Weekend Update

This weekend was decidedly mixed.

Thanksgiving was, of course, splendid. Any holiday that pulls family together and offers two days off from work gets a recommendation from me. Friday after an exciting breakfast with Abby and Ted, I got a haircut and then tried to zip back to CT in time for Kung Fu. I didn’t make it in time, so instead I went to Tony and Paulette’s place for some pizza and some Guitar Hero III.

Most of Saturday was spent researching my paper.

Let’s talk paper for a second.

The class is international business. What I need to do is write a 10 page single spaced paper that talks about something relating to international business. I want to write about intellectual property. My original thesis was an attempt to try and show that the sharing of intellectual property with developing countries is better for mankind. But right now, after a few weeks of research I want to say that really… we need something totally different. Capitalism based intellectual property hoarding seems to work, but it’s not very efficient. Peer Production seems genius and super efficient, but there are some fundamental difficulties that relate to what sorts of markets can benefit from creative donated collaboration.

If we look through the Kaleidoscope of Geekery, we’ll notice that Star Trek operated off of a Peer Production basis where the characters were not rewarded with monetary funds but instead with notoriety. Of course they had replicators for food. Star Wars was a capitalistic society. Perhaps my thesis should talk about what changes would be necessary from our current international business system if we were to start engaging in intergalactic business.

Anyway, my changing my thesis to “we need something new” is weak. It’s not quite specific enough – nor does it have as much to do with international business. So with a monster paper due in four days… I don’t know what to do.

Continuing with the weekend, Saturday night I watched the new Die Hard movie with the Scott family. It was hilariously fun. Sunday was spent working on the paper, doing chores, and playing about two hours of Rockband.

Now, it’s totally cool if you want to criticize me for playing Rockband when I have a huge paper due because Rockband… is probably the most amazing game ever. With Shaun on the guitar and me on the drums… well… it was two hours of intensity like none other.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Outside of my lingering sickness which continues to linger today, Thanksgiving was pretty sweet. The food was unstoppable and it was super wild to see the whole family.

Alicia gets married in a week, so much of the conversation was centered around final wedding plans. I got to show off my new guitar and did some fun piano/guitar rock songs with my sisters.

I hope yours was as wonderful as mine. Happy Thanksgiving!

Chicago: Germans, Fireworks, and Great Raspberries

I’m in Chicago! I’m here on a sales trip and it’s pretty relaxing. It’s mostly been a mix of sales, homework, and adventure. The flight out on Saturday was fantastic. It just so happened that I shared a flight with Andreas the German Climber. We chatted and shared stories during the trip and the time flew (ba dum dum ching) by. That night I watched a great fireworks show from my hotel room.

Sunday night things were decidedly more lame as I stayed in to work on my paper.

Things picked up again last night when I threw academic responsibility to the wind and went out with the guys to Fogo de Chao, a well known Chicago Brazilian steakhouse. They give you a small token, one side of which is green, the other red.

When you want food, you switch it to green. And the food comes. Fast. An onslaught of meat like none I have ever seen. The first time I turned my token green and had to switch it back to red within 45 seconds for fear that my plate would be overrun by various cuts of tender salty meats.

It was a fun time.

Tonight will be another whole adventure. I’ll take pictures.

The Guitar and The Sox.

This weekend was a great reset. On Saturday I had my new guitar. And I played my new guitar. It is so absurd. It’s almost sinfully good. I feel guilty holding it in my unworthy hands. I played it for hours and hours and hours. Thankfully I took a long enough break to fix up the living room and get some cleaning done. The end result is a nicer house ready for fall.

I still have two or three more things to get done before HoR winterization will be complete.

Despite Kurt’s desperation, the Red Sox rocked the heck out of the Rockies this weekend.

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And while the series was super exciting for us Sox fans… I am so disgusted by commercials. As a bit of a quick test I grabbed a stop watch and for twenty minutes I turned the stop watch on and off based on ads. Now, I was being harsh. Any advertisement what-so-ever was enough for me to stop the timer. Whether it was actual TV commercials, quick audio spots by the announcers, or a blatant ‘Bank of America’ billboard behind the batter.

The end result was bad, but not as bad as I expected. 11:57 mins of ads out of 20 min of TV. That’s 60% marketing crap 40% untarnished baseball. Although barely scientific, the quick study was fun.