Kenny ://

One more to go . . .

So I have one more exam to go and am struggling trying to stay focused on the studying with the gang. Case in point, I'm at school right now with two classmates and I'm typing a short note on the iPhone. Ho hum. Finance just ain't my cup o' tea, yo.

Oh, and . . .

I could be wrong, but I swear the noisiest family of Klumps just came into the library in a cacophony of noise and have only marginally quieted down. It might be time to go ahead and get the hell on to Do. I say Klumps because they all look exactly the same, just various genders and ages.

Last week was a good one

Last week was a good week. Work was great and a friend popped a picture I drew onto a website - got some pretty good feedback from that one so I'm happy with it.

 

My d-i-v-o-r-c-e was final and, though it's a turning point, I wasn't really elated. Who would ever be truly happy about something like that? I'm glad the process is finally over, but it's saddening, too. I'm not heartless, after all. 

The day after that was my birthday and me and the guys had a fun time Friday night.  We drove to Mason, TN, to have the best BBQ in the world at a place called Bozo's. Bozo's also happens to have been in the movie Walk The Line, the Johnny Cash flick. There's a scene where either Reese Witherspoon's character or Joaquim Phoenix's character was sitting in a cafe late at night and the other one walks in. They talk for a bit and then go out to hit the road to the next gig. Once we got back to Memphis did we hit the bars? Nope. Did we catch a movie? Kind of.  We went to this bizarre place called Incredible Pizza.  It's basically a huge indoor daycare with blinking lights, hundreds of video games, bumper cars and gokarts. Indoor gokarts.  That's actually why we went, for the gokarts. 

I've never seen battery operated, computer-controlled gokarts before but in spite of all my grumblings at the short track, the slower speeds, etc., we'd suffer once we finally got to drive them, you couldn't wipe the smile off my face while trying to run Shawn, Zack or AJ into the wall the whole time we did it.  It was a blast. Then we hit the video games for a bit and headed back to midtown for a celebratory beer to close down the night. I was in bed by 11.00 on a Friday night which was just fine with me. The older gentleman who owns Bozo's sang happy birthday to me with our waitress, bought me a piece of the best chocolate pie in the world and even lit a little candle for me, the only one of my birthday year which was just fine. The finger is AJ's:

A few pics, the blurry one of a guy smacking a whack-a-mole is Shawn trying out the toddlers video games.  All of these were taken with the iPhone so forgive the poor quality.

Then I had lunch with the family. Hudson and Olivia gave me home-made birthday cards which will be in my office tomorrow. They're the cutest.  Hudson told me he was going to scare me with his "tough face":

I guess it's time to start counting down

Today marks the official start to my countdown calendar.  It's now one full week before classes start up again for the Spring semester.  I'm honestly and wholeheartedly ambivalent towards it. I've got a stack of books I wanted to read during the break and that stack kind of just grew without any rhyme or reason and also without me making very much of a dent in it. 

I'm not complaining, I like having books around. I just need to be a little more disciplined and stay off the interweb so much and out from in front of moving pitchers n sh*t.  I've been pretty bad about picking up a few dvd's every few days from my local movie place (not a big chain, thankyewvurrymush).  The last set I had were:  DeathProof, Barbarella (who would have thought special effects sucked so hard back then?), and John Carpenter's Vampires.  That last one was about as cheesy as they come but I loved it nonetheless.  There have been much more clever ways to kill a vampire in movies but let me break it down for you here, how Mr. Carpenter thought it should be done.

Regardless of how many "goons" there were in a "nest," James Woods chose to use a little crossbow that had a steel cable connected to an arrow. On the other end of that steel cable was one of the Baldwins and a pimped out jeep - the cable was connected to the jeep. Baldwin brother #3 would slam it in reverse when he heard Woods scream "Montoya! NOW!" and drag the vampire into the sunlight where, of course, it would burst into flames. Remember when I said a minute ago that special effects sucked back in the barbarella days? They haven't gotten much better. On a few of them you could totally tell that it was a scarecrow just before it burst into flames. Horrible, cheesy, and really fun to watch because of it.  I think John Carpenter actually goes for that kind of thing. Back to the crossbow. How inefficient is that in a scary, life-threatening experience is it to have to reload the crossbow with an arrow that then has to be reconnected to the jeep somehow?  I mean seriously, couldn't you just have a machine gun that shoots wooden stakes?  There were scenes where there were 9 or 10 "goons" all attacking at once yet Woods didn't get a scratch on him. Let's be honest, he's no Dolph Lundgren.  The dude probably weighs a buck 0 five soaking wet.

I love the scary movies, but the only scary part of this was the acting, er, performance (?).

Vampire-ku:

Walking undead you
Don't scare me when I can see
Paste holding your teeth

Finally, I can read a magazine

I don't want to jinx it, but I think I'm finally done with the semester. Last night was my last exam, for which we're allocated 2 hours. What happened in my class, though? Well, I'm glad you asked.

Professor Blowhard comes in 5 minutes late and says, "First, we need to do some housekeeping" and then proceeds to hand out mimeo'd copies of articles from the Wall Street Journal and the local paper and we had a discussion, during our exam time, which then gave us about an hour to complete the exam. Realistically, the test only took me about 20 minutes but I was actually getting warm I was so angry that this prof who loves to hear himself speak was showing so little respect for the time we students put in to prepare for this exam only to be derailed with even more discussions about materials we'd never discussed in class. I'm so happy to be done with that class. The other two I kind of think I'll miss, but only in that "Remember that time you wrecked your bike through the back of a parked station-wagon window?" "Yeah, I miss those times" kind of way.

After the exam, a few classmates and I went to have a beer, commiserate about the semester, and decompress. Someone asked me how I plan to spend the next 3.9 weeks of not having school work to do and I really had no answer. "Read a magazine?" I asked aloud. Seems like the easiest thing to do to waste a few hours each day. Then it dawned on me. I actually have a few hours to waste each day for the next almost 4 weeks! I need to maximize my enjoyment of that free time! I'll probably do that by reading a magazine, running, riding my bike(s) and swimming in preparation for next year's triathlon season. Of course, I say that now, all enthusiastic and drunk on free time . . .

The mustache contest party is getting closer but I think I've plateau'd on my facial hair growing patience. I can't stand having facial hair but I'm a trooper and will carry on.

Two down, one to go, and something else

The official count is two down and one to go. I'm talking about exams for the semester. This has been, without a doubt, the most trying semester I've ever had, undergrad or graduate, for various reasons not entirely related to school.  Tonight's exam was in the only class of the three I'm taking that came easily to me - MIS. It's kind of what I do for a career tho in a limited fashion - I'm more a mix of marketing and MIS but, whatever, you get the point. Between my last class and this exam I opened my notes/book exactly none times.  I am confident of an A in that class (I say that now, of course, but grades have yet to be posted). Tomorrow is the assiest exam - ECON - with a blowhard of a teacher.

I feel like a baby for complaining, though. During my exam tonight, I got a txt msg from my sister. She was sending me a message from the emergency room - seems my big brother got his hand caught in some big machine of some sort or another and had to have his left thumb, from the tip to the first knuckle (first from the tip, I think) amputated. 

He's a quick thinker under duress, I think, because of three options, he chose amputation.  The options?

1. Go to somewhere in Kentucky to a specialist that could reconstruct the thumb using fatty tissue from a toe or something
2. Have a hand specialist come in and reconstruct the thumb as best he could with what's available then come back in a few months to see if it worked
3. Amputate

Tommy? He said amputate. Ballsy. I'm not sure I think it's the best option but he didn't want to travel any more than he had to which put Kentucky out of the options and I guess he didn't want to be on crutches and have a weird looking toe, too. 

This is the guy who taught me to play sports growing up. I'm going to start calling him lefty.

Everyone old is young again

I'm actually embarrassed to be posting this, but I thought I'd share with you a few things about my school life. I have a professor who is, without a doubt, the least effective teacher I've ever had. Instead of focusing on lesson plans or imparting valuable educational teachings to his MBA students, he instead spends at least 60 minutes of every 90 minute class off on a tangent. What are those tangents? I'm so glad you asked.

Most of the time these tangents have to do with how great he is, how many papers he's published, how many high-power business CEOs and other luminaries he knows who are constantly calling him to come work for their companies/teach at their institutions/etc. The dude is a blowhard.

Last night, however, his blow-hardedness was absolutely justified. In the last 5 minutes of class, an equally obtuse person in that class, a student not the prof, decided he would pass a note. No kidding, literally write on a piece of paper, fold it just so, then write the recipient's name on the outside next to "READ NOW!!!!!" I have to assume it was about the prof. Anyway, the dick started passing loudly it through class to someone who sits a few rows in front of him. (loud whisper)"HEY! PASS THIS TO ________"(/loud whisper).

Of course, prof saw it and said a few mumblings about stupid kids then says, "Ok, everyone, close your books, we are having a pop quiz on CEMEX, part of your assigned reading for tonight. Write a detailed answer as to whether CEMEX competes with Cost Leadership or Benefit Leadership." Now, I should caveat this with the prof also admonishing the entire class on a nightly basis for NOT having read the assigned reading. Do you think last night was any different? Not really. I think I did ok on the quiz since I did manage to read the brief "aside article" about this Mexican cement company and think I managed to word my way through it.

That's not the point, though. How immature are you to be in an MBA environment and pass notes? Add to that the fact that you felt the need to pass a note in an MBA class and that begs the question, was the class not valuable enough for you to have been paying attention instead of thinking of clever/witty/jerky things to write on a piece of paper and pass to the girl on whom you have a crush? Who's to blame, the note writer or the prof for not making the class more worthwhile? I've got my opinion and the blame doesn't fall squarely on anyone but equally on both. That class sucks. The note-writer sucks, and I'll be happy to be done with both of them in T-minus 16 days and counting.

On a side note - I think my back is in a permanent curve from being bent over a book for the past 96 hours. I will be bent over a book, too, for the next 16 days.

T.G.I.Wednesday.

When it rains it pours

I haven't been in the webbernetblogoworld in a while - it's been one of those weeks/weekends. I'm taking a short break from a last minute cram session before I take one of my final exams. Early. That's right, I'm the genius who, when given the chance to make-up a missed exam, I instead opt to take the exam early. "Haven't covered the material in class? No biggie, I promise I'll read the book and the presentations and will be prepared. Seriously, I can do it. Can I take the exam early?"

Our final for this particular class is supposed to be sometime next week but we have a klugey schedule. Instead, the final is scheduled for tomorrow night, a night when I'll be in another city on the west coast. So, instead of asking that I be allowed to take the final next week when I'm back, I ask to take it early.

Now, I've never been one to shy away from a challenge, but maybe I'm writing checks I can't cash? I dunno, all I can say is that I've never been through 9 chapters of graduate level ECON before now in 3.5 days. My brain is telling me "Ok, one more monetary policy bullet point and I will officially start foaming out your ears and then where will you be? Brainless, that's where."

Well, challenges are challenges for a reason, if they weren't what would we call them? "Routines?" "Easy's?"

Brain mush, Kenny tired

Nothing interesting to offer so I'll just recap the past 72 hours, mmmmkay?

I have had a good weekend. Alicia and I got out Friday night for some good mexican food, and for some reason, without fail, we always run into the same group of friends EVERY time we go there. It's always nice to see Susan and Steve, but it also means we'll not get to our food until well after it's cold or to our frozen margaritas until well after they're warm. Oh well, the price you pay for having friends and enjoying their company is small indeed.

Then we went to see Blades of Glory. Laugh whores will love this one. I'm calling it the Dumb and Dumber of the 2k's because it's consistently funny throughout and is basically based on the witless humor of a few characters that are so hard to believe I ended up wishing I had friends like them in high-school.

Had b-fast with Z on Saturday and have to say, I'm not sure I'll be going back to the place we went. Barksdale's is a Memphis tradition that I have so far managed to avoid. Saturday was my first and last time to experience it - the waitresses smoking in between delivering coffee and omelets kind of turned me off to it. Especially considering they were smoking about 2 feet from us, just on the other side of the "bar." It's campy and full of some good old southern fattening breakfast and if I could get it without the smoke, I'd be bout it bout it.

Then it was home for me to take Mr. Stompfoot for a stroll on the greenline, a disco nap and then a few hours at the library working on an Econ Industry Report that so far I haven't been able to figure out why it's turning out to be so difficult. I finished that maux faux today, but spent the bulk of 8 hours just editing it down to an acceptable size. Started with 22 pages and managed to slice and dice, ninja-editorial style, down to 15. I should freelance, I tell you.

That's today, I should get back to yesterday - Alicia and I decided to stay in since we were up so late the night before and made a fanfakkingtastic vegetarian dinner of salad with grapefruit, big ripe tomatoes, celery, cucumbers, lettuce, blah blah blah, and some really good sauteed tofu. Well, the tofu was sauteed in soy sauce and some other magic stuff Alicia threw in there, otherwise tofu is tofu. She also made some mashed cauliflower (as opposed to mashed potatoes) that was awesome. I like the vege meals - it kind of made up for the heavy b-fast and fast-food lunch yesterday. We laid on the couch watching movies in the dark after that :).

Today I was at it from 7:15 on just to make sure the Industry paper was done. Milo and I spent a little time getting some wiggles out on the greenline while the coffee brewed and then it was full tilt boogie, as much as you can boogie looking at an ECON report. Not much, I'd guess, but that's where my day's been. Oh, and Alicia, Milo, Sophia and I took a walk to Overton Park to let Milo show those bitches and their owners who's boss. He did, we climbed a tree, then came home and had fruit in a dark chocolate fondue.

Why can't every weekend be like this one?

Sometimes you need to check your calendar more often

Ever have one of those days where you have a gloomy feeling you're missing something? Forgetting something critical?  Well, over the weekend I had a day like that. I am working on a graduate degree and someone in my class mentioned they'd be turning in their end-of-semester report this week, on Tuesday which is now tomorrow.

"Why would you be doing something like that?" I asked, thinking to myself that we have 3 more weeks till the end of the semester.

"Uh, well, I'll be out of town Thursday so I need to turn it in a class earlier than you all get to." 

Can you hear the wheels churning? My brain sounded like a rusty old tractor trying to turn over for a few seconds.

"Hang on, are you telling me our report is due this week????  FUUUGGGGGG!"

Yep, I'll be burning the midnight wax for the next 3 nights to make sure I've got something turn-able in-able.  Stupid grad school and its stupid assignments.

Stupid Kenny and not checking his stupid calendar more often.