Spring Break: Haircuts, Grand kids, Miatas, Death, and Taxes
Tom Mackey, TMMBA Student
The Winter quarter officially ended yesterday when Anjani dropped off our marketing plan at TMMBA HQ. He’ll be on his way to Las Vegas in a few days for some R&R. The Friday before we submitted our business plan for our Entrepreneurial course, just in time for Rick to wing his way over to Prague — he’s doing the foreign study trip. The only final this quarter was in Strategy, and that was due closer to the middle of the quarter. The two final projects, and a branding paper, more than made up for finals, but in my not so humble opinion, also were much more valuable in terms of solidifying what we learned. Class 9, on the other hand, is in Finals Hell this week — my co-worker is done with his Stats final and is now pounding his way through Accounting.
I’m sitting here in the Backstreet Salon in Monroe (a great little place that Marilyn found through a friend of her’s) listening to Tami and Marilyn yakking about all the things that men are not usually privy to. Tami found time to give me a quick shearing while waiting for Marilyn’s perm to cure, something sure to bring a certain amount of joy to my class- and work-mates. This brings to mind an old limerick:
As a beauty I’m not quite a star…
There are others more handsome by far.
But my face, I don’t mind it
Because I’m here behind it.
It’s the ones out in front get the jar!
OK. Enough of the bad poetry. While I was getting my hair cut my cell phone rang — it was my daughter Debbie and she had some good news. She is expecting again, due in mid-July, and pretty excited about it. And so am I, of course. Soon-to-be big brother is looking forward to a playmate and dad is looking forward to having the family together during maternity leave. It was a little tough to talk and get a haircut at the same time, so we will have to chat again pretty soon.
(3/20/2009) Got a note from my sister in Michigan that our Uncle had passed away. While I had not ever gotten the chance to spend any time with him or my cousins, I know she had and was pretty saddened by his death. The last, and for me, practically the only time, we had seen our cousins was at our mom’s funeral back in 2000. Our cousins have done well with their lives — some are retired, some have risen through the ranks of one or another of the Big Three, and one has several patents related to the glass shelves we all have in our refrigerators.
(3/23/2009) Marilyn and I went on an over-nighter with our Miata club over the weekend. We had a great time and got re-acquainted with some folks that we hadn’t seen since before the TMMBA program started. Now, with one quarter to go, we are starting to look forward to re-engaging with the Puget Sound Miata Club and some other activities as well.
So it was pointed out to me by my sweetheart that I’ve managed to fritter away two weeks of this three-week break and I still haven’t cleaned out the office nor have I done any painting, nor have I done my taxes. Hint to fellow TMMBA students, both Class 8 and 9, if you don’t get your taxes done in this break between quarters, you will surely have a tough go of it between now and April 15th!
(3/24/2009) Rick is back from Europe, and we are all puzzling over our grades from Entrepreneurship — 75% of the grades are supposedly team grades, yet we have managed a 0.6 point spread based, evidently, on our class participation. The funny thing is that the person on the team that claimed to not have “drunk the Kool-Aid” got a 4.0, and those of us who IMHO contributed quite a bit got 3.5 and 3.6. Go figure… In the final analysis, grades don’t matter so much as what each of us was able to take away from the program.
As for me, I’m sipping a “Satan’s Whiskers”, one of the many new cocktails I’ve learned to make reading the “How’s Your Drink” column in the Saturday WSJ. With the global financial system rearranging itself faster than the trees on Lavalite World, could it be that I’ve stumbled upon the most valuable learning experience of them all?
