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Hey, all right! It turns out that the rooms here now have net access, so I’m able to post and email like a normal human.

Day 1 was pretty good. This prof seems ok…funny, and seems intent on making HR (which has the potential to be very boring) fairly interesting. But we’ll see if I still feel this way on Wednesday or Thursday. Tonight will be light…a bit more posting, then dinner, then a few hours of group work, then some drinks, then some relaxation time.

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So Biff’s was a fine way to kick off Winterlicious They seemed to be in mid-chaotic spin when we arrived, so we waited 20 minutes for our table (next to a rather pungent cheese tray). However, the server was terribly nice and the maitre’d was very apologetic, and the food was worth the wait.

The butternut squash soup with blue cheese was excellent. So was the coq au vin. The ice cream was good, as far as ice creams go, and made me want to visit Soma even more than I already do.

We were having a raucous, crazy, nutty, insane, call-the-cops time with G&C, but since I have to get up early tomorrow and head up north, I was the pooper of this particular party and so decided to go home.

Next up: The Strip House with T-Bone.

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9:24 AM on a Saturday, and I’m at work. This sucks. That it’s my own fault just makes it worse. I decided to change the password on a database server to tighten up the security a bit, but it messed up a bunch of overnight jobs. And since I’m away for a week, I need to make sure the nightly imports work.

This time tomorrow I’ll be up at the training center, all checked into the hotel, trying not to eat croissants, waiting for class to begin. You know, I’m really beginning to reconsider this whole MBA thing (you should know that I’ll say that at least 14 times over the next 3.5 years).

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I’m leaving for a week — starting Sunday morning — to complete the intensive portion of my second MBA course (HR). Posting will be spotty at best…whatever I can manage when I have a break or get particularly bored.

I may drop a post in here tomorrow night after our first Winterlicious outing (at Biff’s), but in any case, have a good week. Here’re some links to keep you occupied whilst I’m away:

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A guy named Rony Abovitz, blogging from the World Economic Forum in Davos, makes some very good points, though the second post contains a glaring error: to say that “the US is the only country in the world that contains citizens from all parts of the world, living freely in a working democratic state” (emphasis mine) is incorrect.

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One of the funniest things I’ve read in a while. Sample:

25. Dr. Phil
Crimes: Not a doctor. Not wise. Offers troubled souls nothing but the sweet feeling of surrendering control. Only reason for prominence is that Oprah just couldn’t support her show by herself anymore. Offers troubled simpletons meaningless slogans that resonate for a maximum of five days before they realize they already knew that shit and they still can’t stop whatever compulsive behavior got them onto his show in the first place. Is almost certainly regularly involved in some unspeakable depravity that he can’t stop and which caused him to fabricate his public persona in a frantic attempt to convince us he’s normal.

Smoking Gun: Both presidential candidates were forced to submit to his pedantic bullshit in some bizarre new soft focus emasculation ritual to get slack-jawed housewives to vote for them.

Punishment: A lifetime of guest spots on Springer.

The new "Monsoon"

I bought Worlds Apart this morning. I’m currently listening to “The Rest Will Follow” for the fourth time. My god, this song is good. It’s going to take everything I’ve got not to listen to it again today.

We are all of us so capable of
The greatest acts of hate and the worst acts of love.
I wonder sometimes what’s the matter with us all.
And I know how the best will fall
And the rest will follow…