Decisions

As many of my readers are no doubt aware, I'm currently preparing to go back to school this fall in order to get my MBA.  The latest step in the process has been choosing a school, and it's been a hard decision.  Each of my options had a lot to recommend it, which, as my future father-in-law very helpfully pointed out, meant that there was no wrong choice to make.  That didn't make the decision any easier, but it did take most of the stress out of it.

Faced with a decision between three good options, I did what any military intelligence veteran and prospective MBA would do: I made a spreadsheet.  I compiled a list of competing criteria, including everything from program rankings and student body attitudes to proximity of family and friends and survivability in a civilizational-collapse scenario.  I rated each school on these criteria as impartially as possible, then ranked the criteria by subjective importance to me, had my fiancée do the same*, and multiplied the average of our rankings by the schools' ratings to come up with a value-weighted score for each school.  And of course, my approach failed completely, leaving two of the three schools perfectly tied.

What next?  Time to cook the books.  I went back through the theoretically impartial ratings columns and adjusted them until one school started to pull ahead.  Was I intentionally tipping the balance toward one school?  Probably, but even in that case, my spreadsheet still did its job by revealing to me which school I truly most wanted to attend.  And what was the result?  Well, I'm happy to announce that I am now officially a member of the Wisconsin School of Business Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management Class of 2013.

It is a bit ironic, since I had initially considered it my third-place school, and I nearly didn't bother to finish the application after I was admitted to the school I had considered my number two.  I only went to the interview and class visit out of a grudging sense of obligation to finishing what you start, but was so impressed during that visit that it suddenly became the school to beat.  In the end, it was the only program I felt like I would regret missing if I went somewhere else, and that's what ultimately tipped the scales.  I guess it's a good lesson in not closing doors or burning bridges.

So Madison-area friends, see you soon! And Chicago and Twin Cities friends, we'll only be a few hours away, and we're planning to have a guest room.

*My fiancée's independent prioritization of school selection criteria was nearly identical to mine.  I'd say that's a good sign, no?

Do Take Some Time This Weekend

Take some time to read Bruce Gee's eclogue on orchard work in Wisconsin. It's more than worth your time.

Are Ya Serious: Minnesota Huh?

I'm fascinated by the text of a Facebook group calling on Minnesotans to lobby their governor against his proposed spending cuts. The text of the group's Facebook page:

A $6.4 billion deficit. The longest and deepest economic recession since WWII. A quarter of a million Minnesotans out of work. 1,000 more losing their jobs every week.

Governor Pawlenty's solution:

* Eliminate health care for 113,000 working Minnesotans, including 20,000 kids
* Cut $764 million from local hospitals, forcing many in Greater Minnesota to close
* Lay off 12,000 Minnesota teachers
* Put 16,000 health care professionals out of work
* Close nursing homes around the state
* Saddle the sick and disabled with higher fees and fewer services
* Fire police officers, fire fighters, and paramedics with deep cuts to Local Government Aid and County Program Aid
* Put the state $1.8 billion in debt for the next 20 years

Call Governor Pawlenty. Tell him he can't cut his way out of this recession. Fair and reasonable revenue is necessary to keep our state whole through this crisis.

I really sympathize with the staffers at the Governor's office who will be fielding the phone calls called for here. I'm having trouble parsing exactly what this group is saying and I'm looking right at it. They clearly understand that a massive budget deficit and projected long-term debt are bad things. Cutting back on government spending, however, is apparently also unacceptable. Clearly they would prefer he just wave his magic wand and fix the problem without having to make any difficult choices. And what on Earth do they mean by "fair and reasonable revenue"? Newsflash: revenue's going to drop in a downturn, and there's not much the governor can due about that. Unless is this cryptoprogressive code for "raise taxes", you know, because raising taxes in a downturn has always worked in the past. Sigh.

Also, what exactly are they getting at with that "Greater Minnesota" business? I may have studied in Minnesota, but I've got 'Sconnie in my blood, and if those lutefisk-eaters come lookin' for lebensraum in these parts they'll find me digging my foxhole on the St. Croix bluffs!

Brrr

In general, I'm really looking forward to the day I get to move back home to the upper Midwest. Not so much tonight:


Brrrrr. Keep warm, folks.

Uptown

So I'm sitting in a coffeeshop in Uptown Minneapolis, and I'm reminded again how much I love the Twin Cities. Chicago will forever be my favorite American city, probably my favorite in the world, but I will always feel at home here in the Cities. On my brief and infrequent visits I now regret that I spent so little time up here in the four years I spent in college less than an hour away. I may get my chance, though; I've decided that if I were to go for my Masters, I'm pretty sure it would be here, at the University of Minnesota. And I'd live in St. Paul. I know Uptown's the hip, cool place for young people, and it's a great area (imagine a better-dressed, somewhat more conservative version of Madison's State Street or Berkeley), but I'd still live in St. Paul. It's the quieter, older, more family-friendly of the Cities. Also cheaper. Plus, there are tons of beautiful, huge, early-20th century apartments, built in an era when apartments were for living, not just existing. Many of them have dining rooms (gasp!) and large porches and such. Can you tell I'm ready for a place of my own? After six years in communal housing, who wouldn't be?

Should Have Gotten a Picture...

Of the nativity scene proudly displayed in front of the Tarot/palm/psychic reading emporium I drove past in Great Lake City yesterday. It's up there with Lutheran Lucciola's Gregorian-chant-piping-Buddhist friend, but more inexplicable.

Loving the Midwest

I've been home for just a couple days for Thanksgiving, and I've been greatly enjoying being back in the upper Midwest. I particularly appreciated this helpful sign posted on the door of the local Fleet Farm (sort of an agricultural Wal-Mart).

I'm almost happy I don't have any of my close buddies with me at Airborne, so at least this time I won't have to take the usual commentary on how much my accent has regressed northwards.