It's Official

It's official. I'm a blogger for Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Leaders for Global Operations program (MIT LGO for short). Don't believe me? Check out the list of student blogs for yourself. You'll see me and several of my classmates under LGO '11 student blogs. One entry that has captured my attention is Tye's post regarding internships called Speed Dating.

Not much is going to change, other than the number of visitors. Don't worry, there's room for everyone.

Purdue!

I guess it's picture day. During my post summer/pre fall break, I'm getting together with several college buddies in Nashville. It will be a good time. In preparation, here are some picture of Purdue! These were taken in the Spring of 2009, when visiting my sister for one of her last trips to the famous Neon Cactus.

Materials Science and Electrical Engineering Building
Mechanical Engineering
The Engineering Mall fountain in front of the Hovde Hall, the administration building.
The Boilermaker Special!
The Engineering Mall fountain and the Bell Tower

The Chemical Engineering building.

Pictures from a Plane

I know... I was that guy taking pictures from a plane, like it's the first time I've ever flown. But I couldn't resist. Here are some pictures at about 6am central time above the city of Chicago on my way to China several months ago. I ran across them in my album and thought I should share. Enjoy!

Beach Boys and Crowds

As promised, here are some pictures from the Beach Boys. One Word... crowded!

Beautiful evening none the less. I usually post pictures of Boston from the Cambridge/MIT side of the river. Here's a picture of MIT/Cambridge from the Boston side of the river. The tall building in the picture with the "golf ball" on top is the Earth and Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT, also known as the Green Bulding. It is the tallest building in Cambridge and will serve as a great training ground for a stair race this February.
More crowds!

Everyone Loves the Beach Boys

Last night, I returned to the Esplanade, the famous bandshell on the Charles River in Boston, for another free concert. A local radio station hosted the event that starred the Beach Boys!

As usual, our class had a large representation at the event. A simple email with a few times and location is all it takes, which I took the liberty to compose. When setting the times, I severely miscalculated the popularity of the Beach Boys. I was under the impression that I was the only person in Boston who at the age of 7 thought the Beach Boys were the greatest. However I was wrong. The venue was indescribably packed with fans young and old.

Showing up an hour before the show, we arrived to find the seating area full. Given the size of our group, we didn't even try to squeeze in, instead we sat across a water channel on a small island in the Charles, and attempted to listen and watch the show through trees from about 200 yards away. Needless to say, our ability to actually view the show was rather obstructed, but we could hear it, and that's all that matters. For "a bunch of old guys" they sounded really good.

During the course of the night, I discovered that most of my classmates also shared a similar childhood passion for the Beach Boys. It was fun to hear them live because they hold a special place in my childhood hear. I can clearly remember my sister and I dancing/jumping around the living room until the Beach Boy Endless Summer vinyl album skipped and my dad had to reset the needle only for us to do it again (I'm sure he appreciated the damage to the record and player that our "dancing" was causing).

Catch a wave and your sittin' on top of the world.... pictures to come!

Where Is Brad?

I know that I've been promising pictures of where I live, so here is the first round. I live south of Central Square on Magazine Street in Cambridge Massachusetts. Check it out on the google map.

Here's a picture of the building that I live in:

If you look to the left of the building:

You will see that a section of the building "sticks out" to the left. If you walk down the sidewalk, towards that protrusion, you will find my front door:

My first day of school picture was taken on the other side of this door. As you can see, we are on the "garden level". A fancy realtor name for "basement". The windows are big enough that you don't really feel like you are underground, and it stays nice and cool for the most part.

Here is another picture of our door, looking towards the front of the building (where I was standing to take the first few pictures).

The building is really cool. It's a pre-war building, constructed around 1930. It's 6 stories tall, plus a basment. There are 3 stairwells, one main staircase and two back staircases. The back staircases have a dumbweighter track running up the middle (I said it's an old building). These back staircases also provide a route to the roof from which there is a great view.

Overall, a great apartment in a great location. A big thanks to my brother, Dave, for helping out with the approval process and for all of his extra furniture from when he moved in with his wife.

More pictures of inside of the apartment to come.

Back Home Again In Indiana

Time flies when you are having fun... or when you are in the MIT LGO program. It feels like summer is just getting started (considering it is just getting warm enough to require wearing shorts). I looked at the calendar today and notice that we only have 4 weeks left.

Not that I'm looking forward to the end of summer classes, because it is very nice being here on campus with so few people around. We almost have the run of the place. Empty meeting rooms for class projects are a plenty. When a class is over, we don't have to run across campus to the next class, the next class comes to us - the professors rotate and we just stay in our seat. The classes themselves, overall, are engaging and interesting. Why put an end to a good thing? I guess life is change.

What I am looking forward to is being back home again in Indiana (compliment of Jim Nabors and the Purdue All American Marching Band... HAIL PURDUE!). I'll get to drive my car, visit college friends, visit friends at my previous employer Klipsch, eat at Yats the greatest cajun creole restaurant I have ever experienced, and most importantly spend time with family! And to top it all off... no homework! For those back home in Indiana reading... I'll see you soon!

Nerd Music

Do you like calculus? Do you like the Bohemian Rhapsody? Check out the Calculus Rhapsody. Everyone I've shown it to immediately breaks out into laughter (assuming that they have had calculus).

This video was made by a previous co-worker's son for a high school calculus project. The lyrics, music, vocals, and video were all produced by high school students for the project. Not too bad for kids just learning how to derive.

North End/Big Dig

Tonight I ventured to the north end of Boston, an area of the city famous for italian restaurants and bakeries. Basically, everywhere you look it is either an italian restaurant or bakery, I'm really not exaggerating.

On the way to the North End we walked across this park:

Some of you may have heard about Boston's "Big Dig". The beautiful picture above is a result of it. If you look across the street (past the lovely Rebecca and David who joined me on my quest for an italian dinner)....

You will find the expressway that runs under the park in the first picture.

Quite a pleasant change, but worth over $11 billion? Some say yes, others say no, and since I tend to stray from politics, let's look at the picture I took on the way home:

Once again, interstate 93 is running underneath of all this.

Dinner was delicious. I experienced Gnoochi for the first time thanks to an excellent recommendation by Rebecca. After dinner we walked past Faniel Hall and jumped back on the Red Line subway to head home. Great Success!

LGO - Leaders for Global Outsourcing

Rumor has it, we are now 2/3rds done with summer exams. We had our operations mid-term today. Inventory theory, process flow, wait times, etc. We were allowed a full page "cheat sheet" to write all of the equations on so we didn't have to remember them. Overall, it seemed pretty straight forward, but you never know until you get the test back.

One entertaining aspect of the program that came out of today's exam is the nick name for the LGO program - "Leaders for Global Outsourcing" (for the record, it is officially called leaders for global operations). We do a lot of team work in our summer teams of 6 people. As the workload increases, the work style transitions from the "entire team work" to "sub-teams of two sharing their results with the team of 6". This divide and conquer motif culminated this week when one or two individuals shared their cheat sheets with the entire class. I guess it is no secret that we help each other out. Otherwise, it would be very difficult to accomplish everything.

Addicted to Caffeine

I have acquired a headache for no apparent reason. I've experienced this headache before, and it's not due to a late night party. The first step is admitting you have a problem.... I think I'm addicted to caffeine.

Days have gotten longer. Therefore, nights have gotten shorter. Time spent in the classroom has increased. Given these trends, the natural response is that I will fall asleep in class. Therefore I have broken down and take a cup of tea to class each day. I typically try to avoid caffeine as much as possible. I keep my intake to one cup of tea or 1 soft drink a day.

Today is the shortest amount of class time I've had in several weeks (only 2 classes for a total of 3 hours). I also got a full 8 hours of sleep last night. I don't need caffeine to stay awake. However, my body says otherwise.

I almost gave in and bought a Dr Pepper (my absolute favorite) to enjoy and eliminate the headache. However, this is a fix I need to kick, so instead I opted for delicious water from the nearby water fountain. Not quite the same satisfaction, but overall a better feeling. A few more days of water and I'll be free from the grips of caffeine... and sound asleep in statistics class.

Picture

I want to apologize. I just noticed that I've been posting way to many words, and not enough pictures.

Here are some pictures from the roof of my apartment building. The building is 6 stories tall, and as you can see one of the tallest in the immediate area.

This is looking towards Central Square - where I walk every day to get on the T (subway). The subway stop is just beyond the tall concrete building on the right.

This picture is just to the left of the previous picture. If you look at the building on the far right, it matches up to the tallest building on the left of the previous picture. We are panning away from downtown Boston (which I would have to spin to the right to see) and towards Harvard.

And here is the picture from my room of Harvard (even further left). If you look VERY CLOSELY you can see the famous Harvard Memorial Hall (aka Dinning Hall) from which came the inspiration for the great hall in the Harry Potter Movies. Look at the steeple in the picture on the wiki link, then click on my picture to make it bigger and look closely for the same steeple on the horizon. It's about 2/3rds of the way from the left side. My college buddies and I were lucky enough to sneak into this building one day while a convention was going on. It was beautiful. And they had cookies, but technically not for us.

Ultimate Frisbee

Tomorrow I'm going to wake up and say OUCH!

Tonight I played the fantastic game of Ultimate Frisbee. The event was organized by a classmate and as usual a lot of us showed up! Unfortunately, all of the intramural fields were occupied so we decided to stick it to the man tonight by playing on the stadium field... don't get too excited this is MIT's "stadium", which is roughly the size of a large high school's "stadium". We knew that we risked getting kicked off like at a previous outing, but the opportunity to play was too great!

For those who are not familiar with the game, it is basically football with a frisbee, except you can rush with the frisbee and there is no huddle. You pass the frisbee up the field hoping to land one final catch in the end-zone to score. If the frisbee hits the ground, the other team gets the disc and heads towards their respective end-zone. For those who are more interested, I'll send you to my usual source for non-research information - wikipedia!

So... why ouch? My typical physical activity consists of running and cycling. Two sports with very little, ok, no lateral movement. Ultimate frisbee is more like tennis, football, and basketball where players run in all directions and make quick changes in direction especially when trying to defend a more skilled offense-man (or woman in the case of Christie who's ultimate skills greatly outweigh mine, therefore I blame her for the pain). Needless to say, I'm not used to the twisting, turning, and arm flailing (yes flailing) motions of the game.

Three hours after we finished, I'm already feeling sore. The advil is next to my alarm clock for morning!

EXAMINATION!

It's the eve of our first exam. The exam is in 15.064 Probability and Statistics. Time for the rubber to hit the road! The class is overall focused and ready. Many of us haven't had exams in years, for me it's been over 3 years, not counting the GMAT (Graduate Management Assessment Test).

I've resorted to my old college habit of studying very little per night (anywhere from 10 to 30 min) for several nights in a row before the exam (anywhere from 3 to 6 nights). It worked wonders for me in undergrad, we'll see how it work here in Graduateville.

Am I nervous? Worried? I don't believe so. I know that when the quiz is passed out, I'll read it and either understand it or not. Probability is one of those tricky subjects for me and hopefully the probability of me doing well is quite high, although I probability won't know till I get the grade. Terrible joke... trust me, I know... but it's after midnight and those things happen.

Dear Phil,

I have changed the look of this BLOG due to your request. I hope you find this new template more acceptable. Who knows... maybe I'll change it again someday.

Feel free to comment on the new look.

Sincerely,

Brad

If anyone is blog savvy (unlike me) and wants to make a more visually stunning banner or template for me, I would not be opposed. I use Google's blogger to write these if that helps with your creation process.

What time is it?!?!

COURSE SELECTION TIME!!! The Sloan School of Management at MIT has a course selection process like I have never experienced. First, there are hundreds of courses to choose from. I'm not exaggerating too much, look for yourself here. That page is the first of three pages of courses.

Second, the selection process is not straight forward to a newbie like me. Basically instead of just choosing a class and hoping you get in given your seniority or finding out that a Biology Grad got the last spot in the class you need to graduate, there is a bid system in place. Each student is given 1000 points to bid on classes. Classes that are more popular require a higher bid to get into. Classes that are less popular obviously don't. It ends up that class selection become almost a free market trade in itself. Granted someone who has one semester of school left gets into a class before someone who has two or three semesters left... but still, it's basically an Ebay auction for classes.

No you can't "sell" your leftover points to someone who wants to stack their schedule with power classes. And yes you can bid zero to get in a bid above someone who is not in the school of management.

Doesn't seem to complex does it? Well, I've only gotten started. There is a 40 page powerpoint and 1.5 hour lecture to explain the process and there are still plenty of questions. There are 5 rounds to the class selection process. There are two rounds of bidding, followed by a waitlist round of bidding, followed by a section swap round, followed by the final results. We are currently right in the middle of the processs - round 2 of bidding.

Ultimately, I'm sure it will work out. The system has been tested for years before me and has proven equitable treatment for all those who "play nice".

Independence Day

Now for the fireworks. As I mentioned, I saw the Boston Pops 4th of July show on July 3rd, leaving the 4th of July open for fun.

Independence day started with an extend bike ride with my brother, Dave. Many of the main roads along the Charles River river were closed so we had free reign without any cars. Although it was early in the day (about 1pm) the banks of the Charles were starting to populate with spectators ready for the night time show. The Esplanade was already full (where we saw the Boston Pops the previous night) while vendors, music, and police filled in everywhere else.

For the actual fireworks show, classmates had informed me of the MIT sailing pavilion's cookout. Basically anyone registered with the sailing club could come to the sailing pavilion to watch the fireworks. As a student, signing up is free. So by signing up for the sailing club, I got access to front row seats for the fireworks!

If you look at the map below, the red marker is the barge from which the fireworks are launched, the green maker is the Esplanade where the Boston Pops play (the live music is broadcast on either side of the river all evening), and the blue marker is the MIT sailing pavilion - our front row seats!!

Like most social events, most of the class shows up for the fun. This was no different. The pavilion offered upper deck and lower deck seating... we chose both by posting a group at either location. You can see the upper deck on the far left of the picture below. The lower deck is right below, followed by the Charles River with downtown Boston in the background.

And here are some classmates on the lower deck:

And classmates on the upper deck.

The boat filled water...

And Rebecca and Dave!!!

The two night of 4th of July fun combined to be, hand down, the greatest 4th of July that I have ever had. The weather was perfect (even though on friday weather.com spelled rain and thunderstorms for both nights). The music was great... especially Neil Diamond. The venues were outstanding for the Boston Pops and the fireworks (the boom from the fireworks actually shook the decks were were on, that's how close we were). The fireworks were amazing and the company was world class. Thank you to all who helped to make the weekend great!

Here are some more pictures.

We're Coming to America... TODAY!

There is a Boston 4th of July tradition where the famous Boston Pops perform at the beautiful Esplanade (a river front amphitheater in Boston) for the firework celebration which is then broadcast over national TV. I have been to many fireworks shows before, and I have even worked behind the scenes at one in particular for many years, but nothing has compared to this!!!

To start with... we have the Boston Pops, a fantastically talented orchestra which has been delighting crowds for years. Throw in a beautiful venue mixed with unanticipated gorgeous weather and top it all off with the one and only Neil Diamond and you have a perfect 4th of July - better yet, it wasn't even the 4th yet!!!! My sister-in-law, Rebecca, was able to snag tickets from her work for the July 3rd dress rehearsal of the show. We experienced the entire show without having to arrive 10+ hours in advance to get a seat or fight our way out of the crowd at the end. It was great.

Did I mention Neil Diamond was there?

And confetti!

I once again thank Rebecca for sharing her tickets. This will most likely be my only Boston 4th of July Celebration and I experienced the main event!

Happy 4th of July to all!

What's in a Name?

I'm still getting used to being in college again... partially because I haven't been in college for a few years, and partially because this is quite a bit different than the "college" that I know (my undergrad was at glorious Purdue University, for those of you who don't know me as well).

During undergrad... at Purdue, I often found myself in classes with anywhere from 6 students to 450 students. It didn't matter what class I was in, if I wanted the professor to know my name he/she would know my name with little effort on my behalf. If I didn't want the professor to know my name, he/she didn't know my name, which was typically the case due to my spontaneous severe case of narcolepsy as soon as I entered a lecture room. I have witnesses who can attest to this medical condition though no doctor has supported my diagnosis. Control over this aspect of class was one more reason I liked the big school feel that Purdue provided (that and football, social opportunities, and not to mention a world class engineering program).

One of the biggest surprising and uncontrollable differences with MIT comes in the professors... particularly with their familiarity with your name... on the first day of class. It turns out, that several of the professors have used our LGO picture book (basically a class list with photographs) to learn our names. Some professors even go so far as to read our admission applications.

This comes as a big surprise to many students during the first few weeks of class when a professor says "Michael, tell us if your experience with the TPS reports when you worked at Initech is similar to the situation in the case under study". Post class conversation often sounds like "How does he know that I worked at Initech? I never mentioned it!".

Whether it is good or bad is up to the individual's opinion, but it's one more way that a professor has your number.