Posts Tagged Under ‘Travel’

Thoughts on Business-School Admit Weekend

I spent last weekend in Ann Arbor, Mich., for “Go Blue Rendezvous”, the school’s official event for admitted students. Final verdict: fun. I’m sorry to all the Michigan haters out there, but the place is pretty damn cool.

I say that first of all because people at Ross just seem down-to-earth. I met a ton of classmates who were all really friendly and excited to meet each other. One of the deans said Michigan business school is not competitive in the bad sense of the word “competitive”, and I got the feeling that people really get their helpful team-atmosphere on. Plus, it’ll be nice to have career-planning services. Normally in life we get that stuff a little in high-school and probably even less in college, making this a great time to look at my work future and do some idea-making. So I’m excited to get there this fall.

That’s the gushy stuff. Another question is when did undergraduates get so young? I did a lot of the same stuff when I was in college as I do now, but I look around at these young peeps and wonder how they’re even allowed to drive a car. The girls looked grown-up and hot when I was in college, but now I get a bit of a creepy old-dude feeling just walking around. I should be telling the undergrads to get off of my lawn and go play in the neighbor yard.

If I can’t actually be an undergraduate again, at least I can socialize like one, because apparently Ross students are into college-house-party nostalgia. Friday night I walked up to an off-campus house and came upon people spilled onto the porch drinking beer from red-plastic Solo cups. After that we went to a second house party that cost $5 to get in, upon which I was given a higher-quality souvenir plastic cup for entry. Maybe next I receive a pledge paddle at graduation? I already have two, so it would have to be extra awesome for graduate school, with spikes on one end or something. Sweet.

(w2q3iksaz, responds our cat. Indeed.)

Choose your weapon

But I think I’m getting old for another reason, which is that the novelty of a hotel stay is wearing off. When I was a kid taking a trip with my parents, we’d settle in to our hotel room and the ‘rents would give me and my bro change to go out to the hallway vending machine and get a can of pop. That was just about the greatest thing about going on vacation, but then you add in a swimming pool, too? A completely mind-blowing experience. At age 27 I still believe it’s high luxury that someone else makes the bed for me, but after that’s been untucked and I’m trying to actually sleep, I find myself thinking it would be a lot cooler if I were back in my own bed. And again, those kids really do need to get off of my lawn.

But like an old man, I’m rambling. The point here is that going to Michigan business school is going to be both useful and fun. I have found one annoyance that’s probably not great going into business school, which is that I really hate the word “brand”. This word is very useful to convey the idea of how a company presents itself to the outside world, but it’s become the new “thinking outside the box” catch-all term that doesn’t always make sense. One of the speakers this weekend mentioned “building your own personal brand.” Acknowledging one’s talents and abilities is very important in life, but navigating the complexities of human social interaction is a bit different from changing the font on a bag of Doritos. (Although if you had a Blazin’ Buffalo and Ranch soul you could probably rep that.)

You know what else is cool? Bold tags.

I’m out.

Mobile Blogging

Yo from my blackberry in Ann Arbor. More on my trip coming later.

I’m Shipping Up To Boston

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the title of this post is a very good DKM song. But I digress.

I’m heading up for observation of the land where sports-fan self-pity survives even in the face of multiple championships. While it might be rare for an Irish-American to have gone this long without stopping through Massachusetts, I’d like to point out that my grandparents managed to go their entire lives without visiting Boston, and they rocked the Irish-immigrant thing just the same.

Baked beans for all and Happy President’s Day.

Living Up To Stereotypes

I’m off to Indiana for Thanksgiving, and like a good stereotype, I look forward again this year to eating potatoes. I will not be consuming a six-pack of beer to make it the Irish seven-course meal, and for the record, the one about the two dudes, the genie and the sea of Guinness is a far better ethnic slur anyway.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my family, friends and the rest of yinz out there in web land.

Quick Hits

• Back in my New York days, it seemed that every time you turned around, someone was praising the independent, gritty spirit of 1970s-80s New York, the culture that produced hip-hop, tagging, Reggie Jackson, Taxi Driver, CBGB-OMFUG, The Warriors and other art inspired by the city’s crushing, nigh-bankrupt bleakness. While I acknowledge the period as one of the truly great creative eras in the American scene, one that I think I can explore forever, the nostalgia to me seems to overlook the big, fat suckitude of crime, urban decay, poverty and a general pessimism that pervaded New York in the 1970s and 80s. Does anybody really miss this? John Carpenter didn’t make Escape From New York because it was a great logical leap from reality. People suffered greatly in those days.

  But let’s assume that you believe despair breeds the greatest art (I tend to agree), and you’re an urban hipster who craves the dangerous, anything-goes spirit of the 1970s. There’s another town out there for you long past its mid-century glory days; one with miles of burnt-out dwellings, a suburban population that’s afraid to go downtown, weak political leadership and an economic death spiral to boot. Plus, it’s been this way for a good three decades, so it’s not likely to have changed by the time you arrive.

  So what I really want to know is, why isn’t Detroit seeing a nostalgia-driven hipster influx?

• Esquire magazine (to which I have a subscription; I hit my news/business base with The Economist, my sports base with SI, and my man-of-the-world, well-read, how-to-buy-suits-I-will-never-afford base with the big E) had the cover line this month “Can a white man still be elected President?”

  Sometimes, one can take provocative cover taglines a little too far from reality, to the point that the reader says, “Man, they are trying way too hard to get my attention.” Then, to take a journey of rhetorical absurdity that’s hemispheres beyond that, one can write, “Can a white man still be elected President?”

• The more President Bush’s approval ratings drop, the more I fear what the government might do in the name of “Hey, we’re hated lame ducks anyway.”

Out.

Legends of Airport Conversation

Today I was flying back to DC at the Indianapolis airport when a big, middle-aged dude sat down next to me and struck up a conversation. The topic of the war briefly came up after the guy said he couldn’t believe gas prices were so high when we had physical control of Iraq’s oil and could just take what we wanted. I mentioned how the Administration planners considered only the initial old-fashioned military invasion without any nod to the other 90% that was the occupation, and the dude then produced the gem below.

This may sound like he was pulling my leg, but I’m about 90% sure that he really meant it. It was a serious subject, and he took the tone that he was giving me the greatest history lesson I could possibly learn:

Hell yeah man; you know when King Arthur invaded that region 500 years ago, he knew better than to stick around; he told his assistants, ‘Let’s get the f out of this country right now, I can’t occupy this place.’

Agreed.

Back From Texas

Yo, Internet.

I just got back from a trip to Texas with my family, visiting my bro to celebrate him getting his wings. (Shoutout.) It was my first time in the state. Some thoughts from your correspondent:

• The University of Texas seems like a cool place to go to school. You get to chill in Austin, there are plenty of things to do just near the campus itself, there are friendly people at the Mellow Mushroom who are good at recommending beers, and even though I have almost no interest in conferences that aren’t the Big Ten, we all know the Longhorns have a strong football program. (Then there was that freshman-year reality show on Showtime a few years ago that started out kind of interesting, but I got tired of those kids by the fourth episode and gave up on it.)

  Then there was what I will euphemistically call “people watching”. A fellow can participate in some unbelievable “people watching” at this campus. You see as many “individuals who catch your eye” as anywhere else I’ve ever been. So it’s got that going for it.

• While that’s true of Austin, the bars we hit up in San Antonio were some strange places. The crowd dresses the same as they do in NYC or DC, but they seem to be on average about eight years older, which is the opposite of what I expected thanks to the Bible Belt reputation as a place where people marry and settle down earlier. These bars seemed to contradict that: lots of people in their 30s, 40s and perhaps even later out there, dressed and drinking like they’re looking for action. It was a little jarring, but then, we all gotta fight for our right to party.
• I’m a left-leaning dude, and while I disagree with right-wing America almost all of the time, I do respect it when conservatives use logic and reason to back up their arguments. However, don’t expect me to respect your intellect when the best argument you have for voting Bush/Cheney in 2004 is that “Kerry is retarded.”
• In four days, I think I only ate two meals with finite portions. Every other one had either unlimited buffet, unlimited chips, etc. But that’s probably more a commentary on me being hungry than on the state of Texas cuisine.
• San Antonio and Austin are actually pretty green places, not desert. Where the cactus at? Apparently Arizona.

Yee to the haw.