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February 24, 2007
nerdvana
I got the multimedia computer hooked up to the TV, and I'm writing this entry from the living room couch via the wireless keyboard.
A minute ago I was watching an outtake from Mythbusters, a TV show, on my computer, which was hooked up to the TV. It was very meta. It is also Nerdvana.
Posted by Mark at 09:58 PM | Comments (1)
February 21, 2007
lent, cube, finance
I don't always give something up for Lent, but this year I'm going to use it as an opportunity for some personal growth. I'm going to give up mid-week beers at home...not on weekends or when going out to dinner with friends, or when meeting up with classmates after class for a few pints at Cornwall's. Rather, I'm giving up the Wednesday-night "oh geez I had a long day I'll have a beer and watch TV" beers. Since I've been going back to the gym, drinking definitely has a negative impact on muscle growth, and I need to find other ways to blow off steam.
Glad people like the pics of the condo. One thing that's important to note is that only the study and bathroom have been painted so far. We still have to do the rest. But the nice thing about hanging stuff on the walls before we paint is that we can get a feel for whether or not we like where things are without worrying about putting a whole bunch of holes in a freshly-painted wall.
I have a new cubicle at work. It's much bigger, adjacent to my old cube, and has a window view. It's actually the nicest and biggest "office" I've had since I left Phillips. I love having some space to spread out, and because I'm tucked away in a corner, I don't have people constantly walking by.
In many ways, being at this job is like going back to the start of my career...like getting a chance to start over. I really like working here. I was thinking the other day how odd it is that I haven't dreaded going to work in a long time. I actually enjoy coming in, working on projects, getting things accomplished. It's a good feeling.
Grad school continues. Marketing is challenging in a weird way: it's not so much that we're learning formulas and rules, it's that we're doing case studies and learning to think about solving problems in a certain way. It's time-consuming and a little frustrating, but useful.
Finance is all about formulas and calculations, but those are also useful. And the formulas are teaching certain concepts, like the time-value of money, which is pretty cool.
To summarize, $1000 today is not worth $1000 in ten years. Money that you have today is always worth more than money you will get tomorrow, because money you have today is a tool that you can use to make more money through investments. Also, because of inflation, $1000 in ten years will not buy as many goods and services as $1000 today. You can actually estimate the value of getting $1000 in ten years (a "future cash flow") by applying a discount rate, which is the rate you think you can get by investing that $1000 today. So if you think you could get, say, a 4% interest rate on $1000 today by putting your money in an ING Direct account or something, you plug the numbers into your handy financial calculator and discover that $1000 today is worth $1480 in ten years. In other words, somebody promising your $1480 in ten years is the same thing as them promising you $1000 today, assuming you can get 4% interest on that $1000. On the other hand, $1000 in ten years is worth only $675 today, assuming the same 4% interest.
It's not exact, because you have to estimate what kind of rate of return you think you are going to be able to get, but that's finance for you. I just think it's kinda cool to think of money as a tool.
Posted by Mark at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2007
condo pics
There is a theory about procrastination: The best way to get yourself to do something you don't feel like doing, is to come up with something you want to do even less.
Because I don't want to do my corporate finance spreadsheet, I am going to post some pictures of the condo.
(Also, I don't think the comma in my opening sentence is strictly kosher vis-a-vis the rules of grammar, but I felt it clarified what I was trying to say. Frankly, this blog is more colloquial/conversational anyway. Also, the rules of English are like speed limits: when you're driving a Porche, you get a little leeway.)
First, the kitchen. Shots are from early in the move, and then some taken today:
Next, the entrance foyer. Same deal; one early shot, one from tonight:
The bedroom:
The living room:
The bathroom:
And the study:
A bonus pic of my new awesome cold cathode case lights:
And a bonus pic of the kitchen with just the stove light on:
We've come a long way.
Posted by Mark at 09:26 PM | Comments (2)
February 16, 2007
valentimes, snow, visit, computers
I got Kara a new toilet seat for Valentine's Day. She was very appreciative.
Of course, I got her other stuff too, including a set of Bliss bath soaps and lotions and things, which she really likes. And the standard chocolates and whatnot.
The toilet seat was the best part though. I wrapped it and everything.
She got me some boxers with hearts on them and a copy of Anchorman on DVD. We watched it this past weekend, and I love that movie. She also gave me the bottle of Dinosaur Barbeque Devil's Duel hot sauce that I actually bought last time we were in Syracuse, but which fell out of the bag and has been rolling around the floor of her car for several months now. That is my new favorite hot sauce. I've already eaten most of the bottle.
We actually got to spend Valentine's Day together at home on account of the Great Valentine's Day Blizzard of '07. It really wasn't much of a storm. It was a wet, miserable snow that froze overnight and left us both our cars covered in a solid shell of ice. It was like one of those insects that molts and leaves its skin behind; if you could have somehow heated the car to the point where the ice stopped clinging, you could have left a perfect mold of your vehicle behind.
So both of us worked from home, and class at BU was actually cancelled that night too. We spent part of the day hanging up artwork around the condo and doing some cleanup. The place is looking good.
I have mixed feelings about missing class. On one hand, I don't like to have it be cancelled because I'm paying for it. On the other hand...marketing. And the case studies we are talking about this week are flat-out stupid. So I'm kinda glad to have had the week off.
Ok, I never did talk about Matt's visit. I'm working out a standardized visit schedule for when people come to see me. There are probably 3 to 5 "visit-class" restaurants that I think bring out some of the best of Boston food and culture, so a selection of those are always on the list. Also on the list are some of the tourist spots you have to see, like Cheers and the Public Garden. And Sunday is always a good day to visit Rockport.
We started on Friday with me taking the day off and picking Matt up from the airport at noon, at which point we took a driving tour of the city for about an hour and a half. We hit Southie, downtown, the North End, and just generally went through some of the historically significant areas. Lunch was at Boston Beer Works near Fenway, where we sampled several flights of different beers, a theme that was to continue through the weekend.
Then we went back to the condo. We took the T down to the Union Oyster House for dinner, where Matt had his first real lobster (bib and all!) and we had a brief scare that he may have left his ID back at the condo. Thankfully, this was not the case, and we went to The Black Rose for some authentic Irish Bar singalongs and Guinness. We ended the night with a T ride back to Harry's, which has a blinking sign inside not unlike the Aqua Teen Hunger Force signs that Boston's Finest mistook for Terrist Nukes.
Saturday was the Extreme Beer Fest, which was indeed Extreme. The beers there were all out of the ordinary: I think the average alcohol content was somewhere around 9% (most "normal" beer is between 4 and 5 percent), and there were a lot of odd flavors and strange recipes. There was beer that tasted like popcorn, raspberries, sour patch kids, and who knows what else. Halfway through we had a lunch catered by Sunset Grille which consisted of the Best Chili Ever and a soft pretzel stuffed with cheese.
As one aside, real beer enthusiasts are some of the most fun people around. Just a great, fun crowd. You would think that with 1000 people all drinking really strong beer, things would get a little tense, but we shared a lot of laughs with random folks. At one point we were talking with a guy and his wife about a beer that tasted a bit like bacon, and we were talking about the awesomeness that is bacon, and all the things that could be improved by adding bacon to them, or something like that. She said, "I don't know, that sounds like a little too much bacon," and he and I said, in perfect unrehearsed unison, "There's no such thing as too much bacon!"
After the Beer Fest, we somehow stumbled through the Public Garden, where the pond was frozen, and we had a neat time walking across it. While in the area, we decided to have a pint in Cheers, and from there, we somehow managed to meet Kara at the Publick House for dinner and still more beers. We capped off the night by renting Anchorman and then watching some Monty Python DVDs.
On Sunday, we headed up to Rockport, stopping at Sunset Cantina on the way for lunch. We took a driving tour of Gloucester, where Gorton's fish sticks are made, and then went to downtown Rockport. We stopped at the beach and I showed Matt where I proposed to Kara, and he was able to touch the very cold Atlantic ocean. Like me before I moved to MA, he hasn't spent much time at the beach, so it was nice for him to be able to see the ocean. I introduced him to Kara's mum, and then all of us went to a Tex-Mex place in Gloucester for a delicious dinner. Then we dropped him off at Logan and he was on his way.
It was good to have him in town, and I think I may have convinced him to move up here in a few years! I'm not surprised that he fell in love with the place on his first visit. I felt exactly the same way the first time I came up here. Boston is really a great city.
I played a little Unreal Tournament last night, and it felt good to play computer games again. I've been on a bit of a hiatus thanks to the move. I actually ordered some stuff off of Newegg because my old headphones broke, and Kara tends to study in the office, so it would be nice to be able to play games while I'm hanging out in there with her. I also ordered an S-video cable for the TV computer, a retractable USB notebook mouse, and some blue lights for the inside of my case. I'm keeping the case on the top of my desk now, so I want it to look cool.
Posted by Mark at 10:25 AM | Comments (0)
February 12, 2007
extreme beer fest!
Matt was in town this weekend for Extreme Beer Fest, and what a fest it was. More details to come, but for now, here's the list of 34 beers we tried, along with selected tasting notes:
- Smuttynose - The Gnome
- Berkshire Brewing - Raspberry Strong Ale (something like a pound of berries per gallon or whatnot)
- Avery - Imperial Stout
- Stone Coast - 840 Imperial IPA Bourbon (beer aged in a bourbon cask; definitely tasted like whiskey
- Offshore Brewing - Hop Goddess
- Kuhnhenn Brewing Co. - Wheat Wine
- Troegs - Nugget Nectar (heavily hopped, but somehow not bitter in the slightest)
- Harpoon - Wild Turkey 100 Barrel Series (another whiskey-cask-aged beer)
- Iron Hill - Framboise
- Molly's Tavern - Currant Affair (tasted like buttered movie popcorn)
- Molly's Tavern - Labyrinth (inspired by the city of Brugge, Belgium)
- John Harvard - Demon DPA
- Rogue - Imperial IPA
- Allagash - Tripel
- Stone - Double Bastard
- Big Ready Beer - Old Chub (one of a few canned beers there)
- Flatbread - Winter Gruit Ale
- Sixpoint - Bolshoi Russian Imperial Stout
- Boulder Beer - Killer Penguin
- Goose Island - Special Ed
- Dogfish Head - Red + White
- Dogfish Head - Pangea (ingredients from every continent including water from Antarctica)
- Dogfish Head - Raison d'Extra
- Slyfox - Saison
- Rock Art - Magnumus ete Tomahawker
- Anheuser-Busch - Barleywine
- Cisco - Twelve
- Lagunitas - Maximus
- The Tap - Erebus (like sweet corn)
- Newport Storm - Strong Ale
- Magic Hat - Belgian Sour Red (reminded us of the smell of 4th of July sparklers)
- Weyerbacher - Heresy
- Avery - Grand Cru
- Smuttynose - Chai Porter (real chai tea taste)
Some really great beers.
Posted by Mark at 04:05 PM | Comments (4)
February 07, 2007
continuance, Matt, charity
Once again, same old, same old. We go to work, we come home, we make dinner, we work on the condo, we go to sleep, lather, rinse, repeat. The place is coming along and every day we empty out another box, hang another decoration on the wall, or set up another piece of consumer electronics. I'll have to put up those pics one of these days.
Matt is coming to town this weekend for his first visit ever to Boston. I have a full itinerary of exciting stuff lined up, including dinner at the Union Oyster House, the Extreme Beer Fest, a visit to Rockport, and general driving/walking around (depending on how cold it is).
Work is going well and I'm getting stuff done. Class has started to settle into a routine, although it's a bit harder to have class on back-to-back days. I usually like to have the night before class to prepare, and I can't do that with Marketing on Wednesday nights and Finance on Thursdays. I try to get work done on schoolwork while I'm at the office, but it's not always possible.
I'm trying to go to the gym on a regular basis and I'm really enjoying it. I'm already feeling some results. We've been carrying boxes up and down and I haven't been feeling nearly as winded or sore from just lifting a couple Rubbermaid containers full of Christmas decorations. I need to take one of those "before" and "after" pics so I remember not to get this fat again.
We are literally giving away wheelbarrows full of old stuff to charity. I told Kara last night that despite it being a bit annoying that we've been here for months and we still have boxes stacked up, between us we have 14 combined years of living with separate groups of people and/or being heads of households. More or less. So we have a ton of duplicated stuff, or things that we just don't have the space/need for anymore. Some of it is useful to other people, and some of it is just trash, unfortunately. It's been a challenge to get through it all. Goodwill and the Salvation Army get the benefit of our excess.
LOST starts up again tonight. I personally am liking the later start time, since I have class until 9 p.m. on Wednesdays.
Posted by Mark at 10:06 AM | Comments (1)