Back To The Salt Mine

OK, so this is kind of a study in work- life balance so now I'm tipping the scales too far today. I spent the day traveling a couple hundred miles to see customers and now some schoolwork. I did take 25 minutes to decompress- boy did it help!

It was some bad weather driving and my rig is not so good in the snow (rear wheel drive) so it was a bit tricky.

Now I'm back researching articles for a benchmarking assignment at school on cash management strategies. Hopefully it is more interesting than it sounds.......

I heard Bill Gates will be on the Daily Show today (Vista Launch) so hopefully that will be good for some laughs.

Fried Router Anyone?

I forgot to mention I think I fried my old fashioned Linksys router. Couldn't seem to keep it on and would not reset so I replaced it with a Linksys WRT54GS. Setup was like 30 minutes of work and 28 minutes of my over-thinking it. Well it works great and my company brick was able to connect for more than 4 minutes ( the previous record ) to the wireless network. So I pulled one of my APs off and reshuffled the antennas and bingo - back in business.

I love WiFi....

36 Hours of Bliss

I was fortunate enough to power through some classwork while traveling this week to carve out 36 hours of time this weekend with no firm demands on my time. It sure was unusual and I'm glad I could do it. Quite a sanity-saver.

I'm digging in to a supply chain / business optimization course right now so I'll be chewing on more numbers and formulas for a little longer.

I'm posting this and then going to kill some time on iTunes or something...

Cover Bands Don't Change The World

I heard a great quote this week. I was listening to a new podcast and the content was about being creative and solving problems. The quote was mentioned in this context and really is true. I can't begin to tell you how I can relate. Going down the same path is comfortable for us but seldom gives an original view.

One of the best things I used to do before I started my MBA ( and it sucked up all my spare time) was just to reflect for 20 minutes in the early morning. I found as I skipped this time, new ideas were hard for me to come by.

I'm going to try and get started again this week just to regain my sanity during the next 24 weeks. Wish me luck.

Getting ready for the next class.

I'm pretty happy with the end of my finance class. Pretty tough as I still hate the math part. I understand the concepts and was pretty happy that I could run all the calculations and make sense of it all.

Hopefully they still have accountants for the heavy lifting though.......

Starting a course on supply chain right after this one. Not even 24 hours off. Got to stay on track to make my deadline ( self-imposed of course).

Press on..

26 Pages Later!

In my attempt to finish my MBA finance class paper early I find myself blearly eyed but satisfied with the 26 pages. No one will ever accuse me of being Warren Buffett but I'm cool with that.

It really brought the class together and I certainly learned a great deal. Looking forward to relaxing the rest of the weekend before turning in the paper.

Halo anyone??

WACC, CAPM & the lightbulb time of my MBA

I have been spending a great deal of time this week preparing for my final paper in a finance MBA class. I was up late last night and early AM this morning to crunch numbers for an acquisition case study I'm doing.

Every time I think I'll like math I find out that, no. I don't. Still don't, probably never.

I was certainly lost at C. Jean Shepherd fans will understand that one....

But early this morning I crunched and crunched and think I finally made sense of it all. Now I have to develop the paper due in 5 days. It is only about 20 pages so it should go quick. Once my thoughts are in order I can really run with it.

That is it for today.