Riley Evan Ross’ Baylor Blog

Is it too late to switch to philosophy, religion, or history, or transfer to a technical college?  Is it too late for that?  This semester was going pretty stinking good until Quantitative Business Analysis (QBA).  QBA is my kryptonite.  I’m not saying I’m anything close to Superman… but if I were, QBA would allow me to get shot to death.  Last semester it wasn’t that bad.  I did much better last semester because I forced myself to study like never before.  Even though I did okay, I still hate it; can’t stand it, yet, I have no choice but to accept it.  I’m really not that bad at the final product, which is analyzing the data.  I have more of a problem with collecting the data.  It’s kinda like accounting.  I see the importance of it; I just don’t want to be any part of its genesis.  I’m sure there are plenty of people who hate marketing; that is where we are different.

What makes matters worse is that my add-ons in excel are screwing up and I can’t use solver.  Solver is a huge part of what we are doing this semester and I can’t even access mine.  It took me an entire class period of screwing around with this stupid thing, plus post-class time, and I still haven’t fixed the problem.  Do you know what this means?  It means that I’m further behind than usual.  My stupidity doesn’t need any assistance from Microsoft.  If Bill Gates is conspiring with Dr. Moore to slow down my graduation, they’re in for a surprise. 

I’m pretty sure QBA isn’t required for a theology degree. 

God-1, Business-0

Let’s talk a little bit about Waco life.  Specifically, let’s talk about Waco food.  On the whole, it isn’t that bad.  With the large Latino population here, you would expect a huge amount of Mexican food, and to a certain extent, that’s right… there is a lot of Mexican food here.  But, sadly, I’m not a big fan of most of it.  In Oklahoma we have a lot of Mexican food joints and that’s what I’ve grown up on.  Oklahoma City has Chelinos and Los Vaqueros, which have very similar menus, because I think that the guys that started these restaurants are cousins or something.  Norman has Tarahumaras.  Chelino’s can be credited with bringing the “Chilada” style cerveza to Oklahoma City.  They all serve thin sliced but chunky salsa (SERVED COLD) and hot queso made with real cheese, all complimentary.  The actual portions are quite good, too.  Chelino’s has this plate called the Don Rogelio, which is 4 carne asada tacos with copious amounts of onions and a hint of cilantro, which paired with a chilada-tecate is amazing.

Waco’s Mexican food doesn’t really do it for me.  There is no cold chunky salsa, apparently they prefer warm and runny.  There is no complimentary queso, they would rather charge you for a sub-par mixture of ball-park, canned cheese and Rotel.  And it’s all mostly overpriced.  That being said, if you like Breakfast Burritos, Waco is your place.  I can say that there are two places I could recommend for some outrageous breakfast burritos; Adriana and Janette’s and Lolita’s.  Both are terrific in their own rights but let’s look at Lolita’s.  At first, second, and third glances, Lolita’s is a rather conservative place.  On the front door they have signs that say “Clean Language Spoken Here” and “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.”  That’s okay I guess, I’ve never seen them refuse service to anyone.  When you walk in, they usually have Fox News on the tube.  A lot of places air Fox News, I’ve gotten over it by now.  And then they have a burrito called The Elephante, notice the name on the Elephant’s belly.  “George W.”

It took me a while to muster up the cajones to order such a burrito (like a minute) but I couldn’t help it.  It is this humongous burrito with eggs, bacon, chorizo, potatoes, beans, and pico de gallo.  Can’t stand the man but I love the burrito.  This monstrosity is delicious, especially with a coffee.  And I found out that if you order in Spanish, looking like the obvious gringo that I am, they will give you extra bacon on your burrito.  I don’t need to remind anyone how much I love bacon.

After Tuesday’s election, I can’t help but think if Barack Obama is going to get a burrito named after him.  I guess if people in Africa are naming their babies Barack Obama and Antigua is naming their tallest mountain after him, I guess it’s okay for Shrubya to have burrito named after him.

However, if Adriana’s would name a burrito after president elect Obama, what would it be called?  Obamarrito, Barack Burrito, Burritobama?

(In case you’re wondering… STD’s stands for Small Town Dining)

Well, the temperature has dropped to a tolerable 70 degrees.  The leaves aren’t really changing but I imagine the foliage will begin to tilt towards fall soon enough.  If you live in a place with four seasons, then I’m quite sure you have seen the signs of fall already.  At Baylor in Waco, TX, we are never sure that fall has begun until we see one combination of clothing; Uggs and Shorts… and probably a Northface fleece. 

You know what uggs are… they’re these ridiculous, “UGG-ly” sheepskin  boots that I’m quite sure Inuits would love, if they had the money. Eskimos, not sorority girls should be wearing these.  I don’t get it… girls at Baylor are renown for wearing running shorts everywhere; SHORT running shorts.  There has to be some cause for this.  My theory is that when the temperature drops by 5 degrees, the temperature of the mid-shin drops by double.  Therefore, sheepskin boots are required to keep the upper ankle nice and cozy (Kind of like the haunch-warmers that show-dogs wear).  However, the rest of your body actually warms up, and shorter shorts are needed.  I have not tested this theory yet… my wife probably wouldn’t let me, these are just observations.  However, it does not seem to make any practical sense, whatsoever, to don warmer shoes and shorter shorts.  I can’t seem to wrap my brain around it.  Being in the MBA program, I’m going to chalk this one up to marketing and product placement.  If you can manage to get ditsy famous people to wear your impractical products like sheep skin boots… then surely ditsy, daddy’s girls will begin to wear them as well.

How does this relate to the MBA program?  Not sure, really.  At this point it is more of an undergrad phenomenon.  So maybe we’re just too professional to start in with this, at campus anyway.  For the future, I am quite hopeful in my marketing career that I can sell anything if I get the right celeb to sport my product.

This is my last official Fall Break.  It doesn’t sound that exciting when you think about what I usually do with my fall breaks, sit around in my underwear, watch some football, maybe go for a bike ride… maybe.  But this fall break, I was invited to go to a case-competition hosted by Purdue University in beautiful, West Lafayette, Indiana.  So, we went.  Most teams presented venerable teams of “who’s who’s” while we were basically a team of “who cares.”  Our team consisted of Thomas “Steak n’ Shake” Gordon, Tim “The Northern Nightmare” Hutchison, Raj “Are you having a laugh” Suvarna, and Riley “The Nighttrain” Ross, aka “Fartmaster 9000”.  If there was a Bad-News Bears of MBA case-competition teams we would be it.  I suppose this analogy makes Dr. Stanley, Buttermaker.

For the unacquainted, an MBA case-competition is for those MBA’s that remain very-competitive and have to “feed-the-beast”.  Teams meet at a commonly agreed upon place, are handed situational problems for a company (fictitious or real), and then work out the problem with suggestions, numbers, strategy, etc.  You present your findings and suggestions to a panel of judges and then they will tell you if you were spot-on or spot-off.  In our case, we were pretty close to the spot because we were awarded third.  As a representative of Baylor, we are pumped about third.  We were right behind Notre Dame and Penn State, who were awarded 1^st and 2^nd, respectively.  That’s some pretty good company, especially considering the top-notch programs we beat including Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, Simon (Rochester), Carnegie-Mellon, and Vanderbilt.  I cannot tell you how proud I am that we competed that well among these top-notch schools.  Incidentally, a big shout out goes to Peter and Vikesh from Purdue.  These guys are great; after the competition, Peter and Vikesh escorted us to the various “networking establishments” for food and drink.  I do have to say at this point, “Boilermakers=Horrible”.  So what do we get as third place team? Bragging Rights, A false sense of pride, money and gas cards, a raging headache the next day?  Yes, Yes, NO, Yes.  No money or gas cards, those go to first and second place teams.  Third place gets a trophy that goes back to the school.  But hey, I got my picture taken with it… so… there, DBJ.

Following the results of the competition, it was quite obvious that the good people of our competing teams were somewhat demoralized… demoralized, crushed, defeated, maybe even considering their purpose in life.  Does it make me feel better knowing that although we walked out with no monetary reward, that we took some top notch schools down a peg?  Yes and no.  Obviously, I can feed my soul on the remains of a competitors’ but I can’t feed my gas tank.  My wallet isn’t any fatter on the destroyed faces of our opponents, but my wallet is fatter with receipts that only tell of the story of Kentucky’s comeback victory, a boilermaker rally, and a “Big Texan” to wash it all down.  Ask me about the Big Texan sometime… you won’t be disappointed.

“What’s the point?” 

“What the heck is the point of taking political science classes in a business program?”

“Shouldn’t you be more focused on finance, microeconomics, and general business practices so that you can take those ideas to wherever you are going?”

These are all common questions an International Management student has to hear in an MBA program, like this one at Baylor.  What is it about Political Science classes that freak some business students out?  It is so necessary to understand cultures and the developing world, if you are going to do business there.  Prime example:  if you are going to do business in a theocratic-Islamic country like Iran, assuming you could do business there, or even a country that is heavily influenced by their Islamic faith like Turkey, you might look a little foolish taking standard American Finance practices with you.  How so?  As we learn in finance class, it is common place to make investments of about ½ cash and ½ borrowed money or a “leveraged” position.  However, Muslims view any sort of debt as a bad thing, an unholy/unrighteous thing, if you will.  Islam views being indebted to another man as sinful, and I can’t say I totally disagree with this idea.  So, as an American businessperson, there are certain educational ideas would want to check at the door. 

That’s one thing I like about Baylor, they seem to understand that context-specific business is incredibly important to successful business.  What’s funny is that Poli-Sci professors are generally just as confused as to why some MBA students are taking poli-sci classes as my cohort.  I’m studying Latin America, which means Mexico, Brazil, and Argentina are my main foci.  If you think there are contextual clues to doing business in these countries, you are right.  I’m about to go learn right now about Liberation Theology and the influence that the Catholic Church had on business, wish me luck; I’ll write more on this later.

Let’s be honest; Baylor isn’t that bad of a place.  In fact it’s pretty cool with regards to faculty and staff.  Dr. Carini is willing to try new things that might make his students perform better; he’s kind of an organizational behavior guy like that. (here’s an artist’s rendering)

One thing that he allowed us to try, was the use of “good” coffee at donut hour.  Here’s the backstory, in bullet format:

·         Donut Hour every Tuesday morning

·         Coffee is provided by Aramark

·         Aramark coffee tastes like it is filtered through doo-doo (poop)

·         Jud and Riley complain about coffee

·         We are told to remedy the problem by brewing it and supplying it at donut hour

So that’s exactly what happened.  Jud and I showed up early yesterday to supply the MBA students and faculty with “Jud and Riley’s Javaritas”.  A cup of deliciousness that tastes oddly similar to Folgers.  You know the coffee has got to be pretty bad to move up to Folgers.  It went off great.  People were enjoying the javaritas… smiling, laughing, having the best time we’ve ever had at a Donut Hour.

But things went wrong somehow.  We were told at the end of the day, that we didn’t have permission by Aramark to use their insulated coffee dispenser (this is probably true; we had the assistance of housekeeping, who only delivers the coffee). And supposedly the lid to the dispenser was broken, which I call shenanigans on.  SO…

After propelling the MBA program into, no doubt what will be a lengthy court battle of “whodunit”, the Jud and Riley Javaritas will cease to be.  So the next time you hoist your coffee to your lips, pour a little on the ground for your homies… The Javaritas

This Blog is in Memory of “Jud and Riley’s Javaritas”

September 30, 2008-September 30, 2008

(from 9:00am to about 11:15am)

Here’s an excerpt from my diary.  It’s not really a diary… more of a journal.  Lots of guys have diaries, y’know.  It’s about this semester.

Since I haven’t written a post since before I left Argentina, I felt it necessary to pontificate upon the final semester of my academic career.  Before I begin, I should say that Argentina ended great, I don’t know if I would live there but I could easily travel all over that country again. 

My mom had to go through some pictures of me recently for my wedding.  Carmen’s stepdad was putting together a slide-show of Carmen and I and he needed some pictures of our youth.  There are two pictures from my past that got me to thinking about where I am today.  One is in my memory.  It was the first day of school of either Kindergarten or 1st Grade.  I was wearing my turquoise “Alf” shirt.  Alf was riding a Chopper style motorcycle.  I loved Alf, I don’t know if it was because he ate cats or not; it was just a good shirt. 

The other picture is one of my brother Ryan and I at my graduation… from La Petite pre-school.  It’s quite obvious you can see the drive in my eyes, the determination and will that comes along with being a graduate (I think my eyes were fixated on some snacks that were being served and there I had to stand, waiting for this bogus picture); I’m not sure what Ryan was looking at. 

 They might be macadamian nut…

This is, in all reality, the final semester of my academic life.  Unless I get filthy rich and decide to bail out of business and study the things I want to in a classroom setting like history, philosophy, or theology.  What’s interesting about the timing is this… I started class today, exactly 20 years after my first day of class ever.  Walking into Ms. Goure’s class was quite different than walking into class today.  You can hide behind your parent’s leg when your timid.  You know that you are about to do something different with your life, and your not under the protection of the familiar faces that you know… and it’s scary.  Real scary.  I know I cried a few times in Kindergarten.  But eventually the scariness goes away and you settle into a life of comfort and complacency with the same faces in the same places.  The world is your oyster and our little sponge-like minds absorb all kinds of information. 

Fast-forward 20 years and here I am again.  This time, the world really is my oyster and this oyster has two significant differences than the one in 1988:  I can’t fit into my Alf t-shirt and there’s no way I can hide behind my mom’s leg.  But why would I want to.  Even though I’ve already worked full-time for quite a few years, it isn’t the same.  I always had the academic setting by my side.  Come December, I’ll be full tilt into work without an academic parachute.  This is really where the last 20 years have been leading me.  That once sponge-like brain is now going to be squeezed and all that information will have to ooze out in practical application.  This wonderful oyster has gotten bigger but the difference is I have a bigger spoon. 

I realized I haven’t written anything about my internship on my Baylor Blog.  Let it be known that things are going well with the internship.  There really is not too much to report about my job.  In fact most of what I’m doing, I can’t talk about, because it’s all top secret.  I am doing some guerrilla marketing on a few of our products as well as the brand itself.

In more depressing yet exciting news Starbucks is in Argentina.  It was made official around three months ago and then one finally went up on Santa Fe, right next to Palermo Alto, the mall.   I haven’t seen a line so big since they introduced the Texas Giant at Six Flags over Texas.  It wrapped around the restaurant and into the mall, yes, it was that big.  Carmen and I decided that it wasn’t that great in the states to wait for, why the hell would we wait for this.  So we left.  Three days later, we were walking by on our way to somewhere and the line was only out the door.  We hopped in line and I got a Dulce de Leche frappucino.  Even though there is threat of me sounding like a pansy (although I did advocate for a station wagon) it was delicious.  I know frappucinos aren’t supposed to be my thing but c’mon, they got me by my huevos.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of bacon.  If you didn’t know that, then it’s probably your fault.  As a matter of fact I think bacon is one of the five best five letter words on the planet.  The complete list is here, http://rileye.wordpress.com/2007/09/22/thousands-of-years-of-thought-come-full-circle/.  But things are about to get serious.  One of my beloved class mates, Haley, was kind enough to tell me about The Grateful Palate Bacon of the Month Club (http://www.gratefulpalate.com/?p=Category_11).  This is amazing; and you can bet your sweet pork fried behind that it will be on my Christmas list this year.  For $150 you get a package of artisan bacon each month along with a t-shirt, a wine list, a ball point pen, a membership card, a pig nose, and a newsletter.  DID YOU READ THAT?  A newsletter.  Okay, maybe it isn’t the newsletter I’m so concerned with but seriously, artisan bacon and a complimentary wine selection?  They also have ideas on complimentary coffee as well.  I don’t know if I’m becoming more of a food snob but hopefully that means I’m be more picky on how I eat.  My fiancee can already attest to how much of a music snob I am, so why not throw food and coffee in there as well?  How much cooler can this deal get?  That’s all I had to say… carry on.

- He’s a bit like a hippie;

and a bit like a narc.

He reads stories from the bible

like Jesus and the Arc.

- He rides his bike around

through the woods around trees

He runs kinda like a girl

to protect the cartilage in his knees.

- He’s not too culturally sensitive,

in fact his jokes are sometimes racist

but he cares for all of mankind

from different lands and different places.