cindyandmike.com

It’s been so long since we’ve updated our website! The holidays came and went and now we’re in February! I have no excuse! Here are a few updates since our last post, in no particular order:

1.  Had two cookie exchanges at our house in the month of December….fun times and delicious cookies. Several new recipes to add to my book!

2. The kids and I tried to make the trip up to Chicago for Mike’s MBA spouse luncheon…packed the car, dropped Oliver at the kennel, and then saw 3 cars spin out and land in the ditch on I65. Called Mike and Karen to say, “we’re turning around!” We came home and made a gingerbread house!

3.  Christmas Tree decorating afternoon at my mom and dad’s house….Santa came for a visit this year and was a big hit with the grandkids! He even sang to them - insert here - retired music teacher trying to make some christmas cash by going to parties as Santa. Adorable!!!

4.  Maggie had her 15 month check up - all is great - 30 % for height and weight; 97% for head!

5.  Sam had his third dentist appointment. We went really excited; little did I know, this age hates the dentist.

6.  The Bears didn’t make the playoffs. Don’t mention football again until August.

7.  Annual Bonge’s dinner with great friends - amazing night!

8. I made probably about 15 dozen cookies and about 10 loaves of bread for the holidays. Yes, we love to bake around here!

9. Sam had his totally cute Christmas program at school. He loves to sing…but was a little shy in front of the “audience!”

10.  Took 3 total hours spilt between two nights to put the kitchen together that Santa brought the kids. Mike commented about 4 times that he could have written the instructions better…yeh…right honey…..

11.  Dinner date night with my two best friends and their husbands….we rocked out that night - how old are we?!?!  We realized we had NEVER been out, just the six of us, without kids…EVER. Is that possible?? So fun, and we’ll so do it again!

12.  Had a wonderful Christmas Eve and morning…the expression on the kids faces made our year.

13.  Celebrated New Year’s Eve with our friends Rachel and Conrad with their two girls Bella and Sopie…we rang in the New Year in our PJ’s playing Wii. Didn’t everyone do that?

14. Mike started his last quarter of school! Yippee!

15. Mike’s family came to celebrate Christmas in January. So fun to see family!! We miss them!

16. Record breaking snowfall brought a smile to Sam’s face…but not to Maggie! Sam loves to throw snow in her face!

17.  Did I already mention it’s Mike’s last quarter of school?

18.  Sam loves to count with his fingers.

19. Sam and his good friend Jack, went to the Monster Truck Jam downtown. Stayed out until midnight with daddy….

20.  Both kids have been sick twice….but all on the mend now!

21.  Maggie has all four eye teeth coming in…bring on the Motrin.

22.  I turned a very uneventful 33 years of age.

23.  Maggie is now running and is non-stop talking!!!

24.  Mike was pumped to use our snow-blower for the first time this winter!

25. Sam, most days, insists to be called “Bill.” And he calls us “Steve” and “Cracker Jack.”

26. Maggie, while out eating sushi, confused the soy sauce bottle for her sippee cup. Probably won’t make that mistake again.

27. Maggie loves to accessorize. Hats, purses, necklaces (usually rosaries), coats, socks (most times on her hands as sock puppets), etc. - you name it - she loves to wear it - all at the same time. No kidding.

28. The other day, Sam tried on a pair of my sunglasses and said, “Dude, do I look good?”

 SO, there you have it. We’re getting older and growing up around here. Loving life in 2009….happy new year to everyone!

That’s a good thing.

http://www.businessweek.com/bschools/rankings/index.html

The economy may not be in great shape, but at least some people have money to spend…
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chicago-u-of-c-business-school-booth-nov06,0,1746880.story

Good news is Obama is getting some good financial advice.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122610604643110229.html

Decided to go for a walk and explore.  St Paul’s is just outside my hotel door, so I walked over to see if I could get in.  There was a long line of tourists, and it’s a bit rainy.  So I decided to keep walking.  I found a tube station and jumped on the Central line over to Oxford Circus.  They call it Central, but it’s the red line to me. Chicago’s lines are all colors, and every line here has a color, but the they also have names and apparently go by the names.

Wow, lots of people.  This is the shopping area, kind of like Michigan Ave, but with lots of stores on the side streets as well.  Everyone is bumping everyone else with their umbrellas.

I found an electronics store and bought the right power adapter, as I brought the wrong one with me.  Now I can properly run my laptop.  Talked to a guy about a SIM card for my phone, but my phone is not unlocked, so that would not work.  He wanted to sell me a new one for £10, but I declined.

I bought a couple of long sleeve shirts, as I only brought one, and no jacket.  It’s supposed to be rainy and high 60’s all week, so I don’t know why I did not bring the right clothes.  At least Cindy packed me an umbrella.

I took a nap from 5pm to 7:30pm.  I was extremely tired.  Got up, wandered around for food and found most places were closed.  What?  It’s Saturday night.  Then I realized I’m in an area of town that is more business than nightlife, hence everything being closed.  I did find a pizza place and had a small pepperoni pizza and some tiramisu.  I haven’t managed to have a proper beer since I’ve been here.

BTW, I love the words used so common here that we rarely hear in the US, like rubbish, cheeky, etc.  Finally fell asleep at 3am.

I flew out of Indy at about 7:15pm Friday night, via Washington Dulles, and arrived at London Heathrow at about 9:45am.  Called to have a chauffeur pick me up as it was cheaper than a taxi and because the tube can get a little crazy with a big piece of luggage.  Still cost $80 US (vs $140 for taxi.)  Exchange rate now is $2 to 1 pound.  Ride was 45 minutes to my hotel.  Nice Benz.  Quiet driver.  I did manage to sleep on the flight a bit, but I’m tired.  Time is 5 hours ahead of Indy/NY here.

I got to the Club Quarters hotel around 11am or so and thought there would be no chance to check-in, but sure enough, they had a room for me.  Friendly chaps.  About the same as the Club Quarters in Chicago, which means small, clean and functional.  That’s fine for me, as I’m not too picky as long as it is clean.  I’m going to shower and then explore.  When I look out my window I see St Paul’s Cathedral.  That’s where Diana and Charles were married, where they had Churchill’s funeral, etc.  Pretty neat.

Today is our last day of classes.  I forgot to mention that the students clap at the end of class for the professor.  Every class.  We only do that at the end of the quarter in Chicago.  I took Marketing in undergrad, but it’s been about 15 years since then, so I’m a little rusty.  This class has helped remind me of the core principles of segmentation, targeting, etc.  We still have another week of Marketing in London in August.  One of the things I have learned about myself is that I learned a decent amount about marketing while working at my last job at the consumer products company, because those kinds of companies have to be focused on marketing, more than service companies typically.

The other class is more focused on human behaviors behind decision making, such as various types of biases you can have.  I’ve learned a lot about the kinds of mistakes you can make in decision making.  For instance, assuming you have an idea what something is worth, you should always make the first offer to buy something rather than asking the seller for his price.  That’s because the price becomes an anchor, and all future prices are based off of that.  Research has shown that people who negotiate this way get on average a better price for an item than those who ask the seller what they’re willing to take, as the seller’s price becomes an anchor that’s higher.

I have a lot of reading to do between now and London in four weeks, plus several essays to write.  The work just does not let up.

For lunch we had rice, mushroom alfredo pasta, salmon, some sort of fried chicken thinly pound out, some thinly sliced beef in gravy.

After class on Friday they had arranged buses for us to go to Labrador Park, a nature reserve.  It is on a big hill that overlooks the bay.  You can get a good view of all the cargo ships just waiting to come ashore.  There happened to be some Singapore Air Force jet fighters practicing overhead, so I snapped a picture of that.  Dinner was a mixture of ethnic foods, such as white fish in lemon cream sauce, cold Thai beef vermicelli, black pepper beef (mmmm), and broiled chicken.  They had chili crab but I skipped since that’s messy.  We enjoyed some red and white wine which was excellent.

Afterwards we went to Clark Quay to a bar called Emperor’s Palace.  It used to be a Chinese-style home that was owned by the same guy that owned the building the Chicago GSB is in.  Gary and I took our shoes off and sat up high on a platform with cushions and were served drinks.  They had a belly dancer and a guy with a big snake.  Not something you see every day in a bar in Chicago.

After that we went to a dance club The Ministry of Sound.  This place was crazy.  Jam packed on the dance floor, multiple rooms, etc.  They had a water fall that dropped water between the dance floor and the bar, and the dance floor rotated.  I jumped into the middle of it and danced with the locals… they probably thought I was crazy.  I can’t dance of course.

Most of the GSB stayed in a room upstairs that was much smaller that had a dance floor and played 80’s dance music.  My goal was to stay up late so that I could start to adjust to normal time.  I was in bed by 4am.

Day 7 is Friday.  I am really tired today and not feeling as well as I have been, so I skipped lunch.  Looked like Chinese, but I’m not sure.  I took a nap in the school’s lobby for about 30 mins in the late afternoon.  After class a group of us Americans went back to Chinatown for some more shopping.  You really have to try to bargain on some stuff if you want a good price.  Hard to tell what is real vs fake here, so I avoid most things unless I have a very good idea what it should cost.  I keep being accosted by people wanting to tailor me a shirt or suit.  Maybe if I had more time.

For dinner Juan and Mark and I went for sushi at a Japanese place recommended to us by a local.  Woohoo, sushi!  I’ve been waiting for this all week.  The menu was mostly in Japanese, with sometimes the English version of the Japanese word, e.g., Toro is fatty tuna, so it would say Toro.  They didn’t have Toro, but you get the idea.  Their regular Tuna was the best I’ve ever had anywhere.  We also had some pan fried dumplings, sea bass, and yellow tail.  We had some pan sauteed squid as well.  Good stuff.  We split the bill, so my portion was about SG$60.  Not too bad for Singapore, but we didn’t eat too much.  That’s ok I was full.  The service was extremely slow and they barely spoke English.  Some of the things we ordered did not arrive.  That’s ok, the tuna made up for it.
After dinner we went back to Emerald Street to have a few beers.  I was in bed by about 12:30pm.  Needed some sleep.

We were told repeatedly that the classroom was cold and to bring a jacket.  I think once I put on my jacket for a few minutes because I was wet. But it’s what most in Chicago would consider hot in here.  I’m sweating.  This is an example of the “adaptive effect”. Over time, you adapt to your surroundings. In a few months this would be cold to me. Ok, so now I have imparted some knowledge from my classes this week on the masses.

We turned in our Swatch case today.  At lunch we went across the street and found another mall.  You would seriously not believe how many malls this place has.  They are all over the place.  They had a Swatch store, so we browsed.  They still have the gaudy watches of the 90’s, but now they have more Rolex-like stylish gold and silver watches.  Mostly silver, as gold is not “in” these days.  Nice, but expensive at SG$180-280.  They’re trying to go a little more up class than they were in the past.

For lunch we had Indian food.  I typically don’t like curry, but I tried some chicken curry and it was good.  Can’t eat too much of it though.  The naan bread was not as good as in the past.  I’ve noticed that sometimes it is oily and sometimes dry.  I like the oily version better.

In the evening we went down to the beach and Mana Mana Beach Club.  The beach here is very narrow, maybe 20 feet of sand from water to vegetation.  It is man-made.  There are palm trees and other trees here.  The weird thing is that off shore you can see about 200 shipping vessels.  I mentioned earlier that Singapore is the busiest port in the world, and here you can see it.  Weird to see some kids swimming in the water, as there is no way it could be clean with all of that shipping traffic.

After drinks we walked down the beach to our restaurant.  On the way we walked by an mad-made water ski park.  The park had a pulley and cable system whereby the skiier would hold onto the tow that was attached to a cable above their head.  This cable, which was held suspended about 20 feet over their heads, then pulled them around in a circle.  It was about 200 yards by 75 yards.  Pretty interesting idea.  I know I haven’t posted many pictures, but I promise to do that soon… this was a cool one.

We ate dinner at Jumbo Seafood, an outdoor cafe on the ocean.  It was really very crowded and hot, plus it was raining outside.  But the food was good.  It came out in courses.  The first was whole battered shrimp, then watercress, rice, a whole fish (we asked what it was, but I can’t pronounce… it was good… I ate the cheeks too and people thought I was weird), chili crab, and black pepper crab.

After dinner we went to Clarke Clay to the Pump Room.  Clarke Clay is an outdoor restaurant and bar area that reminds you of Las Vegas, e.g., the Paris hotel comes to mind.  The roof is about four stories above the ground and looks like clouds.  Lots of foreigners here in these parts, from all around the world.  We met a couple of Irish girls (love that accent.)  Did I mention how much alcohol is?  $SG12-16 for a beer and $SG15-25 for a mixed drink.  At US$1 = SG$1.3 you can see that it’s crazy expensive, more than NY if I recall.

The bar had dance music between sets of a very good band that played 80’s American music like Bon Jovi, U2, Guns N Roses, etc.  The lead singer was a man dressed as a woman (common here I guess.) I went home and was in bed by about 2pm.

Today we had Marketing in the morning again.  For lunch we had Thai food.  I guess they’re going to give us a different ethnic food every day.  I really enjoy Thai food, and this was some of the best Thai I’ve ever had.  I had basil beef, some sort of chicken, shrimp, and some rice.  The beef was so good I had seconds.  On our afternoon break they had steamed dumplings with chicken, which were good. Jet lag kicking in this afternoon again.  Lots of coffee.  I need to get more sleep tonight.

We worked on project until about 11pm. This Marketing case was on Swatch.  Remember them?  Well apparently they still exist.  I saw a Swatch store so I’m going to look into it.  Bigger in Asia, little less popular in Europe.  I haven’t seen them in America for years.

Since everyone had to work late on this case, dinner was catered, American sandwiches.  I had a steak sandwich and mushroom soup.  Beef is very good here, tender, usually.  The mushroom soup was good.  Kind of boring, but the food was ok.

I went back to the hotel and worked more on the case.  We have to turn it in Thursday afternoon.  For some reason they switch and we have Marketing in the afternoon the rest of the week.  I went to bed about 1am.