Checking In

Thanksgiving, It's my last regroup and lull before the final push of the academic quarter, so I thought I'd dust off the blog and write things that I hope my grandmother never reads.

Here is a compilation of some of the exciting events that happened this quarter: 

• I received a waiver for five of the MBA core courses because I was an undergraduate business major. It should have been seven courses, but two of the classes I took as a freshman ten years ago, a finance and an economics course, came in at a 2.9 and not the 3.0 grade needed to qualify. Total cost of retaking: $4,200, 50 hours of class, and an extra quarter of school. 18 year-old me is a self-centered prick.

• A guy flirted with me in line at the school cafeteria and then asked for my number, just like an awesome Sweet Valley High novel! Honestly, I was pretty pumped as I'm obviously doing something right if the homosexual community finds me an acceptable option. Now I just gotta make that leap to actual girls...

 

Awww Yeahhhh

• Speaking of girls, things are different in grad school. I would of expected more out of the tenty-one year-old undergrads, but they're not pulling their metaphorical weight. Instead, friends from my program prefer the law school girls (I use the pseudonym "friends" because my lovely wife will read this). It's not that there aren't beautiful undergrad girls, there certainly are, but nothing makes you attractive more than living life's mistakes, and the young'uns are still oblivious to this fact. I prefer women that have been burned by the corporate world, drink wine at home on Friday evenings, and don't think that Plan B is the first line of birth control defense.

• Side note: If I'm always attracted to girls my own age, will I like 70 year-old women when I'm in the retirement home? If so, God please strike me down around 38ish.

• Double Side Note: I once read somewhere that retirement homes are rampant with STDs. Mostly because the people are old, can't get pregnant, and don't use protection anymore. Sounds like bullshit, but I suppose anything is possible.

"Pssst, Roll over"

• Favorite thing learned so far: apparently in the Dark Ages, written records were either non-existent or unreliable. Either way, this made long term transactions, such as the transfer of property, hard to to manage across generations. In response, our clever ancestors came up with an ingenious idea: 

1. Let's say you and I are the Lords of neighboring lands and I want to sell you part of the territory over which I benevolently reign. We'd travel out to the property line in question with a caravan including several young boys. (I cannot wait to see how many hits I get for the search term "young boys")
2. Next, you would present me a portion of gold in payment, and in return, I would hand you some dirt to symbolize the full transaction. Once we completed our ceremonial transfer, we would commence beating the everlasting shit out of those young boys.
3. Point is, decades later when some dispute arose over the land and you and I were long gone, they'd call in those boys. They'd ask them to recall the day and transaction in question, and guess what, they wouldn't have any problem remembering.  

Too soon?

So, this happened... again...

We got a knock on the door last night, it was my neighbor across the hall. Older guy, maybe 75, lives alone, couple of cats, possibly losing it.

Neighbor: "Hi Dan, do you have a fire extinguisher?"

Me: "Uhhh, yeah. Like right now?"

Neighbor: "Yes, right now"

So I bolt over there with my 3 pound kitchen extinguisher and find a two-foot-square hole in his 6th floor deck. BBQ fire. No flames visible, but I hear crackling and see glowing red embers everywhere inside the deck structure. I blow through the extinguisher in about 5 seconds (there's a joke in there somewhere), time to call the professionals.

Yes, if you're keeping score, that is the second time we got to hang with the Seattle Fire Department in 3 days.

They show up in the truck, three of them go out on to the deck to assess the situation. This is how you would go about "assessing a situation" if you were a firefighter:




One comes back in and says, "There's about to be a lot of noise", and he wasn't talking about the chainsaw.

Apparently they found smoldering within the condo structure, not just the deck. Shit hits the fan. 

Building gets evacuated, and in less than 10 minutes we're surrounded by the best Seattle tax dollars can buy. The SoDo, Capitol Hill, and Belltown fire departments all came to the party. Two ladder trucks, a pumper truck, an ambulance, some sort of hose or maintenance vehicle, two SUV's, 30 firefighters, 1 fire chief, 2 guys that followed said chief around looking equally important, an investigate team taking photos, oh yeah, and don't forget the chaplain. You come both barrels blazing or you don't come at all, homey.

From the ground, we watch as they take over my neighbor's unit, and the unit below his. I overheard the girl from the lower unit say she just got a stripper pole for her 21st birthday and it's installed in her living room. On a different night I'd be intrigued. The firefighters end up hacking away for a half hour or so trying to remove fuel from the fire. At one time I hear one yell to the other "You gotta take a pee?!", which sounds very unmanly coming from a firefighter.

The aftermath:

Luxury, open-air living room. If you have to ask, you can't afford it.

My neighbor is missing half a deck (Double Entendre!).

Standing inside, looking outside.

Truth-Better-Than-Fiction moment of the evening. This was the reading material on my neighbor's coffee table:

Spur Award Winner for Teen Fiction!

All-in-all, not a great weekend for our condo, and likely my homeowner's dues for the foreseeable future.

So, this happened...

Angela and I walked in the door of our condo on Friday evening, and were immediately greeted with the ear piercing screech that is our building's fire alarm. While I'm still trained to ignore the alarm, thanks to dozens of needless evacuations from my time in the dorms, she insisted that we leave.

Once outside, we understood that this was a much larger problem than some jackass pulling a prank.

The unit one floor directly under ours was leaking, badly. From the street, I watched a guy open the sliding glass door to that bedroom and the sidewalk below saw it's first hard rain in months. About a minute later, a young guy and girl came out of the stairwell, soaking wet.

Turns out they thought the sprinkler system was "where the light goes".

In their defense, I'm going to assume that they just moved in (they're students, therefore renters), and finding no overhead lighting, thought that it belonged there. When I first arrived, I thought the same thing, but upon closer inspection it becomes really obvious that it is in fact, a recessed sprinkler system.

I didn't get a chance to ask how they set it off, because by then Seattle's Bravest were on the scene. The firefighters shut off the alarm, but not the water, so we got to return to our unit and observe the carnage from a bird's eye view.

At first, I think they were just throwing buckets:



And then they hooked up some plastic (to the ceiling?):




All in all, I think the sprinkler ran for about half an hour. It sucks for the owner of this unit, and the owners of the four units below them. Based on the amount of sheetrock they ripped out of that unit on Saturday, I doubt those renters are getting their deposits back.

Winner of the Jerk of the Day Award probably goes to me, however, for not warning the lady in the top picture what she was about to get herself into.

Hell, at least they checked before they threw down the heavy stuff.

Things in a Gift Shop: Commandments Edition

______________

I spend a piece of my time volunteering at a local gift shop, these are the things I see.

______________

Heavenly Billy Mays needs to ask:

ARE YOU A SINNER?!?!

ARE YOU WITHOUT THE INNATE ABILITY TO KNOW RIGHT FROM WRONG?!?!

DO YOU HAVE THE MEMORY OF AN ALZHEIMERS PATIENT?!?!?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO ALERT STRANGERS TO THE FACT YOU MIGHT BE BAT SHIT CRAZY?!?!

YOU GOT THE HOOK UP ON SOME BLOW?!?!

If you answered yes to any of these questions, then I have the product for you: 

The Ten Commandments Bracelet

For the LOW, LOW, INCREDIBLY LOW price of $19.95, you can own ALL the greatest hits including: 

Thou Shall Not Covet

Even his mustachioed wife.

Thou Shall Honor Thy Father

Even if you're a daughter but look like a son.

Thou Shall Not Take the Lord's Name In Vain

Even if he's texting while driving.

 

and the always popular:

Thou Shall Not Kill

Even if you have the world's biggest mothereffin gun, yo.

PERFECT for:

Prisons

Frat Houses

Whores

 Rappers

Vegas

Parishioners of Westboro Baptist Church

Congressmen

Grandmothers

...and many more!

So ACT NOW before they're GONE FOREVER!

Most illustrations blatantly ripped off from: www.mathcaddy.com

etopps

This is the story of a bad investment strategy.

If you've ever traded baseball cards, the Topps brand should be familiar to you.  While not the first company to ever make a baseball card, they were any early producer and after over 50 years in business, continue to be synonymous with sports cards. I grew up collecting baseball cards, but gave up the hobby sometime in middle school to concentrate on being awkward around girls.

Back in 2002, I came across the etopps website. etopps is a division within the Topps company that sells baseball cards in a rather unique way. Using an Initial Public Offering system and limited numbers of cards, they sell their product like stock, using eBay as their marketplace to determine the value of each individual card. I was 20 years old back in 2002, so perhaps I was trying to recapture some part of my rapidly waning youth. Or maybe I was intoxicated. Either way, I bought a few cards.

And that was the end of that.

Until a couple weeks ago, 9 years after the fact, when the memory of this transaction came rushing back. I quickly jumped back to the etopps website to inspect what must certainly be my long forgotten baseball card fortune. I mean, gold has risen almost 500% over the last ten years so baseball cards couldn't be far behind. After finally recovering my user name and password (which was mailed to my old undergrad email of which I also had to also recover that password) I was finally in! Here's what I was met with:

Damn.

I think you got a better return investing in the Titanic.

Let me break it down this way: An 18 pack of Rainier is $13, or $.73 per can. For $50 I can buy 68 cans, go on a bender, and then return the empties to Michigan for a dime each, ROI = $6.80.  Instead, I patiently waited nearly a decade to get molested by the Bernie Madoff of online sports card trading, becoming another investor-who-lost-everything sob story. Today, it's hard to get out of bed in the  morning. But please don't worry about me, I'll find a way to put my life back together....someday.

"At least you have some nifty cards to show all your friends!", you say?

Not quite.

When I bought those cards they were "securely stored by etopps in a temperature and humidity-controlled environment". If you actually want to take physical possession of your property, etopps would be happy to ship them to you, for a price:

Yup, that's $12.90 to ship my $5.52 worth of baseball cards.     *sigh*      With my Baseball Card Empire effectively decimated, I decided to explore their site a little more and if you wax nostalgic about what the internet used to look like, I highly recommend you do the same. It was while navigating this Web 1.0 mess that I stumbled into some interesting research tools. These pictures are straight off the site and accessible to anyone:

Just waiting for that 9-year Bear Market to end.

And this encompasses their whole online sports card empire:

That is pretty amazing. Lifetime for the service, they've sold $25.9 million in sports cards that are worth $10.3 today. This is a great business model if you're the business owner, not so much if you're trying to recruit new investors. Sell a product at an inflated price with minimal overhead, and let the buyer / seller market run its course and, apparently, drive the market price down.

Now, one could argue that the upside to the buyer (and value of the etopps service) is that these cards could be worth more in the future, but let's be honest, that's never going to happen. The only time baseball cards were worth anything is when your grandmother threw away your father's childhood collection, creating a shortage. Today, grown men who make $40,000 are buying pictures of other grown men who play a game in which the minimum salary is $414,000 annually. These collectors fill up storage units with "investments" that decay by simply being exposed to oxygen, thinking it's a surefire way to fund their retirement. Plus, have you seen an adult in a baseball card shop? It's embarrassing. 

Case in point.

Anyway, I'm not sure what my next step is here. Should I cut my losses and sell? Or ride out the virtual-baseball-card recession? Perhaps I need to diversify into Beanie Babies.

Welcome To The End of The World

For those of you that thought you had 19 more months until the end of the world in December 2012, Wake Up! The end of the world is mere hours away, and you haven't even gone to see Fast Five yet! Yes, the world will end this Saturday, May 21, 2011.

This May 21 Doomsday really pisses me off for one particular reason: it's my birthday. That being the case, it has me asking important questions: Can you be Raptured if you're as drunk as a homeless person on the first of the month? Will my rudely interrupted celebration be continued in Heaven? If so, can Ol' Dirty Bastard come? If Dirt McGirt ain't in Heaven, count me out. Just kidding, they're not going to let me into Heaven.

The Armageddon talk was started by Family Radio old guy, Harold Camping, who once proclaimed that 1994 was the end of the world. His excuse for that one? "...the biblical evidence for 2011 has greatly solidified. Today there is no longer any question, May 21, 2011 is the day in which Jesus Christ will return." (Family Radio Website). Which really isn't as much of an answer as it is a deflection. You can find more about Camping and Family Radio on Nick's site here.

Apparently the Bible guarantees...that you can learn how to shit in the woods.

Amazingly enough, Mr. Camping does have some science behind his assertions. By science, I mean he assigned arbitrary numbers to arbitrary events in the Bible and multiplied them. Math! You can't argue with math! Further, there are some items of note:

• Apparently in the Bible (going on 3rd party info here), Jesus says that even he doesn't know when the world will end. This, by all reason, makes Mr. Camping smarter than Jesus. 

• The end of the world starts with massive earthquakes as each part of the world hits 6 P.M. Since all of China is one time zone, different than many of the countries it borders, God will have go around it and come back later. Good news is, us people on the West Coast, USA get a nice 19-hour heads-up to start praying for forgiveness... sorry New Zealand. 

• If you're one of these, you ain't goin' nowhere: Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Wiccan, Atheist, Gay, Thief (Yes, Napster counts), Adulterer, Swearer, Kid Toucher, Justin Bieber fan (idols people!), Murderer or Masterbator. Basically, most of us are staying put.

• But we won't be alone. On May 21st, God takes all that are saved, both dead and living. According to nonsense I read on the internet, those dead that aren't saved? Yeah, they get to walk around among the living (zombies are really getting played out). Then, it all comes to a horrifying end on October 21, 2011, when apparently the world is destroyed and we all go to hell(?). Guess I'll be taking next quarter off from b-school.

Gee-Dub is gonna be there, will you?

Sadly, it's all fun and games until real people are involved. In this NPR article you find some entertaining, albeit not very bright, believers being interviewed:

Mrs. Martinez, 27, says "We budgeted everything so that, on May 21, we won't have anything left." With a two year old daughter and pregnant with another due in June. Crossing my fingers that they believe life begins at conception, otherwise, awk-ward. In all seriousness, CPS better have them scheduled for a home visit on May 22nd.

Mr. Hauburt is 33 and an actuary. Actuaries employ math to predict probabilities of events and assign levels of risk, often in insurance and financial industries. It takes many years of education in math, science, or business and you are required to pass multiple lengthy tests to be certified. This man's whole job is to predict events with pinpoint certainty, and he's 100% sure that Jesus is taking him to Heaven this week. What an asshole.

Overall, I'm split on this one. Rationally, I just don't see it happening. On the other hand, I moved my birthday celebration to the 20th, you know, just in case. If the world must end we might as well shorten up a hangover day. God Bless.

Drunk Olympics

Blatantly stolen off the internet, not that it couldn't be any of us.

My buddy Neil is getting married soon.

Couple months back, I got an email from his Best Man, Tom, explaining how the bachelor party was going to go down. You see, he rented a party bus and put together a multitude of events all over the Bay Area. All 13 men involved would be required to perform intoxicated feats of athleticism, and get graded on their performance, an Irishman's Combine if you will. Since I was the only kid cut from my junior high school football team, I was instantly nervous.

On April 16th, party-goers from around the country descended on the Holiday Inn, Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco, to prove they had what it took to be a champion. Here is how it went down for me:

10:00 AM: Bus departs from hotel

10:01 AM: Beer 1

10:24 AM: Beer 2

10:52 AM: Arrive at practice facility of an unnamed NFL team whose "fans" may or may not adorn themselves with human skulls.

Location: Alameda, CA

Event 1: Kick a field goal from the 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 yard lines
My Result: 0/5
Recap: When I didn't put the first ball in from the 5, I new it was over. The last four distances were all about me making contact without pulling my groin. The winner hit 2/5, and a lot of guys missed all 5.
Current Ranking: Tied for 7th which, due to everyone being bunched up at the bottom, is last place


Event 2: How far can you throw a football?
My Result: 38 yards
Recap: I knew for sure I wasn't going to come in last here, but I may have gotten a little cocky. Ended up in 3rd from last. Yay me.
Current Ranking: 11th

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. You want me to throw how far?"

11:48 AM: Back on Bus

11:49 AM: Beer 3

12:01 PM: Arrive at city park

Location: Hayward, CA

Event 3: Homerun Derby
My Result: 1 Homerun
Recap: I was shocked to score a point in this competition, I'm not what you would consider a power hitter. I prefer to liken myself to David Eckstein, except without the speed, fielding ability, or overall talent. Everyone got 6 pitches, many didn't hit any HR's.
Current Ranking: 11th

12:25 PM: Beer 4

Event 4: 3-Point Competition
My Result: 0/10
Recap: This was rough. In the timeline of my life, I was still using a nightlight after the age I completely gave up on the sport of basketball. Needless to say, this was a damn train wreck. 10 shots, I missed the rim 6 times. I tried to get everyone to call me "The Professor". Nobody would.
Current Ranking: 13

Said Professor.

12:34 PM: Back on the bus

12:34 PM: Beer 5

12:43 PM: Beer 6

1:05 PM: Arrive at the "Ya'll Come Back Now Saloon"

Location: Pleaston, CA

Event 5: Darts
My Result: 26
Recap: Three throws, total up the points. I had all 3 darts stick, ended up with a shitty score. Some guys only got one dart to stick, and still beat me. About this time it begins to dawn on me that my fate is last place.
Current Ranking: 13th

That being said:

1:06 PM: Beer 7

1:17 PM: 20 piece chicken nuggets from Burger King

1:46 PM: Arrive at Boomers! Family Fun Center

Event 6: 18 Hole Mini Golf
My Result: 49
Recap: I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to the fine patrons of Boomers. This place was packed with children's birthday parties. Since I knew this may be my last chance to dig myself out of the points hole I was in, I took it about as serious as cancer. Extra apology to the 7 year old kid and his mother who had to listen to my four-letter-concentrated diatribe after missing par on the 13th hole. But hell, what's a kid doing on the course anyway? Tip: The place to hang if you want to pick up single moms.
Current Ranking: 10 (Sweet!)

2:48 PM: Back on the bus

2:48 PM: Beer 8

2:56 PM: Beer 9

Location: Ruby Hills Country Club, Pleasonton CA

Event 7: 125 Yards, Closest To The Pin
My Result:  Last
Recap: I was feeling loose, I was feeling good. I shanked two shots 125 yards to the right of the hole.
Current Ranking: 12

Groom's brother felt bad so he bought me...

3:25 PM: Beer 10 (Aren't drink cart girls supposed to be cute?)

3:40 PM: Back on the bus

3:45 PM: Beer 11

4:03 PM: Beer 12

4:45 PM: Beer 13

Location: Earl Anthony's Dublin Bowl, Dublin CA
Event 8: Bowling
My Result: 98
Recap: With a sad 98, I get leapfrogged by the guy in last place. I am all alone in the cellar.

Last Place Trophy.

5:22 PM: Celebratory Tequila Shot

5:34 PM: Beer 14

5:56 PM: Beer 15

Location: Back at the Hotel. I became unconscious for several hours, when I woke up everyone was gone. But, I found them at a local bar playing flip cup.

Bonus Event!

5 wins in 6 attempts. I finally found an athletic competition I can be successful at. However, that was also Beer 16, Beer 17, Beer 18.

Dinner and one last bar...

10:23 PM: Beer 19

And apparently after an hour and a half I thought this was a good idea...

11:56 PM: Beer 20

1:30: Bed

Overall, it was a well organized and executed day by the Best Man.  Everyone had a great time, both winners and losers. Hopefully we can recreate the magic at the wedding and get the ladies involved. I'm sure I can beat some of them at something.

Finally, I'd like to apologize to my dad for for being a failure at sports....my mom, for drinking too much beer... my wife for ignoring her request to get anything but last place...and any potential future employers for showing bad sense of judgment in posting this.