of his radio show, there has been no mention of how this affects the approximately 2.5 million listeners on the radio and the more than 300,000 viewers on MSNBC.
With the exception of when I didn’t have a television set at UVA, I cannot think of a time since I began listening to the radio regularly more than 15 years ago when Imus was not on the radio in the morning somewhere. When I worked at AOL, he was one of the people I would channel surf to during my morning commute. It wasn’t until I moved down to Chapel Hill that I began to listen regularly. During my first year I was embarrassed to listen with my carpool partners in the car with me and would secretly look forward to the few days when I could drive in by myself. There have been times during this school year when I scheduled my jog in the morning to coincide with when he was on.
I have spent the past week wondering just how Imus In the Morning became the one radio show I listen to more than anything else. And why I continued to listen even though I routinely hear my religious faith mocked, the vice president called a war criminal, and comments made about the American president that I believe should never be uttered by any American. I have come to the conclusion that I listen because the show is the perfect balance of intellectual and colloquial conversations. Unlike Rush Limbaugh, Imus does not pretend to be any smarter than he actually is. He is unpretentious. He talked to his sidekicks on the air the same way you talk to close family members. And just when you think you have had enough of mindless banter, he surprises you with a serious interview with a top newsmaker like Tom Friedman or Tim Russert.
When I learned that MSNBC would stop the simulcast of his radio show on Wednesday, I went to the NBC Universal Store web site to try to buy an Imus souvenir. Unfortunately the links for the items had been disabled even though the items were still on the site. But tonight I did manage to go onto the show’s iTunes page and successfully download the past month’s worth of podcasts. Hopefully this will tie me over until I find my next Imus. The sad thing is – I will probably not find another Don Imus, just as I never found another Bob Grant. Sometimes it’s bittersweet to be reminded that the things we value in life we should cherish because we know deep down that they won’t forever.
In our managing in the high tech sector class today, we had a guest speaker. He is a Kenan-Flagler alum who works for a local company that sells open source software to customers nationwide. He had with him a list of things he planned to say to us but said he’d be willing to make his talk flexible if there was a particular area we wanted him to talk about.
At one point, there was a pause as he was transitioning from one topic to another. He asked “should I give you an overview of what open source is?” He waited for an answer and no one said anything. It was then that I decided to take the lead and break the silence that had enveloped the classroom.
The speaker said “I guess that means you all know it then” and went on to another topic. But judging from the looks I got from some of my classmates in the ensuing 10 seconds, that was probably not the case.
I should remember for future references that in some situations, it’s better to keep my mouth shut than to risk saying anything that’s considered uncool or uncharacteristic of Kenan-Flagler. At the very least if my mouth is closed, it’s physically impossible to put my foot in it.
One of the things that never fails to fascinates me about business school is that in almost every accounting or finance class I have taken, there has been a mention of the AOL Time Warner merger. In taxes and finance class (which is a finance class taught by the accounting department) today, the professor used it to illustrate the tax consequences of a merger. He talked about the $99 billion net loss the merged company reported in 2002 mostly due to changes in accounting rules and impairment of goodwill.
He said my former employer “makes GM (General Motors) look profitable” as everyone laughed while I just sank deeper in my seat and chuckled awkwardly.
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS OF TONIGHT’S EPISODE.
By “24 returns,” I mean that not just literally but figuratively as well. I was beginning to think that its writers have completely lost their ability to shock us and then saw tonight’s episode. First off, two of my last week’s predictions came true – the missile being a dud and the situation between Mike Doyle and Nardia beginning to heat up. Just when I thought the show was becoming a bit too predictable with Fayed being rescued in an ambush, we find out the ambush was staged and by the end of the hour the nuclear warhead story came to an end.
Like many of you, after Jack and the CTU team recovered theremaining warheads, I was waiting for the “other shoe to drop.” I was expecting either Doyle to shoot Jack or for Nardia to walk into a bathroom stall and start text messaging information to the terrorists. But instead the phone rang and on the other end was Audrey! I guess it makes sense for Kim Raver to return to the show since The Nine on ABC has gone nowhere. And I think it’s about time that Chinese returns as the villains since it’s pretty obvious the Arab terrorist plot has jumped the shark. Did anyone notice that the name of the Arabic military general who was captured for aiding Fayed was Habib? We already had a terrorist name Habib, Habib Marwan during season 5. I am hoping that thistime around the writers will do a better job at keeping the villains interesting.
About two years after I graduated from college, I began doing something that I had long considered doing but never really put into practice. I began honoring the Sabbath by taking Sundays off. By that, I am not saying that I merely refrained from going to work on Sundays. I actually began to adhere to the commandment about honoring the Sabbath and “keeping it holy” by coming home from church and then refraining from doing anything for the rest of the day. This includes errands, household chores, and anything that was mentally or laboriously taxing.
I know this confounds a lot of you who do not share my religious beliefs and I admit that even among Christians, many don’t think much of the “honoring the Sabbath” commandment. But I think there are secular as well as religious benefits to this practice. During the time that I was doing this, I felt it strengthened my faith and helped me deal more effectively with my stress levels. I remember during the time when I was working, there were times when I heard coworkers complain that they felt more tired on the Monday than on the previous Friday. It’s clear that many people overextend themselves on the weekends and the results are evident during the workweek.
Unfortunately business school has gotten into the way of me continuing to make Sunday a day of rest. For the past twenty months, my Sundays have comprised of church, a quick lunch, followed by the rest of the day spent catching up on reading and assignments. Other than going to church in the morning, my Sunday s have begun to resemble every other day of the week. I very much would like toreturn to the habit of honoring my Sundays and with class work slowing down to a crawl and me getting ready to return to the workforce, I can think of no better time to recommit myself to this habit than on this Easter Sunday.
The cellular phone industry must be getting more competitive because for the past month, there has been at least two (maybe even three) attempts by my cellular service provider to get me to renew my contact. And the attempts are getting more and more aggressive.
I am a bit of an anomaly among cell phone users because I have been with the same provider for more than eight years. My current two year contract runs out in July and my plans are to wait for it to run out and then try to negotiate a discount in return for renewing for two more years. Another reason I am not renewing just yet is because I may end up working for a company with a better employee discount than the one I am currently getting and in such an event I may have to switch providers to get the discount.
About three weeks ago I got a call from someone at my provider trying to get me to sign up for a new phone with the “New Every Two” promotion, which grants a $100 subsidy toward the purchase of a new phone every two years. She tried to get me to upgrade by telling me I should have a phone with the latest technology. What she delicately didn’t tell me, but I knew from my previous dealings with the company, was that partaking in the promotion would renew my contract for two more years. I explained to her that I was happy with my current phone and was in no hurry to upgrade.
Then last week I got a flier in the mail from the provider giving me a list of phones I can upgrade to. I notice that it now offers 100 bonus minutes per month for customers who renew on a three year contract, a three year contract is something I have never heard of before. The latest attempt to get me to renew was earlier today when I got a call from “Gillian” asking me how happy I am with my phone and with my current plan. I inquired as to whether the company was trying to lock in as many customers on a contract before the iPhone comes out. She countered that the company was trying to protect its customers from price increases, which was a ridiculous answer because I don’t see cellular service prices going up anytime soon. I told her I was happy with my service and didn’t want to make any changes right now. It was then that she went over the line. I had already told her I wasn’t going to renew and she said “we can renew you now and you will still have six months to get a new phone, is that okay?” I paused as the audacity of what she did began to sink in. I said “do not renew” and hung up.
It is clear that the cell phone companies are worried about its customer base defecting to Cingular when the iPhone comes out in June and are offering its employees big commission money to cold call its customers and badger them into locking in. The next time I get a call from Verizon Wireless, I am going to pretend that I can’t hear them. “Can you hear me now? How about now?”
I know a lot of you have been disappointed with the lack of posting this week. I am at a loss as to why I haven’t been blogging. Last Thursday I wrote about my shifting priorities with classes beginning to die down. I would certainly say that in the time since, there has been a shift in my state of mind. It’s almost as though I have nothing worthwhile to blog about, or I don’t feel like writing anything anymore. I don’t think this is a case of senioritis setting in, more like the weather has been nice and I have just been busy enjoying my last three weeks of classes. Earlier today a first year student asked me how I have been doing and I told her I have been really busy. Then I paused and realized I could not possibly have been that busy because I have not had much to do.
WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS OF TONIGHT’S EPISODE.
Today’s USA Today had an article about just how bad this season’s 24 is.
Here are someobservations I made from tonight’s episode. I think there is a lot of potential for characters hooking up for the remainder of the season. Tonight we saw the Vice President sharing an intimate moment with aide Lisa Miller when she agreed to perjure himself to help his court case. We also saw Mike Doyle going out his way to ingratiate himself to Nardia. Speaking of Nardia, I am not sure if it’s more fair to say that she is looking better and better as the season goes on or maybe I am just so bored out of my mind that every time she appears on the screen, I am appreciative of the distraction.
From looking at the previews for next week, my prediction is that the missile that the President fired at the Arabic country is non-nuclear and is intended to intimidate the terrorists into giving up information.
By Jayson Blair - Charlottesville, VA (April 1, 2007)
Surrounded by a dozen well wishers and approximately two hundred hecklers, Buckyhoo stood on the steps of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia and announced his intentions to seek the 2008 Republican presidential nomination. “Our country needs a strong leader to fight the culture war at home, the terrorists abroad and I need an opportunity to practice all the soft skills I learned in the MBA program. I can think of no better starting point than the American presidency.”
Buckyhoo plans to run on a platform of strong deterrence against domestic terrorism and efficient use of American force abroad. He advocates what he calls the “What Would Jack Bauer Do?” approach to dealing with enemy combatants and wants a quick withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq – but to immediately redeploy them to Iran to topple the regime of Iranian president Mahoud Ahmadinejad. His economic plan calls for the streamline of America’s income and corporate tax policies – starting with the repeal of the recently enacted FIN 48. Buckyhoo’s campaign spokesman Mary Mapes claims that its repeal will “have the dual effects of saving American companies from mountains of paperwork and preventing generations of Kenan-Flagler students in the taxes in finance class from having to do that stupid Apache assignment.”
Political observers say it is unclear what impact Buckyhoo’s announcement will have on the Republican presidential field. But opposition to his campaign has already begun to mobilize. Present at the announcement this morning was political activist S.R. Sidarth, who taped the speech on his video camera and plans to do the same at various Buckyhoo campaign appearances throughout the country. He plans to use the footage for an upcoming opposition documentary titled “Bucky Who?” Mary Smith, the Franklin Koury Moorehead Professor of ethical strategic entrepreneurial management communications at Kenan-Flagler Business School voiced doubt about Buckhoo’s political odds. “Does he realize that he’s not old enough to be President? I guess it never occurred to him to read the Constitution first before launching a campaign, that to him would be as unexpected as him actually doing the reading before showing up for my class.”
Buckyhoo is the editor in chief, managing editor, primary
correspondent, and lead contributor of In My Mind I’m Goin’ to
Carolina. His passions include James Bond movies and following the
latest in print, broadcast, and new technology media outlets. He
received his MBA in 2007 from the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business
School and graduated from the University of Virginia where he was a
columnist for The Virginia Advocate. He sees himself as the hero of a
non-fiction novel about his life.
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