journal.melendez.org

Great article on politics in New Orleans: http://www.inthepinktexas.com/2006/06/27/cold-cash/ First of all, this is an excellent snapshot of the politics of the great city of New Orleans, and while the stories are crazy, I have no reason to disbelieve them. The author does end on a downer note about the state of the city, and that I'm not so sure about. I'm waiting for the real pronouncement from my friends who live and work on the ground.

So, I am nearly through my first two week's of readings, compressed in to one week (!). So far, the quality of the readings has been excellent. They include: “An Introduction to Creating Repeatable Arbitrage" This is the program's philosophy for teaching the quantitative skills of business through practical application. “Because Wisdom Can’t Be Told” This is the Harvard Business School introduction to the case method, which Acton uses heavily. “Stars and Steppingstones” My favorite quote in this essay on finding your destiny: "The ultimate horror is not death. The ultimate horror is to wake up at age fifty-five or sixty and realize that you have wasted your life; either that time has slipped past while your dreams waited, or that you never had any dreams at all." Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment I have read this book twice now. Once when I was trying out some of the books on the Personal MBA recommended readings and again now at Acton. ...

So, this was my first week in the Acton MBA program. Actually, class starts in late August, but the deluge of "pre-matriculation" readings and assignments has already begun. I had considered applying to the MBA program at the University of Texas and even spent a semester in the MBA program at St. Edward's, but the Acton program was really the one that had captured my imagination and the one that I set my sights on. I was interested in Acton for a few reasons: *A real world focus on the work. Class is taught by practitioners who are actually in business. *The curriculum is built on business, but there is also an emphasis on "a life of meaning." *Timeline. The program is designed to compress the standard two year MBA into less than one year of full-time study, although the pace is a grueling 80 hour per week program. I will elaborate more on the program, how I got to it and my experiences in it over the next year. But first I need to get caught up on my assi...