First day back from spring break in St. Croix USVI and I'm already back into the grind with our first New Venture Challenge class from 6:00 - 9:00pm on Monday nights...but I'll get more into that later. Now for more interesting stuff...
St. Croix was awesome and a nice respite from both the weather and schedule back in Chicago. Here's a recap of our week events.
Monday
Took the Big Beard Renegade out to Buck Island accompanied by two dolphins the entire trip!
The Buck Island coral reef is amazing and according to National Geographic it's one of the top 10 places to snorkel in the world. The reef is so dense that there are just a few paths to get from the interior of the reef to the outside and the park management put in tiles on the ocean floor to guide swimmers in and out of the reef. While snorkeling we also saw 5 huge barracuda.
On the trip we met Lindsey and Steve who recommended Dashi restaurant on Company street for good sushi. Dashi was okay, the sushi rice was hard and practically unedable, but the flying fish tempura “Tabiko” was amazing and so was the Escolar. We enjoyed the escolar so much that we ordered an extra five pieces of Escolar sashimi.
Tuesday
We explored Christiansted some and stopped for lunch at “Luncheria” and outdoor taco stand on King street. The food is good and super cheap there. Two tacos are $3.00 and we enjoyed awesome $1.50 Margaritas, which introduced us to the foreign concept of the “stateside pour.” Apparently, on the island alcohol is cheaper than soda or mixers so you tipically get a drink with 75% rum and 25% mixer. I guess if you’re an alcholic, St. Croix is the wrong place to go for recovery! That evening we took our hostess at the Breakfast Club (where we were staying) out for dinner at Duggan's Reef Restaurant, which was recommended to us by Leslie and Sarah, two sisters we met at Luncheria who were locals on the island. We were craving lobster and ordered a 1.5lb lobster surf and turf with filet mignon - fantastic! After dinner we went out to Hotel on the Cay for drinks and to listen to some live Caribbean music. Hotel on the Cay is actually located on a Cay right off of Christiansted harbor and you have to take ferry ($3.00 round trip) out to). The place was absolutely packed and we could barely find a table to sit at. While hanging out we met Nicki and Floyd, the couple who owns Carrington's Inn, who were both really nice and invited us to hang out later on that week.
Wednesday
I booked two morning scuba dives. The first dive was at a point called Steve's Gentle Winds. We did a 60-70 foot dive to see some awesome coral. Due to Hurrican Hugo much of the more shallow coral (at Buck Island) was destroyed, but here the coral was still in tact and beautiful. Our second dive was a "Blue Shoot" where the island's only ship wreck is located. The dive was a bit shallower 45-60ft, but the visibility was amazing. The water was so clear it was looking into an aquarium! The ship wreck was alright and apparently there was a huge eel that lived around it (which some idiotic dive operators were luring out by feeding it), so our dive master was quick to warn us not to extend our fingers if we did encounter the eel. Unfortunately, the eel was no where to be found, but exploring the wreck was really cool.
That evening we had cocktails (white Sangria) at Savant and then headed over to Bacchus for dinner. On Wednesdays they have by one get one free bottles of wine, so we ordered a bottle of Pine Ridge Chardonnay and followed up with a Edmeads Zinfandel, which paired with my veal shank very well. Fortunately St. Croix law allows you to take your unfinished wine home, so we had a little left over for dinner the following night. For dessert we had the bread pudding - fabulous and highly recommended.
Thursday
We spent the day traversing the St. Croix rain forests, coast, and tide pools in a jeep with Tam Tam Tours. This is a ton of fun. Your driver took us four wheeling through the jungle and up to the mountain peaks where you can see the other Virgin Islands and almost all of St. Croix. We also hiked out to the tide pools, visited Canes Bay, and then went to the Domino Club where the beer drinking pigs are located. The woman who owns the club brews her own liquor (kind of like moonshine) but with honey. It's really potent stuff (alcohol wise), but delicious. I then bought a couple of O'Doul's beers (they won't feed the pigs regular beer because the last pig died of kidney failure). Here's a video of us feeding beer to the pigs...
Friday
We drove the island and went snorkeling at Canes Bay (where the famous "wall" is located). We didn't get to dive the wall, but we did do a lot of snorkeling and saw a huge sting ray and found an enormous puffer fish hiding in a cave. After snorkeling we enjoyed a drink out at the beach bar and then headed back to Christiansted. That night we had an awesome dinner at Savant Restaurant, and enjoyed a bottle of 2000 Joseph Phelps Le Mistral which we found at a small wine shop in Harrisburg, PA. Savant has a really cool patio in the back and we got a prime table. The food was fantastic and I had the mahi puff pastry stuffed with ricotta and taragon. If you're ever in St. Croix, I highly recommend visiting Savant, their wine list isn't the best (Bacchus is much better), but the food, service, and ambiance cannot be beat!
Saturday
Sadly we have to fly back to Chicago...
Friday, March 16, 2007
I can't believe the winter quarter has already come to an end! It feels spectacular to just sit around watching march madness (Illinois vs. Virginia Tech)...BTW go Fighting Illini! Please don't break my bracket! I already guessed wrong on BC, Old Dominion, and Duke (still can't believe that one), but I don't think my chances of coming away with the $620 GSB pot are looking good right now. It is just the first round, and I have all my final four seeds still in play, but then again, so does everyone else.
Well, I'm glad to announce that internship recruiting has finally come to an end for me. Boy that was a brutal process, although I'm quite happy with my results. I received five offers and ended up having to choose between Apple, P&G, and United Airlines. All great companies, and it was a very difficult decision, but I'll be going to United Airlines for the summer. It's nice because they're located in Chicago, I really liked everyone I met during my interviews, and the benefits are...should I say AWESOME? I can't wait to spend my weekends laying on the beach in Sao Paulo or Santiago...the options seem limitless.
Speaking of which my fiance and I are headed to St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands) for spring break. We leave tomorrow flying first class through Charlotte, and there's a huge noreaster coming through Pennsylvania right now, which I hope doesn't impact our flight tomorrow.
Let's see the classes during winter quarter have all been good, with the exception of investments, which was both difficult (I still confuse myself with bond duration and convexity problems), and recruiting took a lot of time away from studying. My favorite class this quarter was Harry Davis's Business Policy class. I can sum up how awesome this class in one sentence: During week seven, Prof Davis opened class with a Jazz trio (alto sax, upright bass, and drums) playing for 10 min!! We spent the next hour and a half discussing the origins and process of creativity and how to foster creativity in organizations. The subject matter might seem nebulous to some, but I took away so much from that class. Putting structure to creativity seems like a futile task, but I feel like I have a much better grasp of the subject than I ever have. Thinking about creativity from the standpoint that to be creative you need to have 1) A thinking person, 2) An instrument that provides and "encounter," for that creative energy, and 3) Constraints or limitations that help focus your thought. What truly drives creativity is the intensity of thought, which brings about an encounter (possibly the instrument), and then leads to the generation of new ideas.
The example that I took away from that class was of Warren Buffett. Apparently, Buffett didn't come up with most of his best ideas and insights until he had been working under Benjamin Graham and later on his own for a number of years. Only after 10 years did Buffett realize that there were assets a company owned, but were not included its balance sheet. These assets were "intangible" in the sense that they involved brand equity, which is worth a great deal, but was considered difficult to value at the time, and hence was not kept on the balance sheet. Companies like Disney (at the time) had a valuable brand and also had many popular characters (like Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, etc.) and numerous movies that would generate tons of future revenue because people adored these characters; so much so that they had been woven into the fabric of American pop culture. Obviously, Disney's brand and cartoon characters held significant value, but were not captured on its balance sheet - an extremely undervalued investment!
Probably the best thing that I took away from the quarter was being selected as a GSB Wine Club Co-Chair. The GSB Wine Club is HUGE (biggest on campus) and there is a ton of interest in the club at school, so I'm really excited about working on events and functions for the club over the next year or so. This was the only club I really wanted to be a student leader in. For the final selection dinner I brought a bottle of 2000 Los Vascos "Le Dix," which was absolutely phenomenal and blew us away, best wine at the dinner by far!
Well, I'm glad to announce that internship recruiting has finally come to an end for me. Boy that was a brutal process, although I'm quite happy with my results. I received five offers and ended up having to choose between Apple, P&G, and United Airlines. All great companies, and it was a very difficult decision, but I'll be going to United Airlines for the summer. It's nice because they're located in Chicago, I really liked everyone I met during my interviews, and the benefits are...should I say AWESOME? I can't wait to spend my weekends laying on the beach in Sao Paulo or Santiago...the options seem limitless.
Speaking of which my fiance and I are headed to St. Croix (U.S. Virgin Islands) for spring break. We leave tomorrow flying first class through Charlotte, and there's a huge noreaster coming through Pennsylvania right now, which I hope doesn't impact our flight tomorrow.
Let's see the classes during winter quarter have all been good, with the exception of investments, which was both difficult (I still confuse myself with bond duration and convexity problems), and recruiting took a lot of time away from studying. My favorite class this quarter was Harry Davis's Business Policy class. I can sum up how awesome this class in one sentence: During week seven, Prof Davis opened class with a Jazz trio (alto sax, upright bass, and drums) playing for 10 min!! We spent the next hour and a half discussing the origins and process of creativity and how to foster creativity in organizations. The subject matter might seem nebulous to some, but I took away so much from that class. Putting structure to creativity seems like a futile task, but I feel like I have a much better grasp of the subject than I ever have. Thinking about creativity from the standpoint that to be creative you need to have 1) A thinking person, 2) An instrument that provides and "encounter," for that creative energy, and 3) Constraints or limitations that help focus your thought. What truly drives creativity is the intensity of thought, which brings about an encounter (possibly the instrument), and then leads to the generation of new ideas.
The example that I took away from that class was of Warren Buffett. Apparently, Buffett didn't come up with most of his best ideas and insights until he had been working under Benjamin Graham and later on his own for a number of years. Only after 10 years did Buffett realize that there were assets a company owned, but were not included its balance sheet. These assets were "intangible" in the sense that they involved brand equity, which is worth a great deal, but was considered difficult to value at the time, and hence was not kept on the balance sheet. Companies like Disney (at the time) had a valuable brand and also had many popular characters (like Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, etc.) and numerous movies that would generate tons of future revenue because people adored these characters; so much so that they had been woven into the fabric of American pop culture. Obviously, Disney's brand and cartoon characters held significant value, but were not captured on its balance sheet - an extremely undervalued investment!
Probably the best thing that I took away from the quarter was being selected as a GSB Wine Club Co-Chair. The GSB Wine Club is HUGE (biggest on campus) and there is a ton of interest in the club at school, so I'm really excited about working on events and functions for the club over the next year or so. This was the only club I really wanted to be a student leader in. For the final selection dinner I brought a bottle of 2000 Los Vascos "Le Dix," which was absolutely phenomenal and blew us away, best wine at the dinner by far!
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