Kipling Approaching

There is 1 more school day before the Kipling Ceremony, also known as The Iron Ring - the ritual calling of an engineer. The whole ceremony and process seems a bit sacrilege, but I guess they really want to stress the importance of responsibility. I don't think there are going to be any sacrificing of any animals, but one would have to wait to see. Its a private invitatio, so only engineers wearing their ring can attend. That means no family members or friends can attend that are not engineers.

Either way, the ring also signifies to me that 6 years are coming to a close. Thats what excites me.
Anyway, keep your eye out for Kipling pranks on Friday morning. We'll be out all night like little monkeys causing havoc. Should be fun!

MSN Spaces

Since Blogger does not have a photo section, I obtained an MSN space so that I can link pictures to my blog. You can add pictures to Blogger, but it's only included in the blog posting. If you want to share a whole album, then you have to find alternative ways of doing so.

So, the plan is to use my MSN space only for pictures. Currenly, I have been using bubbleshare, but it requires to keep account information in your inbox if you wanted to update the album. Its a good concept, because it doesn't require viewers to have to register to view your pictures, like Snapfish and Shutterfly (Although these sites are good if you want to order prints and such.) But there has to be a more efficient and friendly way to share albums. MSN Spaces is still not the greatest for uploading pictures, since they have to be done manually, 1 at a time. If anyone knows of a photo sharing website that does not require visiting viewers to register, but has as a user friendly uploading system that allows you to select multiple picture files at one time to upload, please let me know.

Currently, my MSN Space is not updated, but it does have a few pictures from last years Kipling. I was using them as a test. Here is the link: ertlsg spaces
You can navigate to find the photos.

Days to Wedding: 44

Team Monopoly

At the end of year 8, Team Monopoly earned cumulative profits of $158,000,000. The last year alone, we earned $48,000,000. Eight years ago Team Monopoly was only an $80 million dollar company. After taking over and investing heavily in plant capacity, R&D, Marketing, and TQM, among other things, Team Monopoly is now over a 1/2 billion dollar company. The stock price grew from $27 to $111 in 6 years! Team Monopoly captured the highest market share over 48 competing teams. This was contributed by earning 1.1 billion dollars in sales in the last 3 years.

If your company is looking for a new general manager, or perhaps a CEO, look no further. I love making executive decisions and acting on opportunities rather than reacting to missed ones.

This simulation took over my life for 2 months, waking me up at 5am every morning that the decisions came out. One thing that I really enjoy is seeing results from decisions I make. This is the reason why I'm going to be competing in the Capstone Business Simulation Olympics! The Olympics brings the best players from around the world to compete. Again this time the simulation runs for 8 years, however, all decisions will be made within 8 days. Every morning new decisions will need to be made. The Olympics actually run during my studying for final exams, but I'm addicted to it. I did a quick calculation and realized that I will actually gain time to study since normally I wouldn't wake up at 5am. After the qualifying round, the top 6 teams in the world will then compete head to head in the finals. I can't wait!!!

Tomorrow we will be presenting the results of the simulation, as well as the strategy chosen for success.

Wind Energy In Hamilton

My friend Omar is working on an Inquiry about wind energy production methods for the Hamilton Area.

Here is his email. Please fill out the survey, as he will need substantial feedback. It will only take 2 minutes.

Hey Everyone,

As some of you know, I'm working on an Inquiry to determine which (if any) wind energy production methods would be most sustainable for the Hamilton-Wentworth or Ontario area. Therefore, I need to get some feedback from people about what they think of having windmills put up around their local area. Think of places like escarpments and valley that are around Southern Ontario.. Some of you clearly don't live in Hamilton, but I could use the feedback nonetheless. The link for the survey is:

http://FreeOnlineSurveys.com/rendersurvey.asp?sid=jl3hvg1862rh49e171789

Well, if this thing suggests 'yes', I'm going to try and pitch it to Peter Gearge (the president of McMaster University) to put up a turbine of some sort around McMaster. In addition, with the help of the Engineering and Society faculty and Society's Challenge (an Eng Soc student created non-profit organization), I'm hoping to work with some developers over the summer to set up a subdivision where smaller turbines are widely implemented.

Monopoly Monopolizing

So, my midterms are almost done. I have one more tomorrow and then I get a week off, just to start midterms all over again. I wonder why they call it 'midterms' when they aren't really in the middle. Especially when there is more than 1 of them. Either way, I've been doing really well this semester. I'm quite pleased with my results.

A little update on our company simulation. Last year we made almost $8,000,000 in profits and are stock prices are doing much better. I'm anticipating much higher profits next year. Hopefully I'll get a big fat bonus!

Just a note: There are up coming birthdays. One is my fiance, who is turning the big 29. Happy birthday Karen!!! And the other is Dom, who is turning 25.

Days to the wedding: 72