Mile High

                My childhood friend, Rich, is getting married in a couple weeks, and decided to spend one of his last weekends of freedom in Denver, Colorado with his buddies.  I had one of those trips with terrible flying luck, or as I call it, a trip*,  On the way there, I had to wake up 4:30 am, in order to be delayed an hour at the airport due to a flight attendant calling in sick.   I arrived in Colorado at 10:30 local time, raring to take a nap.

*My return trip, Sunday evening, was delayed an hour and twenty minutes before I even got to the airport.  The delay increased to two hours before I learned to stop looking at the departing flights board.  When the plane finally got took off, we had go around a giant storm adding another 45 minutes to the flight plan.   It was after 2 am when we finally pulled into the gate in Logan.

                We started our inebriation with lunch at Fresh Craft, a pub somewhat similar to Sunset Grill here in Boston.  They had an almost endless selection of craft beers on tap including a number of local productions.  I studied the drink menu closely, and then asked Rich what I should drink, a very effective selection tactic that I and others used repeatedly over the weekend.  I ended up with what would be my favorite beer of the trip, a very sweet Colorado based Left Hand Milk Stout as well as a scrumptious salad. 

                After lunch we went to another bar*, the Wynkoop Brewery, where we played heated games of foosball, at which we were various degrees of terrible.  Having burned almost half a dozen calories off, we headed to an arcade called 1up.  Don't worry it still had a full bar. 1up had an extensive collection of classic arcade games taken from the point in our childhoods where things became forever awesome.  As a group we beat the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle game, something I'm not sure I ever did as a child.  Plus, at 25 cents a credit, it was one our cheapest entertainment choices of the weekend!

*This may have been a theme of the trip.  Stay tuned!

                 After a brief respite at the hotel, we went to see the Rockies play at Coors Field*.  We reserved seats at Mountain Ranch Bar and Grille inside the stadium to have dinner and ensure the drinking was not interrupted.  I had a Helton burger, which seemed fitting.  The clubhouse provided for an excellent view of the game, particularly when seated at the closest table seat the field, though the dinner atmosphere made it difficult to pay attention.  Really the only time our full table noticed the game was when the Rockies scored their 7th run, earning us free tacos.** We left the clubhouse in the fifth and went to our seats in the upper deck.  Having successfully seen a half inning of baseball from our actual seats and kicked out the previous occupants, we decided to make a tour of the park.  We stopped by a stand that was selling game used baseballs and bases.  After learning we were Met fans, they brought out a collection from a recent Mets Rockies series, including a Daniel Murphy double that was selling for a mere $35.  We also stopped by a Blue Moon Brewery inside the stadium, because well yeah.  The game itself was a long, sloppy, back and forth affair.   I did get to watch my closer strike out the side to preserve a 10-9 win for Rockies at about the 3:50 mark, which was a nice sendoff for the night.    

*Stadium 14 for me.

**Enthusiasm for this was dampened after learning that they were from Taco Bell.

                Saturday morning, we began our day at a pub called the British Bulldog.  It's main calling card was that it was open at 10:00 am and had the same name as a wrestler, both major pluses for this crowd.  We continued to Cheeky Monk, a Belgian Beer cafe where each drink came in an unique glass, mine being in a beaker.

                Now that we got our morning drinking out of the way, we went on a Brews Cruise around Denver.  We were driven by van to four microbreweries  by our excellent tour guide Brent.   The first stop, Breckenridge Brewery, gave us a tour of the facility, a free glass of beer, six 3.3 ounce samples as well as a bottle fresh off the line.*  Luckily the rest of the stops weren't so generous as I am not sure I would have made it.   My favorite beer was the avalanche ale, though I enjoyed everything other than the IPA.

* Unfortunately that couldn't be transported home.  Hope housecleaning enjoys the tip!            

                The next stop was Renegade Brewing Company, a brewery that was celebrating the opening of a second facility,.  They gave three samples including  a Belguim Ale called Golden Shower.  Goldberg was infatuated with the product and inquired about investing in the company.  If Renegade was looking for a random, not entirely sober,  co-owner, it was their lucky day.   

                The third destination was Wits End Brewery, a hole in the wall facility in a shopping center.  They had only been in business for three years and produced and sold all of their beer on site, producing about three barrels per week.  They did have a collection of graphic novels, including Watchmen, which was a nice touch. Finally we went to Strange Brewing Company, which was much more crowded than the previous destinations.  There we had, among other things, a Cherry Stout which was decisively cherry.  

                Those of us who survived the afternoon's activities went to dinner at the Buckhorn Exchange Restaurant, the home of the first beer license ever obtained in Colorado.  If you are a vegetarian, you might want to go ahead and skip this one.   If you like to be surrounded by death though, have I got the spot for you. We had a wide assortment of meats including Rocky Mountain oysters, bison, buffalo, game hen, ostrich, and elk.  I'm sure it was all kosher.   

                We decided to try find some less inebriated entertainment Saturday night with limited success.   We stopped by  a candy shop which contained all sorts of long discontinued brands.  There  two well tattooed female employees gave us very enthusiastic directions to possible destinations.  Now these places weren't anywhere near where said they were, but that seems besides the point.  We ended up spending much of the night playing pool, a game that makes me look like a world champion foosball player.  Walking back to the hotel we passed two women who had taken of their shirts and were dancing to Michael Jackson music on top of their van.  They seemed very happy in their world. 

                We took it easy Sunday wandering over to a local park.   We happened to pass a marathon in progress.  Rich was holding a bottle of water out in from of him, when an older man stopped and gestured emphatically towards it.  Feeling the runner probably needed more than he did, Rich gave him the bottle, which he promptly gulped most of down.  Goldberg caught up with the marathon at a different point, and finished the last few miles with them getting celebratory cheers along the way.

                Our final Denver meal was at Biker Jim's Gourmet Dogs.  It had most of the weird meats of the Buckhorn Exchange, but without the high prices and animal carcasses.  I had a Duck Cilantro dog, which was delicious other than the over-sized generic bun.  Also recommended are the Fried Green Tomatoes and  Fried Mac and Cheese Balls,

              

                Denver was a neat city, clean, well maintained, affordable, highly walkable, with the snow-capped Rocky Mountains making for an excellent backdrop.  There was a seeming endless amount of breweries, bars, and clubs, though that could have been partially the company I kept. It reminded me why I would like to try living on the west coast at some point.  Then I waited on line for 20 minutes at Starbucks, and remembered that eastern big city life has its pluses too.               

              

                I handled the increase it alcohol consumptions just fine*, but I still managed to twist an ankle, shatter a glass, and smash open my head on a metal bar in the shower over the course of the weekend.  Maybe sobriety is my problem.

*Thankfully older age has slowed down my compatriots a bit.

Morality

I had an argument once, in London, with a temporary roommate of mine.  Is it more challenging to base one's morality fully on what a book said or to make up a moral system on your own?  I thought he got off easy not having to figure out what he actually felt mattered.  He, on the other hand, believed that I shouldn't have any difficulty as I can make up anything I wanted.

In a sense he was right as there is really isn't objective about my moral system.   That doesn't mean I haven't spent a lot of time thinking about it though.  I have come up with three basic tenants in rough order of importance.

1.  Life is good. 

2.  Everyone deserved a minimum level of rights.

3.  Do the most good for the most people.

That's it really.  Everything else derives from those core beliefs.  Of course my interpretations of those three items and how much value I give to each of them is not necessarily simple or universally agreed upon

Some people fundamentally disagree with my beliefs, but many I have encountered just haven't considered things from my perspective .  A lot of this my fault, as I tend to do a better job listening than talking.  So this is my first attempt at putting my beliefs out there for anyone who wishes to understand them.*  I'm not trying to argue, though I don't mind that either as long as you are good at it or entertaining,

*And at being self indulgent.  Okay this is my 3,456,234 attempt at being self indulgent.  

Risk Legacy

This weekend the war continues.  The Risk Legacy board was last signed by a victorious Felix*  eight months ago after game seven.  Sadly, Bo, our Alaskan fisherman, has spent the subsequent months, well, fishing in Alaska and working on his boat, so we have been short of a quorum.  Since we have a limited window where I'm on winter break, and none of our players have an infant to distract them, we are going to try to get as many games in as possible over the next few weeks.   

*Felix has certainly enjoyed his eight month reign as self claimed title of Emperor.  He has gone from reluctant to commit to more than one game at a time of "risk" to perhaps our most excited player.

Risk Legacy is like risk, but with one large twist.   Actions in  a current game will cause permanent changes that alter future games.  For the first 15 games played, the map will be altered during and after each session.  The map will drawn upon, stickers will be added, and if a card is destroyed, it gets ripped up  never to be used again.  In addition, there are a number of hidden compartments in the game box that do not get opened until certain game conditions are met.  Once opened they have radical changes on the game play sometimes even mid-game.  It works best if you have the same group of players each time.  After 15 games you have your own custom earth to battle over.

It is not necessary to like Risk to like Risk Legacy.  Legacy has a number of advantages over its predecessor.

1.  It doesn't take forever.  Instead of having to conquer every territory in the world, you just need to get four victory points.  Games are playable in an hour in the beginning, a bit longer as the complexity increases .  There are also multiple paths to victory that were absent in the original.

2. Each person has a faction with a special power.  Additionally, individuals will have additional advantages based on games they previously won*.  Thus each player will have different abilities and they will change over time.

*If you win a game you get a reward, like naming a continent, which gives you a bonus in future games.   

3.  If the game is broken,  you can fix it.  One of the issues with Risk is that there are certain dominate strategies, like turtling in Australia.  Without getting into too much detail, there are ways to change this.  And if you break the game somewhere else in the process of fixing it, which you will, you can fix it again.  By the end of 15 games you should hopefully have a reasonable balanced board.   There is an interesting balance between taking actions that help you in the current game

4.  It is fun to customize a board.  For example, Bo is from Homer, and has thus renamed Alaska after his small hometown.  Neighboring but across the map lies Evil Homer, Homer's arch-nemesis.  Our map is filled with inside jokes and derivatives of Homer.

5.  From the presentation of the box, to the components  and rules, the game is spectacularly put together,  The designer put a lot of effort into providing a fully engaging experience.

6.  The hidden stuff is cool.  I mean really really cool.  It takes a one dimensional game and add many layers of depth and complexity.  If you wish to be spoiled, I'm happy to talk about it more detail.  I mean really really happy.  We unlocked some neat stuff in the last game before our break, and I can't wait to use it.

Happy World Conquering

Meet my Mets

In honor of the Mets giving David Wright an 8 year, 138 million extension, my favorite ten Mets of all time.

10. Carlos Beltran:

As a young player in Kansas City, Beltran did everything well.  What I found most impressive was that he never got caught stealing.  There was a while where he was the most successful base stealer, percentagewise,  in the history of the game.  The Mets got Beltran the old fashion way, offering him a trunk load of money.  While it is a little less fun to have your team just buy players on the open market, it was nice to see the Mets finally getting the superstar.

Like many people on this list, Beltran had an up and down tenure with the Mets.  He was great his first couple years, but struck out to end the Mets season in 2006 with a world series berth on the line. Wainwright's curveball floating past him will forever be seared in my mind.  Sadly, his knee went out after that, and the Mets and their medical staff were too incompetent to handle it.  He did get some redemption to his final season, bouncing back to have a vintage season minus some speed.  The Mets were able to turn him into a young fireballer, Zack Wheeler, at the trade deadline, who hopefully will make his own appearance here some day. 

9. R.A Dickey

Unlike Wright, Dickey won't be a Met for 8 years and possibly not even for 8 days.  Still if you throw the world's coolest pitch and name your bats after fantasy novels, you deserve a spot on the list.

Dickey's career has always been interesting.  He was drafted by the Rangers who cut his bonus by 90% after realizing he didn't actually have a ligament in his arm.  Being a convention pitcher didn't quite work out, so he learned to throw the knuckle ball.  It took him nearly a decade of bouncing around from team to team, but he finally mastered it with the Mets.  Dickey winning the cy young this year is about as cool as baseball gets.

8. Turk Wendall.

I don't like players who take the game too seriously, but I love the ones who take their lack of seriousness  seriously.  Wendall hopped over baselines to get to the mound to avoid bad luck.  He wore the number 99 and signed a contract for $9,999,999.99, and would have played the final year for 99 cents if the player union would have allowed it.   He is also is the only person on the list that I've Met and have an autograph from.  He showed me how to throw a curveball.

7. David Cone

I was four the last time the Mets won the world series, and can't say I remember it.  My first memory is of the '88 team when  losing to a heavily underdog Dodgers squad*.  I'm not sure why David Cone became my first favorite Met.  It may have been his dominance as he went 20-3 that year.  Perhaps, I just associated his name with ice cream.  The mind of a 6 year old works in mysterious ways.  

*This should have been a warning sign.

6. Johan Santana

Omar Minaya was a terrible gm, but his persistence occasionally paid off.  He traded for Santana, a pitcher who gone from a freely available rule 5 draft pick to the best pitcher in the game, without giving up anything of value.  Santana was a good for a while, but blew out his shoulder and missed over a year rehabbing.  He came back last year though  and did something the Mets failed to do in their first 8,000 tries.

Along with the "miracle Mets", and "ya gotta believe", having never thrown a no-hitter has always been a part of Mets lore.  Sure they had plenty of great pitchers, but they all through no-hitters after leaving the team.  I wanted to see the streak end, but it needed to be style.  Watching on the mlb network as Santana*, having  battled back from a career threatening injury, no hit the cardinals, was a more than worthy epitaph.  It was also reminder that even if my passion occasionally wanes when the Mets struggle, it will always come back in time.     

*Along with his manager, Terry Collins, have a nervous breakdown about running up his pitch count  

5. Mike Piazza

I was walking home from the park when a kid told me the news.  It couldn't be true, could it?  Another kid confirmed it, but I didn't fully believe.  I ran home and turned on the WFAN, the way I got my news in those pre-internet days.  Mike Piazza had been dealt to the Mets.  They picked up one of my favorite players, a star in his prime.  A 62nd draft pick who had become the best hitting catcher in the history of the game.  The Mets were a contender now.  I don't think I've ever been more excited about a transaction.

Piazza was never quite as good as when he was a Dodger, but there were plenty of great moments.  The Mets got back to the world series. He hit a key home-run in the best game I've been to in person, a back and forth win against the Yankees when interleague play still had its novelty.  He had a 3 run shot to cap a huge rally against the Braves, and hit the first home-run in NY after 9/11.   All in all it was 105 million well spent.

4. Bobby Jones

There was a while where the Mets were not a very good at baseball.  Okay fine, a horrific train wreck of suckitude.  Besides being terrible, the team was old, expensive and unlikable.  Bobby Jones gave me someone to root for.  Someone who always won more than he lost, no matter how bad his teammates were.   Other than his rookie season, he never lost more games than he won for the Mets.  When he finally pitched in the playoffs in 2000, well past his sell by date, he threw a magnificent one hit shutout.

 

Now as it turns out if you look Jones up on baseball reference, he was never actually that good.  He was helped by a great pitching park, run support, and good luck.  He had a short and unimpressive peak.   But why would you trust baseball reference over my memory of his glory days?        

3. Jose Reyes

There is nothing complicated about liking Reyes; he is just fun to watch.  He  flies around the bases and the field, and always seems like he is having a blast.  It was a shame he went to the Marlins, but one can't really blame him given the Mets lack of effort to retain him.  I was hoping that there could be a reunion after the Marlins had their next fire sale, but sadly that implosion happened even faster this time around.  Still, I can look forward to running circles around the Yankees 19 times a year for the foreseeable future.   

2. Jeff Kent

I always was a bit of a contrarian growing up, which made Kent was my type of player.  Kent never quite fit in;  he said what was on his mind and did things his way.  He was a good player, but took a lot of blame for a team with a myriad of issues.  I was an overnight trip with camp Apollo when the deal sending him to Cleveland finally happened.   Kent went on to have a borderline hall of fame career, while the players the Mets got quickly imploded.   I was pleased that the Mets ended up getting that one dead wrong.        

1. David Wright

If you are building the perfect franchise player, Wright would be a good model.  He has been a Mets fan all his life, growing up near their triple A team.  He is likeable, humble, charitable, and a model citizen.  He is a five tool player, able to hit, field, run, and throw.   He wants to remain a Met for life, and proved it by signing an extension through 2020 last week.

 

The last six years have been terrible for Mets fans.  The next eight may not be much better, but at least they will have Wright.     

               

Back to School

I have this odd feeling.  I think it is being well rested.  If only daylight savings was a daily occurrence this whole work/school/life/sleep balance would go much smoother.

So business school.  Thus far, other than the sleep deprivation, I am really enjoying myself.  I am taking two classes accounting and organizational behavior.

Accounting is well accounting.  Some of it is new, but much of it are things I have learned before.  The professor has a very particular order of teaching things, which has limited correlation to their actual logical order.  The professor can be entertaining, but it is a dry subject taught in a lecture format and she has a tendency to repeat herself.  She does focus on the ability to read financial reports rather than create them, which is a worthwhile skill.  We are supposed to move more more into managerial accounting in the 2nd half of the class, so hopefully it will get more interesting.

The professor in the OB is great.  He repeatedly has told us to not care about grades, and only worry about learning*.  He is willing to adapt the class to the students and what is going with their lives.  He is obsessed with the concept of self awareness and teaches the class through that frame.  We have done numerous self assessments to learn more about our values, leadership, and skills.  It is the type of thing that requires buy-in from the class to work.  One of the very nice things about grad school is that everyone really wants to be there, so it does in fact work.  It has been valuable to have a better sense of self and talk about it with partners and groups in class.  Becky even is getting something out of this as I bring many of the exercises home.  She has been enjoying her vicarious MBA.

*I've had a little trouble with this as I wanted to actually try for good grades this time around.  Plus it is killing my competitive instincts. 

My classes all have the same 54 students, and will throughout my first year.  It is a fascinating and diverse group of people and it has been great to get to know them.   I'm not sure if all MBA classes are like this, or mine is just particularly personable bunch.  It is nice to have the support and encouragement of  group of people at similar points in their life.*  It is a good start to the next three years.

*Support comes most often at Cornwell's, the unofficial bar of B.U.

 

Break Time

In the course of keeping a blog updated, I ran into a slight problem.  See my laptop got a boo-boo.  The screen developed a crack and started oozing its inner contents. The screen now features a myriad of pretty colors, but the usability is bit on the low side.  I can plug it into the TV, but that is a little awkward for daily use.  And while I love my ipad, I haven't quite mastered the art of writing long rambling posts on it as of yet.  Therefore the Other Side has grown dormant.

I considered getting the laptop fixed, but the cost of having someone fix it isn't all that much less than replacing it.  I could do it myself, but unfortunately I am not quite as talented at fixing things as I am at breaking them.  Given that I was starting grad school soon, I went out and got a new one.

Buying a new laptop is always a difficult and stressful experience for me.  You remember that part about being good a breaking thing?  Small metal boxes filled with intricately laid out electronics is a specialty of mine.  Sadly laptops don't come certified as Joel proof.  You would thing that specs would include the processor speed after a laptop gets dropped a couple times, flipped thrice, and spilled upon, but alas they do not.  I'm left with a few options.  One is to get a Toughbook, a laptop built to hold up in a combat zone.  These however are exceedingly expensive, the price of several regular laptops.  Besides, while it may be able to withstand missile strikes, I present a whole 'nother challenge.  Another method is to go for really cheap laptops, assuming they will break anyway and I'll be replacing them soon.   This is rather annoying though and not necessarily cost effective.

I ended it up with U410 Lenovo Ultrabook which represents something of a midgrade.  Lenovo's are pretty sturdy* and this one features two hard drives a 500gb one for general use, a 32GB SSD designed to make your most common computer activities run really fast.  Plus it is a blue, so it has that going for too.  We shall see how it holds up.  In the meantime, I intend to resume our irregularly scheduled one way conversations.

*Though certainly not Joel proof.

The decision

I haven't had a lot of tough decisions in my life.  I chose my college haphazardly based on bad geography, randomness, the desire to start something completely new, and the process of elimination.  I decided to get a MBA because it helpful to do interesting stuff and make lots of money, and I want to do interesting stuff and make money.  I chose to apply to evening programs instead of full time programs because I had a job I was reasonably happy with.  I chose which schools to apply to based on what I could get into and what I could convenient get to without moving.  None of these were really that difficult to decide in the end.  I didn't expect choosing a school to be that difficult either.  I had a rough pecking order of which schools I wanted to attend, so it just mattered what I got in to.

Except Northeastern wanted to make things difficult.  They saw my profile and didn't process my application for the evening program, but rather strongly encouraged me to do their full time program*.  To the sweeten the offer they agreed to cover over 80% of the tuition, enough where quitting my job became a viable option.  All else being equal I would prefer to do a full time program.  All else isn't equal though, which leaves the dilemma.  The below are some of things that have been running through my head lately.

*I went to an evening MBA session at Northeastern where an admission's employee encouraged to ignore everything said about how much better evening programs are than full time programs.

Money:
Well, one school requires that I quit my job (or at least work only part time) and the other lets me keep my salary, but the monetary differential is actually not that clear. With BU I'll get some money a year from my job* but not enough to make a huge dent in the bill.  With Northeastern I'll have little to no income for the first year, but the vast majority of tuition will be covered.  Year two I'll have a 6 month paid internship at NE, which makes the finances more even.  Year three I'll have graduated NE and can make a MBA enhanced salary while at BU I'd still be working on a degree.  On the other hand BU has a significantly higher avg starting salary per graduate.  On the other other hand that number is for the full time program and doesn't necessarily apply to the full time degree.  You can start to see my problem here..

*The money from work actually gives an incentive to take as long as possible to finish.

Length:
One of the big factors in Northeastern's favor as a full time program will be over in two years, while a part time program will probably take three or four. 

Sanity:
One I'll be working full time and going to school on top of it.  The other one I'll mostly be a student.  I believe I can do the former without it disrupting my lifestyle too badly, but I'm almost positive that I'm wrong.  Certainly only being a student will allow for much lower stress level and a much higher ability to do things.

Location:
This is about even.  They are about equidistant from our apartment and from work.  This, however is the category that eliminated BC and I really didn't want to have to trek up there every week.

Facilities:
BU has a really nice gym.  Access to it may be the thing Becky is most excited about in terms of me going to grad school

Course options
Northeastern requires full time students to take one of three tracks, none of which I'm especially interested in, though you do get some freedom among them.  BU has more options and is more easily tailored to my interests.

Career change
This is generally easier in a full time program where you can full access to recruitment and can use the internship to get experience in a different field.  As I don't really want to securities lending forever this is a definite plus for NE.  

Recruitment process
Northeastern has been better in nearly every aspect.  I should probably not decide a school on which schools admission department I like better though.  Still BU being impersonal seems to be a fairly common complaint.

School quality:
I was disappointed with the quality of my undergraduate education.  I could have done better and while I don't regret going to Bradley, I don't want to make that mistake again.  While Northeastern is a fine school, I feel like if I go there I'll again be going to a school that is below my abilities*.   BU is more on the level of where I think I should be.  

*One of the nice things about having a blog is that you don't have to worry about being humble.

Quitting my job:
This tends to depend on the day.  I'll tell Becky now when I get home whether it was a Northeastern or a BU day.

Career
There seems to be a general feeling that full time programs are more respected than part time programs among employers.  However, there are definitely people who appreciate one's ability to balance the workload with working full-time

Network
Northeastern strength is that they have really good connections with employers.  They are mostly focused on the local market though.  BU seems to have the stronger national base.

And so on...  I have a week left to decide.  Feedback welcome.  Or perhaps a lucky coin?