Today I had supply chain and bargaining and influence, which flew by, and now there is a CNBC focus group at school that I'm heading towards. There always seems to be an opportunity here to do something new and different; I've never been in a focus group before and it sounds fun. Plus, there's an honorarium. Why it is called that I'm not sure, but honorary or not, grad students have to eat.

Other random musings for today include the incredible success of Detroit sports teams this year. They're not home yet, but the Tigers made the playoffs since the first time since baseballs were made of leather, the Shock won the WNBA, and the Pistons and Redwings were contenders. Then, of course, there are the Lions. I think absolutes and extremes really make people nuts, and there is no bigger extreme than the difference between the resurrected Tigers and the still-nightmarishly awfully terrible Lions. Somewhere here there is a lesson about moderation and managed expectation that an entire region has to learn.

In the afternoon, my team and I met with and then portrayed John Tyson. You know, Tyson chicken. It was really interesting to speak with a guy who's family is worth a billion dollars and who is running a $26b company almost by themselves. Let me be perfectly clear: this gentleman knows protein. He's serious about business and being from Arkansas, but he knows the meat industry and if you ask him a question, you are in his wheelhouse and he'll pummel you, not that he isn't a very kind and genuine guy. All in all Mr. Tyson was much, much more likeable and professional than either Mssrs. Skinner or Lutz.

Now the IPD team is headed up to the Dude to present our mockups. I'm upset about the quality of my foam-core circle now that I've seen what a laser cutter could have done, but I guess I'm going to have to stand in and pitch my product.

I've commented in the past about the historical slant of blogs. For example, I posted (with Jenelle's help) about our epic Saturday near the end of a pretty darn good Sunday. We watched "Mona Lisa Smile" and had BLT's and I got a good amount of work done besides, but that didn't get mentioned until it is a matter of record, ie today. This continues to be a frustration for me as I strive to be more of a prophet and less of a reporter. OK, that didn't come out quite right...

"Mona Lisa Smile" made me think about blogs as art, largely due to Ms. Watson's questions about the consumer art of the fifties. How will history view the most-closely recorded generation thus far in human times? Will critics look back after a century and note some great social injustices intrinsic to the new formats we've developed? Are we laughably trivializing anyone? My sense is that those being trivialized will not appear in this generations' media as they did in the last. Access is a lifeboat today - if you can get to the web your story will survive.

It wouldn't be random posting day without a real topic veer, so here goes: killer instinct. Just a few months ago I lamented Michigan's lack of ferocity, disinterest in the knock-out blow, apathy towards clear and absolute victory. Well, Ron English has it and has cc'ed and fwd'ed everybody. Now it is like a disease! We were down at the Big House on Saturday, watching the second half of the game, and all of a sudden it was like "hey, this defensive unit doesn't give up first downs...ever." Tackles for losses, sacks, big hits, hurried throws, and general what-have-you cause six straight three-and-outs for Wisconsin - six straight possessions ending in 'the claw' after just three plays. Youuuu suuuuuuuck! Youuuuu suuuuuuu-uuuuck!

I got a Webb News in the mail this weekend and got a chance to read it today. While I'm sure Webb is still very much the place I went to school, it seems to have a bit of added spice with a retired Coast Guard Admiral as President. There are subtle undertones of struggle in his voice, and I empathize with the small school's capital campaign hoping for less than 10% of what Ross is spending on a new building. That being said, I feel like RAdm. Olsen's views on fundraising/philanthropy (depending on which side of the table you're on) are in line with my own and he is a good ambassador for the Institute during this period.

That's all I've got; it's Habitat build day and I'm off to Ypsilanti to put some labor into a house.

After class I went to Textron's presentation and was wowed by the spread and the chance to see one of UMHS's Bell 430's pull in and land on Pad #2. These little birds cover all of the mitten and most of Ohio, meaning if you are burned in Petoskey they come get you and have you in ER in Ann Arbor in just over 100 minutes... amazing, but the thing that gets you first and foremost is that these are small machines. I asked about bariatrics in the helicopter, and the response was "we have up to 500 lb capacity for patients but only a 58" belt." They are starting to have to leave flight nurses on the ground at accidents because their passengers are taking up too much of the useful load.

There's a different helicopter circling Ross, which can only mean that we're going to be on the news again for the big announcement yesterday. There's a buzz around the halls but no real difference on campus apart from the Dean's office sponsoring and serving an ice cream social this afternoon.

Cranes are swinging back and forth outside the library's fourth-floor windows, signaling progress on a terra cotta edifice which will spring from the enormously large hole along Hill & Tappan. It's a cold fall day, much too soon, and I'm almost wishing I had a fleece for the trip home. Actually, I'm not really going home so much as going to another recruiting event for the semi-shameless reason of really, really wanting to see the Michigan Health System Survival Flight helicopters.

Last night I had to go to art school for wood shop. For real! It's kinda fun getting down and dirty making a spoon from a block of wood, but that's not my point. My point is that designers - real black-shirt every day designers - can talk for hours about virtually nothing. There has to be a better way to teach than spending 15 minutes on the efficacy of the handle. I worked with a designer who didn't wear black shirts and he'd just go into his office for an hour and come back with the world's coolest proverbial spoon... why can't all design just be silent and amazing?

We weren't totally focused on the game Saturday, but in Kalamazoo for NSRA's Street Rod Nationals North, a car show featuring some 2,800+ highly customized rides from 1949 and early. Ghost flames, mag wheels, tribal paint, and big chrome engines were everywhere as we wandered. It was quite a spectacle - no two cars alike and nobody would have it any other way.

After K-zoo and dinner at Damon's we returned to A2 for a little post-day celebration. Our fun was doubled with the news that Caroline & Brad were engaged Friday and their joining us at b-dubs for a few hours' revelry.

TMI counters this emotion by releasing last year's recruiting numbers. (With a fairly blatant math/typographical error... sigh, par for the course.) No matter how bitter I may be, there was a big, big, big jump in the numbers this year over last and that made me fell less bitter and more excited. Despite not winning Spotlight! (I refuse to say we lost) I think that school, and TMI in particular, may have been a good decision.

After Spotlight! Ryan and I took the Knoll guys up to the stadium so they could experience the enormity of the hole in the ground, then we said goodbye and were on our separate ways. I headed home to 409B, reading, some tunes, and frisbee and a swim.

It also rained this afternoon... again. It has rained three of five days I've been at Ross for class, which isn't bad in and of itself, but walking home through pouring rain leaves me soggy and irritable. These effects are magnified if, rather than going home, I have three hours of IPD to sit through as is the case this evening.

Finally, an update re: my consulting call this morning. Oh! consulting has the appeal and glamour and career promise, but the trade-off in lifestyle terms may be steep. Balancing income and free time is a nearly impossible calculation, but valuing both is an important part of life and neglecting either is a major (and now possible) pitfall.

On a more somber, less frivolous note, it is 11 September 2006. Five years. Coverage of this is everywhere; everyone wants to comment on the events, reactions, and sadness of that day. I want to comment on the sadness of the interval. We are now five long years removed and yet have hardly moved forward. Our thinking has not changed since that incredibly bizarre afternoon, despite the definition and clarity that half a decade and trillions of dollars have given us. Is the world safer? Not markedly so. Have our perceptions changed? Apparently only for the negative... Javid told me on the way to lunch that he feels uncomfortable being Persian in America. Shame on us for rising to action but not rising above the hatred displayed that terrible clear, still, autumn day. This is the real tragedy to me, not that an atrocity was committed against us, but that we've done little more than volley back.

Today Jenelle tagged along for a Norbert reunion at No Thai; but first we stopped at the art museum's temporary exhibit space on South U to see a cool display of strobing art. With a great meal to start the day, I moved into MO611 team work while Jenelle parked on Wyly two and cranked out school stuff. It's cold and windy outside, like a fall day in the upper Midwest, so I'm not sure what the evening holds other than frustration that summer is virtually over.

Maybe one already exists, but I think writing a wedding how-to from the lucky couples' perspective would be dynamite. There's no guide for malcontent vendors, no strategy for dealing with monopolist disc jockeys who hold every card, no insight about the demarcation between approaching the big day as a business proposition or as an emotional wishing well into which you toss all your coins. The businesses we're dealing with range from professional to mildly professional; it astonishes us that they can survive at what I would call substandard service levels, but with virtually no threat of lost future revenue, what incentive does a caterer have to expedite your quote or offer the slightest discount? It has been an education thus far - just under four months - and I anticipate that by July I'll have plenty of fodder for a fine pamphlet.

The first session of MO611 - the CEO parade - left me feeling burned as my team was selected to advocate Tyson Foods. I'm sure this will be an interesting endeavour but I have no (NOOOO) interest in working in the protein business, so the networking aspect is lost for me. In other news, mornings are a cinch this term: nary an academic obligation. I worked on a lot of peripheral things with little consequence... calibrating yourself for an MBA semester takes way more effort than it ought to, so I applied myself to that task. Now I'm in IPD bewildered by this year's product class, but ready to tackle the Integrated Product Development process. Shortly I'll be at home, laundering clothes and reading about ChemBright.

Today we visited the Michigan State Fair. This fair - at the corner of Woodward and 8 Mile in Detroit - should not be confused with the UP State Fair in Escanaba. It is, in fact, smaller and less impressive than its counterpart to the north. No tractors, no 4-H barn, and no discernible midway really made the lower peninsula version of the State Fair a bit of a letdown. To compensate Jenelle and I went to Royal Oak for some window shopping and to scout out the travel section and Barnes & Noble for honeymoon ideas.

Today was really the return to MBA life, with the endless introductions, explanations, and feigned interest hitherto required. It was genuinely great to see Caroline & Brad, Steve & wifey (Allison), Irena, and Rachel F. again, but apart from that I don't have truly aligned interests with section mates.

The evening also included the MTrek Final Event picnic. It was fun to get everybody together again and see a few Norberters, including Norbert himself, and I suppose to gain some closure on the whole experience. Attendance was decimated by section events and Friday-of-Labor Day Weekend travels, but it was still a good event and a fitting way to essentially wrap up my duties for that organization.

Football time. Let's do it up... how about some overachieving, now? This is the year - ten and two and a New Year's day bowl at the least. It is on like donkey kong. One hundred and ninety four consecutive 100k+ attendance games at the Big House as of tomorrow afternoon.

Go Blue!