Lazy Days

My entire April was a furious storm of deadlines, group meetings and test preparations. Now that's it's May, there is none of that. I have spent the last two mornings drinking coffee and being lazy. It's been pretty awesome.

Anyway, I have been watching a lot of baseball and sport related television, and my absolute least favorite sport fan base is the Cubs. Full disclosure, I am a serious Cardinals fan. I have a lot of friends who are Cubs fans so they should know that the comments that are about to occur, are not directed toward them, and really, no one should take anything I say serious (it's all in the spirit of trash talking), but for the most part, Cubs fans are the biggest bunch of crybaby bandwagon fans ever. That being said, there is another sports fan base that is beginning to get on my nerves even more, and that is Yankee fans. The Yankees are always spending the off season spending ridiculous amounts of money on players that had a good year previously. It seems that team chemistry always takes a back seat to whoever is hot. The sad part is that it seems Yankee management has to do this in order to keep their fans happy, then if the Yankees start off mediocre through the first 30 games, which they have, Yankee nation is ready to fire the coach and proclaim some of their off season acquisitions as a waste of money, etc. Seriously, Yankee fans, chill out. You guys are making yourself look like even bigger crybabies than Cubs fans, and it's sad.

I don't start working until Wednesday. I will start with Wonderstate media, and probably toward the end of the month I will start working with my contractor friend. We will be redoing a kitchen. Should be fun.

Cinco de Mayo

For Mexicans, Cinco de Mayo is a day to celebrate the Mexican army’s unlikely defeat of French forces at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. This year, for me, it is a day to celebrate having completed 33.33% of a graduate degree. In about 5.5 hours, I will definitely be done for the semester.

As I reflect on the past 5 months, I think about how I almost backed out of going back to school. Before the semester started, as I was about to resign from my previous job, I started to get cold feet. Was it smart to quit a well-paying job during a time when people were getting laid off left and right? Did I really want to spend the money on a MBA? After graduating with a BS, I vowed to never go back to school, and now I am going back on my promise, is that smart? Business school, I don't know anything about business, and now I am going to graduate school for it, is that a good idea? All these questions and concerns were racing through my head as I typed up my resignation, scared to death of what was going to happen.

Now, 5 months later I know all the answers to those questions. Undoubtedly, going back to school was a smart idea. I am glad I didn't chicken out. I have learned so much the last 5 months, and the best part is that the things I have learned are rooted so much in everyday life. The education I am receiving is so practical and will benefit me so much that I am glad I broke my personal promise of never going back to school. Aside form the education, I have met a ton of really smart, interesting people. This is not confined to classmates either, we have been fortunate enough to meet some very successful business persons that have shared some great insights into what it means to be successful, etc.

Most importantly, through this experience I hope to get a job that I will find interesting and fulfilling, and that I will now be qualified to have. My last job was super boring, sometimes it felt just one step above busywork. I am not naive enough to think that my next job will be my dream job or anything like that, but I am confident that this past 5 months have been the biggest steps I have ever taken towards getting there.

Summer is coming

School is winding down (6 days left), so, more and more I have been thinking about the upcoming summer. I don't have a whole lot going on, as of right now. Usually, I make it up to St. Louis to see the Cards play, which is always one of the highlights of my year, but I don't think I will be able to make it this year. Mainly because the only plans I do have conflict with going to St. Louis. My mother's side of the family has a yearly fish fry, and this will be the first year I actually make it. I am really looking forward to it. There will be a bunch of family there that I rarely get to see, and they always provide an entertaining time. It will be cool.

Other than that, no plans. No doubt I will spend my fair share of evenings hanging out with friends and enjoying beverages. I don't feel like I have seen them much lately, I have some catching up to do.

11 days

11 days until I can officially put my first semester of grad school in the books. With that said, this is going to be a pretty awful 11 days. I will pretty much have my face in a book, my laptop or on my pillow for a couple glorious hours sleep, until the 5th of May. Then, my brain can rest, and I can hang out with my wife.

My summer internship search has officially come to an end. I will be working with Wonder State Media. They are a start up media group currently running a couple of the websites totally centered around Fayetteville and Northwest Arkansas. Find them here, www.fayettevilleflyer.com and here, www.local540.com. Working with them will provide me with the experience of knowing what it takes to start a company from scratch. It will also give me a lot of marketing and sales experience. I am really looking forward to it. As for income, I will be working some construction with my friend.

Oh, and I picked my tract for grad school, I am going with what I intended to do from the very beginning, finance.

Baseball season is in full swing again, and I couldn't be happier.

Class on Friday?

Yes, that's right. It is 8 in the morning on a Friday and we have class. It will be the only time this semester that it will happen, thankfully. The class itself won't be bad though. It is for Supply Chain, and it is based around some simulated supply chain game. It should provide a chance for us to apply some of the things we have learned this semester. Plus, it only lasts half the day, so that is nice as well.

My summer internship search has officially come to an end. I have had a handful of interviews, but unfortunately, nothing panned out for me. Thankfully, I believe that I will have an opportunity to work for a local business run by a couple of friends of mine. It would be a great chance for me to learn how running a small business works. Also, I might end up working with a contractor friend of mine. I have never worked any kind of manual labor or construction, but oddly, I am kind of looking forward to it.

Bacon Day

Today is bacon day. A good friend of mine is turning 30 today, and to celebrate, he is hosting a bacon day. A day to celebrate pork. He has asked people to bring bacon inspired dishes. Steph and I are just now putting the finishing touches on some bacon ice cream we made. I have heard someone is bringing some bacon toffee, which sounds really gross to me, but we will see. My friend also bought a 50lb pig to roast. I am sure someone will also bring the bacon explosion thing. Which also sounds pretty gross to me, but Steph had some a month ago and she said it was really good.

Last night as I was loading some new music onto my ipod, my computer froze and I had to restart it. In doing so, I erased my ipod. There are few things in this world more annoying then erasing the entire contents of your ipod, then having to spend the next hour and a half reloading it. Which I did. But the fun didn't stop there. As I was reloading it, I found that there was a bunch of stuff I didn't have in my library, so this morning I have a stack of CDs I am in the process of updating my library with. It sucks, but it must be done. An ipod is a rare product for me, in that if it ever breaks, I will immediately go out and get a new one. That's just the way it is.

Glad the past week is over. School has been zero fun lately. Looking forward a much needed break from it.

Unlucky

As of tomorrow, my wife and I will have been together for 7 years. When we got married back in October, I figured we would stop celebrating our April anniversary, which is the anniversary of our first dating, and only celebrate our new wedding anniversary in October. My wife quickly informed me that I was, in fact, wrong. We now have two anniversaries a year.

So we "celebrated" today by going to Cherokee Casino (about 35 minutes away). I had grand ideas of getting rich, or at least winning enough to buy a Dyson vacuum (lame but true). It took us all of 20 minutes to totally go bust at the blackjack tables. So, for my lifetime, I have gambled twice, played for a combined 35 minutes, and lost a combined 150 dollars. I am going to forgo doing the math on these figures. I know it's not good.