• My First Time Getting Knocked OUT
• Undefeated Champions
• What a save! Wait…he’s not the goalie!
• The Fumberception
• The One Man Tackling Army
• 46 -6

Read the full post at Sports Fan 4 for all the historic details.

For everyone like me who couldn’t make it out there, check out this video of Franklin Street from the Daily Tar Heel.

Here’s a time-lapse of the spot on Franklin Street:

Honestly, it does like like this year’s celebration was just a tad bit wilder than the one for their 4th championship (which I was at). Though my perspective for that celebration wasn’t from this nice online ariel view, but rather right from the streets. Similar to what Wayne Sutton was seeing last night:

In either case, congratulations North Carolina Tarheels! Way to be Tarheels, way to be champions yet again!

Oh, and by the way, of course I predicted that UNC would win it all!

Being relatively smoke-free for more than six months now I’m here to tell you about the immense benefits of not smoking and how to quit smoking in less than one minute. There’s simply too much material to cover in one post so we’ll have a 3-4 part series about cigarettes, their dangers and how to quit. Today let’s go through some of my personal history. Next we’ll talk about the pros and cons of smoking, focusing on health, economics, and time. Finally, we’ll discuss how to quit smoking in less than one minute. If you’re not subscribed to the RSS feed, now would be a good time to subscribe!

For the first 18 years of my life I never smoked a cigarette and was very adamant about the dangers of smoking and trying to get people around me to quit. When I was a little kid there was one or two incidents where I threw a cup of water at my step-father while he was smoking. Needless to say I quickly figured out this was not a very good strategy! I’d also see my mom smoking on very rare occasions and would take the cigarette from her and threaten that I’d start smoking it if she didn’t put it out. So, you can see I was certainly not a smoker, knew the dangers and publicly promoted not smoking.

Alas, a few months into my freshman semester at the University of Southern California, I got a little too drunk and ended up smoking a cigarette and enjoying it. Though I smoked on only very rare occasions for a few months, eventually I degraded to being a pack a day smoker. The low point came that summer, while working for my step-dad as a construction worker, I smoked nearly two packs a day!

The next school year, I incidentally transferred to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, home of Tobacco Road. Though I didn’t repeat the mistakes of smoking two packs a day I still smoked way too much. Even as a poor college student, I could easily find ways to scrounge up the $2-$2.25 for a pack of smokes. Yup, they are dirt-cheap there as much of America’s tobacco is grown in the region.

So my drunken slip turned into a habit and six years later at the age of 24 I was still smoking nearly a pack a day. At this point though my desire to quit was growing exponentially every day. A few incidents pushed me past the tipping point. In January of this year I quit smoking cold turkey. I had one relapse, which I expected to happen, but it only served to further convince me that not smoking is clearly the right move. Seven months into my smoke-free existence and I’m wicked happy and healthy. Buying and riding a bicycle personally helped me remember to keep my lungs clear and over the course of this series we’ll discuss similar strategies for kicking the habit and staying clean. Remember to sign up for the RSS feed or e-mail updates to stay up to date.

First up are my fellow Tar Heels over at Thrills on the Hill. The fellas over there are posting events going on in Chapel Hill during the summer. As someone who spent a summer on the hill, I’ve got to say it’s a great idea, I had fun during my summer in Chapel Hill, but there were more than a few nights with simply nothing to do.

Going in the complete opposite direction is the guy-girl combo (and 50% fellow Boston Latin School alums) over at I’m Peachy (a.k.a. Impeach Him Impeach Him), with the mission of posting pictures of real Americans who support the impeachment of President Bush. The great twist here, is these pictures are coming from Texas, President Bush’s home-land.

Moving on to less controversial topics, if you like Hip-Hop/Rap music, check out Contak. I used to give this kid a hard time when we were both attending Latin but I’ve got to give the kid credit, he can rap. Check him out and make sure to tell him to send me a free promo CD so I can write up a review!

Last but certainly not least is Random Antonym. Another Latin alum and fellow business partner, Brandon’s site design is wicked nice and unique. Brandon himself will admit the content on his site is still a work in progress, but in the mean time, at least check out some of his pictures from around the world.

Props to all four of you and keep it up everyone.

University of Massachusetts at Amherst Network Stats:

No suprises here, Sublime and Family Guy top their respective charts, half the school is apparently not interested (or at least not affiliated) in politics, maybe that has something to do with the fact that a 1/3 of the campus is single and on the prowl?

Northeastern University Network Stats:

Northeastern has some similarities with Umass, a lot actually. 1/3 of the campus is single and 1/2 are not affiliated with a political view, the top TV show is Family Guy and the top book, like Umass is Harry Potter.

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Network Stats:

Hey, here’s something interesting, UNC has only 1% less students who call themselves “liberal” (18%) than Northeastern and Umass (both at 19%)! Harry Potter once again tops the books list, but the Bible (something not on either of the other two networks) comes in at #2! facebook also backs up the popular claim that there are more girls than boys at the campus (46% female to 35% male).

In general, all three campuses have pretty much the same interests even though they have slightly different demographics. There’s some grumblings on the Northeastern network page about the “masculinity” of their campus due to Jack Johnson being the #1 musical artist but at least they don’t have Coldplay topping their charts like UNC! Sorry Coldplay fans, no me gusta…and of course Ben Folds joins the top ten list (they are from Chapel Hill), and the Fray make it into UNC’s top ten list.

University of Southern California Network Stats:

From my personal experience at USC, the campus was a great source of new music and movies as many of the students had connections within the music industry either through friends in bands, or internship experience and of course the USC Film School is one of the best such programs in the country so I was expecting for USC’s musical and cinematic preferences to be different from other schools, yet the facebook network stats doesn’t back up this hypothesis. There are some slight differences, for instance USC has Gladiator and Zoolander in it’s top ten movies and John Mayer in it’s top ten music list, but other than those two slight differences, USC students like the same things UNC, Umass, and Northeastern students like. Not a very groundbreaking statement there, considering how students from everywhere attend schools everywhere and we’re all so connected it’s tough not to watch the same movies and listen to the same songs.

Let’s see if these stats change any for the City of Boston network:

Aaargh, Coldplay at #1 again. Other than Rap and R&ampB making their way into the top ten list, there’s not much of a difference between the Boston network page and the four colleges we’ve looked at. Looking at a few of the other cities across the country generally leads to the same results. There are differences in musical tastes between say Cincinatti, Ohio and Boston, Massachusetts but not a huge difference. What does this conformity say about our society? Are we all really that similar?

Besides, Harvard’s announcement is neither unique nor the best solution. The UNC Board of Governors voted several weeks ago to enforce similar deadlines for choosing on textbooks on professors; however the Board also voted to force public universities in North Carolina to either guarantee textbook buy-backs or provide textbook rental programs (UNC says cost of books must fall via newsobserver.com). The rental program looks promising, especially if schools begin to institute a semester fee, under which all your textbooks are available.

Still, there’s a lot of work to be done to bring down the costs of textbooks and the elephant in the room is still the textbook manufactures themselves. College textbooks are an extremely profitable industry, and manufactures are not going to budge from their current strategies unless they need to (very similar to the RIIA in that respect). I’d like to see textbook publishers begin to offer their books online, in a .pdf format, for students to read through and print as need be. Imagine how many trees could be saved by not printing all of those textbooks!

In the mean time, I thought it’d be helpful to all the college students out there to present some methods I’ve developed/discovered to save on textbooks.

1. Order the International version on-line

During the summer of 2005, I discovered that some of my textbooks also have an international version, which appeared to differ from the regular version on three points: it was black & white, paperback, and a hell of a lot cheaper! After I checked with the book’s publisher and confirmed that the actual textual content was identical, I went ahead and ordered the international versions and haven’t noticed any differences between my greatly cheaper international version and the standard U.S. hardcover versions.

Since, then whenever I need to buy a textbook, the first thing I look for is the international version of the book. A few great resources are:

• Valorebooks.com
• Half.com
• Amazon.com
• textbooks.com
• ebay.com
• AbeBooks.com
• Bookbyte
• CampusBooks.com
• SafariX
2. Order the U.S. version…on-line

None of those places have the international version? Don’t fret, they probably still have better deals than you’ll find on campus.

Remember though, the internet is always a-changing and better sites will always come up, but if you search around you can easily beat the prices at your school’s store.

3. facebook, facebook, myspace, craigslist and facebook

What, you thought facebook was just for poking, stalking, and procrastinating? Most of the people on facebook are college students and there’s probably a ton who are taking the class you’re signing up for, hit them up and see if they’d like to make a deal for the books. You’re bound to get a cheaper price than through your school’s store and so are they. It’s win-win!

Remember to check myspace and craigslist too.

4. What? We have a library?

Huh, our library has textbooks? You bet they do! Almost all college campuses stock at least one copy of the textbooks for that semester in their campus library, but you may not be able to take the book outside of the building. Still, if the library has a scanner you can upload a textbook (chapter by chapter so you’re not at the scanner for the whole semester) or just make plain copies of it. Better yet, if you have a photographic memory, just read the book there.

If you live in a large metropolitan area, say Boston, check with the public library too as they may have your textbook(s), especially if you’re a English major.

5. Sell Yourself

NO! Not that way…get your mind out of the gutter and check out the the Freeload Press, where for the “price” of having to view ads, you can get textbooks for free! This site would be a lot higher on this list if they had a wider selection, still you can’t beat free and some of the books on there you may want to check out even if you don’t have a class in that subject.

6. Leave Campus

So you’ve tried all the above methods and still can’t find the book or beat your school store’s prices? Look outside the campus then. Many big schools, especially those in college towns, have book stores off-campus that routinely have better prices than the school store.

7. Sir Mooch-a-lot

Make friends with someone in your class, and repeatedly borrow their book. Note, you’ll either need to be very persuasive, attractive, or poor to make this work, but trust me, it can be done. Or you could borrow it once or twice and make copies of what you need.

8. Become a Master Student

If you already know everything in the textbook, you really don’t need it, do you? There’s literally a plethora of resources all over the web to learn any subject. Bone up on the topic and you’ll get great grades and save money!! Use at your own risk…

9. Google is your friend

This goes along with the Master Student suggestion, but remember you can find nearly anything on the web.

Excerpt:

“So far, we have analyzed the texts of Modern Times and Technology and Ideology: The Case of the Telegraph to understand what our ancestors foresaw as the impact of technology on our culture, society, and ideology. Although these texts discuss different technologies, as they were produced in different eras, they both still carry a similar message warning us about the dangers of engulfing ourselves in technology. From Carey’s perspective, the decrease in communication barriers will produce information over load with the danger of burying important information underneath layers of gossip and religious proclamations. Although Chaplin warns us about the dehumanizing nature of machines, his message compares to Carey’s in that they both are skeptical of technology making us lose contact of what is truly important, people.”

Excerpt:

“I’d like to tackle the issue of whether technology, and the increase in communication potential (and thus shrinking of time and space) has been, is, and will be a positive or negative part of our culture and society. I believe the communication revolution of the past couple of decades, leading to our current time, has opened up our society to more democracy, in other words, I believe the Internet has allowed minority groups to finally have their public sphere and allow for others with similar opinions all over the world to be able to congregate in one space, giving them more power. I fore-see that this will continue and will eventually lead to a falling apart of the majority rules system we currently live under as the communications technologies we’ve developed and continue to explore will better show how different and individual we all are and how attempting to categorize us all into a large group will fail in the future as each individual gains enough power to rival majority groups.”

Excerpt:

“In the modern period of the early twentieth century the human body was used to control and run machines which could out-produce a human. In our postmodern digital age, technology is used to augment and in some cases even replace the human body. In ever increasing tendency machines are now being used to control humans, whereas in the era of Modern Times humans were used to exert control on machines. From automated voice systems (such as what you hear when you call your credit card company) to computers that give us directions, capability to communicate globally, and myriads of other purposes, to the traffic lights that tell us when we can move, machines are a much more penetrating force in today’s world compared to earlier times.”

Excerpt:

“In the twelve years since Who Owns Information? From Privacy to Public Access was first published, the world has changed significantly and many of the issues Anne Branscomb discusses have either been resolved, evolved, or forgotten. The debate over who owns video entertainment is one such field, as Anne wrote of the concerns of the satellite industry over pirates stealing their signals and now, although satellite pirates surely still exist, the priority1 in this debate has shifted to access rights to digital video found on computer networks. As the music industry before it, the video entertainment industry is now battling against its customers over whether they are allowed to share copyrighted video over the internet. This debate is simply a new version of the satellite industry events of the late 80′s, the medium has simply changed.”

Excerpt:

“A device will one day be available that makes the internet mobile, that reduces the clunky, inconvenient computer into an elegant, intuitive, all encompassing, communications tool. Since we can forecast this next communications invention, why wasn’t it more apparent that the internet would follow radio, television, and the telephone as a popular medium. Since, the goal of communications is to connect more humans with more humans, shouldn’t an internet have been what the communications industry was aiming for?

With the popularity of television, it seems obvious that a television like device that would allow for user input along with the broadcast capabilities of television would be developed and would flourish; however, Howard Rheingold tells us the people capable of providing funding were reluctant to believe interactive computers and an internet would be useful and popular devices, as the internet creators struggled to get someone to listen to their ideas. Even though I have the advantage of living in today’s age and first-hand experiencing the benefits of inter-connected and interactive computer networks, I struggle to understand how the benefits of this new communication medium were not apparent back then.”

OK, I know I said I’d only put up the first paragraph of each, but that second paragraph really makes the first one more understandable. All that would be much more intuitive with some Ajax magic thrown in, eh?

As always, comments are appreciated…hope someone finds these essays resourceful.

Although I had an amazing time at USC, I decided to transfer to a more competitive business school, and enrolled the next year at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I performed poorly there in a few classes outside the business major (due to poor attendance more than anything else) and was thus denied admission the the Kenan-Flagler business school, even though I performed extremely well in my business classes (usually in the top 2-3 of the class). Due to the Kenan-Flagler’s inflexibility and personal issues I was struggling with at the time, I decided to withdraw from UNC-Chapel Hill in the middle of Spring 2005 semester and move back home to Boston.

I then worked some odd jobs, such as loading trucks in a Home Depot warehouse and valeting at the Boston Harbor Hotel (a very nice hotel in Boston, highly recommenced for anyone with the money to splurge) before landing a job temping at the State Street Corporation (here’s the wiki on SSC) in Quincy, MA (my second stint at State Street, I also worked for them for a very short time as a high school intern many years ago) in October 2005. SSC is a global custodian (basically a bank for mutual funds and other institutional investors) with nearly $11 trillion assets under custody and $1.5 trillion assets under management. I came into SSC to assist in finalizing the integration of Deutsche Bank’s custodial business onto State Street’s books, which was acquired in March of 2003. Being an accounting and finance geek, I was very happy to be working on such a high-profile project.

Having stabilized my professional life and found a job I enjoyed, I decided it was a good time to go back to school part-time and enrolled in two online classes at UNC-Chapel Hill, Management Accounting and a Communications class. I was considering, at the time of re-enrolling at UNC-Chapel Hill as I wanted to prove to the school, myself, and friends and family that I could earn a degree from their Kenan-Flagler school.

After doing a lot of thinking, I decided it was impractical to go back to UNC-Chapel Hill as it would add to my massive debt (whereas if I stayed at SSC, they would cover the cost of tuition) and add a lot of stress to my life as I had a multitude of problems with UNC-CH’s administration. I stayed un-enrolled until SSC’s tuition benefits would kick in, 6 months after my hire date. On April, 10, 2006 I became a full-fledged State Street employee and would become eligible for tuition benefits in 6 months.

I then took two classes at Northeastern University in Boston, Financial Reporting & Analysis and Business Law in the second half of the Fall 2006 semester (both courses were 6 week intensive courses). I originally wanted to take classes at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, but my tuition reimbursement eligibility did not kick until after the Umass-Amherst classes already started for the Fall ’06 semester.

Finally, I come to my point for this post; I’m currently enrolled in the online Bachelor’s degree of Business Administration, with a focus on Management, at Umass-Amherst. Due to my extensive experience with college coursework at multiple institutions, I can be a great evuluator of the effectiveness of the online program at Umass-Amherst (although admittedly biased). My thesis is that the educational value of my Umass coursework will at least match the value I received from USC, UNC-Chapel Hill and Northeastern.

I’ll be posting essays, solutions and other classwork from my previous and current classes in the Education section. I’ll also periodically comment on my progress in posts. I welcome any comments on the coursework I post in the Education section and will eventually formulate a conclusion. If I find that the value of the online program is lacking, I will let everyone know, but so far after completing one course and currently taking two courses, the evidence is supporting my thesis. In fact, the Principles of Management course I already completed was one of the most educational classes I’ve ever taken!