January 31st, 2006
Here I am in a brand new business school building in a test Sun Microsystem computer lab. I am using a SmartCard inserted into the machine; this baby is running StarOffice 7 on Solaris 10 OS! How fun! I verified that there are no Windows machines in this building– their Sun server room is behind a giant glass window. The 25-inch flat screen display in it runs, what else, Matrix screensaver. The temple of knowledge boasts granite in the bathroom, laptop plug-ins on top of each table and backdrop for the instructor’s projector is controlled via a touch-screen of the desktop. What a contrast from my last night– I had my International Accounting on St Paul campus in a building with actual chalk blackboards and a funky smell in the hallways.
I am on a break from my Strategic Management course– the capstone class for my program. In the class of 30, I am the only non-MBA person. My program, MIM (Master of International Management) is a dying beast– St Thomas is letting us finish the program but no new students are admitted. In my class, there are a lot of marketing people, financial analysts, HR personell, one stay at home father of five, and one CFO! However, what is most striking about my class is
- wedding bands
- suits
- corporate self-admiration
- Ann Tailor sweater sets, necklaces matching with the earings
- pointy shoes
- did I mention everybody is married?
Corporate America, rest easy. The new crop of executive drones is ripe for picking. What boggles my mind is how these women manage to be married, head an entire division at Guidant Corp. or Target by age of 27, drop off little Timmy at daycare every day, go to night class and drive back to Edina at 9:30 PM all in crisp pink blouse and pointy shoes?!? Don’t those hurt after 30 seconds of wear, let alone 20 hours? Let’s be clear here, I am not envious, just amazed at what I see in front of my eyes.
To be fair, I need to say that the class is split about 50/50 between men and women. Didn’t notice any pointy shoes on men though.
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January 30th, 2006
I do Business Analyst (BA) stuff for living. That means that when we design a new great software and are ready to give it to the people, we need to dedicate our weekend to the gods of data migration and server configuration. This weekend, I had the pleasure of working on Saturday (from home) and Sunday (all day in the office.) While the technical details are not thrilling, let me tell you that having no days off is not fun. What’s even worse is that by the time you have figured out your last bug with the implementation, it happens to be 4PM on a Sunday and you find yourself wandering the empty streets of Minneapolis downtown trying to find a place that is open to have a celebratory beer. Since this is no Manhattan, our quest was fruitless and we decided to postpone the festivities. Needless to say, I was only marginally prepared to come into work on Monday and face the sofware users who usually have too many questions and seem to be dead-set on breaking the system. Wanna know how to build a perfect piece of software? Don’t let the end user near it! It works fine on my desk.
And as a cherry on my sundae, I had to be in St Paul tonight for the first night of International Accounting. Tomorrow night is Strategic Management. It’s going to be a long semester.
PS. This one was for you Genya– it’s not often I get a comment on my blog 
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January 30th, 2006
Now when I have your attention, I must immediately disappoint–this post is about my knee joints. Sadly enough, as a marathon runner I ended up falling into the unfortunate cliché that all the non-runners seem to be obsessed about. “What, you’re training for a marathon? Well, this must be a death sentence for your knees!” Even though I firmly believe that running’s benefits far outweigh any potential negative impacts and it is possible to run marathons without injuries as many of my friends do, I am still faced with the fact that I have a pesky little knee pain that has been with me for over a year now.
Five doctor visits, one MRI and dozens physical therapy sessions later, nobody really can tell me why it bothers me so much and how exactly it can be fixed. I continue taping my knee, doing all the prescribed exercises 3 times a week (oh fun!) and going for treatment every week. The bad news is that it is taking time and money. The good news is that I got in much better shape recently—those $30 co-pays do make your 3 times a week running and exercise routine close to a religion!
So, what’s in store for me? Patiently following my PT routine for a few more weeks and only then evaluating if I should run a marathon this summer. My friends Genya and Annie are hoping to run Deadwood trail marathon in June and I would love to join them. But I cannot commit to that until I have the buy-in from Its Majesty the Knee.
More on this to follow. In the next installment: Gina’s crazy work schedule and a new semester at St Thomas!
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January 27th, 2006
A. was my very first friend in Minnesota. We met at work and she took time and was patient with me. We would go out for dinner, talk about men and foreign countries we have been to ( and complain about work of course!). I met her entire family and they have met my mom. A. was a world traveler and I have kept her cat while A. was away in an exotic Asian country. (Can you believe that? Me, the biggest dog person ever? Oh yeah, I have had a kitty and I loved her dearly) Over there, my friend met a man of her dreams, also a foreigner. They got married and moved back to Minnesota to my delight even though her husband was a bit scared of seeing snow for the first time in his life. That was the end of our friendship.
A. got pregnant and quit her job. After their child was born, they have moved to a suburb, aquired an SUV and started attending church regularly. I kept trying to “steal” A. from her husband for just one night out on town but she seemed unable to leave her daughter even for a few hours, so I ended up visiting them at home several times. The phone conversations revolved around her kid and her church. After about a year of very awkward friendliness, I stopped calling.
Why am I remembering this all of a sudden? I just got an email that A. and her husband that said “It was with praise and worship to an almighty GOD,” that they welcomed another child into their family. (I will spare you a picture of yet another red and wrinkly little human that proud parents send out immediately upon birth of their offspring. Maybe digital cameras should be banned in hospitals). I am very happy A has found her purpose in life and is fulfilled. But it is sad to realize that my friend who I knew and loved is no longer the same person. People grow up differently and the relationships never stay the same, either between friends, family or even spouses. Having nothing in common now, it is pointless for A. and me to maintain a friendship and I don’t think either of the two sides is interested. She doesn’t want to go out or talk about secular life; I don’t want to be seen in Hopkins or be around kids. All part of great circle of life.
In sligthly related news, my good friend Eden and her husband are coming from Indiana to visit for a weekend in February. While A. was my first friend in Minnesota, Eden was my first friend when I came to this country. Neither of us are the same as we were in 1997 but Eden is still is one of my best friends and I am excited for her visit.
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January 26th, 2006
Here’s reason # 287 why I don’t fit well in Midwest. I find this racing limo service repulsive. Please note that if you’re allergic to either mullets or horrible-horrible webdesign (animated .GIFs, dark background, flashing signs), do not follow the link. But if you are dead-set on experiencing the horror, you will have to dig out your IE icon as the site doesn’t display in any normal browser.
Upon doing some digging, I found out that this NASCAR-themed beauty is a franchise. To my relief, neither San Francisco or New York are not places where this service is available.
Categories: Random/Funny |
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January 25th, 2006
Good news folks, Stewie Griffin will be hosting his own talk show!
That’s right -
CNN reports but
FamilyGuy.com doesn’t seem to have a solid confirmation.
With the seeming decline of the show’s quality, hopefully this will be a lot of fun.
Categories: Random/Funny |
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January 24th, 2006
So my dear readers (both of you!)– you must be wondering why I haven’t posted anything in some time. The reasons are as following:
- couldn’t post pictures through WordPress. Got frustrated
- BK (aka the pumpkins) fixed the picture posting issues.
- Got distracted (probably by something shiny)
- Figured out nobody cares about 3 week-old pictures anyway
- Spent time looking on how make the blog prettier
- Failed (for now)
- Wasted an entire evening reading much cooler blogs
- Got sleepy
But don’t despair! I am still actively working on CSS to make this blog less blah looking and I have some updates and (drumroll please!) even pictures to post, all by myself!
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January 20th, 2006
Google is, of course, one of the most fun and innovative internet companies around today. The name is synonomous with Web search, they keep coming up with useful things like Picasa, Gmail and Google Earth
Google has done two things that I really appreciate. A “Delete” button has been added to Gmail. Before, you had to drop down a combo box. Adding the delete button saves all of one click, but is just a little thing that really makes using Gmail easier. I’m sure the initial thought was that people wouldn’t delete much with so much storage space, but even with over 2.5 GB of space, there is a lot of crap I don’t need lying around.
The second great thing Google has done is
refuse to turn search information over to the government. This is a good thing, and as much as I worry about the huge amount of information Google can collect on me, this seems to show the company is attempting to be good stewards of that responsibility.
So, thanks Google. Other cool tools and stuff from Google are found
here
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January 19th, 2006
This is fun! But not for anyone right of center (or maybe that should be ‘right of pretty far left’).
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