MBAs Live For PowerPoint

To commemorate our lack of wins in the previous weekend's soccer tournament, the below awards were given out during this morning's donut hour via PowerPoint. I've stolen the images and awards, adding my comments in parethesis.

Most Unexpectedly Good Player (Extensive Practice Taking Balls to the Face)

Most Value-Adding Player (Only Person to Score a Goal)

Most Self-Sacrificing Player (The Proud New Owner of Bruised Testicles)

Best Socked Player (As the Creator of the PowerPoint He Felt Deserving of an Award)

Most Inspirational (Most Likely to Encourage Unsportsmanlike Conduct)

Laziest Player (Most Observant Player on Defense)

Best Looking Player (Yellow Card for Indecent Exposure)

Most Improved Player (First and Only Time to Ever Play Soccer)

Circle of Life

Last night I attended law buddy social only to discover I'm a relic of a bygone era. Nobody knew me as a blogger, nobody new me as a law student . . . I was just another guy at Crickets. The two students at the check-in desk asked for my name only to tell me I wasn't on the list, and most of my old comrades have moved on to PC or a preemptive state of depression that prevents them from being social.

By the time I return in the fall, three new classes will have entered and I'll be a 6Q; the same as a lot of law students that were 2Q's when I left.

Soccer Tournament Recap: Saturday Night - 6th St.

After upgrading into the Sheraton, mending our battle scars and realizing we were ridiculously sunburned, Tommy-the-Roommate and I prepared for a long night of networking. From 9 - 11 the tournament hosts graciously provided free drinks at the Chugging Monkey and from 12 - 2 we found ourselves bouncing from one bar to the next with a classmates and non-classmates alike.

If I learned nothing else from the experience, European MBA's from around the country love Lone Star. One described it as a kin to getting a Cheese Steak in Philadelphia.

Soccer Tournament Recap: Saturday Morning - Games

We lost our first two games to MIT and UCLA by scores of 4 - 0 and 2 -1 respectively while tying the third against Columbia 0 - 0. I'd talk about the details but the highlights were all red cards, yellow cards and our Captain beating up a girl.

This picture was taken after the last game. More pictures from throughout the day will be posted as soon as I find some.

Soccer Tournament Recap: Friday Night - The Check In

Upon being the third and fourth people to arrive at the meet and greet, Tommy and I were given wristbands for free drinks and told that teams from the northeast were stuck in airports and the first game was being pushed back from 8:30 to 11. We thanked them, grabbed a pool table and spent the night mingling amongst a sea of dudes.

Through our conversations we learned that schools like Wharton are 39% international with entering classes of 800. That's 1600 potential players, 624 of which are from countries that actually care about soccer.

In comparison, with incoming classes of 44, Baylor has only 88 potential players most of whom consider ping-pong their lone source of exercise. Our lack of numbers however, didn't stop us from kicking ass in pool and leaving when the tab closed.

Soccer Tournament Recap: Friday Night - The Hotel

"You'll have to wait if you need to piss. We no longer have a public toilet down here because guests would get mad and smear shit all over the walls." That was the greeting we received as we entered the Suburban Extended Stay in Austin.

Undeterred by the clerks statement, we paid the $50 friends and family discount rate* as he handed us the remote for our television and pointed us in the direction of our room. As we walked down the hall, we were closely followed by a man profanely expressing disappointment in his lack of female companionship and when we got to the door we discovered a broken dead bolt, ominous brown and red stains covering the walls and blankets riddled with burn holes. We decided then and there that we would remove the blankets, sleep in our clothes and place a chair in front of the door.

That was at 7:15. By 7:19 we had left for the tournament check in at the Tap Room at Six without unpacking the car. By all accounts, it was a safer place for our valuables.

*Thanks to the indefatigable Mr. C. for setting us up. I couldn't have gotten crabs without you.

The Battle Continues

Joining my vendetta against Mr. Ross and his use of words is MBA stud muffin / bean pole / Renaissance man, Mark. As you can tell from the often angst-filled, rarely spell-checked comment section below, limerick and tight game are mutually exclusive.

An MBA Poetry Battle

Like other Baylor MBAs, I received an e-mail from a fellow student that read:

"[Blah, blah, blah] I got the idea to try and do a poem about everyone involved with LS2. As of right now I have one about Tim and Karam. If you want to comment and add your own thoughts, or maybe just read them, they are located at homepages.baylor.edu/riley_ross. To show my range I will include standard rhymes, limmericks[sp], haiku, I don't even care. If I haven't done one about you, don't worry, you're coming."

My first thought of course was to add [in my eye] to the end of his e-mail, but alas, if he wants a literary battle, a literary battle he shall have.

There once was a man named Riley,
That thought he was acting politely
When he started to flirt
By ripping the shirt
Of the mom he longed after nightly.

Your play, Mr. Ross. Detroit, what?

Living in the Moment

Today marks the 2/3 point of my illustrious MBA career. Strategy is over, Focus Firm is about half way there and 10 weeks from today, I'll once again be considered a law student. Considering the PC students spent the weekend mulling over a literal 650 page reading assignment, I'm not excited to go back.

In soccer related news, it appears there are updated schedules for this weekend's tournament and Baylor is ranked last in the B Group behind UCLA, MIT, and Columbia.

Four Dudes, One Girl

In case you wonder what Baylor MBAs look like, here are pictures from our George Washington Case Competition Team's recent photo shoot. Print them out, post them on your wall, or make sock puppets in their likeness. You have my permission.

Einstein Priced The Options on Your Mom

Thanks to Prof. Finance, I have notes reading, "The second order partial differential equation of the Black-Scholes option pricing model is equivalent to the stochastic process of Brownian motion." Unfortunately, the five-week class system and a penchant for not paying enough attention have left me with a final on Thursday and no clue what that actually means.

Currently I'm deducing it's the secret code into many a lady's pants but I've been wrong before. Repeating Prof. Finance's catch phrase "Ohhh Baby Doll . . ." has gotten me nothing but spilt drinks and restraining orders.

UT MBA Wins Hearts

The schedule for the soccer tournament has been set, and quite honestly, it looks terrific.

If the picture doesn't enlarge, click this link

First off, on Friday, February 22, there is a Welcome Party from 7:30 - 10:30 pm at The Tap Room at SIX. After getting checked in and buzzed to whatever extent is polite, someone will drive me back to our hotel. The following morning at 8:30 we are scheduled to play Columbia-B followed by MIT (Sloan) at 11:10 and UCLA (Anderson) at 1:50.

Assuming I'm not mortally wounded in battle, the next stop is the Texas Winter Classic Party at the Chugging Monkey from 9:00 PM - Midnight. Free drinks will be served and accordingly, the Soldier Boy will be danced.

Winning games and making the playoffs the following morning could put a damper on things but we'll cross that bridge when we get there.

Baylor MBA Seeks T-Shirt Ideas

GBA, the student governing board of the business school, is making shirts and needs ideas. If all goes as expected we'll end up with a shirt like this or our tagline will be something like, "Baylor MBA: Business Students with Attitude!!!!"

And not that any of my suggestions would ever get picked but after lengthy deliberation I've ruled out - Baylor MBA: We Make It Rain; Investing In Our Future Sex Appeal; and That's What She Said, in favor of . . .

And if you don't like that, stealing something from this site would probably work just as well. In case you don't like suprises, I'll give you a hint: Rap Songs meet Excel and hilarity ensues.

Mission Accomplished

Today, thanks to the support of faculty, administration and fellow students, we were able to add a ping pong table to the graduate business lounge. After some negotiation, Big Brothers and Sisters in Waco sold us the table for $25 and Sports Authority sold us the paddles and net for about the same.

A special thanks to Riley for helping me transport the table and another to all those who helped me start my MBA ping pong career 5 - 0. I couldn't have done it without you.

In-Class, Offseason Festivus

In an effort to teach the giving and taking of criticism, Prof. Career Management created a mind-bang of a lesson plan that went something like this:

Prof. Career: Jordan, criticize something about Judd.
Jordan: Umm, I know you're an idea man, Judd but a lot of times when you speak in class I'm like, what the hell is that guy thinking and where did that possibly come from?
Prof. Career: Terrific. It's your turn Judd.

That went back and forth for awhile with every student getting a turn. I had the unenviable task of critiquing a straight A female student without a drinking or sexing problem and she had the simple task of telling me I talk too much and send classes off course.

"I told this deer he didn't run fast enough and look what happened to him."

In the end, it was a class devoted to assessing peers and superiors to their faces rather than backs and in many ways an important lesson. It was just a hard way to learn it.

One Name Not Like the Others

Today's Baylor Hazing Report reveals an interesting list of past violators:

Sigma Phi Epsilon, Spring 2005
Kappa Sigma, Spring 2005
Brothers Under Christ, Spring 2006
Gamma Alpha Omega, Spring 2006
Kappa Sigma, Spring 2006
Phi Gamma Delta, Spring 2006
Phi Kappa Chi, Spring 2006
Zeta Phi Beta, Fall 2007
Alpha Tau Omega Fall 2007

In case you are curious, this Lariat article describes Brothers Under Christ's infraction as a glorified food fight [against strippers] that ruined the clothes [and families] of several young pledges.*

*Words in brackets are inferences included to make sense of an otherwise blatant fabrication.

Swanburg Makes Excuses, Not Rain

Yesterday morning, two classmates and I ventured up to Dallas to listen to the CEO of Travelocity and present a case to the EMBA Global Strategy class.

The Travelocity CEO was awesome; my team and I were not.

Our reliance on PowerPoint and winging it left us woefully underprepared. We didn't add much in the way of insight and our audience seemed polite but unimpressed. Every time a new slide popped up I looked surprised by its contents and overall, my performance was described as "stilted."

It was supposed to be practice for the Big 12 and George Washington case competitions and that it was. Nothing teaches a good lesson like fucking up.

Update From Previous Post

Most updates go in the same post but I thought this one deserved its own.

An informed informant tells me that the perpetrators described here were actually boy scouts and the boy scouts were invited by Prof. Evidence.* The informant went so far as to deduce that Prof. Evidence is either a current or former Scout Master.

I don't know if that constitutes interesting but it is quasi-news/conjecture, and should make the complainer feel less complainy, nonetheless.


*The informant could have been lying to look cool but given the fact the informant is married, I tend to doubt it. Married people need cool points as much as they need a libido.