Couple of checks off the to-do list

Completed my self-evaluation for LEAD. Put together a preliminary version of my new resume. It's weird to be putting the GSB on it when I have yet to attend my first class.

My Pathfinder is in the shop today getting all tuned up for next week's 2100 mile trip (oil lube filter, tire rotation, brakes etc). My '02 is going to roll 40K somewhere in Montana! The car cover I ordered came in yesterday (to protect my baby since my parking spot is under the El track...maybe it'll deter the theives too, but that's probably wishful thinking). Bought a 2005 US Road Atlas and I've been checking out the construction hot spots online. Looks like there's a bit on roads in and around Yellowstone and since that's a pretty major side trip, I think I'll skip it.

I think I've got pretty much everything wrapped up at work now, just doing a final proofread of the manual I created. 4 months went by a lot faster than I thought it would back in April.

Excuses, excuses

I've got a million of them for why its been so long since I blogged.

1. My replacement started last week so I've been super busy at work training her and trying to make sure things are in order for my departure. It's going well so far. Last week I had to spend a lot more time "driving", then watching over her shoulder as she drove. This week she's working mostly on her own while I finish up some special projects and catch up on chores that I've put off due to interviews, like filing/organizing/etc.

2. My evenings have been filled with watching the Tour de Lance...er...France, and procrastinating on the task of packing. Now that the Tour is over, I'll have to get more creative with my procrastination. My room is a disaster and I'm not looking forward to taming the beast. I think I need to do another round of purging with a couple more trips to goodwill & the dump.

4. I also need to get my ass in gear making sure that all of my papers are in order and that I'm caught up on my to-do list. The financial aid stuff is in the bag (I've already had some paperwork sent back to me), my immunization records are ready to be sent, and I just enrolled in health insurance for the next year. I still need to finish up all of the tasks for pre-term (aka LEAD). I've done the Myers-Briggs personality test thingy (for what must be the 10th time in my life) and another standardized "intersts" type test, but I need to complete my self assessment, make sure my 360 feedback providers do their part (3 of 5 are done), get a draft resume uploaded to career services, etc etc.

5. Then there's the move. I am officially on the lease as of August 1st, which is the day I plan to depart Washington. I'm in the process of planning my road trip, trying to figure out which sights I can see, where I can stay, and how I can make it work so that the drive time for each day is reasonable (read: in the vicinity of 10 hrs). I'd like to drive through Yellowstone if possible (never been) and I definitely want to see Mount Rushmore (also never been), but we'll see how it works out. I need to call my friend and see if it may be possible for me to crash at her dad's place in Butte, MT. That would eliminate one night in a hotel, although it may mess up my objective of ~10 hrs driving a day. We'll see how it works out. I'd like to arrive in Chicago by August 5th at the latest, so I can be in town when the Seattle Mariners play the Chicago White Sox. Then I will have my furniture and other misc crap delivered out of storage on August 8th. I called today to get that scheduled but my "move coordinator" hasn't called me back yet. I hope that day will work, I don't think I can go much longer without my own bed. Sleeping on my 15 year old twin mattress for the past 4 months has not been kind to my back.

6. On top of all that...I'm just too busy having fun with family and friends in my final throes of pre-school life in Washington. This past weekend my folks and I went camping near Plain, WA (aka Middle of Nowhere). Their friends have some property on the Wentachee River. It was nice to see a bunch of their friends that I've known forever but haven't seen in 5+ years. The weather was awesome and Saturday we did a 2+ hr float down the river in tubes and rafts with plenty of beer. This week I plan to hang out with my local girlfriends, do a sort of ladies night this weekend (they'll get their husbands to babysit while we tear up this town). We're also going to have dinner and play cards with my grandparents on Thursday (our family favorite is Chicago Rummy). Sunday I'll probably head down to Seattle to stay with a friend so as to avoid Monday morning traffic.

So yeah, that pretty much sums up why I've been a slack blogger. Can't promise it's going to be much better for the next couple of weeks, although my new roommate is getting everything in order to make sure we're hooked up with high speed internet. Oh, forgot to add that I also need to get around to buying a new laptop. My current one is a 3 year old Compaq model that I've already had to reformat once and the keys are not working so well lately. I need to do some online research with my dad tonight, who has recently expressed interest in providing some financial assistance in the technology department of my b-school adventure. Sweet! Although he's making noise like he's going to try to talk me out of the laptop I've had my heart set on for the past couple of months, the Apple 12-in Powerbook. Don't you go thinking I'm a follower on this little trend of MBA bloggers going Mac, I've been talking/thinking about this one for awhile. The Powerbook is one bad ass machine, IMO.

Never a dull moment

An honest-to-goodness D-list former reality TV star came into our office today. Not as a client either (read: as a debtor). No joke. Due to privacy concerns I can't tell you who, but man, I wish I could because it's a good one!

After conducting 20 agonizing interviews in the past week, I've hired my replacement and she starts Monday morning. What a relief. In a small business where each person's role is critical, transition & training time is essential to business continuity. I have a personal interest in ensuring a smooth transition since it's my family's business, so I've been really worried about getting someone on and making sure I have at least two weeks of overlap for training. *fingers crossed* I'll get the new gal up to speed in short order and my last day at work will be July 29th. I think I've also got a new receptionist lined up, too. I am thrilled to be done interviewing. It's exhausting and there is a massive pile of work on my desk and I'm hoping I'll be able to make a dent in it tomorrow.

It's been a stressful week and I de-stressed this evening with some wakeboarding and some beer. Just what the doctor ordered. Now I'm off to rendezvous with Tivo to catch up with Stage 12 of Le Tour De France and today's episode of The Daily Show.

Shot in the arm

Literally & figuratively.

Saturday I went to our long time family doctor's office to pick up my immunization history for school. I had called earlier in the week and asked them to make a note on there if I needed I tetanus shot. I was pretty sure that I did. However, I had no idea how badly I needed it. Assuming you need them every 10 years as suggested (and as required by the University of Chicago) I was 13 years overdue. Yes folks, the last time yours truly got a tetanus shot was 1982. Don't ask me how I fell through the cracks, I have no clue. I guess I assumed that the family doc had kept me up to date since I saw him throughout undergrad, and I figured I'd err on the side of caution as an adult and get a booster shot if I ever cut myself. Wrong. $20 and a shot in the arm later, I'm now immunized and ready to learn, according to the sheet I'm sending off to the health folks at U of C.

A couple of weeks ago, I reminded my folks that it was almost July and therefore almost time for me to be wrapping up my work for them and start heading east. I think it snuck up on all of us. So I've been working like crazy, trying to make sure all of the manuals related to my tasks are updated and easy to follow. I've got a couple of projects that may have to wait, but I could possibly do them remotely from Chicago before school starts (or they might end up as good class projects, who knows). I'm also sorting through all of the applications we received in response to our classified ad and online listing. We had three interviews Friday, two today, and this afternoon I'll schedule more for later this week. My ideal scenario is to get my replacement and a new receptionist hired by the end of the week, hopefully have them start a week from today, so I can get a full two weeks of training with them before the end of the month. My preferred last day here is July 29, and I hope to be arriving in Chicago by the first weekend of August. Will that actually happen? Depends on how things go with interviews this week and when our chosen ones can start. I've got my fingers crossed! (But I set that July 29th milestone knowing full well that it could be pushed back two weeks... and I'd rather July 29th get pushed back to August 12th, than August 12th get pushed back to August 26th...that would suck.)

BTW, to anyone else who's gone through the b-school app process then been involved in hiring...are you now way more critical of resumes & interviews? At times I'm asking myself "are these truly bad applications, or are my standards out of control?!?" Anyone?

Got my fix, finally

Went wakeboarding for the first time since I moved back to Washington. After three months, it felt awesome to get back on the water, in spite of the fact that conditions sucked. Thanks to the holiday weekend and better than expected weather, everyone who owns a boat or PWC was on the water this weekend. We were on the water from about 8 pm until there was no light left (probably well beyond what is legal) and it was still pretty rough. But no matter, I went wakeboarding!!

I met up with some guys I met on a wakeboarding website, Wakeworld. If you don't own a boat (or have a close friend with a boat) and you want to ride, you have to hop online to find people with boats who have extra room or need a third. When I lived in Virginia, I had a close friend with a boat so I had a permanent hook-up for pulls. But when I moved to San Diego, I had to network my way to pulls and ended up finding some pretty reliable ones. It's always a little weird going to meet people for the first time, but so far I've only had positive experiences. The wakeboarding community is a pretty chill group of people and most folks are happy to have another boarder on the boat (especially a chick who boards). It's a very social activity. These guys I met up with on Sunday had a house on Lake Stevens and a dock with 3 tournament wakeboard boats tied up (we're talking $150K+ worth of boats). They also had a keg tapped and the BBQ fired up all day. In other words...heaven on earth!

Refuse to Lose 10th Anniversary

Also known as the 10th Anniversary of the summer that I (and the rest of the Pacific Northwest) fell in love with the Seattle Mariners and Major League Baseball.

Fox Sports Northwest just replayed Game 5 of the 1995 American League Division Series between the Mariners and the Yankees. Brought back a lot of memories. That was such an awesome summer. No one thought the M's had a chance at making the playoffs. Instead they had a pretty magical run through September, and won their first ever AL West championship in a fantastic one game playoff with the Angels. They lost the first two games in New York (Game 2 in 15 innings), and had to win 3 straight in Seattle to advance to the ALCS. Thus began the "Refuse to Lose" campaign.

The series had a great cast of characters, in both dugouts. For the Mariners...Edgar Martinez, Ken Griffey Jr, Jay Buehner, Randy Johnson (who came in as a reliever in Game 5), Tino Martinez, Joey Cora, and a 20-year-old pre-sellout rookie named Alex Rodriguez. For the Yanks, the old guard of Wade Boggs & Don Mattingly, with Bernie Williams, Paul O'Neill, David Cone, and a couple of rookies...Mariano Rivera & Derek Jeter. There were also some first class mullets on display thanks to Randy Johnson & Norm Charlton!

Game 5 was wall-to-wall excitement through 11 innings. Every time the Yanks scored, the M's found a way to match it. 5-4 Yanks going into the bottom of the 11th, with the heart of the Seattle batting order coming to the plate. Cora gets on by the skin of his teeth with a lead off bunt, then Griffey gets a walk. Up comes Edgar, coming off a grand slam in game 4, and he just rips a shot to the left field corner to bring home Cora & Griffey. Pan-de-fricken-monium, the place goes bonkers.

A baseball town is born. The road is paved for Safeco Field, record-setting attendance, Ichiro, and 116 wins in 2001. But we're all still waiting and hoping for a World Series championship. Someday.

Not a happy camper

Of course the weather decided to go straight into the crapper as soon as I had plans to go wakeboarding. Mother Nature has a sick sense of humor.

I guess I should go to the gym and work out after work. But when you were hoping to spend the evening on the lake, the prospect of sweating it out on a cardio machine surrounded by meat heads is not all that enticing.

So it goes.

Summer

Love summer in the Pacific Northwest. Today was ridiculously beautiful. Clear blue skies, no smog, 80 degrees. It's almost 9 pm and the sun won't set for another half hour. Just awesome.

And I had to work.

And I haven't been wakeboarding in more than two months.

I am *jonesin* for some time on the water, y'all. And I may be in luck tomorrow if the weather stays nice. My dad introduced me this evening to a friend of his that lives on Lake Samish. He keeps his boat wet all summer and his son wakeboards. I'm putting my gear in my car tomorrow and I will be praying for an evening session on a glassy lake.

Tough Chick

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you set a big goal, aren't afraid of hard work, and face challenges with a "bring it on" attitude. Exhibit A: Danielle Fisher, a local girl who recently became the youngest person to complete the Seven Summits (the tallest peaks on each of the seven continents). Very, very cool. You can learn more about her journey at her website, in our local paper, or tomorrow morning (Friday 6/17) on the Today show.

One year

Hard to believe I’ve been at this blogging thing for a year now. It was about 15 months ago that I began working in earnest towards my goal of enrolling in an MBA program, a goal that I set 6 years ago. And in just 3 short months, I’ll be back in school starting the next phase of my goal…completing my program and pursuing my dream career. Pretty damn cool when you stop and think about it. I’m really glad I have my blog, so that I can read back and reflect on what has transpired. It’s also been very rewarding to be part of the online community.

What I haven’t done yet, and what I promised to do awhile ago, is a review of my application process and the outcome. I think this is the perfect time do it since it was around this time last year that my preparations began, and maybe those preparing for Fall 2006 applications will find a post-mortem of my application process useful. What I am not going to do is tell people what to do or give advice. Every applicant is unique and so should be his or her application strategy. What worked for me may not work for others, and vice versa. I’m just going to use this post to do a sort of self-assessment, and I think in another year-in-review post I’ll link to the highlights & lowlights. I didn’t participate in any feedback sessions so these thoughts are all just my opinions.

What I did well:

1. Rocked the GMAT. I took it during my senior year of undergrad and I think that definitely worked in my favor. I was in the studying/school frame of mind, I had time and energy to take full practice tests (the most critical piece of my GMAT prep), and material was fresh in my mind. I’m not sure that I could post the same score today, in fact I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t. Five years of corporate life may have added to my practical experience, but it’s been a bit of a brain drain on the other facets of knowledge. I’m also glad I didn’t have to worry about studying for and taking the test while researching programs, drafting essays, and working 50 hours a week. There are just not enough hours in the day.

2. Got involved with things that interest me and stayed involved. This applies both professionally and personally. I sought out new and different projects at work, but I stuck with the same employer, one that’s know for a rigorous hiring process and good development programs. I stayed involved with my sorority, volunteering for leadership positions that would help fill in the management gap in my profile since I have no formal people management experience.

3. Supported my goals with a backbone. What I mean by that is I’m dreaming big, but I have realistic expectations for an MBA’s role in the process of getting there and I demonstrated a clear understanding of the challenges I’ll be facing. My big goal is broken into smaller goals, which are further broken down into specific activities and experiences I’ll need to get where I’m going, particularly those that can be obtained by completing an MBA program.

4. Visited the programs I was interested in, or at least attended every information session possible. When people said it was an important way to differentiate the programs, I didn’t realize how important until I was deciding between admission offers and could reflect back on my *personal* experiences, not just the experiences of others or the pretty brochures the programs sent me.

5. Didn’t allow too many cooks in the kitchen. Sure, I was seeking advice from anyone who had knowledge about MBA programs and I was addicted to reading the blogs and the MBA forums. I also got an application strategy consultation from Clear Admit fairly early in the process, which helped me to figure out what to focus on and how I should position myself. Filling out their questionnaire alone went a long way toward helping me get a coherent train of thought for my applications. But when it came time to actually write each application, it was pretty much me and only me. I sought my mom’s proofreading help, but specifically asked her to focus on just the spelling and grammar because I wanted my applications to be my voice, my story, without outside influence.

6. Didn’t over-prepare for interviews. I hate canned answers and I hate sounding like a robot. All I did for each interview was read over my resume and my application essays the night before and the day of my interview. That’s it. It kept me sounding natural and it also kept me from stressing out too much or over-analyzing.

What I could have done better:

1. Eliminated procrastination. I should have set a better application schedule from the get-go and stuck to it. I definitely rushed some elements. When I start up at the GSB in the fall, I need to get a handle on my predilection for frittering away time in the face of a big project.

2. Completed my back-up application first (McCombs), rather than one of my top choices (Kellogg). Reading back over my applications and remembering back on my interviews, which Kellogg was my first completed for both, my first ones were my weakest ones.

3. Sucked it up and completed 6 applications in the first round, instead of stubbornly holding onto the limit of 5 I placed on myself. I would have been better off if my Wharton app had been in with all my others, and it was my procrastination and laziness that got the better of me.

4. Not have gone into my Wharton visit & interview somewhat cocky and apathetic. It took place after my scholarship news from Chicago & UCLA Anderson, and I really liked both of those programs and felt pretty certain I would end up at one or the other no matter what happened with Wharton. Even so, I should have gone into my Wharton trip with a better attitude and a more open mind, instead of undermining my application the way I did. That was stupid.

5. Not let my shing in 2000 mess with my confidence and cause me to play it too safe. Looking back, I probably should have skipped the apps to McCombs & Haas and instead gambled on HBS and/or Stanford.

6. Saved more money over the past 5 years. Sure, I’ve been putting plenty away in my 401k, but this process requires cash money…a lot of it. My cash savings is pretty much spoken for at this point, between application fees, school visits, moving expenses, etc etc. There’s not much left over for fun things like pre-MBA travel. I feel a bit like I’m missing out and that sucks. At least I’ve been pretty good about paying off my debt and I’ll be headed to school with no car payment and a very low revolving credit card balance.

Anyway, that’s the good, the bad, and the ugly as far as I’m concerned. All-in-all, I think everything turned out A-O-K and I’m really looking forward to the next two years at Chicago GSB.

Travel

Jeez, everywhere I turn I'm reading about somebody else's worldly travels. There are so many bloggers traveling this summer before school (Iceman, PowerYogi, DirtyMartini, and Le Voyageur, to name a few), and I'm getting travelogue emails from an Indian friend who is headed to NYU Stern in the fall but is currently kicking it with some German chicks in Cuba. I am green with envy. I wish I had saved more time & money for travel this summer. Not just for fun and the experience, but so that I have a more interesting answer to the question everyone will be asking in the fall "What did you do over the summer?" than "Well, I lived with mom & dad, worked with mom & dad, and got fat from all of the home cooking."

But in the nick of time, I get an email from the Chicago GSB '07 Yahoo Group. Evidently, the Ski Club is planning a ski/snowboarding trip for the winter holiday break. Cool, that's right up my alley. To Vail. For a week. For under a grand. Woo-freaking-hoo. This is exactly why I asked for a little more money than my personal budget required on my loan applications, because I may have missed out on summer traveling but I sure as hell will be traveling during winter & spring break.

I have great timing

Just found out this afternoon that my former employer is closing the San Diego office, sometime between Q3 2005 and Q1 2006. Although I may have missed out on some severence $$$ that may have helped during school, I'm not sure exactly what my eligibility would have been (since my impending departure was already widely known), so rather than being bummed, I'm happy as hell not to be there as the shit is hitting the fan. Many of us saw the need for the shit to hit the fan and figured it was eventually going to happen, we just didn't know exactly when the execs were going to nut up and pull the plug. I've talked to my friends who are impacted, and most feel confident that things will work out OK for them. It sounds like they are consolidating non-redundant functions to another office (in a cheaper location than San Diego) and eliminating redundant functions. So there are opportunities to transfer offices, assuming you're willing to leave San Diego. Anyway, IMO, it's the right business decision and it's about time they did it.

A little severence to subsidize school would have been nice though...

Update: the official press release, the AP's blurb, and the local take. Talked to more people last night, sounds like there were good things about the way the company handled it and not so good things. It also sounds like they cut severence to a third of what it used to be. I might have been eligible for two months. Yeah, I'm glad I left when I did, my sanity is worth more than two months. My heart goes out to those who lost their jobs, I hope everyone is able to land on their feet.

Another check off the to-do list

Finished my financial aid application. I feel like I should have signed it in blood. Those are big numbers, even with the scholarship, this is some massive debt about to hit my credit report. Keep repeating the mantra...I'm making an investment in myself that will pay off in the long run. And I'm going to have a whole lot of fun in the process!

Saw two movies this weekend. Went to The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants with a friend on Friday night. Somewhat disappointing, but an OK chick flick. I enjoyed three of the four plot lines. The fourth sucked out much of my enjoyment of the movie. Went with my folks to see the latest installment of Star Wars this evening. I enjoyed it, despite the typical Lucus hokey dialogue and subpar acting. The story was good and I liked seeing the overall Star Wars tale come full circle.

I hate chain letters and their brethern

Thanks a lot, Dave :) I've been tagged. At least it's a subject I like.

-Total number of books owned: No way to say for sure, since my cache of hardbacks & paperbacks is in storage in Chicago, with the exception of the few titles I planned to read this summer and a couple of textbooks I planned to revisit in preparation for b-school (as if that's really going to happen). I would guesstimate my library is around 250.

-Last book I purchased: For someone else, The Foot Book by Dr. Seuss, a board book for my friend's son for his first birthday party this afternoon. For myself, God's Politics by Jim Wallis, a book I picked up at Costco based on a recommendation from my hairdresser. I really like his ideas, but it's not a book I can read in one sitting, so I'm reading it a chapter or two at a time in between other books.

-Last book I read: Since I traveled this past week (and I always read more when traveling) I've read two. Like Dave, I read State of Fear by Michael Crichton on the way to Chicago, based on a recommendation from my dad (plus he had a hardcover copy so I didn't have to buy it). I liked it, it was a fast read and I liked his critique of the media/propaganda circus. Coming back to Seattle, I read The Enemy by Lee Child. It was just OK. The plot was pretty good and I liked the twists (although I saw a couple coming, which takes some of the fun out of it). What I didn't like was the actual writing/language. It was done in the first person, and I've found that with first person books, I either love it or hate it depending on the primary character's voice and the way the author writes that voice. I could see some of the reasons behind why the author wrote him the way he did, but I didn't find myself enjoying it or really rooting for him. I just wanted to know what happens next and that kept me turning the pages.

Five books that mean a lot to me (in no particular order):
-The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay: Race relations, poverty, coming of age, perseverance & triumph...this book covers it all and it's a great story. Plus, I love books set in foreign places.
-Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel: A fairy-tale-esque romantic novel slash cookbook. Kind of a fable. Better than the movie, I've read it at least 5 times.
-The Autobiography of Henry VIII by Margaret George: The first historic fiction book I ever read that got me hooked on the genre. I'm blown away by the amount of research she did to stay accurate to the history while giving us a fictional insider's perspective on the man who had 6 wives (and beheaded two of them!)
-What Color is Your Parachute? by Richard Bolles: The ultimate career planning & job hunting book, updated annually.
-The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein: I love all of his books, and they remind me of being a kid and visiting my grandparents (who gave me & my brother The Giving Tree, A Light in the Attic, and Where the Sidewalk Ends). This one is my favorite because of it's message about giving and loving unconditionally.

On that note, I'm going to *give* everyone a break and not tag anybody. But it's not a purely altruistic move, because as I stated from the outset...I hate chain letters and the like. So really I'm being a spoil-sport and breaking the chain. Neaner, neaner.

Living arrangements for the fall? Check!

Back from Chicago. Another great visit, can't wait to move there in August (actual date still TBD). Toured the potential apartment, met the potential roommate...it's going to work out fabulously! The place is huge, and while it's very near the "L" (read: you can hear the trains, it's the one drawback of the place, but it didn't keep me awake), the amenities, location, and price cannot be beat. And my roomie and I are a good match. So I'm really relieved to have that figured out, definitely worth the trip.

Now I just have to finalize my budget and get that darn financial aid paperwork out the door ASAP!

The Contender

I've been religiously watching The Contender for the past few months. It's a great show. The boxers are all likeable, entertaining people who you want to root for, and the storytelling & editing is fantastic, signature Mark Burnett (see also: Survivor & The Apprentice). The Contender season finale Tuesday night featured two great fights. My summary wouldn't do it justice, so I'll just link to my favorite sports columnist for a summary of the finale, and a column he wrote earlier in the season (subscription required). I really hope this show returns for another season. And if you haven't caught an episode yet, try to catch the re-runs on MSNBC.

Frustration is...

trying to teach your mother how to format an Excel spreadsheet. Especially when she would rather you just wrote down a detailed list of instructions. She'd rather just blindly follow a recipe than actually learn the how & why behind each step for future use. That way when the shit inevitably hits the fan, and she can't get it bolded & aligned exactly the same way, she can blame your crappy incomplete instructions and absolve herself.

My latest pet peeve: People who click the mouse once, and when it doesn't produce their desired result, click-click-click twenty times rapid fire style and act surprised when the result is something undesirable.

I love my mom :)

You got served

In my family's debt collection business, we make every effort to work with consumers (aka debtors) to help them pay their bills. But when all of our efforts have failed and the consumer isn't acting in good faith to handle their debt, we use legal means to resolve the issue. If we have a judgment against them, we're always on the lookout for an asset, such as a bank account or wages to garnish. Today, I served writs of garnishment to a few banks. That's the part of the business I really enjoy...finding people that don't want to be found, and finding assets they don't want us to find. Then I get to swoop in with a bank garnishment, yee haw. People don't realize how much dishonored checks and past due accounts can damage the bottom line of a small business, and I think it's cool that we're able to help these businesses recover their bad debt. Some people see bill collectors as the bad guys; I see the more heroic aspects of the role.

On that note, I'd like to clear up a few preconceived notions about bill collectors. I don't own a set of brass knuckles, I don't know how to break kneecaps, and my dad's name is not Guido.

I'm so disappointed

Since I'll be in Chicago this weekend, I'm going to miss the Sasquatch Research Conference. Damn. Those fury fellas are out there somewhere, I'm tellin ya. One in particular shows up regularly at Key Arena, and he puts down a mean 360 dunk.

I was up in bigfoot country on Saturday, hanging out with my friend's family in upper Skagit County in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains. We had a BBQ and rode their quads all over the property around Baker Dam. It's pretty creepy to hang out at the base of a dam, thinking about what would happen if it failed. It was fun to get up there again, it's so pretty and I hadn't been up to Baker Lake since a kegger during my senior year of high school. Plus, it just feels good to get dirty and get some fresh air.


Picture of Baker Lake, courtesy of the USFS.

I realize that one thing I'm really going to miss living in Chicago is mountains. As someone who grew up in the shadows of the Cascades, it was a bit unsettling to look out from the top of the John Hancock tower and see how flat as a pancake that part of the country is. Everywhere I've lived to date has been mountainous, or at least hilly...Western Washington, SE Washington, Central Virginia, Southern California (you could see mountains when the smog wasn't too bad). It'll be weird. Thank goodness there's a big body of water nearby, otherwise I'd be completely out of my element.


Mt. Baker from Bayview-Edison Road in the Skagit Valley. Photo by: Wade B Clark Jr, November 11, 2003.

MBA Applicant Bloggies

Much like high school "superlatives", Clear Admit recently conducted a survey to recognize the best of blogging among this year's MBA applicant bloggers. Yours truly was nominated, and I let them know what blogs and posts I enjoyed the most and found the most useful. Clear Admit released the results today and I would like to say kudos to the cream of the crop. I was not surprised to see Dave, PowerYogi, & Brit-Chick leading the charge. For the full results, click here.

I think every MBA blog adds an invaluable new voice and perspective to this process. Each blog has little gems of information and support to make a process, that is normally stressful, competitive, and lonely, quite the opposite. I found priceless advice, insider info, support, and a laugh when needed, through the MBA applicant blogs. I have no doubt they helped me put together a more competitve application, not to mention maintain my sanity while awaiting decisions. Thanks bloggers!

Let me say that I was very pleased to be nominated, then very surprised and very flattered to finish in the Top 5 overall. I really enjoy writing this thing and hope to continue doing so for a long time. The fact that people actually enjoy reading this stuff is just icing on the cake. Thanks :)