With admit in hand and the gears in motion for me to start classes at Cornell in August, Elizabeth and I have had our hands full preparing for all the changes. Mainly, we have started packing up our belongings for the move, sorting through the excess property that we have accumulated in our house over the past four years, and finally got the house presentable to potential buyers. We planted the "For Sale" sign on Saturday afternoon and had our first showing on Monday, with three more scheduled for its first week on the market. That's a good start, but I'll be pretty anxious about it until we close a deal.
I hate doing real estate business mainly because I hate realtors. I'm loathe to enter into a financial agreement where the compensation is not based on performance, and the entire real estate industry is designed to maximize profit for the realtors, not the buyers/sellers. I just always feel like those perpetual smiles you find on any realtor's face belie the fact that they know something that you don't. My current realtor has a pretty good reputation and he has been good to work with so far, but still, he is a realtor...
--Chris
Georges Yared states that he believes that Crocs (CROX) will become the next Nike over at BloggingStocks.com. I've heard similar views of Crocs, but I disagree. I just have a feeling that in 10 years, people will look at pictures of themselves wearing those ridiculously ugly foot adornments out in public and be slightly embarrassed. I don't personally have a problem if someone wants to wear their gardening shoes to the mall, I just think that eventually people will realize that is what they are doing and the brand will lose it's luster. The challenge for Crocs, the company, will be to have another product with the same appeal when their current product loses its appeal. They might be able to pull it off, but I'm doubtful.
--Chris
OK, I'm terminating my silly little experiment with Twitter. I have no clearer understanding now about what the attraction is. I think Twitter is probably more geared towards teenage girls. Like MySpace, if you are an adult male, and think the service is cool, I suspect that there is something seriously uncool about you. Grown men with MySpace pages scare me. I'm starting to feel the same way about Twitter. Sorry for my previous lack of judgement.
--Chris
Steve Ballmer is talking about innovation at Microsoft. Riddle me this: When was the last time Microsoft "innovated" anything? Every product launch from Microsoft over the past 5 or 10 years has been either a response to a competitor (C#), a direct copy of a competitor's product (Zune, Xbox), or simply a lifecycle upgrade to a legacy product line (Vista). I'm not being facetious here, really. If you can think of a product that Microsoft has released in the past 10 years that doesn't fall into one of those categories, please let me know. I'm sure there are one or two, but I can't think of a single one. Bonus points if you can think of one such product that actually turned a profit. Acquisitions don't count; must be internally developed.
--Chris
Oshkosh, 2006
Elizabeth has been taking all of our rolls of 35mm film to get developed and coming home with some surprises, including this roll that I took at EAA Airventure last summer. This shot exemplifies why I love Airventure so much: you get to walk around and active flight line and can get very close to the active runway. It's not very often a civilian can get this close to a B-1B as it takes off. And yes, it is loud.
Unfortunately, I forgot to put the polarizing filter on that day, so all the shots are pretty washed out. Also, the images on Smugmug is from the photo CD that Walgreen's produces, which is of pretty dissappointing resolution considering it was made from the negatives. I'd say I'd stop getting my film developed there, but we hardly use 35mm any more anyway.
--Chris
Elizabeth and I are trying to select a new website name to move our personal website over to (from ChrisKerns.com). We want a URL that reflects "us", instead of just me, Then, I'm going to use ChrisKerns.com just for professional and business interests.
Update from Tuck:
As a quick update, we released the majority of the waitlist this week. We would, however, like to maintain a small waitlist through the summer and would like to know if you would like to be a part of that group.
It would have been nice to have my Tuck status resolved, but I will continue to work the waitlist at least until I sign a lease in Ithaca.
--Chris
If you look over to the right, below my SmugMug-hack-badge and above my Yahoo! Finance widget, you'll see my new Twitter badge. Honestly, I don't get Twitter, but it has been a runaway success so far. I first heard about it through someone blogging about the founder's efforts at Obvious. When I first heard of the idea, I thought "who would want to do that?". It turns out, lots of people want to do that. So, being the techie that I am, I figured I had best give it a try so I could see what all the fuss was about. However, most of the interest in Twitter seems garnered from people forming groups, checking up on their friends and what not. So, let me know if you Twitter, so I'll have someone to follow!
--Chris
I have to admit, I think Alan Greenspan is talking crazy when he says he thinks the there is a 1/3rd probability that the U.S. economy will enter a recession this year. Then again, I guess it may depend on how he personally defines "recession". If you are talking two consecutive quarters of "negative growth" (i.e., decline in economic output), then I think that borders on "ain't gonna happen". If he just thinks we'll see "a few months of" decline, then I guess 1 in 3 is simply a pessimistic view of our economy, but not an outrageous view.
The cynic in me says that if economists think things will be getting worse, then it is a great time to put more money into the market so you can reap the rewards as the economy strengthens.
--Chris
I love this pithy book review:
This book is both good and original. The part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
--Chris
Kevin Delaney reports in the Wall Street Journal that You're a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well. By that measure, I'm doing pretty well. Of course, that is largely a result of owning my own domain name, ChrisKerns.com and running this little blog. Unfortunate, however, is the number of detractors my namesake has; "Chris Kerns" isn't exactly unique. For example, there exists an IRS communications manager, a lawyer, a Highs School Principle, a CEO of a manufacturing company, a bass guitarist in a metal band, and even a cardioligist. All fine people, I'm sure, but they do detract from my uniqueness. I'm sure glad I got a lock on the domain name back when I did (1999, I think). Too bad Calvin Klein already trademarked my initials, though.
--Chris
I've been looking for a good reason to use this picture of brass balls. Mike Silva is certainly deserving. The news copter pilot and Vietnam vet is heading back to war.
Blue skies to you, Mr. Silva. (or dark skies with just enough illum for ops under NODs, if you prefer)
--Chris
CNNMoney/Fortune, have listed the Top 100 MBA Employers. Generally, the list isn't too suprising, except that Google hires more MBAs than McK.
- McKinsey
- Goldman
- Bain
- BCG
- Apple
- Microsoft
- GE
- Nike
- B of A
I guess I would have expected to see another Investment Bank on the list before I saw Nike. What do you think?
[Edit: May 4, 2007] I just quickly skimmed the list yesterday and misread it thinking it was a list of companies that hired the most MBAs, when in fact the list is simply the most sought after employers from the MBA's perspective. The title of the article is a bit misleading in that regard.
--Chris
This is funny. Consultants fall somewhere in between construction site flag wavers and dolphin trainers when it comes to bulls**t jobs. It should also be noted that economists come in at #24.
--Chris