YES!!

YES! Wow! Unbelievable! Historic!

Barack Obama is our next president. After the long dark tunnel that was the last eight years,we can once again hope that America's future is brighter and that the best of what this world can offer is yet to come. While disappointments are sure to come, for now I choose to enjoy the moment. And consume every article on Politico.com.

The Huffington Post has a slide show on newspaper headlines from around the US, and around the world. More headlines here too.

My favorite is the Sun below "One Giant Leap for Mankind." Over the top yes, but sums up the feeling. The Chicago Times is more artistic and the Sioux City Journal simple but to the point.

Awareness Test

This was a fun exercise we did in one my MBA classes this week.



Here is the original that spawned the above and below, I think.

Seems there's a whole genre of videos on Youtube about awareness tests. Here, here and here. And a synthesis of three here.

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First Day at School

This past week I began a two year part time MBA program at Babson College. The Fast Track program is designed for the busy professional who doesn't want to give up his/her day job to become a full time student. It includes both distance / e-learning and face to face classes.

Our kick-off week entailed about 55 hours of classroom discussion, learning our way around the IT infrastructure supporting the classes and meeting our new classmates. Our 2010 class has about 95 students, broken into two sections. From here on out its mainly online with a couple weekends of face to face time.

It was great to meet all the new students, everyone was excited to begin their new MBA classes. Never having been a fan of school, it was refreshing to attend classes with students actively participating and really adding valuable insights based on past experience to some of our discussions. Perhaps this is the difference between undergrad and graduate courses. The average work experience for a student was 13 years! So its great to be able to absorb and learn from such a deep pool of knowledge.

Verizon

I recently purchased the new Verizon BlackBerry Pearl. I researched the pricing on Verizon's website and it quoted me a price about $100. So I went down to the Verizon store at the Cambridge Side Galleria ready to plunk down my money for a new phone and 2yr agreement. What ensued seemed like something froma used car dealership. First the Verizon guy asked me to login to my account to show him the price I was quoted on the Verizon site. Once he was satisfied that it was a legit price, he proceeded over 15-20 mins of constant back and forth with the 'back row' Verizon representatives. At the mall store there's the front row folks, and directly behind them is another row or reps who apparently have all the pricing power. From time to time he would update me on the 'success' or 'failure' of his ability to get me the same deal. Keep in mind this is a Verizon branded store not a generic cell phone shop. Over the 15-20 mins my wife observed that the back row reps were all fairly young (less than 21) and seemed to act like they were in an exclusive club and how dare anyone try to bargain with them! Finally the best deal they could offer to match their own online price was $150 and a mail in rebate of $50. So I said thanks, declined their counter-offer and went back home. Ordered the phone online for $100 and it showed up 2 days later. I was able to activate it over the phone and am quite happy with my new BB Pearl.

I also bought my wife a new phone via the web, but we still had to transfer the stored phone numbers so we went to another Verizon store this time in Everett on Mystic View Rd. Our experience here was what one would expect. Professional, courteous and efficient. We walked in, talked to the greeter, he took us over to the tech support folks, we gave them the phones and less than 10 mins later walked out with the phonebook transferred from old phone to new phone.

Moral of the story, if you want a new phone,try to do it online first for the best deals, and stay away from the mall stores where it seems that customer service takes a back seat to bratty behavior.

Familiar Feeling

Since moving to Boston in early 2001, I began to understand what it meant to be a sports fan in the city. For RedSox nation, The Curse, represented 86 years of disappointment. The Celtics were long past their prime. And the Patriots had last lost in SuperBowl XXXI in 1997.

But in 2004 all that loss, sadness and grief was buried and almost forgotten, the RedSox vanquished the Yankees after being down 3-0 after three games, and went on to win the World Series, finally beating the curse, and the Patriots won Super Bowl XXXVI. It seemed that Boston sports fans didn't quite know what to do. They were so used to being let down time and again, always being just so close and never quite going all the way. Now the city was on top and the feelings were entirely new though not un-welcomed. Eventually the 86 years of anguish finally began to fade away, as incredibly he RedSox won the World Series again in 2007. The Pats won again in Superbowls XXXVIII and XXXIX Boston sports fans were giddy with success.

In 2008, the Pats represented a chance to permanently erase Boston's history of perennial runner-up and establish the team as one of the greatest sports franchises of all time. The Pats stood at the end of the season 16-0, perfection. No other team in NFL history had accomplished such a feat. Entering Superbowl XLII they were 18-0. But then it seemed that the ghosts of the city's past came back to haunt the Pats. In the final 2 minutes of SuperBowl XLII, history was made, but not in the manner Boston fans were expecting. Yet in a way they were quite familiar with.

Yet again the city of Boston was the runner-up, to a team from New York, in a game they should have won handily. Boston fans will surely take the loss in stride and place it in their collective baggage of sports disappointments. Once again, taking comfort in that familiar almost forgotten feeling of coming up short at the end of the season.

BostonKnows

I've not posted to my blog in 3 months! No excuse beyond the usual work/holidays/time management issues. But this month saw the launch of the BostonKnows by Stephen Warley. Stephen sees the BostonKnows site as a way for local Bostonians (and surrounding communities) to provide local information to each other. As news becomes ever increasingly dominated by big media companies, truly local news and information often looses out to issues at the national and international levels.

This is where BostonKnows comes into the picture. It is a platform for locals to post interesting Tidbits of information as they uncover them in the course of their daily life in the city. Content and editing are done by the BostonKnows community.

Recent topics included Jetblue in Boston, Cheap Ski Deals and the Toscanini's Saga. Incidentally, while I love Toscanini's ice cream, I'm not sure what to make about the Save Toscanini site.

So if you're new to Boston or lived here your whole life, there's a lot you can contribute to the the BostonKnows site. Sign-up here.