Head Slapper of the Week

Talk about trying to pull the wool over one's eyes.  Using mannequins in car pool lanes is clever, but such a petty way to get around the law.  Three Head Slaps.

Loose Ends and Travel

Obviously it’s been quite a busy time for me these past 10 days.  Over that time span, I’ve been traveling to both the White Earth and Leech Lake Indian Reservations for reviews of their long-term care programs, preparing work for two presentations this upcoming week, been fulfilling job interview requests and done some recreational travel.  To say I’ve been moving around would be an understatement.

For recreational travel, I traveled this past Wednesday to Northfield, MN to fulfill my mandatory day off requirement that my boss at the Improve Group mandated.  What I planned to be a relaxing day was anything but a relaxing day.  While I got a great breakfast from a reader of this blog, a nice lunch with one of my economics professors at Carleton, and a nice conversation with another Carleton economics professor (currently Associate Dean), I also had two job interviews that day.  One of the interviews was on the phone and the remaining interview was in St. Paul.   I will say that after those calls, my job search pretty much ended.  I’m in the process of finalizing the details of a big employment decision that I made over the weekend after much study and consultation.  Once I inform all the necessary parties, I will make that announcement public ASAP.

My second recreational trip was to Beloit, WI to watch the Beloit Snappers baseball team.  Beloit is also where Beloit College is located, where another one of my former economics professors, Scott Bierman, is President.  It's too bad the Trustees were in town or I would have made an effort to say hello.

(What’s really strange is that about 11 years ago Prez Bierman and my academic advisor and Carleton economics professor were playing basketball together while participating in the economics history seminar in Cambridge.  My academic advisor recently was named the first non-monk President of St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN.  So I guess I played basketball with two future college presidents. Crazy).

The reason I made the nearly five-hour trip to Beloit is to have a first hand look at two of the Minnesota Twins top prospects, Miguel Sano and Eddie Rosario.  I have to say it was surprising to see that the stadium they play in, Pohlman Field is a small city park where the players have to go through the fans to reach the dugout.   Therefore, I was able to get within a foot or two of all the players.  I also took a couple photos.

Pohlman Field is a neighborhood ballpark that seats about 3,500 fans.  The locals tell me that the Twins have said the ballpark is not "big league enough" and the City of Beloit should build a new one. 

By the way, here was the starting lineup if you can figure it out:

The great aspect of this ballpark is that the fans are really, really close to the players.  The players locker rooms are in a separate building than the dugout.  So the players have to go through the crowd to come to the field.  Local fans and players know each other on a first name basis.  I also see that this ballpark is really small, it's about 380 feet to center field in a middle of a residential area, so car windows and bodywork are at risk at all times.

There's two high grade prospects on this club, Miguel Sano (third baseman) and Eddie Rosario (second baseman).  Both have power, Sano is a large, but muscular, man as you see here.

His defense was less than desired, as he doesn't range well to his right or his left from what I saw.  But the locals tell me that he is pretty agile for his size, so I guess I'll have to give him the benefit of the doubt since it was about 40 degrees outside and Sano is from the Dominican.  But I came to see him as a hitter and got a little excited as you see here.

From what I saw, Rosario has a lot of upside in that he has power, speed, good batter's instincts and excellent strike zone judge men.   He's a bit more slender than Sano as you can see here.

But the man can surely hit, despite my amateur camera skills:

The game was close, as it was tied  2-2 going into the bottom of the 6th.  Then the Snappers scored three runs to take control of the game, eventually winning the game 6-3.

The whole road trip was really worth it, despite the 40 degree temperature.  Being able to talk to the locals about the team and getting a look at these prospects is something I would really like to do again, albeit in a lot warmer weather.

Head Slapper of the Week

It’s crunch time for many college-bound high school seniors to make their decisions to make their final decisions. High stress and high anxiety fill the aspirations of many college-bound school seniors’ families. Thus, it was not helpful that a notable number of applicants across the country received acceptance letters in error to well-respected, highly selective institutions of higher education such as the University of California-Los Angeles (UCLA). High school seniors across the county were justifiably agitated as UCLA issued apologies for what equates to a cruel April Fools joke. Perhaps these schools could do more with quality control with their admissions staff. Three and a half Head Slaps

My Initial Thoughts: the Presidential Election

Greetings from Detroit Lakes, MN! I’m currently in a hotel room on work assignment. Hopefully I’ll be back at a decent hour this Thursday evening.

I’m just going to pass along some initial, perhaps myopic, thoughts on the Presidential election.

So we know that the President near the end of January 2013 will very likely be with the current President or Mitt Romney. In general, there will be a lot of money spent of this election, as both candidates, their surrogate supporters and “Super PACs” will not spare any expense to vituperate against each other through pointing out even the slightest appearance of a captious defect to gain an edge. I am hopeful that the election will truly the debate the issues, but I’m not hopeful at this point.

As you know from my prior posts, I’m not too keen on supporting either candidate at this point. The President simply because I strongly disagree with his policies on fiscal and cultural issues (as a newly minted college president told me once, the President only increased the age of adolescence to 26 years old through Obamacare) and Mitt because he has shown that he is a hard to trust anything he says. This to me that it’ll be a close election that either candidate can win, with the winner not providing much confidence to the country that he will bring positive change.

In fact, although I should be more apt to support Mitt based on what other blog readers tell me, I have a hard time bringing myself to support him. In fact, the more I look at Mitt, the more I think of President Nixon. Why? I have two reasons. First, this election somewhat reminds me of Nixon’s successful run in 1968. In 1968, the Democratic Party was reeling and divided (mainly due to the Vietnam War), the country was seen by a large majority of Americans to be on the wrong track and the President’s popularity was consistently below 50 percent. However, Nixon almost managed to blow it due to lack of strong political convictions. Second, by taking a passive approach to making peace with the Right after apparently winning the nomination as noted here, as well as his reputation as being a capricious candidate when it comes to making policy decisions, he has raised notable questions of his authenticity despite being a very erudite businessman.

As many “older” conservatives remember, Nixon liberally chose between conservative and liberal-leaning positions indiscriminately, including imposing price controls (when did the President call the Kremlin to substitute for the Commerce Secretary?).

Now Mitt has already started to show his capricious tendencies again. Just in the time since he was seen as the presumptive nominee after Rick Santorum dropped out of the race, has already said he’ll now supports gun rights, after supporting the Brady Bill’s gun control restrictions years ago and now says that he needs to get “independents and women” and not address conservatives' concerns about his candidacy.

It’s a long way to November, but I’m not confident that there ll be any result that would send a strong signal there is real and necessary change that is going to happen.

Quick Personal Update

Here’s a quick update on what I’m up to these days.

My weight loss through Medifast has reached an extreme that I didn’t think could happen; I may have lost too much weight. Currently, I’m about 45 pounds lighter than I was around Christmas time. The Medifast counselors want me to keep building muscle and now are increasing my calorie content. So I’m concentrating on consuming more protein and fruit in my diet as well as exercising. I never thought I would be told to gain a little weight, but I guess I am.

My company, the Improve Group, has done quite well this year. So well, in fact, that employees have been told to take a day off in April before the company sees a serious amount of work and travel flowing in this summer. The MN DHS has awarded the 2^nd round of reviews of Home and Community Based Waivers to the Improve Group. It is the largest revenue source for the company and I’ve been tapped to be the lead analyst for this project, which makes me feel strange since I’m also feeling around the job market. This past week I’ve received two calls from two separate employment possibilities. With my current ongoing discussions with Best Buy in limbo as the company continues to self-implode, I guess I should pay attention to these options.

Otherwise, all is quiet on the Downtown St. Paul front.

On the political front, it’s clear that Mitt Romney is going to be the GOP nominee. Congratulations to him for the work on this front. However, no matter how much Mitt tries to impersonate the President Reagan type presence on the campaign trail, that’s certainly not enough to convince me to vote for him at this point.

Head Slapper of the Week

In the reaction to a “unique” piece of news, the Chinese authorities have indicted five people in central China on charges of involvement in illegal organ trading after a teenager sold a kidney to buy an iPhone and an iPad. Apparently capitalism and changes in consumer preferences have had a real effect among Chinese youngsters. Perhaps some ethical and moral teaching about how to address the cultural influences they face could be in order. Three Head Slaps

Head Slapper of the Week

In an act that intersects rent-seeking behavior and pure arrogance, Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa's office issued the following press release regarding a video they uncovered of a General Services Administration (GSA) employee bragging about lavish taxpayer funded perks he enjoyed while working there. I have to say that after six years working as a consultant where my primary clients are government employees; somehow this news doesn’t surprise me. Perhaps we could review how expense accounts are calculated for public employees, but that could be too much reform away from rent-seeking individuals seeking others to pay their way to take sitting down, don’t you think? By the way, who would be naive enough to make a video? Two Head Slaps

Confessions from a Bulldog Hockey Fan

It’s been about a week and a half since the UMD Bulldog hockey team’s season ended in 4-0 loss to Boston College in the NCAA regional final and I am finally able to talk about it. Growing up in Duluth, I became a passionate UMD hockey fan. Being the only Division I sports team within a 150 mile radius, it was the only game in town. Watching a Bulldog hockey game is perhaps one of the most stressful experiences I have between October through April. I get more emotionally attached to a Bulldog hockey game than any other sports team I follow.

The team is a symbol of community pride and quality of life. I’ve been to three Bulldog hockey game this season and I always enjoyed talking to fellow Bulldog fans, who distinct themselves from everyone else not only based on what colors they are wearing, but also about how passionate they are regarding Bulldog hockey. I am proud that the Bulldogs are the only team in the state that actually followed the law in asking for public dollars to build their sports arena, passing a public referendum to raise the sales tax to pay for a large part of the arena. Why doesn’t Minnesota’s professional sports teams try that method of attack? I attended last year’s Frozen Four hockey championship and watching UMD win the national championship in person was the most exhilarating moment I’ve had at a sports event in my life.

While I’m really bummed that the Bulldogs didn’t win a second consecutive national championship, I will not actively root for or against the Minnesota Golden Gophers in their attempt to defeat Boston College. I have to objectively say that Boston College looked much like an NHL team when the Bulldogs faced them. Three lines with size and speed; big, mobile pairs of defensemen, and a goalie that hasn’t given up a goal in over two games despite multiple breakaways against him. The Golden Gophers better hope the extra week off put some rust on Boston College’s game, a team on a 17-game win streak.

However, I do know that Bulldog fans in general have a candid dislike for Golden Gopher hockey. Why? Well, UMD radio play-by-play announcer Bruce Ciskie explains:

“Fans take this rivalry (UMD vs. Minnesota) seriously. And they should. For UMD supporters, it's the only chance they get to thumb their nose at the "Main U." There is a certain annoying kind of arrogance that comes off the Gophers and their hockey fans. It's a much bigger school than UMD, and they have a greater tradition in all sports, including hockey. But yet UMD is on the same level -- Division I -- as the mighty Twin Cities campus.

It was that arrogance, that "We're bigger and better" mentality, that led to UMD referring to Minnesota as "UMTC" on the DECC scoreboard. UMTC, of course, stands for University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. Gopher fans hate being called UMTC. They want to know why you don't call Wisconsin "UWM" or Michigan "UMAA," but they don't get that this whole rivalry thing is greater with Minnesota than any other program.”

As I said, I will be an objective observer of the Minnesota-BC game. However, many Bulldog fans are not going to be so objective. To prove my point, here is a picture a fellow Bulldog fan passed along to me regarding the Golden Gophers.

I don't know about how apropos this is for the men's hockey team, but I candidly say this fits the men's basketball team season quite well.

Update on Personal Goals - Quarter 1

At the beginning of April, not only is the renewal of Easter upon us, but it also means that 2012 is already one-quarter finished. At the beginning of the year, I did set some goals for myself to accomplish during 2012:

· Improve my health both financially and physically.

· Make an employment transition post-MBA

So as a quick update at the one quarter point, here’s what’s been accomplished

· Thanks to Medifast, I’ve lost approximately 40 pounds. I feel better physically with more energy, less back pain and no double chin. I’ve reduced my body fat by over 40 percent over that timeframe. I’m eating and exercising differently these days to burn fat and maintain muscle. Hopefully the doctor will be pleased with my progress.

· Financially, I’ve through careful planning has been able to pay off all my student loans from MBA education, which was a great sum of cash. I’ve also refinanced my condo to take advantage of these insanely low interest rates and will proceed to try to reduce that debt aggressively as well.

· I’m continuing to search for new employment opportunities, but I’m not in a bad situation right now. I’ve got some contacts about possible opportunities and I’ve been informed recently that the company I’m working for did so well this past quarter that the CEO has told us that we should consider taking a day off this month. I hope to settle in on a conclusive situation relatively soon.

So I’ve made some progress on my personal goals. With the Almighty’s help, I’ll continue down the right path.