So, I know what you are thinking...why should I keep coming back to read this guy's blog if he doesn't keep posting. Well, things here have been pretty slow recently. I have been on my internship with Pratt & Whitney for the past month and a half and my project is moving along really well. I have a big presentation this Friday and hope to get some good feedback on the work so far. Other than that, I have found that I have tons of free time at night (just what I need with Alicia 2 hours away in Boston and me down in Hartford) that I have been filling with good stuff. I am training to run the Detroit Marathon in October and have been getting back into rock climbing (something that I have loved to do and have had an on-again-off-again relationship with for the past 15 years). Great stuff all around. Feeling great about the training in both sports. Just finished an 11 mile run two days ago which is right on track with my training schedule. Two months to go and I'll be finished with the Marathon!
Other than that, Alicia and I have had a great time on the weekends getting to explore the New England area. From a friend's awesome birthday on the Cape (learned the basics of skim boarding too) with the first clam bake since Orientation at Sloan, to driving around in the Jeep with the top down to see Swampscott, Salem, Marblehead, Gloucester, MA and Portsmouth, NH, to going to see a Brandi Carlile concert, we have been having a lot of fun. So much fun that I have been having trouble taking pictures of it all. Here are a couple of the shots that I have been able to take including some from a trip out to Pittsburgh, PA where we went to celebrate a friend's wedding. Hope that you enjoy!
More later...
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
G-Lab Pictures
Here are some photos from my G-Lab trip to Greece. The pictures don't do it justice, but we had a wonderful time and we are all aching to go back. Just so you know, the photos of the island that we went to are from Hydra (the ones with the donkeys) and the photos of the rock pedestals with the buildings on top are the monasteries of Meteora.
Hope that you enjoy!
More later...
Hope that you enjoy!
More later...
Thursday, June 26, 2008
One internship over, a new one just starting
Well, in the last four weeks, a lot has happened. Let's see:
I went on my G-Lab internship to go and work for Korres in Athens, Greece. My team had an amazing time working for this wonderful company meanwhile exploring the culture, food and islands of Greece. We were treated wonderfully by everyone we met and had beautiful weather the entire time - seriously, it rained once while we were at work and then it was warm and sunny every other day. Though we had LONG work days (arriving at 9 am and not leaving until 9 pm on some days) we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We were able to impart a lot of knowledge and information that we had learned during our first year in the LFM program. Inventory calculations, service levels, planning optimization, and trackable manufacturing/financial metrics/KPI's were just some of our eventual deliverables that we were able to deliver by the end of our internship. A lot of work packed into three short weeks. We feel great about our work and about Korres' ability to take it all in and take advantage of these new tools. We also did a lot of sightseeing with the hot spots being Meteora and the island of Hydra. Nothing like arriving on Hydra, an island with no cars, and then spending the day seeking out isolated beaches and some cliffs for diving. Even on "vacation" we were pushing each other beyond our comfort zones. In addition to the great people and views, we were amazed at how awesome Greek food is. From the salads to the lamb to their gyros, we all ate very well during our visit. This is not even mentioning the Mythos and Alpha beer. Definitely worth a try if you can find it.
I'll be posting some pictures of our trip in a few days (probably on Monday or Tuesday next week) once I get settled into my new internship position with Pratt & Whitney in Hartford, CT.
Speaking of, today was my first day at Pratt & Whitney. I am working in their Strategic Sourcing department in East Hartford, CT. Nothing much to report so far, other than they are taking great care of me. Spent the day getting accustomed to life at the facility and meeting everyone. My boss is on vacation until tomorrow so that will help me gain some more direction to my internship. I'll be commuting back and forth to Boston on the weekends as Alicia is staying in Boston to work and then begin school at Brandeis this Fall. We're really excited about our prospects (Alicia's school and my internship) though we are sad that we'll only get to have the weekends together once I start the 9-5 job instead of the normal LFM craziness. We'll get through it though and then only one more semester of classes (plus a thesis) to go!
Wow!
Well, come on back to check out the best photos from my trip and I'll drop another post when I have some more to discuss.
Take care and more later...
I went on my G-Lab internship to go and work for Korres in Athens, Greece. My team had an amazing time working for this wonderful company meanwhile exploring the culture, food and islands of Greece. We were treated wonderfully by everyone we met and had beautiful weather the entire time - seriously, it rained once while we were at work and then it was warm and sunny every other day. Though we had LONG work days (arriving at 9 am and not leaving until 9 pm on some days) we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. We were able to impart a lot of knowledge and information that we had learned during our first year in the LFM program. Inventory calculations, service levels, planning optimization, and trackable manufacturing/financial metrics/KPI's were just some of our eventual deliverables that we were able to deliver by the end of our internship. A lot of work packed into three short weeks. We feel great about our work and about Korres' ability to take it all in and take advantage of these new tools. We also did a lot of sightseeing with the hot spots being Meteora and the island of Hydra. Nothing like arriving on Hydra, an island with no cars, and then spending the day seeking out isolated beaches and some cliffs for diving. Even on "vacation" we were pushing each other beyond our comfort zones. In addition to the great people and views, we were amazed at how awesome Greek food is. From the salads to the lamb to their gyros, we all ate very well during our visit. This is not even mentioning the Mythos and Alpha beer. Definitely worth a try if you can find it.
I'll be posting some pictures of our trip in a few days (probably on Monday or Tuesday next week) once I get settled into my new internship position with Pratt & Whitney in Hartford, CT.
Speaking of, today was my first day at Pratt & Whitney. I am working in their Strategic Sourcing department in East Hartford, CT. Nothing much to report so far, other than they are taking great care of me. Spent the day getting accustomed to life at the facility and meeting everyone. My boss is on vacation until tomorrow so that will help me gain some more direction to my internship. I'll be commuting back and forth to Boston on the weekends as Alicia is staying in Boston to work and then begin school at Brandeis this Fall. We're really excited about our prospects (Alicia's school and my internship) though we are sad that we'll only get to have the weekends together once I start the 9-5 job instead of the normal LFM craziness. We'll get through it though and then only one more semester of classes (plus a thesis) to go!
Wow!
Well, come on back to check out the best photos from my trip and I'll drop another post when I have some more to discuss.
Take care and more later...
Monday, May 26, 2008
Memorial Day Weekend
So Alicia and I just finished celebrating our first real weekend since last summer...or so it feels. With the craziness of the LFM program and Sloan, it didn't feel like we had much time to spend with each other, but we had great weather and a wonderful weekend.
On Friday night we drove out to Mendon, MA to a drive-in movie theater and saw a double feature of Indiana Jones and Iron Man. We had a great time and look forward to going back sometime this summer. We definitely suggest going to anyone in the area as it is quite a memorable experience.
On Saturday, we drove down to Plymouth, MA (last weekend we went to Salem, MA which is also a great trip to make) to go and see the town and the Plantation. Though we didn't make it to the Plantation, we really enjoyed walking around the town and just relaxing. From there we drove down to Providence, RI to go and see Water Fire. Water Fire is an art installation comprised of roughly 100 open fire pits hovering over the downtown rivers of Providence. The banks of the rivers are quickly packed by nightfall and you can take a boat ride on a Venetian gondola if you'd like to be even closer to the action. It is a great event to go and see if you have the chance. I'd definitely suggest checking out their website at the least.
Sunday Alicia had to work so I started prepping for my upcoming trip to Greece and then Alicia and I had a nice afternoon enjoying the weather from our deck. Very low key, but very enjoyable.
I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend.
My next posting will hopefully be from Athens, Greece, so stay tuned!
More later...
On Friday night we drove out to Mendon, MA to a drive-in movie theater and saw a double feature of Indiana Jones and Iron Man. We had a great time and look forward to going back sometime this summer. We definitely suggest going to anyone in the area as it is quite a memorable experience.
On Saturday, we drove down to Plymouth, MA (last weekend we went to Salem, MA which is also a great trip to make) to go and see the town and the Plantation. Though we didn't make it to the Plantation, we really enjoyed walking around the town and just relaxing. From there we drove down to Providence, RI to go and see Water Fire. Water Fire is an art installation comprised of roughly 100 open fire pits hovering over the downtown rivers of Providence. The banks of the rivers are quickly packed by nightfall and you can take a boat ride on a Venetian gondola if you'd like to be even closer to the action. It is a great event to go and see if you have the chance. I'd definitely suggest checking out their website at the least.
Sunday Alicia had to work so I started prepping for my upcoming trip to Greece and then Alicia and I had a nice afternoon enjoying the weather from our deck. Very low key, but very enjoyable.
I hope that you all had a wonderful weekend.
My next posting will hopefully be from Athens, Greece, so stay tuned!
More later...
Monday, May 19, 2008
You might be an LFM student if...
- You view getting an engineering masters at MIT as "something you do in your spare time."
- You consider sleep to be a non-value-added process.
- You know many Japanese words, yet can't say anything meaningful to a Japanese person.
- The word "workaround" makes you physically ill.
- You've caught yourself optimizing how you make a sandwich.
- You lose sleep at night worrying you might accidentally leave your laptop unattended near other LFMs.
- Your computer costs more than your car.
- You know who Taiichi Ohno is, but not Daisuke Matsuzaka.
- You wield the name "Herbie" as an insult.
- You produce financial statements for your kitchen.
- You've used the terms "cycle-time," "bottleneck," or "continuous improvement" with a spouse or child in the last week.
- You feel the rate at which a fisherman catches fish can be modeled as a poisson process, yet find no humor in it.
- You analyze the operational strategies of characters in Disney movies.
- You view running out of cereal in the morning as a supply chain problem.
- Your version of the beer game is a lot less fun than those of your friends.
- You think baseball could use more statistics.
- You think that Toyota, Dell, and Progressive Insurance are similar companies.
- You travel to beautiful, exotic countries and then spend all your time visiting factories.
- You think $1 billion is a reasonable price for a green plant.
(a list posted around the LFM Offices)
- You consider sleep to be a non-value-added process.
- You know many Japanese words, yet can't say anything meaningful to a Japanese person.
- The word "workaround" makes you physically ill.
- You've caught yourself optimizing how you make a sandwich.
- You lose sleep at night worrying you might accidentally leave your laptop unattended near other LFMs.
- Your computer costs more than your car.
- You know who Taiichi Ohno is, but not Daisuke Matsuzaka.
- You wield the name "Herbie" as an insult.
- You produce financial statements for your kitchen.
- You've used the terms "cycle-time," "bottleneck," or "continuous improvement" with a spouse or child in the last week.
- You feel the rate at which a fisherman catches fish can be modeled as a poisson process, yet find no humor in it.
- You analyze the operational strategies of characters in Disney movies.
- You view running out of cereal in the morning as a supply chain problem.
- Your version of the beer game is a lot less fun than those of your friends.
- You think baseball could use more statistics.
- You think that Toyota, Dell, and Progressive Insurance are similar companies.
- You travel to beautiful, exotic countries and then spend all your time visiting factories.
- You think $1 billion is a reasonable price for a green plant.
(a list posted around the LFM Offices)
Monday, May 12, 2008
An Update...finally (again)...
Hello everyone. Well it has been one heck of a semester. One suggestion to future LFM's and Sloanies - only take one or two project based classes in a semester. This past semester I took 4 project classes and wow is that a lot of work! Here is an update on what has been going on in my life here at LFM:
The semester is wrapping up with classes ending on Thursday and my first and last exam next Monday. Lots of stress, but a lot of great projects are wrapping up and the sense of completion is nice.
In one of the last classes for "Laboratory for Sustainable Business," we were asked the question "Can the world sustain itself when our institutions and societies demand ever increasing economic growth?" After a good discussion about our thoughts, we were shown a very moving video of a speech by Robert F Kennedy discussing some of the problems with using the Gross National Product (now referred to as the Gross Domestic Product) as a means of acknowledging the countries well-being. I wanted to take a moment to post this video, as I thought that it was very relevant to today's world. Here is the video posted on YouTube.
Our project's goal is to help a microfinance institution in Peru enter the microinsurance industry. We have written two reports on the subject that our advisor thinks is some great work and he is adamant about having us travel to Peru in order to present our findings to the company. We may head down in two weeks to present our data. This would put quite a crunch on the team's time prior to the start of internship, but it would definitely be a great experience for all of us.
In "Projects for Change," my teammate and I are getting ready to hand off a manual of our research in the area of misoprostol (a drug used to prevent post-partum hemorrhaging - the leading cause of death during childbirth in developing countries) drug distribution in remote, resource-poor environments - in our case, Indonesia. We have spent the semester interviewing knowledge experts all around the world and performing literature reviews such as case studies, articles, etc. We have tried to capture the best practices from all of these resources and compile them into a reference manual that we will pass off to a first-year Harvard Medical student who will be traveling to Indonesia this summer to try to implement our results.
In "Product Design and Development," I was in a group of seven students (two of whom were very dysfunctional to our group and added no value to our project) and we were able to finish building our project by pulling an all-nighter the day before our final presentation. A photo of our product is shown here:
Our product is a dual-powered mass cell phone charger. The idea was that we wanted to develop an easily deployable system that could be used in emergency shelters and that would be able to be powered by both an outlet as well as a battery. There are four sides to our product so it has the capacity to charge up to 24 different cell phones at one time. Also, we have connectors that are able to charge roughly 80-90% of the existing domestic cell phones. I don't think that there is much of a market for the product, but it was a lot of fun to build with my 5 real teammates - though it was definitely "just-in-time" delivery to the product presentations.
In "Global Entrepreneurship Laboratory," a continuation of our Fall class, my team has been busy preparing for our upcoming three week trip to Athens, Greece, to work with a cosmetics company there. With our preliminary information gathering completed and having touched-base with professionals in the area of process improvement, we feel that we will be able to help our clients improve their process efficiencies greatly. We are also looking forward to spending three weeks living and working in Athens and sight-seeing around the countryside of Greece (at least on the weekends). It should be an amazing experience. Note to future LFM's: G-Lab has been an awesome experience and I hope that you all get a chance to take it. Unfortunately, given the constraints of the LFM program, the course may only be available to those LFM's who decide to take off-cycle internships. Just something to be aware of as you plan for your courses and your LFM experience.
Finally, I have completed a site-visit to my internship company and location. I will be spending the summer at Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT working with the Strategic Sourcing department. I had a great time visiting the location and meeting my future boss and co-workers. I think that the project and internship experience will be great both personally and professionally. I can't wait to get started on it though I'll be delayed by three weeks for the G-Lab trip.
I'll try to do a better job with keeping you all informed about the trip to Greece and my internship. Hope that you are all doing well!
More later...
The semester is wrapping up with classes ending on Thursday and my first and last exam next Monday. Lots of stress, but a lot of great projects are wrapping up and the sense of completion is nice.
In one of the last classes for "Laboratory for Sustainable Business," we were asked the question "Can the world sustain itself when our institutions and societies demand ever increasing economic growth?" After a good discussion about our thoughts, we were shown a very moving video of a speech by Robert F Kennedy discussing some of the problems with using the Gross National Product (now referred to as the Gross Domestic Product) as a means of acknowledging the countries well-being. I wanted to take a moment to post this video, as I thought that it was very relevant to today's world. Here is the video posted on YouTube.
Our project's goal is to help a microfinance institution in Peru enter the microinsurance industry. We have written two reports on the subject that our advisor thinks is some great work and he is adamant about having us travel to Peru in order to present our findings to the company. We may head down in two weeks to present our data. This would put quite a crunch on the team's time prior to the start of internship, but it would definitely be a great experience for all of us.
In "Projects for Change," my teammate and I are getting ready to hand off a manual of our research in the area of misoprostol (a drug used to prevent post-partum hemorrhaging - the leading cause of death during childbirth in developing countries) drug distribution in remote, resource-poor environments - in our case, Indonesia. We have spent the semester interviewing knowledge experts all around the world and performing literature reviews such as case studies, articles, etc. We have tried to capture the best practices from all of these resources and compile them into a reference manual that we will pass off to a first-year Harvard Medical student who will be traveling to Indonesia this summer to try to implement our results.
In "Product Design and Development," I was in a group of seven students (two of whom were very dysfunctional to our group and added no value to our project) and we were able to finish building our project by pulling an all-nighter the day before our final presentation. A photo of our product is shown here:
Our product is a dual-powered mass cell phone charger. The idea was that we wanted to develop an easily deployable system that could be used in emergency shelters and that would be able to be powered by both an outlet as well as a battery. There are four sides to our product so it has the capacity to charge up to 24 different cell phones at one time. Also, we have connectors that are able to charge roughly 80-90% of the existing domestic cell phones. I don't think that there is much of a market for the product, but it was a lot of fun to build with my 5 real teammates - though it was definitely "just-in-time" delivery to the product presentations.
In "Global Entrepreneurship Laboratory," a continuation of our Fall class, my team has been busy preparing for our upcoming three week trip to Athens, Greece, to work with a cosmetics company there. With our preliminary information gathering completed and having touched-base with professionals in the area of process improvement, we feel that we will be able to help our clients improve their process efficiencies greatly. We are also looking forward to spending three weeks living and working in Athens and sight-seeing around the countryside of Greece (at least on the weekends). It should be an amazing experience. Note to future LFM's: G-Lab has been an awesome experience and I hope that you all get a chance to take it. Unfortunately, given the constraints of the LFM program, the course may only be available to those LFM's who decide to take off-cycle internships. Just something to be aware of as you plan for your courses and your LFM experience.
Finally, I have completed a site-visit to my internship company and location. I will be spending the summer at Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT working with the Strategic Sourcing department. I had a great time visiting the location and meeting my future boss and co-workers. I think that the project and internship experience will be great both personally and professionally. I can't wait to get started on it though I'll be delayed by three weeks for the G-Lab trip.
I'll try to do a better job with keeping you all informed about the trip to Greece and my internship. Hope that you are all doing well!
More later...
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Nagoya - in two weeks!
So Alicia and I had a wonderful trip to China. We spent a couple of days traveling around Beijing to see the Great Wall of China, the Ming Tombs, the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, not to mention the Bird’s Nest and Swimming Center for the Olympic Games. We don’t know if Beijing will be finished with all of the work that they need to accomplish as they seem to have construction projects in every section of the city with some amazing projects yet to even be started! We'll see in August if they are able to finish.
A great time was had though and Alicia and I had a spectacular last day in town during which we went exploring on our own and witnessed some interesting aspects to the city that we had missed previously such as the early evening in the hutongs.
From Beijing, Alicia returned home while I continued on to meet up with the International Plant Trek in Shanghai via a quick stop in Hong Kong, my new favorite city. Very tropical and an interesting mix of eastern and western cultures, Hong Kong was able to surprise me at every turn. Shanghai on the complete other end of the spectrum was non-western friendly in that every road sign was in Chinese and it was very hard to get a good map of the city so my skills at getting around were very taxed. By the end of our 4 nights in town, I had a handle on the area of the city that we were staying in at least. We had a good time in Shanghai meeting the CLFM students and seeing a couple of factories. The highlight of these factory tours was seeing an Apple supplier who produces some of the parts for the MacBook Air. We also had a great event titled the Global Operations Leadership Dinner (still looking for an article to send to post about this) in which we had many media, industry representatives, LFM alumni and both LFM and CLFM classes take part in discussions about the current manufacturing environment in China – very enlightening.
From China, we headed to Tokyo, Japan where we spent a few nights as we headed on a day trip to Nagoya to see a Toyota facility. Not quite the manufacturer’s holy grail that some of my classmates were hoping for, but at the same time, the trip helped prove that the Toyota Production System is amazing due to its simplicity of execution. An interesting lesson to be learned. I definitely feel like I want to get back over to Japan for another visit as I didn’t get a chance to see much of the cultural side of life, though we were blessed with the Cherry Blossoms coming into full bloom while we were in town.
Here are some photos from the trip to Asia.
Hope you enjoy!
More later...
A great time was had though and Alicia and I had a spectacular last day in town during which we went exploring on our own and witnessed some interesting aspects to the city that we had missed previously such as the early evening in the hutongs.
From Beijing, Alicia returned home while I continued on to meet up with the International Plant Trek in Shanghai via a quick stop in Hong Kong, my new favorite city. Very tropical and an interesting mix of eastern and western cultures, Hong Kong was able to surprise me at every turn. Shanghai on the complete other end of the spectrum was non-western friendly in that every road sign was in Chinese and it was very hard to get a good map of the city so my skills at getting around were very taxed. By the end of our 4 nights in town, I had a handle on the area of the city that we were staying in at least. We had a good time in Shanghai meeting the CLFM students and seeing a couple of factories. The highlight of these factory tours was seeing an Apple supplier who produces some of the parts for the MacBook Air. We also had a great event titled the Global Operations Leadership Dinner (still looking for an article to send to post about this) in which we had many media, industry representatives, LFM alumni and both LFM and CLFM classes take part in discussions about the current manufacturing environment in China – very enlightening.
From China, we headed to Tokyo, Japan where we spent a few nights as we headed on a day trip to Nagoya to see a Toyota facility. Not quite the manufacturer’s holy grail that some of my classmates were hoping for, but at the same time, the trip helped prove that the Toyota Production System is amazing due to its simplicity of execution. An interesting lesson to be learned. I definitely feel like I want to get back over to Japan for another visit as I didn’t get a chance to see much of the cultural side of life, though we were blessed with the Cherry Blossoms coming into full bloom while we were in town.
Here are some photos from the trip to Asia.
Hope you enjoy!
More later...
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Some photos
I've finally added some photos from Plant Trek, the Autoshow, around Boston and even some of the ones from El Salvador. You can check them out here. I'll be heading to China, Hong Kong and Japan leaving next weekend and traveling for two weeks. I'll have those photos up a lot sooner than these photos.
Hope that you enjoy.
More later...
Hope that you enjoy.
More later...
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Marketing Project Help!
Hey everyone,
Can you do me a favor and help with my marketing project? All I need you to do is go here and fill out the survey. That's it. Simple. And it should take less than 1 minute.
Thanks in advance!
More later...
Can you do me a favor and help with my marketing project? All I need you to do is go here and fill out the survey. That's it. Simple. And it should take less than 1 minute.
Thanks in advance!
More later...
Monday, March 3, 2008
I can't believe it...
So, it is almost the end of the first half of the Spring semester. Boy is it moving a LOT faster than the Fall. I feel that we are just getting started on a lot of the different projects that I am working on, and in some cases we are just getting started, and then after next week is Sloan Innovation Period (SIP) and then Spring Break! LFM's aren't required to stick around for SIP so Alicia and I are heading off to Beijing to sightsee for a week before I head off to Hong Kong and then on to Shanghai to meet up with the LFM International Plant Trek (which includes a trip to Japan to visit a Toyota facility!). Unfortunately, significant others (SO's) aren't allowed to go on any of the plant tours so it didn't make sense for Alicia to stick around for the following week. We are very excited about our upcoming trip though I will post more on that later.
The internship matchings finally came through last week. I will be spending the Summer/Fall working for Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT. I'll have to see what I can post about the internship once I get in touch with them about the assignment. With the non-disclosure agreements, I am assuming that I won't be able to post too much, but I may be able to post about some of the trips that I will end up taking to Russia, China, India and possibly Mexico. We'll see though.
More later...
The internship matchings finally came through last week. I will be spending the Summer/Fall working for Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, CT. I'll have to see what I can post about the internship once I get in touch with them about the assignment. With the non-disclosure agreements, I am assuming that I won't be able to post too much, but I may be able to post about some of the trips that I will end up taking to Russia, China, India and possibly Mexico. We'll see though.
More later...
One more SLST Post
More articles on our time in New Orleans:
Forbes.com
New Orleans City Business
Science Daily
Pretty cool stuff. Hope you enjoy the articles.
Forbes.com
New Orleans City Business
Science Daily
Pretty cool stuff. Hope you enjoy the articles.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
News articles from SLST trip
Here are some news articles about our trip...guess they weren't limited in what they wrote about the project as much as I was...oh well. Enjoy!
From YahooFinance: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080215/20080215005410.html?.v=1
From Mass High Tech: http://masshightech.bizjournals.com/masshightech/stories/2008/02/11/daily58.html?jst=pn_pn_lk
From YahooFinance: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/080215/20080215005410.html?.v=1
From Mass High Tech: http://masshightech.bizjournals.com/masshightech/stories/2008/02/11/daily58.html?jst=pn_pn_lk
Thursday, February 21, 2008
SLST, NOLA: Feb 18 - The last day
Monday morning we quickly packed our stuff, hopped in our cars and headed out to visit one of the client’s non-profit for green building. After a brief tour, we headed back to Idea Village and found that we had our work cut out for us. With two hours until we needed to present our plan, we got to work crafting our presentation for the upcoming meeting. Breaking into small groups again, we hit the ground running and pulled our plans together with time to spare!
Once our presentation was complete, we left Idea Village to go and present it to a bunch of prominent NO business leaders. It was quite a line-up of individuals from a Bank President, a Director of Economic Development for a local energy company, an Executive Director from the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, the President of a Communications Agency, and a couple others. We were happy to have the opportunity to present our work and the group of us who presented did an amazing job selling our idea and our client’s visions. With the questions that followed the presentation, we feel that there really is the potential for this project to take off and hopefully we have helped make this a reality.
I’ll post follow-ups to this project as I hear them so stay in touch and keep reading. Thanks to all the new readers from the MIT Sloan links. Hope that you have enjoyed what you have read and if you’d like to keep reading please do so – the more the merrier.
Now back to the regularly scheduled programming…
Once our presentation was complete, we left Idea Village to go and present it to a bunch of prominent NO business leaders. It was quite a line-up of individuals from a Bank President, a Director of Economic Development for a local energy company, an Executive Director from the Office of the Lieutenant Governor, the President of a Communications Agency, and a couple others. We were happy to have the opportunity to present our work and the group of us who presented did an amazing job selling our idea and our client’s visions. With the questions that followed the presentation, we feel that there really is the potential for this project to take off and hopefully we have helped make this a reality.
I’ll post follow-ups to this project as I hear them so stay in touch and keep reading. Thanks to all the new readers from the MIT Sloan links. Hope that you have enjoyed what you have read and if you’d like to keep reading please do so – the more the merrier.
Now back to the regularly scheduled programming…
SLST, NOLA: Feb 17
Sunday morning we again headed off to go back to Idea Village. This time we were met by more of their clients and had an extended meeting while we filled out our knowledge of the possibilities of the project. Through a meeting with an MIT PhD student in Urban Design, we had a breakthrough “Aha!” moment for our recommendations in the early afternoon. We had already been building our slide decks for our pre-Final presentation with Idea Village that afternoon so we had a lot of work to do in just a few hours. With our numbers dwindling, due to some health reasons and some unknown reasons, we still managed to pull it together and put on a splendid presentation with some really solid recommendations for our clients. Our recommendations did not cover exactly what they wanted from the first meeting, but due to the time restrictions, we were able to help our clients refine and focus their vision, while also giving them a set of 3 steps that they needed to perform in the next month in order to keep their idea alive. Through these recommendations and lots of background research, we felt that we gave Idea Village a great deal of positive work that would help their clients find success in their proposed business.
That evening we headed out to the Palace Café for dinner with some of the clients. Again, the food was delicious (I swear, the food in NO is amazing. Definitely go out and try these restaurants when you are in town. You won’t be disappointed!). This time, I order the turtle soup which was also very tasty. So good in fact that I managed to get a bunch of people to try it too. After dinner, a group of us headed back to Frenchman St to catch some more live music at D.B.A. and to drink some Abita Amber beer (very tasty…better than Shiner Boch – see my Plant Trek notes from Austin for a reference on this beer). Completely different venue from the previous night, and a completely different band sound, but we had an equally great time. What was neat was that one of the performers from the previous night was in the bar. He is an amazing, blind piano player (unfortunately I don’t know his name other than Henry) and we were all blown away by his performance. After spotting him in the crowd, one of the clients and I chatted him up for a while which was cool. We then moseyed on to The Spotted Cat and caught the last set of a little three-piece band. Closing out the night there, we had another great time in NO.
That evening we headed out to the Palace Café for dinner with some of the clients. Again, the food was delicious (I swear, the food in NO is amazing. Definitely go out and try these restaurants when you are in town. You won’t be disappointed!). This time, I order the turtle soup which was also very tasty. So good in fact that I managed to get a bunch of people to try it too. After dinner, a group of us headed back to Frenchman St to catch some more live music at D.B.A. and to drink some Abita Amber beer (very tasty…better than Shiner Boch – see my Plant Trek notes from Austin for a reference on this beer). Completely different venue from the previous night, and a completely different band sound, but we had an equally great time. What was neat was that one of the performers from the previous night was in the bar. He is an amazing, blind piano player (unfortunately I don’t know his name other than Henry) and we were all blown away by his performance. After spotting him in the crowd, one of the clients and I chatted him up for a while which was cool. We then moseyed on to The Spotted Cat and caught the last set of a little three-piece band. Closing out the night there, we had another great time in NO.
SLST, NOLA: Feb 16
Early Saturday morning, a bunch of us decided that prior to heading to Idea Village we would drive over and see the 9th Ward, the New Orleans neighborhood most affected by Katrina. This was a very sobering trip in that we saw the after effects of all the destruction. It appeared that most of the houses were slated to be demolished due to the homeowner’s not returning to fix their houses and they were all placarded as to that effect. Also, on most homes, spray-painted on the front was a large X with some text sprayed in each quarter of the X. We didn’t know what this stood for until one of our group found something on-line that told us that the text written in each quarter stood for one of the following: the date a search of the property was performed, the organization who searched through the house, the problems associated with the house (we saw TFW written on a lot of houses and this referred to Toxic Flood Water that was characteristic of the aftermath of Katrina), and then, most sobering, the number of bodies found. This realization definitely made us all reflect on this horrible time of NOLA and the US’s recent history. After driving around through the neighborhoods for a while, we came upon a public housing location. I had heard about the public housing issue prior to arriving in NO as I went to a lecture by Prof. John Fernandez from the MIT Dept. of Architecture titled “Rebuilding the City of New Orleans: Working Across Sectors to Achieve a Common Goal.” It was a very interesting lecture discussing Fernandez’s work in helping to rebuild and redevelop New Orleans in a green and sustainable way. The public housing complexes were all condemned immediately after Katrina without any inspections made as to identify if the homes were truly un-livable. Currently, these communities are completely fenced off to their previous residents with no sign of being opened in the near future. These locations made me think of what Chernobyl might have looked like three years after the meltdown. We could see people’s belongings in their homes, but no one had touched any of them in the past three years. With the mass exodus of the NO population, who knows when these buildings will be restored or inhabited.
Following our tour, we headed to Idea Village for a check-in to access our progress and direction of our project. After a meeting with some more Idea Village staff and some of their clients, we felt that our project was well under way but that the finished result was still a ways out. We were able to divide up into small groups of around 3-5 people to flesh out more of each part of our plan such as the competitive marketplace, funding options, profiles of similar projects and fine-tune our recommendations and the phases of growth for the project. Unfortunately I have been asked not to blog about too many specifics to the project so I can’t get too much more detailed other than letting you know that the idea is to create a green development hub in NO. Sorry that I can’t divulge more, but that is how it goes sometimes.
After finishing up on the day, we headed out to a restaurant called Elizabeth’s. Again, really great food even though the floor ended up with two entrées, a couple of glasses of water and our waiter – it wasn’t his fault either…these were all separate incidents that none of us can explain. It was definitely ridiculous though. We hope that our tip made up for all the trouble we inadvertently caused though. I would definitely suggest going there and would suggest trying their Dream Burger – darn good. Also, in my efforts to try random food, a couple of us tried the frog legs. Not too bad. I’d definitely order them again. Following dinner, a large group of us headed out to Frenchman St and went to see a show by Kermit Ruffins at the Blue Nile. Wow is NO music great. Some of our group headed out every night and saw live music every night that had a completely different sound. I can do no justice to the music by trying to explain, you just need to go. So get your tickets and head on down…next month is the Jazz Fest so get on it quick.
More later…
Following our tour, we headed to Idea Village for a check-in to access our progress and direction of our project. After a meeting with some more Idea Village staff and some of their clients, we felt that our project was well under way but that the finished result was still a ways out. We were able to divide up into small groups of around 3-5 people to flesh out more of each part of our plan such as the competitive marketplace, funding options, profiles of similar projects and fine-tune our recommendations and the phases of growth for the project. Unfortunately I have been asked not to blog about too many specifics to the project so I can’t get too much more detailed other than letting you know that the idea is to create a green development hub in NO. Sorry that I can’t divulge more, but that is how it goes sometimes.
After finishing up on the day, we headed out to a restaurant called Elizabeth’s. Again, really great food even though the floor ended up with two entrées, a couple of glasses of water and our waiter – it wasn’t his fault either…these were all separate incidents that none of us can explain. It was definitely ridiculous though. We hope that our tip made up for all the trouble we inadvertently caused though. I would definitely suggest going there and would suggest trying their Dream Burger – darn good. Also, in my efforts to try random food, a couple of us tried the frog legs. Not too bad. I’d definitely order them again. Following dinner, a large group of us headed out to Frenchman St and went to see a show by Kermit Ruffins at the Blue Nile. Wow is NO music great. Some of our group headed out every night and saw live music every night that had a completely different sound. I can do no justice to the music by trying to explain, you just need to go. So get your tickets and head on down…next month is the Jazz Fest so get on it quick.
More later…
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Sloan Leaders in Service Trek (SLST), New Orleans, LA: Feb 14/15
The SLST began with a group of twenty Sloanies catching a flight (or many flights - if at all) and heading down to NOLA to begin our work with Idea Village. Most students left for NOLA on Thursday afternoon while the remaining few flew in Friday morning. On Thursday night, the rough weather in the mid-West caused delays and overbooked planes that prevented my luggage from making the journey, but more importantly, one of our SLST members who was never able to leave Boston - a very annoying and rough situation for all as she was a great addition to our team but who now won’t be able to join us nor see New Orleans.
It just so happens that this weekend also coincides with the NBA All-Star Game that is taking place in New Orleans. This being the case, there are a large amount of fans and unbelievable traffic that is not always normal in NO except for maybe Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. During our flights in, one of our members was on a flight with Yao Ming who was flying in for the game. Pretty amazing to see a seven foot, three inch basketball player waiting for his luggage with a rather large security detail. Then as we were leaving, we saw him try to cram himself into an SUV…it did not look like the most comfortable means of travel for him, but I guess you don’t have too many options when you are that tall. Oh well, on with the rest of the trip.
We stayed the night in a little chain motel that lay between NO and the airport and then in the morning we transferred hotels to our “permanent residence” while in town: The French Quarter Townhouses. The now-nineteen of us are sharing two townhouses on the border of the French Quarter…a great location we’ve been told as long as we only walk in two directions outside of our door. After transferring to the new hotel, we had the morning and early afternoon to discover NO on our own. Splitting into smaller groups, we fanned out across the city to explore. My roommate and I took off to go and see as much of NO as we could. We hopped on the first trolley car that we could see (we found that these just reopened a few weeks ago) that took us through St. Charles St. by a collection of beautiful mansions. After heading out of town for a while, we hopped off the trolley and decided to try and head down to the water front. We ran into Magazine St and found a great collection of bars, restaurants and small boutiques. A great little part of NO that we wished that we had more time to explore. We headed through Magazine and again turned to head down to the waterfront. This time we were stopped by the breakwater and a ferry launch. So we turned to head back towards the French Quarter and stumbled upon a Walmart. Since I didn’t have my luggage, I headed inside and purchased a couple of items to get me through the day, hoping that my luggage would be found and delivered that afternoon. After our brief stop, we started our search for some lunch. Passing by all the chain stores, we found the place to eat: Deanie’s. How did we know that it would be delicious? By all the police cars and cabs parked out front. It seemed that we had chosen a great time to eat as once we stepped inside the rain started falling. Since we were roughly 4 miles away from our hotel and we were equipped with weather-proof clothes, we decided to catch a cab and meet up with the others at the hotel.
Once we were all collected at the hotel, we piled into the largest room and had our first conversation about the ideas and expectations we felt that we could deliver in the short amount of time we had. A group of us had already crafted an idea on the flight down that we felt was a great amount of work to deliver but that also opened a whole host of questions we had for Idea Village. We had a meeting scheduled with both Idea Village that was very productive and that laid the framework for our project: to create (as much as possible) a business model and plan, a collection of profiles of best practices and a list of possible funding sources. After this meeting to determine the scope of our project, the SLST group headed out to dinner to Jaques-Imo’s. Wow! This place was unbelievable. From the best cornbread muffins to interesting dishes like Rabbit Paneed, we ate very well and created fond memories of this eatery. If you are heading to New Orleans, we would definitely suggest that you make time to go and eat there. You won’t be upset. I promise.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and debriefed on our meeting that afternoon and crafted a game plan for the next morning. Once we were satisfied that we had a good plan, we split up into groups and some of us headed out on the town, some hung out and met the students we didn’t know and others headed to bed to get some rest before our first big day of work.
It just so happens that this weekend also coincides with the NBA All-Star Game that is taking place in New Orleans. This being the case, there are a large amount of fans and unbelievable traffic that is not always normal in NO except for maybe Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. During our flights in, one of our members was on a flight with Yao Ming who was flying in for the game. Pretty amazing to see a seven foot, three inch basketball player waiting for his luggage with a rather large security detail. Then as we were leaving, we saw him try to cram himself into an SUV…it did not look like the most comfortable means of travel for him, but I guess you don’t have too many options when you are that tall. Oh well, on with the rest of the trip.
We stayed the night in a little chain motel that lay between NO and the airport and then in the morning we transferred hotels to our “permanent residence” while in town: The French Quarter Townhouses. The now-nineteen of us are sharing two townhouses on the border of the French Quarter…a great location we’ve been told as long as we only walk in two directions outside of our door. After transferring to the new hotel, we had the morning and early afternoon to discover NO on our own. Splitting into smaller groups, we fanned out across the city to explore. My roommate and I took off to go and see as much of NO as we could. We hopped on the first trolley car that we could see (we found that these just reopened a few weeks ago) that took us through St. Charles St. by a collection of beautiful mansions. After heading out of town for a while, we hopped off the trolley and decided to try and head down to the water front. We ran into Magazine St and found a great collection of bars, restaurants and small boutiques. A great little part of NO that we wished that we had more time to explore. We headed through Magazine and again turned to head down to the waterfront. This time we were stopped by the breakwater and a ferry launch. So we turned to head back towards the French Quarter and stumbled upon a Walmart. Since I didn’t have my luggage, I headed inside and purchased a couple of items to get me through the day, hoping that my luggage would be found and delivered that afternoon. After our brief stop, we started our search for some lunch. Passing by all the chain stores, we found the place to eat: Deanie’s. How did we know that it would be delicious? By all the police cars and cabs parked out front. It seemed that we had chosen a great time to eat as once we stepped inside the rain started falling. Since we were roughly 4 miles away from our hotel and we were equipped with weather-proof clothes, we decided to catch a cab and meet up with the others at the hotel.
Once we were all collected at the hotel, we piled into the largest room and had our first conversation about the ideas and expectations we felt that we could deliver in the short amount of time we had. A group of us had already crafted an idea on the flight down that we felt was a great amount of work to deliver but that also opened a whole host of questions we had for Idea Village. We had a meeting scheduled with both Idea Village that was very productive and that laid the framework for our project: to create (as much as possible) a business model and plan, a collection of profiles of best practices and a list of possible funding sources. After this meeting to determine the scope of our project, the SLST group headed out to dinner to Jaques-Imo’s. Wow! This place was unbelievable. From the best cornbread muffins to interesting dishes like Rabbit Paneed, we ate very well and created fond memories of this eatery. If you are heading to New Orleans, we would definitely suggest that you make time to go and eat there. You won’t be upset. I promise.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and debriefed on our meeting that afternoon and crafted a game plan for the next morning. Once we were satisfied that we had a good plan, we split up into groups and some of us headed out on the town, some hung out and met the students we didn’t know and others headed to bed to get some rest before our first big day of work.
First Two Weeks of Spring Classes
Well, the first two weeks of school have been VERY busy - partly due to the start of classes but also due to two trips and two sets of visitors, but more on this later. So, this semester looks like it is going to be a very educational but busy semester. I am taking some great classes such as Product Design and Development in which we will create our own product – in previous years some of the products have been patented and have been very successful on the market. I just found out today that I will be working with a group trying to develop an inexpensive emergency shelter that could be easily deployed to disaster zones such as post-Katrina, New Orleans. In another class called Projects for Change, I will be helping a Harvard medical student come up with a drug distribution plan for 2 provinces in Indonesia. I will continue to fill you in on these projects as I learn more about them (it is still too early to know fully what we will be doing but once I do, you too will know). I am still waiting to hear about a project that I will be working on for another class called Laboratory for Sustainable Business (more commonly known as S-Lab). Taught by the same professors as G-Lab and System Dynamics, I feel that this will be another hard, but very educational class. The projects that are available all sound amazing and I know that it will be an awesome experience. So all together these projects, plus the continuation of my G-lab project and marketing, finance, and supply chain classes, the semester will be…busy.
On to the trips… so, last weekend Alicia and I headed down to Cold Spring Harbor, NY to visit my parents, grandparents, two brothers (and their two girlfriends), and my aunt and cousin. Quite a family reunion we had for the weekend (at least Thursday to Saturday). On Saturday, Alicia and I headed to a friend’s engagement party back in Boston. So back to Boston we went. We had a great time at the party getting to meet friends and family of the soon to be bride and groom. It will be nice at the wedding to know some of these people (at least as familiar faces). The next day, Alicia’s parents arrived for a visit. It was great to have them come and see our place and our new home city. They were supposed to stay for a couple of days, but due to a huge snowstorm coming into the area, they decided to take off a day early to head home to Michigan. We had fun with them while they were in town (a sea food dinner, a trip to the aquarium, and the celebration of Alicia’s mom and step-dad’s 13th wedding anniversary) even though Alicia was sick. On Wednesday, my parents came to town to look for a new teach abroad program (they have spent two years in Cairo, Egypt, and currently are finishing a two-year assignment in Lima, Peru). We had dinner with them and then had to say good bye as I had a ton of homework to finish before heading on the Sloan Leaders in Service Trek to New Orleans. Speaking of, for the weekend I will be writing as one of the official bloggers for the Trek. So the next couple of posts will be all about our trek down to New Orleans.
So hope you enjoy and more later…
On to the trips… so, last weekend Alicia and I headed down to Cold Spring Harbor, NY to visit my parents, grandparents, two brothers (and their two girlfriends), and my aunt and cousin. Quite a family reunion we had for the weekend (at least Thursday to Saturday). On Saturday, Alicia and I headed to a friend’s engagement party back in Boston. So back to Boston we went. We had a great time at the party getting to meet friends and family of the soon to be bride and groom. It will be nice at the wedding to know some of these people (at least as familiar faces). The next day, Alicia’s parents arrived for a visit. It was great to have them come and see our place and our new home city. They were supposed to stay for a couple of days, but due to a huge snowstorm coming into the area, they decided to take off a day early to head home to Michigan. We had fun with them while they were in town (a sea food dinner, a trip to the aquarium, and the celebration of Alicia’s mom and step-dad’s 13th wedding anniversary) even though Alicia was sick. On Wednesday, my parents came to town to look for a new teach abroad program (they have spent two years in Cairo, Egypt, and currently are finishing a two-year assignment in Lima, Peru). We had dinner with them and then had to say good bye as I had a ton of homework to finish before heading on the Sloan Leaders in Service Trek to New Orleans. Speaking of, for the weekend I will be writing as one of the official bloggers for the Trek. So the next couple of posts will be all about our trek down to New Orleans.
So hope you enjoy and more later…
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Internship Interviews
So the time has come for all of us to interview for our internships. We've spent most of the week prepping and interviewing with our favorite companies to try to determine where we will end up for the last half of the year as well as what we'll be doing for those 6.5 months. Pretty stressful situation even though we are all guaranteed an internship. We need to bid by the 6th of February and then roughly a week later we should know where we will end up. On the internship note, we have also been joined by the LFM Class of 2008 who are finally finished with their internships and are now back on campus for Spring. It makes a packed office space, but it is great to finally get to meet the whole class and share stories, tips, etc, with each other. So welcome '08's!
Also, I would just like to welcome everyone who is coming to InterviewFest on Friday and Monday. We have a great schedule set for you and really look forward to meeting you all. Just a note, don't worry if you haven't been invited - this isn't your last chance of interviewing. There are a bunch of students in my class who didn't go to InterviewFest who made it through. But good luck to everyone and see you Friday or Monday.
More later...
Also, I would just like to welcome everyone who is coming to InterviewFest on Friday and Monday. We have a great schedule set for you and really look forward to meeting you all. Just a note, don't worry if you haven't been invited - this isn't your last chance of interviewing. There are a bunch of students in my class who didn't go to InterviewFest who made it through. But good luck to everyone and see you Friday or Monday.
More later...
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Detroit, MI: American Axle & Manufacturing
Friday, January 18th
The last day of our plant tour! We were left with only a half-day tour as well and this time it was of American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM). AAM treated us to a tour of one of their 8 plants at their Detroit facility. They have done a great job implementing lean and a pull manufacturing system. It was definitely impressive to see what they have done with their facility – they even showed before and after photos which were amazing to see.
After the tour, I drove out to my old facility in Ypsilanti and met up with a bunch of old friends. Two former bosses, three colleagues, and one of my old employees all came out to meet up with me at a local bar for some drinks and dinner. It was great being back and to see all these familiar faces. I definitely miss them all and (if you are reading this) hope that they are all able to make it out to Boston some day! Thank you for coming out, it meant a ton to me!
After dinner, I headed back to the hotel to meet up with my class and became the DD for the night as I transported classmates to CINQ in downtown Royal Oak. Our class partied it up that night shutting the club down at 2 am when we had to get on the bus at 4 am. I took a car full of people back to the hotel and then was enlisted to drive a hungry classmate over to White Castle for a bite to eat. What ended up being a car full of people and 45 minutes and a crave case later was a great last memory of the plant tour for the class of 2009. When we returned to the hotel, we had about 30 minutes to pack and get going to the airport. We all crashed on the plane and slept for both legs of our return flight home. Home. Two weeks gone and finally we were home. What an amazing trip!
Take care and more later…
The last day of our plant tour! We were left with only a half-day tour as well and this time it was of American Axle & Manufacturing (AAM). AAM treated us to a tour of one of their 8 plants at their Detroit facility. They have done a great job implementing lean and a pull manufacturing system. It was definitely impressive to see what they have done with their facility – they even showed before and after photos which were amazing to see.
After the tour, I drove out to my old facility in Ypsilanti and met up with a bunch of old friends. Two former bosses, three colleagues, and one of my old employees all came out to meet up with me at a local bar for some drinks and dinner. It was great being back and to see all these familiar faces. I definitely miss them all and (if you are reading this) hope that they are all able to make it out to Boston some day! Thank you for coming out, it meant a ton to me!
After dinner, I headed back to the hotel to meet up with my class and became the DD for the night as I transported classmates to CINQ in downtown Royal Oak. Our class partied it up that night shutting the club down at 2 am when we had to get on the bus at 4 am. I took a car full of people back to the hotel and then was enlisted to drive a hungry classmate over to White Castle for a bite to eat. What ended up being a car full of people and 45 minutes and a crave case later was a great last memory of the plant tour for the class of 2009. When we returned to the hotel, we had about 30 minutes to pack and get going to the airport. We all crashed on the plane and slept for both legs of our return flight home. Home. Two weeks gone and finally we were home. What an amazing trip!
Take care and more later…
Lansing, MI: GM
Thursday, January 17th
Again we woke up very early and boarded our bus to head out to Lansing, MI to visit GM’s Lansing Delta Township facility (LDT). The LDT is GM’s newest facility in the US and one of our classmates had spent the last couple years of his professional career trying to get the facility up and running. It is an amazing facility in that it is the only automotive facility that is “Leadership in Energy and Environment Design” (LEED) certified and that the union takes on an active role in the facility by co-running the facility. Every hour of training that was offered to the LDT employees was given by a salaried individual as well as a union official. This commitment even ran into our visit as all the presentations were co-run as well as all the tours were co-led with salary and hourly personnel. The facility was also amazing as it was our classes first visit to a high volume, high mix (the LDT can build three different types of cars one after the other) facility. Also it is always exciting to see an entire car put together from scratch. I can still remember my tour of Ford’s Wixom Plant back in 2000 to see the Lincoln’s and the retro Thunderbird being put together.
We also had our first casualties of the trip. Two classmates (who happened to be roommates) did not receive their wake-up call and were not accounted for on the bus due to the addition and subtraction of individuals on every leg of the trip. After waking up at 9:30 (instead of 5 am) they were brought to the facility via a cab that the hotel arranged for them. Talk about good customer service (I don’t know what a two hour cab ride costs these days, but I’m not anxious to find out!).
That evening we were left on our own to find dinner. I rented a car and took the chance to treat a couple of classmates to some of the best burgers in the US as rated by GQ magazine - Miller’s Bar in Dearborn ranked number 8 out of 20. A low-key establishment with only a handful of items on its non-existent menu, Miller’s is fabulous. My group definitely thought so as one individual managed to put away three burgers, four shells (beers) and an order of fries – very impressive for a first-timer. If you are in Southeast Michigan, a trip to Miller’s would definitely be in order.
Again we woke up very early and boarded our bus to head out to Lansing, MI to visit GM’s Lansing Delta Township facility (LDT). The LDT is GM’s newest facility in the US and one of our classmates had spent the last couple years of his professional career trying to get the facility up and running. It is an amazing facility in that it is the only automotive facility that is “Leadership in Energy and Environment Design” (LEED) certified and that the union takes on an active role in the facility by co-running the facility. Every hour of training that was offered to the LDT employees was given by a salaried individual as well as a union official. This commitment even ran into our visit as all the presentations were co-run as well as all the tours were co-led with salary and hourly personnel. The facility was also amazing as it was our classes first visit to a high volume, high mix (the LDT can build three different types of cars one after the other) facility. Also it is always exciting to see an entire car put together from scratch. I can still remember my tour of Ford’s Wixom Plant back in 2000 to see the Lincoln’s and the retro Thunderbird being put together.
We also had our first casualties of the trip. Two classmates (who happened to be roommates) did not receive their wake-up call and were not accounted for on the bus due to the addition and subtraction of individuals on every leg of the trip. After waking up at 9:30 (instead of 5 am) they were brought to the facility via a cab that the hotel arranged for them. Talk about good customer service (I don’t know what a two hour cab ride costs these days, but I’m not anxious to find out!).
That evening we were left on our own to find dinner. I rented a car and took the chance to treat a couple of classmates to some of the best burgers in the US as rated by GQ magazine - Miller’s Bar in Dearborn ranked number 8 out of 20. A low-key establishment with only a handful of items on its non-existent menu, Miller’s is fabulous. My group definitely thought so as one individual managed to put away three burgers, four shells (beers) and an order of fries – very impressive for a first-timer. If you are in Southeast Michigan, a trip to Miller’s would definitely be in order.
Detroit, MI: GM & NAIAS
Wednesday, January 16th
We woke up very early, headed to the airport and flew to Detroit, MI, my recent home for the past four years. We headed over to our hotel and then proceeded down to Cobo Hall to go and see GM and the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). GM introduced us to their exhibit and then let us loose to visit the rest of the auto show as we pleased. After running around the show for 3 hours or so, we all reconvened and were joined by a group of students from the Tauber Program at University of Michigan. It was a great chance to socialize with a group of students in a similar program. I had a great time meeting these students and I feel that this was shared with the rest of my classmates.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel where the sickies all headed off to bed for the evening to prepare for the long day tomorrow.
We woke up very early, headed to the airport and flew to Detroit, MI, my recent home for the past four years. We headed over to our hotel and then proceeded down to Cobo Hall to go and see GM and the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). GM introduced us to their exhibit and then let us loose to visit the rest of the auto show as we pleased. After running around the show for 3 hours or so, we all reconvened and were joined by a group of students from the Tauber Program at University of Michigan. It was a great chance to socialize with a group of students in a similar program. I had a great time meeting these students and I feel that this was shared with the rest of my classmates.
After dinner, we headed back to the hotel where the sickies all headed off to bed for the evening to prepare for the long day tomorrow.
St. Charles, IL: Honeywell
Tuesday, January 15th
We woke up early and drove out to St. Charles, IL to visit Honeywell’s facility there, though the signs all read Sensor Systems. Honeywell manufactures fire alarms, fire alarm modules, and sprinkler system flow controls. We sat through a brief introduction to Honeywell and the St. Charles facility and then we were all taken out for a tour of the facility. Then during lunch, we were able to enter a smoke room to see how disorienting a smoke filled room is while trying to find the exits. Let me assure you, it is amazingly difficult. My public service announcement for the trip would be to definitely identify any and all emergency exits upon entering your hotel as some of these buildings get very intricate with twisting hallways and many, many doors. After lunch, we were left on our own to tour the floor and discover areas in which the facility could improve their operations. With 50 some eyes out on the floor we were able to come up with about 3 pages worth of suggestions that the plant manager was eager to hear about. I thought that the plant manager of this facility gave a refreshing light to the idea of off-shoring your work. He was a definite advocate for looking at and evaluating off-shoring at the total cost level and he also sought to keep his more manual labor (that is also more flexible) instead of moving to more of an automated facility. A very refreshing viewpoint that I believe needs to be adopted by many other American companies.
After our tour finished, Honeywell took us out to Giordano’s Pizzeria, a Chicago traditional deep dish establishment. They make their pizzas upside-down, but they are still very tasty. I’d definitely suggest checking them out while in town! Once dinner was over, we headed back to our hotel for the night. This was about the point in the tour that roughly 50% of the class was sick so we’d head to the pharmacy in groups buying up all the cold & flu medicines that they had. I guess that is part of the problem with intense traveling and a tight-knit group like we have had over the past nine days!
We woke up early and drove out to St. Charles, IL to visit Honeywell’s facility there, though the signs all read Sensor Systems. Honeywell manufactures fire alarms, fire alarm modules, and sprinkler system flow controls. We sat through a brief introduction to Honeywell and the St. Charles facility and then we were all taken out for a tour of the facility. Then during lunch, we were able to enter a smoke room to see how disorienting a smoke filled room is while trying to find the exits. Let me assure you, it is amazingly difficult. My public service announcement for the trip would be to definitely identify any and all emergency exits upon entering your hotel as some of these buildings get very intricate with twisting hallways and many, many doors. After lunch, we were left on our own to tour the floor and discover areas in which the facility could improve their operations. With 50 some eyes out on the floor we were able to come up with about 3 pages worth of suggestions that the plant manager was eager to hear about. I thought that the plant manager of this facility gave a refreshing light to the idea of off-shoring your work. He was a definite advocate for looking at and evaluating off-shoring at the total cost level and he also sought to keep his more manual labor (that is also more flexible) instead of moving to more of an automated facility. A very refreshing viewpoint that I believe needs to be adopted by many other American companies.
After our tour finished, Honeywell took us out to Giordano’s Pizzeria, a Chicago traditional deep dish establishment. They make their pizzas upside-down, but they are still very tasty. I’d definitely suggest checking them out while in town! Once dinner was over, we headed back to our hotel for the night. This was about the point in the tour that roughly 50% of the class was sick so we’d head to the pharmacy in groups buying up all the cold & flu medicines that they had. I guess that is part of the problem with intense traveling and a tight-knit group like we have had over the past nine days!
Milwaukee, WI: Harley - Davidson
Monday, January 14th
We woke up early, boarded the bus and headed to Milwaukee, WI in order to go visit Harley-Davidson. What a great trip that was. The Harley culture had the attention of the whole class and everyone was psyched to meet and greet with employees and executives. We were warmly greeted by Jim McCaslin, President and COO of Harley-Davidson, as well as Ron Hutchinson, Senior Vice President of Product Development – two very laid back and entertaining speakers which also helped get the class warmed up to the Harley-Davidson culture. After lunch we headed to the Pilgrim Road Plant where they manufacture the engines and drive trains for the Dyna, Softail and Touring product lines. This plant was great as it completely reminded me of my summer internships at Visteon in Michigan working at the Sterling Heights Plant manufacturing ring gears for the F-Series pick-up trucks. It was very cool to get back to my manufacturing roots and be surrounded by the smells, machines and products that I knew so well back in the day.
After the tour, we were taken to a local Harley dealership so that we could go and sample the products and interact with the finished goods and be more ingrained in the culture. There were many beautiful and amazing works of art (the bikes) at the dealership and the owner was very excited to talk with us about the Harley-Davidson Dealership operations. When all of our questions were answered, we were whisked away to Maxie’s Southern Comfort for an amazing dinner of pulled pork and other southern dishes. What a meal complete with some local beers, New Glarus’ Spotted Cow - awesome. After dinner, we drove back down to Chicago and hit the sack.
We woke up early, boarded the bus and headed to Milwaukee, WI in order to go visit Harley-Davidson. What a great trip that was. The Harley culture had the attention of the whole class and everyone was psyched to meet and greet with employees and executives. We were warmly greeted by Jim McCaslin, President and COO of Harley-Davidson, as well as Ron Hutchinson, Senior Vice President of Product Development – two very laid back and entertaining speakers which also helped get the class warmed up to the Harley-Davidson culture. After lunch we headed to the Pilgrim Road Plant where they manufacture the engines and drive trains for the Dyna, Softail and Touring product lines. This plant was great as it completely reminded me of my summer internships at Visteon in Michigan working at the Sterling Heights Plant manufacturing ring gears for the F-Series pick-up trucks. It was very cool to get back to my manufacturing roots and be surrounded by the smells, machines and products that I knew so well back in the day.
After the tour, we were taken to a local Harley dealership so that we could go and sample the products and interact with the finished goods and be more ingrained in the culture. There were many beautiful and amazing works of art (the bikes) at the dealership and the owner was very excited to talk with us about the Harley-Davidson Dealership operations. When all of our questions were answered, we were whisked away to Maxie’s Southern Comfort for an amazing dinner of pulled pork and other southern dishes. What a meal complete with some local beers, New Glarus’ Spotted Cow - awesome. After dinner, we drove back down to Chicago and hit the sack.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Seattle, WA: Downtime
Sunday, January 13th
We were able to sleep in again before traveling to Chicago. We arrived in the city and a group of us headed to Portillo’s for some delicious burgers, Italian sandwiches and beer. Portillo’s will definitely be on my list when I return to Chicago in the future. We then toured around Chicago looking for a good bar and wound up at Rock Bottom so we could play pool for the rest of the evening.
Saturday, January 12th
Our first totally free day! Sleeping in felt great and was VERY relaxing. Too bad we didn’t have more sleep-ins over the course of the first week, but every tour was definitely worth it and I wouldn’t want to trade the experiences that we have had. My younger brother, Matt, and his girlfriend, T’ien, drove up from Portland, OR to come visit me in Seattle. When they arrived in town, we headed to the Experience Music Project Museum (and with that we gained free admission to the Science Fiction Museum which was an interesting experience). The EMP Museum was pretty cool with a neat music lab exhibit that would teach you how to play different instruments (guitars, basses, drums, piano, as well as how to mix tracks). I would definitely suggest going to see it, but it wasn’t as cool as I had heard that it was. A trip to Seattle isn’t complete without a stop at the Pike Place Market. What an interesting place – beautiful fruit, tons of crabs and fish, flowers, and art spread through 3 floors on the hillside down to the waterfront all bustling with hundreds if not thousands of tourists and locals alike.
After our sight-seeing, we headed back to the hotel, picked up some pizza and beer and watched the Patriots defeat the Jaguars on their way to the SuperBowl and a 19-0 season. What a season they have had. If you haven’t seen it, you should go check out their game versus the Ravens to see just how close they were to losing that perfect season (you can find a highlight clip at www.patriots.com) – definitely a tense season at times. We had a low-key evening with a bunch of LFM’s joining us to celebrate the win and just hang out.
We were able to sleep in again before traveling to Chicago. We arrived in the city and a group of us headed to Portillo’s for some delicious burgers, Italian sandwiches and beer. Portillo’s will definitely be on my list when I return to Chicago in the future. We then toured around Chicago looking for a good bar and wound up at Rock Bottom so we could play pool for the rest of the evening.
Saturday, January 12th
Our first totally free day! Sleeping in felt great and was VERY relaxing. Too bad we didn’t have more sleep-ins over the course of the first week, but every tour was definitely worth it and I wouldn’t want to trade the experiences that we have had. My younger brother, Matt, and his girlfriend, T’ien, drove up from Portland, OR to come visit me in Seattle. When they arrived in town, we headed to the Experience Music Project Museum (and with that we gained free admission to the Science Fiction Museum which was an interesting experience). The EMP Museum was pretty cool with a neat music lab exhibit that would teach you how to play different instruments (guitars, basses, drums, piano, as well as how to mix tracks). I would definitely suggest going to see it, but it wasn’t as cool as I had heard that it was. A trip to Seattle isn’t complete without a stop at the Pike Place Market. What an interesting place – beautiful fruit, tons of crabs and fish, flowers, and art spread through 3 floors on the hillside down to the waterfront all bustling with hundreds if not thousands of tourists and locals alike.
After our sight-seeing, we headed back to the hotel, picked up some pizza and beer and watched the Patriots defeat the Jaguars on their way to the SuperBowl and a 19-0 season. What a season they have had. If you haven’t seen it, you should go check out their game versus the Ravens to see just how close they were to losing that perfect season (you can find a highlight clip at www.patriots.com) – definitely a tense season at times. We had a low-key evening with a bunch of LFM’s joining us to celebrate the win and just hang out.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Seattle, WA: Boeing - Day 2
Friday, January 11th
We had a great day planned for us to visit the 777, 747 and finally the 787 Dreamliner at the Boeing Everett facility and then following, a visit to the Dreamliner Customer Experience Center. We were taken to the largest facility by volume in the world that houses all three of these product lines. Some interesting stats are that the facility has 1 million light bulbs, spends $60K a day on electricity, the doors (and there are many) are the size of NFL football fields, and there are a number of other very impressive stats to give you some idea as to the sheer size of this facility. We had a wonderful day on this tour as we got to see the process of making a multitude of airplanes and VERY up close and personal views of the process and product. We got to see the interiors of the airplanes, the cockpits – a couple of us actually got to sit in the pilot’s and co-pilot’s chairs, the attendents’ rest (a spot for extra crews on the long distance flights to get some rest that are located above the customers), as well as the cargo hold. Pretty interesting to see all of these parts of the planes that we had been travelling on over the previous 5 days that we hadn’t seen yet.
After these tours, we were brought to the Dreamliner Customer Experience Center to see how each 787 customer will modify and specify all the details of their great purchases. From the fabric, window treatment, seats, safety equipment, lighting scheme, galleys, and layout, every aspect of the plane is seemingly adjustable. Not open to the public, we truly saw a very unique side to the airline business through this tour. Hope that you will be able to go on this tour next year too LFM ‘10’s!
We were on our own for dinner that night so our class split into many sub-groups to go celebrate the weekend and have a good time exploring Seattle. I trekked to Buckley’s over by the Space Needle and would definitely recommend it to any and all Seattle bound travelers.
We had a great day planned for us to visit the 777, 747 and finally the 787 Dreamliner at the Boeing Everett facility and then following, a visit to the Dreamliner Customer Experience Center. We were taken to the largest facility by volume in the world that houses all three of these product lines. Some interesting stats are that the facility has 1 million light bulbs, spends $60K a day on electricity, the doors (and there are many) are the size of NFL football fields, and there are a number of other very impressive stats to give you some idea as to the sheer size of this facility. We had a wonderful day on this tour as we got to see the process of making a multitude of airplanes and VERY up close and personal views of the process and product. We got to see the interiors of the airplanes, the cockpits – a couple of us actually got to sit in the pilot’s and co-pilot’s chairs, the attendents’ rest (a spot for extra crews on the long distance flights to get some rest that are located above the customers), as well as the cargo hold. Pretty interesting to see all of these parts of the planes that we had been travelling on over the previous 5 days that we hadn’t seen yet.
After these tours, we were brought to the Dreamliner Customer Experience Center to see how each 787 customer will modify and specify all the details of their great purchases. From the fabric, window treatment, seats, safety equipment, lighting scheme, galleys, and layout, every aspect of the plane is seemingly adjustable. Not open to the public, we truly saw a very unique side to the airline business through this tour. Hope that you will be able to go on this tour next year too LFM ‘10’s!
We were on our own for dinner that night so our class split into many sub-groups to go celebrate the weekend and have a good time exploring Seattle. I trekked to Buckley’s over by the Space Needle and would definitely recommend it to any and all Seattle bound travelers.
Seattle, WA: Boeing - Day 1
Thursday, January 10th
We woke up very early (~4 am) to catch the 5 am bus to the airport for our flight to Seattle, WA. Once we arrived in Seattle, we headed straight to our hotel to drop our bags off and then immediately went to the Boeing facility in Renton, WA where they build the 737. We had a nice mezzanine tour of the facility and then got to travel down to the production floor where we got an up close and personal view of the 737 mid-production. After a brief lunch and panel discussion, our class was split in two and one half was presented with information on the 737 engineering efforts with lean and the other was able to go visit another Boeing facility where they manufacture the wings and fuselage for the F-22. I was on the latter tour and got to see a very impressive facility that manufactures a very impressive fighting machine. The facility houses lots of composite materials and titanium that are in use throughout the plant and we were given a nice tour of their amazingly large composite manufacturing facilities including a massive autoclave (a pressurized oven to cure the composites) – one of two in the facility.
After the tour, we were treated to a tour of the Museum of Flight and then were hosted to dinner and a happy hour at the same museum. Some good socializing with various LFM grads and Boeing managers helped close out the evening as we were all very exhausted from a VERY long day.
We woke up very early (~4 am) to catch the 5 am bus to the airport for our flight to Seattle, WA. Once we arrived in Seattle, we headed straight to our hotel to drop our bags off and then immediately went to the Boeing facility in Renton, WA where they build the 737. We had a nice mezzanine tour of the facility and then got to travel down to the production floor where we got an up close and personal view of the 737 mid-production. After a brief lunch and panel discussion, our class was split in two and one half was presented with information on the 737 engineering efforts with lean and the other was able to go visit another Boeing facility where they manufacture the wings and fuselage for the F-22. I was on the latter tour and got to see a very impressive facility that manufactures a very impressive fighting machine. The facility houses lots of composite materials and titanium that are in use throughout the plant and we were given a nice tour of their amazingly large composite manufacturing facilities including a massive autoclave (a pressurized oven to cure the composites) – one of two in the facility.
After the tour, we were treated to a tour of the Museum of Flight and then were hosted to dinner and a happy hour at the same museum. Some good socializing with various LFM grads and Boeing managers helped close out the evening as we were all very exhausted from a VERY long day.
Reno, NV: Amazon.com
Wednesday, January 9th
Our day consisted of a trip to the Amazon Fernley Distribution Center followed by a dinner and happy hour at our hotel sponsored by Amazon. When we arrived at the Amazon facility, we were met by most of the Amazon senior managers including Jeff Wilke, LFM ’93, who is the Senior Vice President of Amazon’s North American Retail branch. It was quite a day at Amazon with a great tour of the Distribution Center. It was a little weird for me to see a three-story library in the middle of a factory, but that is part of what Amazon does. They have some great technical skills and operations but even they are still pressing to get continuously better. That is some great inspiration for us all that even though we think that we are doing a good job, we can always do a better job. Amazon is very focused on the customer and does a wonderful job of maintaining this focus. I’ve seen other companies that claim they are customer focused, but while they say so their actions don’t follow suit, so this is quite refreshing.
The highlight of my day was the opportunity to have lunch with Jeff Wilke with four other LFMers – a truly exceptional experience! After our tour, we headed back to our hotel and then to dinner with Amazon. After dinner, the LFM class was unleashed on the city of Reno. Trips to the casinos for some roulette and craps (not to mention the penny slots) was a great time for some class bonding and low-key fun before another long day.
Our day consisted of a trip to the Amazon Fernley Distribution Center followed by a dinner and happy hour at our hotel sponsored by Amazon. When we arrived at the Amazon facility, we were met by most of the Amazon senior managers including Jeff Wilke, LFM ’93, who is the Senior Vice President of Amazon’s North American Retail branch. It was quite a day at Amazon with a great tour of the Distribution Center. It was a little weird for me to see a three-story library in the middle of a factory, but that is part of what Amazon does. They have some great technical skills and operations but even they are still pressing to get continuously better. That is some great inspiration for us all that even though we think that we are doing a good job, we can always do a better job. Amazon is very focused on the customer and does a wonderful job of maintaining this focus. I’ve seen other companies that claim they are customer focused, but while they say so their actions don’t follow suit, so this is quite refreshing.
The highlight of my day was the opportunity to have lunch with Jeff Wilke with four other LFMers – a truly exceptional experience! After our tour, we headed back to our hotel and then to dinner with Amazon. After dinner, the LFM class was unleashed on the city of Reno. Trips to the casinos for some roulette and craps (not to mention the penny slots) was a great time for some class bonding and low-key fun before another long day.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Austin, TX: Dell
Tuesday, January 8th
We all woke up, packed, checked out of the hotel and boarded the bus to start our amazingly long day that lay ahead of us. We made our way to one of the many Dell facilities in Austin and were greeted with a nice breakfast snack as the tour guides arrived and took small groups out on the floor in one of the two facilities at that location. We then had lunch and took a tour of the other of the two facilities. These two facilities built all types of Dell desktops that are available as well as Dell servers. It was very interesting to see the many differences between the two facilities that are located only a hundred yards apart, but unfortunately we didn’t gain too much insight into the reasons for these variations. After a talk with some Dell LFM alumni, we were very privileged to meet and talk with Michael Dell. What a treat that was! We spent roughly 45 minutes asking a barrage of questions and enjoying meeting this amazing CEO. A great memory for all!
When our visit at Dell concluded, we headed to the airport for our flight to Reno via Las Vegas. Our flight left Austin at 7:30 CST and we arrived in Reno at 11:30 PST. Although very tired and ready for some sleep we made our way out to the Harrah’s Casino (where we were staying) floor to experience some of the gambling and other activities that Reno can provide. Such a long day, but what an amazing experience we are all being treated to!
Austin, TX: Flextronics/Cisco
Monday, January 7
We arrived at the Flextronics facility around 8:30 and were greeted by Cisco and Flextronics employees to begin the first tour of our trip. After hearing from a number of managers on the background of Cisco and Flextronics as well as the unique partnership the two corporations share, we were broken up into 8 small groups and were given a very thorough tour of the massive facility where they produce many routers and servers such as the CRS-1 which a super server that could transfer the entire contents of The Library of Congress in just 4.6 seconds as well as connect 3 billion phone calls a second – this is due to the fact that the unit can process 1.2 TBPS (yup, that is Terra bytes!). We definitely felt that the red carpet was rolled out for us and we had a great time learning all about the manufacturing process of these amazing machines.
After our visit, we left Flextronics and Cisco and went to The County Line BBQ to have a dinner hosted by Dell. We arrived about an hour before the Dell employees so we all headed to the beautiful patio behind the restaurant that bordered a lazy river that meandered by the restaurant. When Dell arrived, dinner was served and we all ate like kings. Many among us enjoyed the local brew, Shiner Boch – hope to enjoy it again sometime soon. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and then once again out to see 6th St. It was interesting being back on 6th St. The last time that I was in town was roughly 6 years ago on a cross-country road trip. My arrival in Austin on the road trip coincided with the opening night of the SXSW Festival – a truly amazing time in Austin. 6th St during that time was blocked off and packed end to end with thousands and thousands of people. This latest visit lacked the thousands of people, but there was still a very healthy night life (especially for a Monday night!) that was a lot of fun.
Austin, TX: Cisco/Flextronics
Sunday, January 6
The LFM class of 2009 departed for our two week domestic plant tour today. The first leg of our trip brought us from Boston to Austin, TX in order to visit Cisco, Flextronics and Dell. We arrived in Austin on Sunday afternoon and went in search of lunch prior to any required meetings. Most of us found some great BBQ at Stubb's BBQ on Red River Avenue which was just around the corner from our hotel. Talk about some good food! We had some delicious pulled pork sandwiches and I had the mashed yams which were excellent! If you make it to Austin, Stubb’s is one of the many famous BBQ joints in town and definitely deserves a visit. After lunch we had our first meeting with Prof. Shoji Shiba who learned about lean manufacturing from Deming himself and has had a very distinguished career helping manufacturing companies around the world become better at what they do. We are very privileged, as were the previous 20 LFM classes, to have him join us and teach us to see problem areas in the plants and companies that we will visit. Through an introductory lecture, Prof Shiba taught us his 7 key points for observing the invisible and unknown as well as the visible proof of corporate pros and cons. In brief, his 7 key points were to 1) observe details, 2) observe the periphery, 3) observe the unusual, 4) observe what is missing, 5) observe symbols, 6) observe shadows (try to see beyond your mental barriers), and finally, 7) observe comparisons. I hope to gain a lot of insight from Prof. Shiba during this tour on these ideas as well as to start to see the manufacturing facilities as he sees them.
After our lecture, we headed out to The Main Event where Cisco and Flextronics were hosting us for the evening. If you have ever been to Dave & Buster’s or Chuck-E-Cheese, you get a general sense of The Main Event. They have a bunch of arcade games, bowling alleys, a mini-golf course, a rock-climbing facility and a laser tag arena. A competition of bowling, arcades and laser tag kept our hosts and us very busy for the entirety of the evening with the laser tag being our favorite. Definitely a lot of fun was had by all! As the evening ended, we returned to our hotel and most of the class headed down to 6th Street to see the local Austin nightlife for the rest of the night and you can check out Sean’s blog to see some of the action photos from the night (definitely check out the photo of the flaming Dr. Pepper’s that they had).
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!
Hope that you all had a great and safe end to 2007 and an awesome beginning to 2008!
Take care and more later...
Take care and more later...
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