The driver was twofold. First, I want to make sure I’m giving my photography customers the best I possibly can. Second, now that I’m done with school for good (and done teaching for good), I want to continue my education in other ways. I don’t want to become stagnant.

I read about a fellow (his name escapes me now) who would spend a full year learning a new skill inside and out. By the time he died, he’d mastered dozens of difficult skills.

He’s a bit of an inspiration to me.

So whatever you are interested in, I’d encourage you to really take the time to learn about it and master it. Don’t let you brain sit on the sidelines!

1. My parents pretty much insisted. I didn’t want to, but once I finished my Associates, I was enjoying it and wanted to continue.

2. I’m not actually very good at “doing things.” I am, however, very good at knowing what should be done and when, and allocating resources to that end. That’s a natural fit for being a manager, but they don’t let flunkies be in charge of stuff.

3. There is very little on this Earth I hate more than getting up early in the morning. Worker bees always seem to have shifts starting at 6 or 7 AM, and I knew I didn’t want that.

4. I am insecure enough that having degrees, certifications, and credentials make me feel less worthless. Yes, I realize that’s dumb, but it works, so don’t knock it.

5. Without school, I would not have ever managed to have any friends. Aside from work (where I’m generally detested), the only place I had human interaction was at school. Fortunately for me, now that I’m done going to school, they’re letting me teach.

6. Lifetime earnings for a high school graduate = $1.2M. For a Bachelor’s degree = $2.1M, and for a Master’s degree = $2.4M. I like making twice as much in my lifetime. That sounds like a good equation. Now granted, lawyers and doctors can make up to $4.4M in their lifetime, but they have to be around the sick people of the world (medically and otherwise) and go to school a lot longer.

7. I actually enjoy learning stuff. When I finished high school, I thought I was pretty darn smart. Then I started college, and with each passing year, I felt dumber and dumber. Not because I knew less, but because I knew more and more about how much more there was to learn. The old saying “arrogance is always founded on ignorance” is incredibly true. It’s hard to think you’re smart when you realize you only know about 0.000000000000000000000001% of the information available for you to learn (that’s being generous).

8. Advanced degrees are required for the type of work I enjoy. With an advanced degree, you get a lot of things – you get a lot more flexibility in your career, and in the type of work you do. For instance, in my job, I basically choose 95% of what I do. No one is giving me a list of tasks. I have a couple of overarching objectives, and I can achieve those however I see fit. You just flat out can’t have a job like that with a GED – that is, unless you start your own business (which I encourage!).

9. It really sucks to hang around with your coworkers and you’re the only one that doesn’t have cool acronyms (Ph.D., MBA, CPA, CPIM, PHR, etc.). When I took the job here, I had a BA. In a lot of jobs, a BA is good as gold. In this job, I was basically seen as the doofus of the group. Our office is made up of very credentialed people – in fact 50% of our employees have a Ph.d. and most of those have been published. Yikers. The people here who have BA’s are the people that have to run errands and pick up coffee. Thank god for the Marketing and Journalism majors of the world. Yeah. Ouch.

10. Paying your way through college is character building. You can’t possibly pay for college AND have a life or have stuff. Keeping your eye on the prize when you’re broke and living in a basement working a zillion hours – that makes you appreciate the success that much more. I’m glad my parents didn’t pay for my school, because I’m positive I wouldn’t have worked so hard at it if they had.

Setting Strategy: MBA students offer free advice to area businesses

The project it refers to was my final MBA project before graduating. There were 6 of us on the consulting team, and this article just scratches the surface of our results, but it was a fun project. Anyhow, I’m the first person interviewed in the article, so you won’t have to read very far down.

Pete

The past 3 weeks I’ve spent my time recovering from a catastrophic server failure at work. We recovered most of our stuff, but it took forever and it cost a fortune. I knew eventually we’d get in trouble with our 8 year old software. We hadn’t upgraded since 2000.

Let’s see. I have been getting massages weekly, and the past couple weeks have been focused on my left arm and hand, because I have frickin carpal tunnel syndrome. I finally went to an Orthopedist and a Neurologist (that part sucked) when what had just been pain for several years became numbness and inability to pick things up (like a butter knife or a salt shaker).

The Orthopedist did x-rays and twisted my hand all around. He informed my I have the beginnings of arthritis in my hand, but that wasn’t causing my numbness. He sent me to the Neurologist, who clearly bought his medical equipment from the Nazis. He pulled out a scary needle-electrode looking thing and proceeded to shock the crap out of my wrist over and over. It was actually surprisingly painful (imagine a cattle prod).

The results, yup – CTS. He told me to immobilize the wrist for 6-8 weeks, do physical therapy every week for 6 months, and if it still doesn’t fix it… surgery. The bad news is, surgery only works about 40% of the time, and that’s being generous. My other alternative… learn how to type and play bass with one hand. Not really an option.

Soo, that’s that.

In Presidential politics, I’m still not happy about any of the three, and I secretly think the Republicans need to be defeated to get their focus back. However, in true Democretard form, Hillary and Obama have decided it would be best if they drag out their race and discredit each other in the process by going dirty. Duh.

Just when the Dems start doing something interesting, they find a way to mess it all up. If they weren’t so concerned with “fairness” and spent a little more time thinking about “competition,” (I’m talking about the party, not the candidates) we wouldn’t be in this pickle.

I’m also now hoping that McCain turns out to be the quintessential populist…. like Bill Clinton without the interns. If he’s truly willing to “reach across the aisle” then he will end the war in Iraq. Let’s face it, it’s what America wants, and it’s what America should get, regardless who’s the Presidente’.

I’m excited to see how it all unfolds. However, after this weeks’ incident involving a tush bonding molecularly to a toilet seat, I will not use the expression “glued to my seat.”

Pete

About 20 minutes into my class, I realized that… I am boring. I was bored listening to myself, so I can only imagine how boring my students thought it was. Granted, the subject is not exactly inspiring, but I thought I might be mildly entertaining.

I am not.

Fortunately for me, students are used to sitting for hours and listening to boring people.

Anyhow, I’m officially a Master of something or another. Maybe now I can chill out and have some fun. (If by fun, I mean sleep.)

Pete

That is, assuming that the ice storm doesn’t result in class cancellations. Right now the school is open, but they canceled evening classes last night, and that could happen again.

Graduation is on Friday afternoon, but in a strange twist of fate, if classes get canceled tonight, I’ll be taking my finals on Saturday night. STOO-PID.

Of course, all of the schools in KC are closed to day in spite of the fact that there is not actually one single patch of ice anywhere in the city. The temperature has hovered between 31 and 34 degrees last night and today, so the trees are coated, but not the roads. I’ll bet there are a lot of frustrated parents at home with kids today when they didn’t need to be…

So, I can’t decide whether I should study as if finals are tonight, or party in hopes they are Saturday night. I really don’t want to have finals AFTER graduation. Please weather, hold out just a few more hours!

Did I mention my office is fricking freezing?

Pete

So, in light of all of these last 11 years, you’d think I’d be shaking the UMKC dust off my shoes and busting out of there. You’d be wrong.

I have agreed to start teaching at UMKC in January. In addition to my real job. Because I’m crazy.

The first class I’ll be teaching is a Master’s level business course in service operations management. I took the class a couple years ago, so at least I’m semi-familiar with the material. I am not teaching for the money. If you are a teacher, you know I’m not kidding about that.

I agreed to teach because it’s a great opportunity – maybe even a once in a lifetime opportunity – to teach at the Master’s level. That’s great for the resume, and it’s great experience, and it’s great for keeping skills and knowledge up to date.

Hopefully teaching will not be the same as attending school.

And now, the top 10 ways to know you should not pursue another degree:

10. Getting a Ph.D will make you unqualified for the job you already have.

9. You’ve been claiming tuition deductions on your tax forms for so long the IRS makes you send extra proof that you’re really in school each year.

8. You sit down to watch some TV and notice this “Really awesome new show called ‘Friends’”

7. Everyone on campus think you’re on the faculty, including the real faculty.

6. You have more credit hours than most of your professors.

5. You study for all of your tests by flipping through the book and making sure you recognize all of the bold words.

4. You accidentally drive to campus on days you don’t have class.

3. When you started college, we were at war in Iraq under George Bush, but it wasn’t the current president.

2. You fall asleep with your eyes open during group presentations and you’re still able to answer questions about the topic without waking up.

1. Someone asks you to do a SWOT and PEST analysis and you snicker to yourself because you know that a brain-damaged chimp could provide more insight into a company’s problems than either of those models.

To give you an idea, I’m taking 2 classes right now, one is a “blow off” course, the other is the MBA capstone course – the one that ties together everything you’ve learned throughout your BA and MBA. To say it’s a demanding course would be like saying that suicide bombers are “a little bit nuts.”

My project in the capstone, called “Competitive Strategies” is to do a consulting project with a local business. It’s exciting, because it’s truly hands-on and real world. The flip side is, there is a real business owner depending on my team of 5 wonderful people. I can’t disclose the name of the business, but here’s what our semester has been like the past 14 weeks:

Weekly or bi-weekly meetings with the client, one on Sunday evening, one midweek. Daily phone and email interaction with the client. Multiple trips to ALL Kansas City locations (we’re working with 6 locations). Team meetings amounting to several hours 2-5 times per week. Independent research and writing amounting to 15-20 hours per week.

And that’s just one course. I also have a real job, a home I’m trying to take care of, 4 pets, a fiance’, a second course, and of course football season. Oh yeah, there are also the trips to Philadelphia, my web business (on the back burner) and my photography business (http://barrettgraphics.net) which has really been heating up the past couple of months. Sadly, football season has taken a hit because I frankly just don’t have time to watch.

Anyhow, I’m not trying to make excuses… I’m just updating you as to the reality of my schedule right now.

Alright, now on with the update. As you know, over the summer we poured a lot of money into our house – painting, new heat pump, and of course buying new flooring. Well, we finally started installing the flooring last weekend.

It has turned out pretty well, but we still have lots to do. We are putting down the same maple Pergo in the dining room and stairs, then we’re doing a slate grey ceramic tile in the kitchen, bathrooms, and stairway landings. Everyone kept telling me how easy Pergo is… I don’t know if they meant something different than what I think of when I think of “easy” but Pergo was not easy. It was “simple” as in, I am smart enough to put it in myself, however it was “difficult” in the sense that I had to bash boards with a mallet for 15 hours.

Then in the middle of the night Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) our lovely heat went out. I knew what the problem was – the thermostat had been programmed wrong. We have a heat pump and a gas furnace. The heat pump runs until it goes below 30 degrees, then the gas heat kicks in. However, due to incorrect installation, at 30 degrees the heat pump went off, but the gas did not kick in, and there was no way to override and tell the heat pump to keep running. So it got quite cold on Thursday:

Yes, it was 51 degrees in the house when I took that picture. No, that was not the coldest it got. It dipped into the 40s on Thursday night. We made a fire and slept in the living room. It was so cold, my dogs shared the chair:

You know it’s cold when they do that. Usually they growl at each other and fight over who gets to sleep there. That’s the only piece of furniture in the entire house we allow them to get on.

But Friday, the HVAC guy came back out and reprogrammed the thermostat, which I felt better about not being able to do when it took him nearly 3 hours. The house warmed right up, and it was all good.

Friday we also went on our annual Black Friday shopping trip with my family. We bought some very snazzy tv trays from Bombay company, and then it was time for me to go back home and start working on school. Ick.

Jenna and I bought a very pretty Christmas tree and set it up:

As you can see, we have stockings for Chasey, Abby, and Livie already ready to go.

And finally, we have gone on what Scott Adams (author of Dilbert) refers to as an “orgy of acquisition.” Jenna and I opted to pool our resources and buy one gift that’s from both of us to both of us. After all, we spend a lot of time together in front of it:

It’s a lovely Samsung 50″ HDTV Plasma. I don’t think the Asian chick actually comes with it, but you never know. Those people at Samsung are pretty nice.

I also decided I can’t do professional photography and web design on a laptop anymore, even if it is a souped up 17″ model. So, I ordered a high-end Dell workstation with a 22″ LCD monitor:

I will pay for it with a single photography gig, so it’s not as huge of a purchase as you might think. Still, it’s the fastest computer I will have ever owned. 2.4Ghz 8mb 1066 FSB, 320 GB RAID 0, 4 GB 800mhz memory, Vista Ultimate, Office 2007, Adobe Creative Suite… and the list goes on. It’s flippin’ sweet!

Sunday I was scheduled to play bass at my church, so at 7:30 AM, I loaded up my gear and headed there. I set up my rig, plugged it in, flipped the power switch, and BOOM! My amp head burned up for no apparent reason. It was a Genz-Benz 500H – plenty of power and had been flawless for nearly 7 years. However, it’s old enough it’s not worth fixing, so I ordered new head rig to drive my Ampeg 8×10 cab.

It’s a Peavey Pro 500. I’ll have the same amount of power I had before, but this one has a parametric EQ, which is WAY nicer than the old GB had. I’m racking it up with a DBX compressor/limiter:

Now I just need to convince our band leader that he needs to schedule a song with some slap bass.

I know what you audiophiles are thinking… “What a dummy. I can’t believe he bought a Peavey head to drive an Ampeg cab… GAY!” To that I say, Ampeg heads are massively overpriced for the features you get (a comparable unit from Ampeg runs about $1,800 bucks and doesn’t have a parametric EQ), AND, Peavey – despite making really crappy instruments, have really got amplifiers figured out. If you don’t believe me, go down to your local store and try one out.

And don’t think “hey, Pete’s got a lot of nice stuff, I should go rob his house.” On Friday, ADT came and upgraded my home security system with a digital cellular transmitter so even if you cut my phone lines, you can’t defeat my security. And if you break in when I’m home, remember I practice at the gun range every week.

That’s all for today!

Pete

10. If you’ve ever slept in your car in the school parking lot because it’s closer to work than to your house.

9. The Professors all think YOU’RE a Professor.

8. You consider taking 40 credit hours in one semester just to “speed things up.”

7. You routinely take naps in the student union.

6. The syllabus for your new class lists one requirement as a 50 page research paper “suitable for publishing in a peer reviewed journal” and you thank God it’s not going to be a HARD class.

5. You’ve randomly been assigned to a group – and you’ve been randomly assigned to a group with exactly the same members in a different class.

4. You always take provisions to last at least 7 days whenever you go to the campus.

3. You’ve used up all possible combinations of numbers and letters available using the english alphabet and regular integers, because school policy requires you to change your password to a new one you’ve never used before every 30 days.

2. You have more credit hours than your Ph.D. Professors.

1. You’ve been in college for 11 years and you still have another semester to go…

————————————————————————

Yes, I officially have senioritis. I’ve been in school since August of 1996, and I won’t be finishing my MBA until December 2007. No matter how you try to spin it, that’s a long effing time to be in college. Keep in mind that before that I was in 12 years of school leading up to college. So basically I have 23 years of school and I’m only 28.

Granted, I chose to submit myself to this daily torture. Circumstances never allowed me to JUST go to school. I always had to work full time – I had to pay my way as I went. Heck, I’m still paying my way. The college will be taking another $5,000.00 of my hard earned money before it’s all said and done.

I went through the depressing exercise of calculating what I’ve actually spent on my education, and it’s disturbing. No WONDER I’ve been working my butt off and I’m still broke! Keep in mind this doesn’t include room and board!

Total Cost (including tuition, fees, books, and supplies): $112,105.48
Total Amount Reimbursed (by various employer plans): $18,000.00

My Out-of-Pocket Cost: $94,105.48

The good thing is, I don’t OWE $94,000, but the bad news is I never EVER had any extra money – I was always scraping by, even though I’ve had decent jobs for the past 6 years.

I’m tired of doing the right and responsible thing. I want to do the foolish and irresponsible thing, whatever the heck that is. I want to be done with school and never look back.

248 days to go.