01.24.06 third eye gone!

In an attempt to shore up all of my medical needs while I'm still on US insurance, I am getting some dentistry done and a lypoma removed from my forehead. A lypoma is a little lump of fat that builds itself up in one place or another, I don't know why in particular. This one was on my forehead, and I called it my "3rd eye", even though it was quite small. I still thought it was ugly, and didn't want to get into the situation that my father in law had: his got as big as an acorn, and moved down his forehead so that it hung over his eye! Today I went in to see Dr. Lawler to have mine removed. First, they injected lytocane (sp?) which made it swell up, so that it really looked like a 3rd eye.

Then, they cut the thing out. Reba watched, an I could kind of see what they were doing via the reflection in her glasses. Yuck! After a lot of cutting, ominous scraping, and blood wiping, they had the little guy out. It was the size of a cherry pit, sort of globby and yellow/bloody. Here is a picture of it in the biopsy container.

And finally, they stitched me up, and put a bandage on my head, which is pretty goofy looking:

...so I'm staying home the rest of the day. Plus, this will give me a chance to finish up my accounting homework.

01.23.06 work, life, school, ducks

This weekend was my last duck hunting expedition before the big move. It was really sad to watch Robby and Sarin standing on the shore waving goodbye, and to watch the duck blinds and favorite hunting spot disappear around the corner as we were ferried up the Winchester Wasteway and back to the launch. The hunt really wasn't very good, Saturday was mostly spent picking at small groups of divers, and Sunday was so bad that only two (long) shots were fired all day. Happily, I got 2 Goldeneye Drakes and a Shovelnose Hen on Saturday, one of which I nailed with a classic pass shot... I was really happy about that one. The other two were acquired more in the sluicing method, and while it's irresistible in the moment, I frankly don't feel too satisfied after the fact.

Regarding the low number of potential shots, I suspect that more is at work than Hernandez luck. The guides say that Moses Lake hunts have been hit and miss all year, and from what I can remember, they've been hit and miss for the last few. I don't think that duck populations are down in general, I just think that the farming practices in the Moses Lake area are not supporting the volume of ducks we once had. I do know this: since I got back into hunting about 4 years ago, I have not seen a set of more than 1 dozen ducks come in to a blind I was hunting, and even groups numbering a dozen have presented themselves less than a handful of times. Generally, I have shot at small sets of 2 to 5 ducks, and this last weekend's level of shooting has been more common than not. I'm beginning to wonder if Moses Lake is just played out? I hope not, but I am considering that my next trip will be to somewhere like Mexico or Canada. It's sad, because I remember shooting at groups of 30 or 40 ducks regularly as a kid... much of that was in the Skagit, but Eastern Washington had similar productivity when I was out there. We'll see. Maybe I'll give old Moses Lake another go this next year, if I'm back in town for the Xmas holiday.

Of course, the upshot of this weekend's activities is that I now have to cram in a bunch of Accounting homework tonight and tomorrow, hence the title of this post. Balancing the fun stuff I like to do with the work I want to accomplish is going to be different in an academic setting than in the work setting I am so used to.

I have to get some minor surgery in the AM tomorrow, but I'm hoping to feel OK to finish up the assignment before class that night, even if I just email it in. My hobbies are going to have to really slow down in order to support the level of studying I want to do... weekend-long getaways are not going to be possible over the next few months, and even less possible when I start at Oxford. I just need to get into that rhythm of studying all weekend, which I actually enjoy to a certain degree. The other issue is that my focus is weak right now, and I need to get it up into good fighting shape: I can't be half spaced out and hope to grind through a ton of study work at the same time!

01.08.06 change in owner equity

This accounting stuff isn't killing me yet, but there are a few concepts that are not going into my head nicely and quietly, so I'm really glad I'm taking this class now! I'd hate to be struggling through these concepts next year while my academic overlords try to kill me with sheer volume of work. I'm actually finding accounting to be aesthetically pleasing in the same way programming is: when everything works out, i.e. the accounts balance, the program compiles, whatever... I feel this soothing sense of order (and a smug sense of superiority). That's a lot of S's. I'd probably get marks off for that in a paper. In any case, when things don't work out, and I'm beating my head against some idea... then it's not quite as satisfying. Although, I suppose that satisfaction in a completed task goes up some amount for every beat of the head against the [insert metaphor]. Tomorrow is the first day of asp .net class at the UW. I hope that doesn't kill me either. Since I set the whole thing up, I kind of get to call the shots with the instructor. I was on a conference call with him Friday, when he actually asked me how much work I wanted assigned outside of class! MY GOD!!!! For the first time in history, I actually got to decide how much homework the teacher would assign! For 2 seconds, I thought that I would tell him to go easy, because it would make things easy on me. Of course, I felt guilty about that and told him that this class needs to be challenging, and my people need to work for it... I also told him that each one gave me a personal commitment to do the reading and homework, and really work their asses off. So, I chumped out and basically told him to give us lots of homework. :) Oh well, we'll all be the better for it.

01.06.06 skypeage

After just a few posts to this thing, I'm noticing a clear desire on my part to post more, even if there's nothing to report. I find myself wanting to tap out the trivia of my day and most recent concerns, even though they are not the point of this blog. Therefore, I will resolve to only post items relevant to my overseas journey, and hopefully let off a little trivia pressure whenever I get enough appropriate material to warrant a post. The tension created between wanting to jabber and not finding noteworthy subjects should make for interesting something or other. We shall see.

On to it: Frank turned me on to this thing called Skype, which is a voice over ip service that runs on your PC, and has the following features:

• totally free calls to anyone using Skype
• 2 cents/minute from Skype to land lines (in the 1st world)
• 25 cents/minute from Skype to cell phones
• local phone numbers wherever you like that forward to your computer wherever you are for $30/year
• forward to a land line or cell at the same rate as calling a land line or cell

...best of all, this all works the same and costs the same, wherever you are in the world.

So, theoretically, I can give my mom a Seattle (206) number to call us at, it will go to my Skype account on my PC, and will cost only 2 cents a minute. This beats the hell out of the 1 POUND a minute I was paying on my crappy "pay as you go" phone that I took on my last few trips to the UK. If I have it forward to my UK cell, it will only cost 25 cents a minute, still about 1/7th the cost I was paying last time. If I can teach her how to use a Skype phone on her computer, it's entirely free!

No matter which way we go, this makes for a dirt cheap way of doing long distance, EXCEPT for the forwarding to cell phone case, which probably wouldn't be super useful anyway, as I don't want to get calls from mom in the middle of class.

I'm going to check it out tonight, Frank even lent me a usb voip phone to try. Maybe this will keep me from going broke via long distance phone when I go over.

Update: the phone works fine, the service works fine (sometimes fades in and out), and the Skype site and online store are kind of crappy. The experience is a bit cooler when you use the microphone and speakers of the computer, except then you have issues with echoes. I'm going to keep working on this, I'd like to not have to spend so damn much money on phones the next time I go over.

L8tr

e

01.04.06 ACC210

The loan info and wire transfer have been sent. Now, I'm stuck going to Oxford, unless I give up my deposit. I only wish I didn't have to wait 8 more months!!!

Had the first session of ACC210 last night. Several other people and I were standing outside the class waiting for the instructor to arrive, and as class time got closer, no one in apparent authority showed up. One guy was worrying somewhat vocally about whether we had the wrong room or not, and another guy wearing a purple shirt mentioned that he had heard the instructor was a "real jackass". Fabulous. Then, just at class time, a security guy came and opened the door, saying hello to purple shirt guy, which seemed odd. Then, purple shirt guy came clean and admitted that he was actually the instructor, which was pretty damn funny, and scored points with me. The class was OK, he talked about some very basic accounting stuff, which seemed appropriate for the crowd he's speaking to: bookkeepers, 4-year transfer hopefuls, high school kids getting occupational education credits, people who own small businesses and need to be better at the books, etc. etc. And then, there's me. I know absolutely FUCK ALL about accounting, so even the most basic data is useful. The age range in there is probably from 16 to 50, I suppose that's typical of community college courses. I hope that I will be able to handle taking this class as well as the asp.net programming stuff coming up, but if last night is any indication, I should be OK.

01.03.06 money

Got the paperwork to do the US to UK wire transfer from my stock broker today, Reba has to sign it tonight, and then SBS gets their down payment sent tomorrow. Also have the student loan docs done, which also require my fine wife's signature before sending off. This down payment is non refundable, so if announcing to my colleagues that I'm quitting wasn't final enough, sending off the wire tomorrow will make this life-move pretty damn irreversible. Of course, at this point, I've told everybody I know, and if I forgot someone, the rumor mill spreads the story for me. It's funny how a fancy name like Oxford makes everyone chatty... the congratulations and back slapping and "isn't that a neat adventure" stuff is of course great, but I imagine it would come regardless of what school I attended. There's something about this school in particular, or more probably, the American conception of this school in particular, that makes people talk it up. While this is all fun for me now, I'm starting to feel the pressure already... there is no freaking way I can afford to fail at this. I don't think I'd want to come back to Seattle if that happened... just facing everyone would be unbearable. So, I will just have to succeed!

Tonight is the first night of Accounting 210 at SCCC, my attempt at doing some pre-game warm up for Oxford. Next quarter will be business statistics, which should be interesting, at least. We'll see what accounting is like, honestly I'm not looking forward to it. I am, however, looking forward to being on a tighter schedule, with all the holiday free time I'm getting antsy again: I only need a few hours of sleep at night, gain weight, etc. So, this will keep me focused and tired, which always takes a load off of my mind.

01.02.06 getting started

11:33 pm January 2nd 2006.

The idea of having a blog is so my friends and family can keep up with what I'm doing over in the UK when I go to school. Since this is post #1, I suppose some background is in order.

At the age of 36, I decided to go back to school to get an MBA, somewhat because I think that will help me move forward in my career, and somewhat because I'm ready to try something new. When I told Reba (wife) about this idea, she said "sure, but there is one requirement: you are NOT allowed to work and go to school at the same time, you are not capable of focusing on that many things at once." She was probably right. From there, I thought, "well if I'm not going to keep my job during this, I should go somewhere cool for school." Since I've always wanted to live in Europe, I figured this was as good a chance as any. Initially I was thinking about a 2year English language program at the IESE in Barcelona, where they even teach you Spanish at the same time as the MBA stuff and have really good food AND weather, but Reba was not down with this: she wanted to keep working, and therefore wanted to be somewhere where people speak English at work. Ok, so I started looking at the UK. To make a long story short: the university of Oxford sounded like a damn cool place to spend one year overseas, and after a lot of GMAT studying, test taking, essay writing, and to-the-UK-flying, I got accepted to the Saïd Business School at Oxford. Here's the business school's website: http://www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/ Also, some funny background info on Mr. Saïd and the arms dealing controversy can be found here: http://www.oxfordstudent.com/tt2002wk1/news/what_was_saïd

Campus liberals up in arms aside, I'm going. The timeline works out like this:

• (may '06) sell house, move into sub let in seattle, visit Oxford briefly to pick an apartment
• (aug '06) move to Oxford
• (sep '06) screw around in the UK, France, whatever
• (oct '06) start school, get ass kicked by reading assignments, etc.
• (jul, aug '07) consulting project somewhere cool in the UK or Europe
• (oct '07) work for at least 1 year in the UK... the UK govt gives a 1 year work visa to Oxford grads
• (oct '08) stay? return? unknown!

Since I got the OK from SBS in October, there hasn't been a ton to do in terms of prepping for school. That all changed last week, when I got the official offer package and a demand for an ~£4000 downpayment and proof of having the cash to cover the whole £29,000 tuition within 15 days. This appears to be pretty typical of Oxford... £29,000 is about $50,000, so most people would take out a loan. BUT, you can't get a loan unless you have an offer of a place in the program. SBS doesn't care, they want their down payment and proof NOW. So, I'm scrambling a bit, but should be OK.

The other imminent step toward business schooliness is the Financial Accounting class I'm going to take two nights a week starting tomorrow. The idea is that if I have some inkling of how that works before I get to SBS, I won't have to learn all the basic basics while I'm getting slammed with a ton of other material in Oxford's somewhat legendarily intensive terms. While business school in general interests me, I don't seem to be super drawn to accounting, so I suppose it will be an exercise in "can you handle doing something you don't like doing", which is pretty much what I do for a living currently, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Ok, that's about it for now, I plan to update this as stuff develops, but mostly not until I move, which is the point at which things will probably get interesting.

L8tr

e