blog.ulfw.com

Okay not quite 5×6=30 miles, but rather I hit the 66,666 mile mark today in Palo Alto, CA.

Now my friendly MINI is up for sale (interested anyone?) while I await the arrival of my new vehicle.

I always feel happy when I read good things about my Alma Mater. You know, especially the world of MBA programs is heavily competitive (for better or worse). More than in many other programs, rankings do matter.
So I’m happy to announce that US News and World Report now ranks the Stanford Graduate School of Business the number one business school in the country (tied with Harvard Business School), up from the number 2 spot in previous years.

See list here.

Makes me proud to be an alumnus of the Class of 2006.

(my old business card)

Best Business Schools (Ranked in 2008)

1. Harvard University
1. Stanford University
3. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton)
4. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Sloan
4. Northwestern University (Kellogg)
4. University of Chicago
7. Dartmouth College (Tuck)
7. University of California–Berkeley (Haas)
9. Columbia University
10. New York University (Stern)

My buddy Ivan recently made the big decision of leaving San Francisco for Dubai. Now I am not sure if I would have made the same decision, but I can very much understand the rationale for offering his family a brighter (or hotter?) life in the deserts of the Emirates.

Anyhow I just want to use this post to wish Phil, Sanja and Ivan the very best for their future endeavours and… see you soon!

Here’s a very favorable shot of him in Bangkok btw:

(and no Ivan - I won’t take this picture off the post)
Check out his new blog here.
And oh yea - should anyone see a guy dressed like this in Dubai. Make sure to say hi. There shouldn’t be too many…

Now I am all about addressing issues at the root of a problem. If there’s something wrong, let’s try to figure out what it is and solve the problem. Yet what happened this morning I would say was a little… let’s say… over the top.

So we were in our Mobile All-Hands meeting. Packed in a small open tech talk area about 100 or so people listened to what new things our teams around the world came up with. When our VP gave an update, someone who was not even part of the meeting came by and loudly interrupted.
Standing right in front of the projection screens he addressed the audience and uttered his dismay about how hard it is for him to …

… reach the bathrooms(!) as we were apparently blocking the walkthroughs.

Now here are a few alternative options he could have pursued instead:
- Use the bathroom on the lower floor
- Walk past the bystanders, excusing himself and making it through quickly and nearly effortlessly
- Wait 5 minutes

All valid options I would say, but he instead chose the most natural way and addressed the public with his issues. Democracy at it’s best I guess.
The fun thing is that he didn’t want to let go and started arguing about the whole thing. Aw… engineers.. you just gotta love them.

Okay - this post is a sign that I’m not afraid to admit silliness. So a few days ago I was watching a TV documentation about the new Venetian resort in Macau:

Supposably it’s even bigger and nicer than the one I’ve been to a few times in Las Vegas:

Now the kicker though:
A couple of days later when reading a magazine article about how Venice, Italy is about to sink when the sea level rises just a few inches I had my brain stop for a second or two.
When looking at the Piazza San Marco…

…I actually thought…

Oh my! There’s a Venetian in Venice too now!

Yea. I know. … Don’t say anything…

As requested, here are a few more pictures of BMWs impressive new delivery center - the ‘BMW World’ in Munich. It’s funny, the only other folks I met that were there as early as me was a friendly elderly couple from Los Angeles, who were there to pick up their 535i (about 4 hrs later).

Yesterday I dropped off my car at E.Harms in Frankfurt to have it trucked to Bremerhaven hopefully shipped to Port Hueneme this weekend. The whole delivery time is estimated to be around 8 weeks. Urgh.. those will be tough!

Is it me or is Facebook’s social targetting of ads a little…hm.. off. These are two ads I got served consecutively:

See pic below Miles driven at time of pick up: 0.2!
More info to follow…