Harvard

Now almost 6 years removed from college, I have yet to give any money
directly to the University. I have given to a couple of school related
organizations and I gave in support of my fifth reunion, but have been
extremely unhappy with Harvard's financial aid system. The system has
saddled lower and middle income students with large loans while ever
growing its endowment (through both investment returns and donations)
to help fund University operations and research. While I was fortunate
enough to avoid these loans, many of my friends were not and were
forced to make difficult decisions about careers in education, public
service, etc. to be sure they could make loan payments.

That system, as of now, is gone. While reading last week's Economist,
I learned that Harvard has followed Princeton's lead and essentially
made school free for everyone except upper income and wealthy
families. Families who make $60k a year pay nothing. Families making
up to $200k a year pay an average of 10% of their income. This makes
me extremely happy and very open to giving back.

I guess my liberalism leads me to believe generally in progressive
payment schemes. While I hate paying taxes as much as anyone, I am
willing to recognize that the opportunities provided by being a US
citizen aren't and shouldn't be free. If you benefit greatly from the
system in place, its your patriotic duty to contribute to keep that
system going. Everyone has a different entry point into that system.

Not everyone is born into equal circumstances (or "wins the birth
lottery" to quote the Sage of Omaha...or Oracle of Omaha...Warren
Buffet). Education can really be the great equalizer and I honestly
believe there is no greater institution of learning than Harvard. And
the reason I use the lame term "institution of learning" is because
there is way more to Harvard than just the buildings and classes. The
greatest thing about my experience at Harvard was the people I
met...the students, the professors, the staff, administrators,
coaches, etc. I believe Harvard has one of the brightest, kindest,
sharpest, wittiest collection of people on the planet. People who
leave can and do go on to do many amazing things in the world.

Aside from banking and consulting, graduates go on to share knowledge,
humility, kindness, etc with people all over the country and the
world. To limit these opportunities to only those who couls afford the
price of education or to saddle lower income students with massive
debt, keeping them from exploring their own opportunities to give back
would be, and was, disappointing and a little bit shameful. This new
policy corrects some of that.

While I am disappointed that Harvard did not lead this shift
(Princeton made this change in 2001...Yale, ever full of followers,
followed Harvard's lead this year), I am extremely happy that it has
happened. Happy enough to start writing checks.

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Markets

I think we could be in for a massive market meltdown next week. Futures market are currently pricing in a 100 % probability of a Fed cut on Wednesday, which I don't believe is going to happen. The markets (except for yesterday) have been unable to sustain any rally. No one wants to step in and buy stocks while unsure of economic figures.

Microsoft (MSFT) blew out numbers and raised guidance saying they aren't really seeing the effect of a slowdown and the stock opened up 5% only to finish the day in the red.

To me, this signals total implosion. If the Fed doesn't cut rates, the markets won't be happy. If they cut rates again after the emergency cut only 8 days prior, it signals the economy must be really ephed. People need to get more bearish still, so I think we are going lower.

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Morning Commute: Weeknight Drinking

I think there is a very intuitive way to overcome going to work hungover when you want to go out for (many) drinks after work: don't go out for drinks after work. Its not so much how many drinks you have or how drunk you get, but more of a function of how late you will be out and how early you have to get up.

Last night we hit Parish Cafe, maybe my favorite spot in Boston. I got there at about 9:30 and had 6 beers over the course of 3 hours. Not a little, but not enough to get me drunk. We got home at about 1am. This means I didn't get to sleep until about 1:30am. My standard wake up time is 6:35 (to allow for the previously mentioned double snooze). That means about five hours of sleep.

As I've mentioned before, I barely function without eight sober hours of sleep, so there is no way I feel human after a few drinks and five hours. Even if I only had one drink last night, it still would have only been five hours of sleep. This zombie-like trance I'm stuck in is only avoidable with a reasonable bedtime, which is near impossible when mixed with post-work cocktails.

I'll just have to go back to taking the weeknights off and doubling my consumption on the weekends.

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Routine

How come I can get into some routines and not others?  And how come I can't break the ones I want to the most?  I guess the second kind falls more into the "habit" category than the "routine" category, but really, what's the difference?

Why am I eating dinner from the same place nearly every night of the week?  Grummings would say its because one of the girls behind the counter is really cute and because I'm trying to figure out how to ask her to drinks without notifying everyone else there. That may be part of it. I mainly think its because its on my way home, cheap, tasty and a bakery. Sandwhiches, coffee and cookies...perfect for any meal.

What about in the morning with the snooze button?  Why do I snooze twice everyday?  Why not just set the alarm clock 18 minutes later?  Or, better yet, why not just get up on time?  I used to try to convince myself that each snooze woke me up a little bit more, so I would be more "awake" when I was finally awake, making me less grumpy. This is totally false. I'm grumpy no matter when I wake up (its genetic, sorry mgp) and snoozing only makes it worse. Plus, at one point, my snoozing only served to make HB very grumpy, as she didn't need to get up for another hour...forget about in another 9 minutes (or 7, I can't remember how long her snooze was).

And what about the whole email checking/page refreshing routine?  Or the checking of the same websites twice (ok, thrice) each day?  I have a theory on the biological reasons for this (which can be found in the chapter "Death of My Attention Span" in my unpublished book). I want to stop, really. But each morning, when I get to work, I check those sites and click refresh on my email.

Its not that I don't have willpower. I do. I've quit a lot of things. Its just that these things...they are so...routine.

Ugh, that was terrible. Really bad.

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Morning Commute: Sleep

I used to be one of those kids who could sleep for like four hours a night and still run around bursting with energy all day. And when I say kid, I don't mean five years old, I'm referring to my years as an (awkward) teenager. I would stay up until 1am or 2am (for no real reason) and then get up at 6:30am to get ready for school. As an aside, I can't believe high school started at 7:40am...how did I ever make it on time?

Somewhere along the way, though, I seemed to have trained myself to need 8 hours. I'm not exactly sure when it was. When I was in LA, I needed to be up early for each of my three jobs and I tended to go out during the week...late...a lot. Maybe its HB's fault. She used to go to bed early and sleep late, a dynamic I was sort of forced to follow by the dynamic of our relationship. Sleeping 8 hours a night does feel really nice. You just feel so fresh in the morning. I never used to require coffee to get me going in the morning, but now I'm a zombie without it (though I do love the coffee at Grass Roots).

I'm not sure if I can reverse this cycle/affect/disability, but I'd sure like to. I'm lucky to get 6 hours during the work week...and there's no Brass Monkey involved.

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Data Entry

It fries my brain and consumes massive quantities of time. But honestly, it's the best way to learn a lot of these numbers. It's not like I'm just dumping numbers into a sheet, I'm building a comp table/consensus model for about 150 different companies, so there is definitely some value being added...theoretically by me.

Heath Ledger

So it came across the wire a little bit ago that Heath Ledger was found dead in an apartment (its unclear at the moment whose apartment it was). He was apparently found naked and surrounded by pills, so the authorities aren't ruling out suicide. I'd read a few interviews with him lately in which he seemed less than thrilled with where he was in his life. I hate to think that his role as the Joker in the new Batman film might have served to only push him into a state of despair. I just feel so bad for him and his 2 year old daughter.

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Superbowl

Its pretty insane that the 18-0 Patriots will play the winners of 10 straight road games Giants in the Superbowl. The Green Bay loss should ensure relatively even-handed officiating in what I assume will be the most watched Superbowl ever.

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Elisha

Have to say I'm pretty impressed with Eli Manning's 1st half performance. He's one Burress drop away from heading to the locker room with a lead.  Too bad his full name is Elisha.

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BlackBerry

I can be careless. Or as some like to tell me (and as I'll admit) I am an idiot. "The dumbest smart person I know" has been used as well. I usually don't argue with this moniker. In truth, my common sense died a quick death following the slow death of my attention span. Its a sad story, really.

Why do I bring this up?  Because like an idiot I lost my BlackBerry on Friday night. Really, it was stupid. I was in a cab, on my way to meet my brother-in-law at the best bar in NYC. I took out my BB (which also serves as my phone) to call him and let him know I was on my way. I looked up before dialing and realized I was close enough at that point that it wasn't worth calling. I then (I though) put BB back in my pocket. I got out of the cab, entered the best bar in NYC and went to say hello.

Almost immediately, I knew my phone was missing. Its weirs, but I think once you become addicted to the BlackBerry, it sort of becomes a piece of you. I ran outside to see if it was on the ground near where I exited the cab. No luck. I went inside and started calling it. At first, it rang a few times before going to voicemail. Soon, it began going straight to voicemail. Either it was out of a service area or the battery was dead or it had been turned off. I wasn't sure which.

Then I remembered the little ownership thing on it has this message, "If found, please call grill at xxx-xxx-xxxx (my work number)". So I check my work voicemail. Nothing. At this point, its late enough that I refocus on drinking and shuffleboard. There is nothing I can do the rest of the night...well, nothing I can do about my BlackBerry, plenty I can do otherwise.

The next morning, I try calling it again and then calling my work voicemail again; nothing. Now I have to resign myself to getting a new device. I check to make sure that there is nothing special I need do, related to the corporate account and head to the T-Mobile store.  My choices were simple: Curve or Pearl. I'm not even sure they make my clunky old 8700 any longer. Maybe I could have gotten a refurbished one, but what the hell. Since I long ago swore off "intelli-type," I went with the Curve. I think the guys at RIM are really sharp and they've done the best one can do with smart-typing software, but its just too annoying to deal with. Considering the full keyboard, the Curve isn't even really that much bigger than the Pearl anyway.

Now that I've been using this thing for 24 hours, I have to say that I really like it. I'm still not used to the little trackball in the middle (I think I'm still a fan of the side scroll wheel), but u think a number of other features stand out. The keyboard keys are smaller than the 8700, but are spaced and shaped in such a way that makes the typing easier. The screen is brighter and larger, allowing for more icons per row, which means less overall scrolling. They've separated the BlackBerry menu call up into a separate key, which took some getting used to, but I know that once I get used to it, it will be better. It has a microSD slot and a 2Mp camera, so I can take pictures whenever.

All in all, losing my BlackBerry was a pain, but at least the replacement product is good. At least, that's what I'll tell myself when the credit card bill arrives.

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