Thespians, Baylor MBAs Are Not

Back in April I mentioned doing on-camera interviews prior to our Focus Firm presentation in Denver. Thanks to a combination of nerves, sleep deprivation and The You Tubes, you can check out the hot tranny-mess above.

Go to 3 minutes and 59 seconds if you want to see me pass judgment on others, click here if you want to see the video that started it all, and click false if ever asked the question, "Does Zane know how to blink?"

Adventures in Learning

After showing us satellites and spacecraft controls at the DISH uplink facility in Cheyenne, Wyoming, our tour guide announced, “Here is our Pay-Per-View monitoring station.” As he walked us through the door and presumably continued to talk, I couldn’t help but stare at the walls of hardcore porn and the gentleman watching it intently.

As I spent the next few moments apprenticing -helping my coworker ensure the signal didn’t go down or contain errors- I couldn’t help but think, “What questions did they ask during his interview?”

As my mind wandered through the possibilities, HR herded us back onto the bus and took us to Anheuser Busch before chauffeuring us back to Denver.

By the end of the day I had billed ten hours and the only two things I remembered doing were watching porn and drinking. Professionally speaking, it was a terrific day.

Swanburg in Real Life

Living in a world with repercussions has led me to hate blogging. I can’t write sexy words without worrying about creating a hostile work environment and I can’t discuss my daily activities for fear of going to jail. So until I switch to a less googleable medium of writing –or again stop caring- I’ve got nothing terribly interesting to say. Enjoy.

Floating the River

+1 was in town visiting this past weekend so I took her to the Royal Gorge for 50 degree bath in class five rapids. Below you’ll see a picture of the experience* which turned out to be nothing like its Texas counterpart.

*The experience pictured is actually that of my roommate in the boat in front of ours. He’s the kind of idiot that pays $50 to tell people which helmet was his while I’m the kind of genius that spends nothing and allows you to use your imagination.

Baylor Law News

Apparently knowing a thing or two about the law,

Dallas native Thomas Keane [whose apartment I sublet my first summer Waco] earned the second highest score on the [Texas Bar] exam, while Ashley DeForest of Houston [who allowed me to sit next to her in Real Estate Finance] received the third highest score.

Both far better outcomes than failing.

Business Intern Gets Lawyer-y

During last night’s reception with the top executives from Charlie Ergen on down, I spent about an hour interviewing various people throughout the company in hopes of figuring out my life based on the mistakes of others.

After telling some folks I didn’t know anything about the law, they told me it was because I’d never tried, and long story short, for a time starting sometime this week or next, I’ll be working in a legal department responsible for two companies with combined market caps of about $19 billion.

It should be interesting.

Thrown from the Ivory Tower

Under the assumption quality decision making requires knowing every part of the business, after our 6:30AM meeting with the Wilmington service technicians, my VP unexpectedly excused from my day’s assignments, handed me pants that were too small and a shirt that was too large with instructions not not to worry about my dress shoes. I was then sent on a ride-along (read: death march) with a technician we’ll call Steve.

My first stop on the 98 degree day was a trailer park in a city of Magnolia, North Carolina – population 981. Below you’ll see pictures of the dish I helped install, the hole I had to crawl through to fuck with wires, and the neighboring home in a state of modest disrepair.

Not pictured are the scorpion lizard that attacked me, the scenes from my two other stops, the pangs associated with heat prostration and the embarrassment of being ridiculed when asking Steve if he had sun block.

After twelve hours I hated the world, I hated my managers, I hated Wilmington, I hated television, I hated Steve, I hated everyone. It's only in retrospect that I can accept the day as a valuable learning exercise, thank my managers, and appreciate Steve for doing amazing work on a thankless job I could never imagine.

Games, Trains, and Booze

The interns got together, took the light rail downtown, got drunk, took the light rail back, exchanged high-fives and made some bad decisions. The whole thing made me feel like I was in undergrad again just less single and a lot closer to the age of 24.

Tomorrow I go back to work, Tuesday I go on a business trip to Wilmington, NC, Wednesday I’ll miss our first intramural volleyball game, Thursday I return, and Friday we’ll again watch 21 year-old software engineers attempt to defy all stereotypes.