Meteorologists say the cold weather is caused by a negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation, which means that cold Arctic air is flowing into southern latitudes that are normally much warmer.
This is the explanation for the recent European freezing weather and snow as mentioned in CNN. Sounds awfully like what scientists said would happen through global warming, or as Thomas Friedman called it, global weirding. Freaky. This is record-breaking weather over there, and hopefully is not a harbinger of things to come.
Awesome article in the New York times regarding how Kristianstad, Sweden has converted their biowaste into biofuel - heating most of the city and providing biogas to all government-operated vehicles. This has pretty much cut out all needs for municipal and utility petroleum-based fuels.
The city of Kristianstad (which was apparently nearly bankrupted during the oil shocks of the 1970s from fuel costs) pay half for energy than they would if they relied on oil, easily get rid of biowaste from their agricultural sector that would have to be disposed of anyways and could intoxicate the water supply if not properly taken care of, employ tons of people, and have as a byproduct, produced technology and expertise within their citizens that could be exported probably for loads of cash.
I like cooking, in theory.... I like to think that I do cook, but since I graduated college, I barely have. First it was the crazy travelling job, where all my food would go bad in the fridge because I was out all week... Then back at the parents house where my mom took care of food duties, and then the intense MBA life style where we were fed at school most nights and barely had time to sleep, much less do anything on the skillet.
I've been slowly easing back in now that school is done, and I'm starting to get the hang of my new job, but haven't really done anything more than pasta, chicken on the Foreman Grill, or broiled steaks.... Until today when I got an invite to a cooking club night - the theme was Asian.
So, I tried to see what would be be in my skill range, and found a good recipe for Korean Beef Bulgogi. It was surprisingly easy to make, and I let it marinate for twice as long as was in the recipe, and voila, deliciousness. I found a Youtube video on how to cook good Asian style white rice, and by the end of the night, there was about a morsel of the bulgogi left. Actually, all of the food was really, really good (lot of talented people in the cooking club), but importantly, I really enjoyed the focus and the project-oriented nature of getting something done. I may have to make this a Sunday tradition. Unfortunately, my iPhone couldn't capture the truly succulent nature of the dish.
I went to see the Arcade Fire last night after several years of trying to see them but tickets being completely sold out. They were amazing. So musically on top of things, and at the same time, just going crazy on stage. I was disappointed that the crazy guy and the red-haired guy didn't start head-butting each other with motorcycle helmets on this time, but even still, what a great concert. One of the biggest venues in Boston was completely sold out, and a lot of people left the seats to the sidelines to dance. Here's a vid of the encore below, not mine, but this guy had better seats:
Seriously, how can anyone still want to keep on with off-shore drilling. The US Gulf wetlands are facing the prospect of being irreparably damaged for a generation, if not more. The machinery to get the oil out is ridiculously complicated and difficult to install.... It's a wonder that disasters like BP's haven't occurred more often, or been equally catastrophic.
An oil rig, the helicopters to service it, and the ships to drill and transport petroleum to the coast all together cost 100's of millions of dollars - and that's just the initial fixed cost to get the thing up... Never mind the net present value of wages, maintenance, and operational costs for the lifetime of the investment... If just a fraction of that were deferred, to say, a venture fund that focused on clean energy start-ups, we might even find a couple of real solutions. Hopefully Better Place and the Nissan Leaf will catch on in a big way, soon.
Yesterday was one of those days where everything just seemed to click into place. If only Butler had beat frickin' Duke, the day would have been perfect. Yesterday's highlights:
Managed to pull together a financial negotiation with another team in hours after we found out that our results were due a day earlier than what we had scheduled for, stuck to our guns based off of our financial evaluations, and walked away from a pretty good deal (that probably did go down in real life) when the other team wouldn't budge and we thought they were taking advantage of us
Really started to understand venture capital term sheets after having written our own as an assignment this past weekend, and negotiated with a team representing the entrepreneurs based on a real life deal. On presenting our results to the class, the VC who actually made the deal cut all of us to shreds when we'd done something stupid... I started to get it, and realized how little I had actually understood this entire process - learned more from one assignment and the subsequent class than I had the entire preceding semester
Started to grasp the underlying methodology for alternative investing (PE, Hedge Funds) in a mindset that had never occurred to me in the slightest before in a seminar taught by the guy that started Goldman Sachs' PE practice. As a bonus, he told us how he'd gotten to that position in what ended up being a pretty fascinating life story... Also provided a mantra for a mindset on life:
"you never know where life will take you, so don't be afraid to go there"
Went to a meeting with Sloan's IT division to find out that a lot of stuff I'd been pushing for for a year will get done soon, and even more cool things that I couldn't have foreseen
Post-MBA plans got a lot more solid, and in a very good way
Went on iTunes to fill out my cadre of songs from a band I'd rather not name, and saw that buying the whole CD at $4.99, was cheaper than trying to add the 5 songs or so I needed to fill it out myself at $1.29 each... Hmm interesting pricing strategy if your goal is to get people to listen to your whole record, rather than making money. I like it. Got the whole record of course.
Man, can Muse give a concert. The last time I saw them was in 2005 in some cruddy basement in Milwaukee with terrible acoustics. They were still good, but the venue wasn't working for them and even for a small venue, their gate sales couldn't have been that good. Fast-forward to 2010.... What a difference - sold out show in the biggest indoor arena in Boston... I wouldn't be surprised if Madison Square Garden had sold out the night before.
The show was in short, amazing. Their songs are wicked hard to play (I know because I've learned some), and those guys must have been practicing for hours on end for weeks, because they were not only hitting every note, but Matt Bellamy decided to play solos behind his head Jimi Hendrix style when not jumping around. The laser and light show was great as well, and their use of floating platforms that also projected video was very unique. They even ended up nearly running out of tour shirts before the opening act took stage! What a difference a few years can make.
The Silversun Pickups who I'm a huge fan of were also quite good, but I don't think they've gotten the hang of playing big arena shows. They also seem like the kind of band that would be great to catch in a small club, if they'll ever be able to tour around and play anything that small again. The stadium was nearly full at 7:30 on the dot to see these guys who were the opening act. A.) Never heard of such an established band being an opener, and B.) I guess they're starting to get known, and all along, I thought that I was the only guy that knew them but I guess not as the whole crowd was singing along to most of the songs. In any case, great ticket combination for them because both of the people I went with had never heard of them (I dragged us there to see them open), and they were both won over as fans after that set.
If you're reading this and the tour is coming to your town. Get a ticket stat regardless of the price. If I wasn't a broke grad student, I'd buy a ticket, airfare, and hotel out to another show right now instead of writing this blog post.
Here's a vid someone got from nearly the first row:
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