Open for Business (School)

The second year of my MBA program officially begins in three weeks. Three weeks. Damn. Well I enjoyed the summer recess while it lasted. Definitely not looking forward to restarting the daily commutes from downtown San Francisco down to the heart of Silicon Valley. Forty miles of pure I-101 gridlock. Shouldn't complain. I have a classmate that makes the daily trip from his job in Walnut Creek, a much nastier sixty mile, I-680 commute from the inland part of the East Bay. Maybe I'll seek solace and inspiration from Jason, a classmate and fellow Kor-Am student group member, who graduated this past June. He and his wife Melissa just invited us over to their new home in Sunnyvale for a housewarming party next weekend, where we will invariably commiserate with the other MBAs and their spouses. Plenty of beer and pizza I hope.

Sedaris in Berkeley

Reviewed the fall schedule for Cal Performances (link here) and was surprised to find David Sedaris on the lineup. I have been slowly chipping away at his latest work, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (link here), during my trips to the loo, and some of his latest pieces are pure comic genius. There is one that had me in tears - "Six to Eight Black Men", about how different cultures celebrate Christmas, in particular, the Dutch, where Santa is accompanied not by reindeer or elves but rather, "by six to eight angry black men". Apparently a holdover from the Netherlands' days as a colonial power. In an age of globalism and cultural homogeneity, Sedaris finds comfort in these peculiar vestiges of regionalism. He also notes the gun laws in Michigan which permit the blind to hunt unaccompanied by a sighted person. Scary. I enjoyed his prior Me Talk Pretty One Day and Holidays on Ice, but this collection may top them all.

Los Pueblewhat?

Some residents along the rugged and spectacular coastal stretches of San Mateo County are proposing incorporation as a municipality to gain more sway over local development (article link here). Not unheard of. This was partly in response to the recent acquisition of private land by the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District (link here). But the sheer size of the land the residents are wanting to include is jaw-dropping: all land within the boundaries of Pacifica (north), Santa Cruz (south), the Pacific Ocean (west), and I-280 (east), excluding the already incorporated town of Half Moon Bay. This would include the stretch of Crystal Springs adjacent to our new place along the San Mateo/Hillsborough border. The proposed area has two of the best scenic drives in all of Northern California (i.e., Highway 1 from Half Moon Bay to Santa Cruz and I-280 along the Upper and Lower Crystal Springs Reservoirs from Burlingame to Palo Alto), as well as some of its most pristine beaches and hiking trails, especially along the unspoiled mountain ridges separating Crystal Springs from the coastal areas. With only 6,500 residents in that vast swath of scenic and undeveloped greenspace, it would make the proposed "city" the least densely populated municipality in the entire state. More trees than people indeed. Along with the fiscal hurdles involved with incorporation, the proponents will probably need to change the proposed name of their municipality to garner some more votes. Los Pueblecitos? Sounds more like a barren, sun-baked transit stop in the middle of Arizona or New Mexico rather than the lush, coastal oasis that it represents, in Northern California. And the name doesn't exactly roll off one's tongue. Thankfully, the proposition is a long shot.

Buy Dubya at 0.534, Sell Kerry at 0.466

As mentioned in the prior "Going Long" on Shares of UCB weblog entry, the University of Iowa maintains a simulated but fairly accurate futures market on the expected outcome of the upcoming Presidential Election (link here). The morning after Cheney's pointed attack of Kerry during the Republican National Convention, it appears the spread between Bush and Kerry in the Iowa market is widening in Bush's favor. Dubya is now trading at 0.534 and Kerry is at 0.466. Translation, the markets are forecasting a 53.4%/46.6% outcome with the Bush/Cheney ticket winning reelection. This may change with the anticipated barrage of anti-Bush commercials about to be broadcast by pro-Kerry 527 groups.

Last Breath of Bachelorhood

T had her bridal shower this past weekend and a number of her out-of-town friends made the trip to San Francisco including some friends from New York who took up residence at my place in Burlingame. So I crashed over at Wagamama Boy's bachelor pad across the bay. Big screen television, Comcast digital cable, comfortable couches, ready supply of beverages... need I say more. After a pleasant dinner on Saturday night with T and a few of her friends (including Kathy from Seattle, who I met for the first time), I made the drive back to the pad where Wagamama and I sat unmoved till three in the morning as we soaked up the multi-channel Olympics coverage. The gold medal match in women's handball between Korea and Denmark was epic. Never thought I would be so into handball, a strange amalgam of soccer, basketball, and roller derby. Game went past double overtime and ended on an exchange of penalty throws. Definite nailbiter. {remote control} Taekwondo. Steven Lopez wins gold. {remote control} Track and field relays. U.S. men's 4x400 dominates the field. {remote control} Volleyball... at the rate we were going, we could have easily gone till daybreak. Good times. Much thanks to Jeannie for planning the shower and for allowing me one last weekend to squander time as a pretend bachelor.

"Going Long" on Shares of UCB

The expectations for the Cal football team are sky high. The San Francisco Chronicle ran a series of articles in today's special Pac-10 preview including the lead article (link here). Not surprisingly, the Cal-USC matchup is getting quite a bit of national attention including from ESPN and ABC. Not so much because Cal and USC are expected to be the top two teams in the conference, but rather, because of the backstory involving last season's BCS debacle. USC's only loss was to Cal in triple overtime, ultimately costing them the outright national championship and tossing the entire BCS computerized scoring system into chaos. USC, the consensus number one in the country, will be out for revenge. But this year's Cal team is strong enough to make the matchup very interesting. This year's football viewing season will be a busy one with the program in Berkeley getting so much attention (and televised coverage); not to mention my participation in a friend's fantasy football league. The live draft for the league is in a couple of days and the trash talk amongst the ten participants has already begun. Fantasy football should be interesting this year especially with the involvement of two long-time veterans in our league. During football season, much of Wall Street spends as much time glued to the fantasy football ticker as it does to the exchange ticker. Scary. In fact, our Bloomberg terminals on the floor provide real-time football scores, news, and player updates. Trading stocks or trading players. Same approach, same skills involved. Buy low, sell high. Shares in IBM undervalued? How about Pittsburgh wide receiver Plaxico Burress? Shares in UT Starcom a growth opportunity? How about San Francisco quarterback Tim Rattay? Now if the Cal football program were a stock, it's beta would be off the charts. On a related note, the University of Iowa operates a simulated "market" in which participants can buy or sell futures based on their expectations of who will win the Presidential Election (link here). It's considered to be fairly accurate. Bush was last trading at 0.525 while Kerry was at 0.476 (latest quotes here). Not a good sign for the Democrats.