My Trip to Omaha

Celebrating the Super Bowl with the Oracle of Omaha

I've said before that one of the best things about attending a top level business school is the exposure you have to top level business leaders.  Anderson brings in a lot of big name guest speakers and gives students the opportunity to interact with them in ways that wouldn't be possible outside of the program.  Through my involvement in the Student Investment Fund, I've attended a few dozen company offices and alumni presentations.  These were interesting to us since we're trying to get into the industry, but most of the people we met with aren't names that I'd go out and brag (blog) about.  Last weekend, however, I did finally meet one especially notable investment professional worth talking about.  In case the big picture at the top didn't give it away, his name is Warren Buffett.  (For those of you who read the news even less than I do and are not in the know, he's widely regarded as the most famous and successful investor of all time, with a net worth of around $40 billion, making him the 3rd richest person in the world).

The story begins back in the Spring of 2011 when we were warned that the previous class of SIF students waited too long to look into joining one of Warren Buffett's MBA student events and missed the opportunity altogether.  We didn't want to be equally lame, so we had one of our classmates (an Omaha native) be in charge of making sure it happened. The first curveball was that Buffet requires at least seven female students to be part of each school's 20 person group to attend his event.  Although Anderson always talks about diversity, there happens to be zero female members of the 11-dude Student Investment Fund.  It's not that last year's recruiting staff hates women, its just that not a single girl applied. Second problem was that if SIF went on the trip, ASAM (Anderson Student Asset Management - another student-run investment group, more quant based, and mostly part-time students) wanted in on the fun too. They have 16 members (2 females).  Arguments ensued over the next 6-9 months over how to split up the trip between the two funds, where the females should come from, and if the two ASAM girls should count as ASAM members or as females or both.  In the end, there were two lotteries run: 1) all male members of SIF and ASAM; and 2) all females at Anderson.  I actually didn't get picked to go on the trip in the first lottery, but someone who did couldn't make it, and I got their spot.  Luck must have been on my side.

Well, maybe not.

Last Thursday (February 16th) I packed my bags for Omaha, as excited as could be.  Friday's activities would involve a full day of Berkshire Hathaway fun: tours of two of their partner companies, a 2-hour Q&A with Buffett, and lunch and picture opportunities with the man himself.  Unfortunately, my plans almost got derailed from the start.  My flight out of LA was delayed about an hour, which caused me to miss my connecting flight.  The next flight to Omaha left the following morning and wouldn't land until a little before noon.  I briefly considered just booking a return flight to LA, but after re-checking the itinerary I decided to head to Nebraska anyway.  Although I'd miss one of the tours and the Q&A session, at least I would be able to make the lunch.  I only spent a few hours in the Salt Lake City hotel that Delta put me up in before my alarm went off at 4 am.  My 5:55 am flight to Minneapolis, my layover, and my flight to Omaha were all relatively uneventful.

Lunch at Piccolo Pete's

I was the first person to arrive at the restaurant, Piccolo Pete's, since the Q&A ran long.  My plan was to wait until my classmates arrived and then sit with them.  In a stroke of good luck, right after Warren walked through the door, my UCLA classmates were right behind him.  Since the restaurant was open seating, that meant we were able to sit down at the featured table.  (There were 8 schools of around 20 students each, so only around 20 students sat at Buffett's table).  Unfortunately because of the large number of people in the room, and my seat in the corner of the table, I couldn't really follow the conversations too much.  But I did hear enough to pick up on his charming and humble personality.  Without knowing who he was, there is no way anyone could think this was was one of the most successful and richest people on the planet sitting at my table.  He just seemed like a classic cheerful grandpa, telling stories about his youth, making cheesy jokes, and playfully chumming it up with the students.  Extremely down to earth and genuine guy.

After lunch we got a chance to take pictures with Buffett.  Since there were 160 students or so in attendance they wanted to keep the process moving quickly, but Buffett was open to posing for funny or alternative poses in addition to the standard serious pose, if requested.  I had my NY Giants winter hat in my jacket pocket, so I quickly pulled it out and asked him to hold it as part of my Super Bowl celebration.  Some other students flexed muscles with Buffet, had him put them in a headlock, or had him get down on one knee and propose (to a female student).  Pretty cool experience all around, so even with two more flights and another layover in Minneapolis that evening and despite all the other logistical shenanigans (5 total flights and a 4 am wake up in under 24 hours), it was still worth the trip.

Early Winter Quarter Updates (Part 2)

Hanging out near a hilariously round dealer at the craps table at the Anderson Casino Night.

A continuation of the last post, these were the fun activities from last Thursday and Friday.  I believe we are now at the exact midpoint of the Winter Quarter, which means we're at the unofficial halfway point of our 2nd Year, which means graduation is approaching a lot quicker than I'd like.  Scary.

Magic Castle - The venue for our Catalina Reunion Night

Magic Castle: The group of ten of us who went on the Pre-Orientation kayaking trip to Catalina Island back in August 2010 set up a reunion event last Thursday night.  This time with less insects and potential for sharks attacks.  The evening took us to the famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, which is a private venue created by the Academy of Magical Arts.  Ordinary citizens such as myself can only get invited to the club with a direct invitation from a registered magician.  Luckily one of our kayak companions knows a thing or two about pulling rabbits out of hats (shahmagic.com!) so he made reservations for us.  The first show we went to was in the Close-up Gallery, a small room of maybe 15-20 guests and featuring close-up magician specialist, Brian Gillis.  I think it was honestly the best magic show I've ever seen.  I couldn't even begin to guess how he pulled off most of these tricks.  We also went to two other shows, one was in a large room and featured a magician named Ice but a little bit too much dancing from his middle age assistant who didn't perform much magic and thought she was still in her 20s.  Finally we went to the late-night show which was funny and very entertaining with a bunch of really good tricks as well.  We finished up the evening by going back to the apartment where two of the guys from the trip lived and hung out and caught up some more.  Hadn't hung out with these guys as a group in a year and a half, and had never been to the Magic Castle before, so overall a very fun night.

AIA Investing Conference: I think I've mentioned in earlier posts how a group of us had formed the Anderson Investment Association (AIA), an investment management focused campus organization to help improve Anderson's reputation in this industry.  One of the methods to do this was to organize a series of prominent events, which we hoped would become annual and well known throughout the country.  The most ambitious of this was the UCLA Anderson Inaugural Investing Conference.  I wasn't too involved in the planning of this, but I know a lot of work went into it over the past six months or so, and I have to say I'm impressed with how it all came together when it was held this past Friday.  A number of prominent guest speakers were brought in, with Howard Marks, the founder, Chairman, and CEO of Oaktree Capital as the keynote speaker.  There was also a kickoff talk and two group panel discussions about trends and issues in the investing community, a networking breakfast and lunch, and opportunities for two book signings.  Nearly 400 guests (including students, alumni, and local industry professionals) signed up to attend the event.  Everything went smoothly, it was interesting and educational, and it was a good networking opportunity.  Definitely a success and a step in the right direction for the new AIA.

Sporting cocktail attire at Casino Night

Casino Night/Date Auction:  One of Anderson's biggest charity and social events was held this past Friday night.  It was held at El Rey Theater and featured several casino tables, a two-hour open bar, dance floor, date auction, and a large list of other prizes that could be auctioned off with proceeds going to charity.  I didn't go to last year's event but heard it was a really good time, so I decided to go this year.  It was a nice opportunity to class it up for an evening and I hadn't been to a large Anderson social event in awhile, and it was a really fun evening.  I wish these events weren't so expensive, but if me drinking vodka tonics from an open bar all night helps children with disabilities, I'm all for it.

The rest of the weekend was spent doing homework and preparing for next week's midterm.  Need to take care of a lot of work now, because I'm only four days away from my next trip... on Thursday I'll be heading to Omaha, Nebraska with the rest of the Student Investment Fund to meet Warren Buffett.

Early Winter Quarter Updates (Part 1)

Joshua Tree National Park

The last 13 blog posts have been about my various travel plans starting with winter break, so it might be easy to forget that I'm a student and have other responsibilities too.  So it's time for a quick recap on student life of the first 4+ weeks of Winter Quarter 2012 (although most of this entry will be about more trips and other fun stuff).

Class Schedule: Although I'm only taking three traditional classes, my schoolwork is once again pretty intense.  Venture Capital and Private Equity is one of the highest rated classes at Anderson, so I really wanted to take it even though it features A LOT of cold calling and an intense workload (two assigned cases, each with a required write-up due each week).  Investment Management and Security Analysis, sounds like something that should be right up my alley, but it's one of my least favorite classes I've taken so far because it's taught like a PhD class, with too much long winded formula derivations, and the professor is really confusing.  It probably doesn't help that I take the class from 7-10 pm each week.  Managerial Computing is an Excel class that focuses on programming with VBA.  I like it a lot and think it could be pretty useful, no matter what my next job is.  I'm also taking Business Chinese, which is a 2 credit language class that seems to require as much time as a regular 4 credit class would.  Student Investment Fund still has weekly meetings and other time requirements for meetings and guest speakers.  And last, but certainly not least, we're in the final quarter of our Applied Management Research (AMR) consulting project which takes more time than any of the classes mentioned above.

My classmate and I ready for some serious meetings in DC

AMR Project / DC Trip:  The most interesting part of this project so far this quarter is the trip that two of my teammates and I made to Washington DC in January to conduct interviews and research.  We had to take the red-eye flight out the night after I got back from my Sundance trip, and then we spent a day and a half in the DC area, with all expenses generously funded by one of the organization's donors.  During that time we had seven meetings with seven different people including the client, board members, a couple of CEOs, a corporate lawyer, and a member of USDA.  It was a really productive trip as we met some important people and gathered a lot of data.  With everyone so passionate about helping out GCNF and the entire mission of fighting hunger, the meetings were enjoyable too.  It was also an interesting experience for me as I led every meeting.  And despite the tough travel and the really packed meeting schedule, I couldn't leave DC without catching up with some of old crew, so I was happy I was able to meet up with Evan and Dan for dinner and drinks close to our hotel on Tuesday night.

Recruiting:  I've had a series of interviews with one company since winter break.  I guess it's been going well since they keep telling me to interview with more people, but it's been a pretty long, drawn out process.  I've applied for a few other jobs in the past few months but either got rejected without an interview or didn't get any response from all the others.  

The Anderson crew after some rock climbing at Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree:  I promised myself after the DC Trip that I'd calm down my schedule and catch up on schoolwork and recruiting.  However, when I saw that the Outdoors Adventures Business Association (Anderson's Outdoors Club) was planning a hiking/camping trip to Joshua Tree National Park, I got motivated to hit the road again.  I hadn't been camping since my cross-country road trip, and it'd been awhile since I'd been on a good hike too, so this seemed like a fun opportunity.  We left early in the morning on Saturday, February 4th and arrived at the campsite where several students had already spent the previous night.  After setting things up we went on a 6.5 mile hike of the Lost Horse Mine Trail.  The weather was great and there were some pretty cool views on parts of the mountain.  After that we did some rock scrambling, which is what the park is best known for, and was a lot of fun.  After a draining day we headed back to the campsite and hung out around the campfire for the next several hours.

Celebrating the Giants Super Bowl victory!

Super Bowl Party: The Giants won the Super Bowl.  This is pretty unbelievable and pretty awesome, and no one could have seen this coming back in December.  I remember over winter break watching the Giants lose to the Redskins (in 3D!) and everyone assumed that the season was over.  But after six straight, improbable wins later, they're champs!  My personal ride during that win streak was pretty interesting too, as I watched those six games in six different cities: Stuart (FL), Taipei, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, the Phoenix airport, and Marina del Rey (CA).  For the Super Bowl, I went to a party of 20 people or so hosted by a classmate (also a Giants fan).  Good times.

I have more to add, but they'll wait until my next post, coming up soon.

January Travels

View from our house in Park City, Utah

As detailed in the past several posts I did quite a bit of traveling over winter break with trips to New York, Florida, and Taiwan before finally returning to LA.  But with classes and other responsibilities starting up again early in January, that obviously put an end to my travel plans, right?  No way. Already disappointed that I missed out on the Section A Ski Trip to Mammoth Mountain, which took place the first weekend of January when I was returning from Asia, I decided not to pass up the next two travel opportunities that came my way (which happened to be the next two weekends): trips to Vegas and to Park City, Utah.

The idea behind the Vegas trip was it was the same weekend as the Annual MBA Poker Tournament and also the CES convention (Consumer Electronics Association, a high-tech showcase of up and coming technologies).  Its common for MBAs to enjoy gambling, partying, and new gadgets and technology, so this was a popular weekend to attend.  I stayed in a suite in the Palazzo with 4 other classmates.  It was a nice upgrade over MGM and Bally's that I've stayed in at my previous trips.  The craps tables hit me hard, we ate some decent food, went to a club one night, and, of course, made my mandatory trip to dive casino O'Sheas.  I also returned to the Hilton Sportsbook Theater to watch the Giants beat the Green Bay Packers in their playoff game.  As Kolko later commented, this was a fitting full circle for me to return to the same location at the end of the year to watch the Giants win a huge game after we had been there together in Week 1 and saw them lose a terrible game.

It was a decent weekend, but Vegas probably won't ever live up to the shenanigans of Reich's bachelor party weekend there this past September, and I'm also starting to get a little over Vegas in my old age.  Too expensive and forced partying, I think.  Plus with such a large group going on this trip (there were probably 150 Anderson students or so), I felt it hard to keep track of people and what was going on.  On a sidenote, I will be returning to Vegas in June as part of Disorientation (the clever counterpart to Orientation which started our MBA experience, Disorientation is one last party weekend in Vegas before graduation.  The majority of our 370 student class will probably be there those few days).

The living room of our eight-person house in Utah

The excuse to travel to Utah the following week was that it coinsided with the start of the Sundance Festival, a world famous film festival premiering independent films.  I'm not a huge movie-goer, but it seemed like it would be a few fun filled days of male bonding with some of my better friends at Anderson, plus I was looking forward to the opportunity to going skiing.  With clear disregard for our class schedules, eight of us rented a house in Park City and left LA on Wednesday morning and didn't return until Sunday night.

The five days in Utah were a blast.  The house we had was nice and cozy, we went skiing two days, we saw a bunch of movies, we ate some good food, and through some random connections and good luck we even got invites to a few open bar parties for free.  The only real bad situation was that our rental car got smashed up when some 19 year olds lost control of their car and fishtailed into us (the accident took place right in front of our house too), so we were without a car for the second half of the trip. 

Weathering the storm on the slopes

I especially had fun going skiing for the first time in a few years.  It had been a very bad skiing season all over the country up until this week, but a massive snowstorm came through while we were in town, and all the fresh snow led to the best skiing conditions I have ever been in.  I've only gone three times previously, all in southern PA, so my experience at Park City Mountain Resort was a noticeable difference in quality of slopes and snow.  The second day we went the conditions were a little too rough for me (I didn't really have proper gear, or skill), but the more advanced skiers in the group said it was one of the most "epic" skiing days they had ever had.  I spent most of my time trying to relearn the basics of skiing and used the green (easiest) slopes, but ventured out on to a blue (the next level up) on the last day.  I'd definitely like to go skiing more often if possible. 

Obtaining movie tickets for the Festival was a tricky process because everything was sold out weeks before our arrival (even though we were given a timeslot to purchase tickets as part of our trip package, everything we wanted to see was already sold out at that time).  So the best way to get tickets was to have someone wake up early (6 am) to wait on lines and buy tickets for the group.  The two movies I saw were Hello, I Must Be Going and The Raid, which were both worth seeing and were as different as could be.  The first was about a down-on-her-luck 30-something woman who starts dating a high school dude.  Obviously that description doesn't sound like it's my type of movie, but it was actually really funny and sweet, and reminded me a bit of Juno.  The latter movie was an Indonesian action film which was as violent as any movie I had ever seen.  Entertaining mostly for sheer shock value, and because the entire movie was literally one long action scene.  Apparently the movies the other guys saw later in the day were terrible, so I saw the best ones of our group.

I'll save the details for another post, but I actually made another out-of-town trip almost immediately after returning from Sundance.  The next day, I had to take a red-eye flight to DC for two days in the nation's capital as part of my AMR project with the non-profit we're doing consulting work for.  Also, somewhere in January I also took some classes, did a lot of schoolwork and have had several interviews, but those all just seem like minor details in a fast paced first few weeks of the new quarter.

Taiwan - Epilogue

This Taiwan trip gets a giant thumbs up

Before we get too removed from winter break, I wanted to make a final post about the trip.

After a lovely week in Taiwan, the return trip wasn't quite as pleasant.  After my first flight I had a 4.5 hour layover in a Chinese airport with no heat, and then had a 12 hour flight back to LA on an ultra uncomfortable plane where my TV screen was broken and the man next to me was hacking up a lung the entire trip.  Those final 18 hours of travel notwithstanding (plus the 28 hours it took me to arrive in the country), it was a really great trip overall and worth all that time and the logistical nightmare of getting to and from Taiwan.

Going into the vacation I wasn't sure if it was going to be mostly a relax-in-the-apartment-with-the-family type of trip, so I was surprised with how packed my itinerary was and how much there was to see.  I think the blend of sightseeing and family time was actually pretty ideal, since those were the dual purposes of the trip.   Everyone I met, both in and out of the family, was extremely friendly and very open to me being a part of their lives for this week. 

It was definitely one of my most unique trips to date. Living and traveling with natives gave me a much fuller exposure to the culture, and a stronger selection of activities and eateries.  In my two previous Europe trips it seemed a lot easier to get by with English and some limited native phrases because at least the language was more easily recognizable and English was more widely spoken.  Here I was very much dependent on my hosts for the week, and even the two trips to 7-11 I made on my own I felt uneasy about. There were still certain levels of awkwardness due to the language barriers and when meeting new people, but that was to be expected and I started to get used to it as the trip progressed.  One nice aspect of the trip that was different from previous vacations, was that I really didn't have to make almost any decisions.  I followed the itinerary that was made for me, went to the restaurants that they had already chosen, and ate pretty much any food that was placed in front of me.  As silly as it might sound, it was actually a very nice break from decision making.  I've already commented that I'm afraid I'm going to have trouble coming up with plans and meal ideas when I got back to the States. 

As great as an experience as it was, with all the travel and tough communication that I had faced over the break, I was very relieved to make it back to America and to Los Angeles.  Unfortunately, though, there was very little time to relax and recover because my first classes (and a job interview) were only two days away.

And in case you haven't seen enough photos via the blog or Facebook, here's a more complete album of the trip:  Taiwan Trip Album

Taiwan - Day 7 (Hot Pot & Uniqlo)

Board game night to close out the trip

Thursday, January 5, 2012

With another cold, rainy day in the forecast, and already almost a week spent seeing all the touristy hot spots in Taipei, my final day in Taiwan was set to be a pretty casual one.  The morning was passed by in the family apartment eating breakfast and babysitting William.

Spicy hot pot lunch for Muyen's birthday

Around 11:30 Amanda and Muyen picked me and Steph up to go to lunch to celebrate Muyen's birthday.  The selected restaurant this time around was a hot pot restaurant around 30 minutes away, and continuing the theme of advanced planning for the trip, apparently this reservation was only made a couple weeks in advance.  It was a good time with just us four youngin's enjoying the spicy meal.  Again, the locals were surprised with how my white boy eating habits could keep up with the rest of the group.  Although not nearly as painful, and much more tasty, I compared this situation to my Chinese massage experience where I was fighting off the hurt and trying to put on a strong face.  The real key to the meal though was that it was served with a large dose of plum juice.  Although only mildly tasty, this purple drank was instrumental in combating the ultra spiciness level in my mouth and so I had three large glasses.

A successful shopping trip

We relaxed a bit after lunch to digest, and then Steph and I headed on a little shopping trip to take advantage of cheap Taiwanese clothing.  We headed to Uniqlo, a new Japanese retailer in the area, which had become Steph's new favorite clothing store because of its low cost, high quality offerings, including Heattech, which was a new brand of lightweight clothing that creates body heat, or something like that.  I didn't realize until later that it was the same store that my dad had stumbled into in Manhattan two weeks earlier and showed me just so I could use their bathroom to change out of my suit and into my proper roaming-the-city-with-my-parents attire.  Anyways, now that I was here to shop they had really good deals, which I could only assume were cheaper than the New York prices, so I bought a bunch of shirts.

Around 5ish, we met up with another old UBS colleague.  It was another Mandarin-filled sit down meet and greet where I didn't have much opportunity to talk or listen.  Not to worry though since I had already become pretty accustomed to these meetings, and this was the last one of the trip.  We ran a couple more errands afterwards, and then headed back to the apartment for dinner of soft shell crab.  Very tasty.  At night we had Family Fun Night and played two games of the old board game, Life.  Board games know no language barriers, and although this was no Marbles, it was a fun time for all.  After the games finished up it was getting late, so I headed back to my hotel to pack up my gear, and prepare to put a close on the trip.  We would be heading back to the airport in the morning.

Taiwan - Day 6 (Palace Museum and Night Market)

Outside of the National Palace Museum

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

A second day in a row of good sleep put me in a good mood to start my day.  But I was in an even better mood after our deep fried egg-pancake breakfast from a street vendor right next door to the apartment.  At only around 1 U.S. dollar, it was both a bargain and one of my favorite meals of the trip.  I haven't been able to find an actual English name for it, so trying to re-create it in my own kitchen might be difficult.

It was a lazy early morning at the apartment followed by some quick errands around town.  Unfortunately the weather had gotten worse, as this was the coldest day of the trip, and there was heavy rain throughout the day.  At noon Steph and I met up with three of her former co-workers from UBS at "Very Thai Restaurant" near their office.  A friendly, fun group and they also spoke decent English, which is always a plus.

After lunch we headed over to the National Palace Museum.  Taiwan's national museum featured a collection of over 600,000 pieces of ancient art and artifacts, most of which had been collected by former Chinese emperors.  The most famous pieces of art, oddly enough, were two jade carvings in the shape of a piece of pork and a Chinese cabbage.  It attracted quite the crowd.  There were also a giant, detailed mural drawing of an old palace town that was particularly interesting, as well as many old pots and pans, some of which looked like they could have come from Ikea.

Outside the Shilin Night Market in Taipei

Steph had a dentist appointment at 5 pm, so I went home and took a nap.  We met up later in the evening to go to one of the well known Taiwanese night markets.  These are a collection of booths and vendors that serve prepared foods and sell merchandise. They usually open up at 4 pm, reaching their peak crowds from 8-11, and then close up sometime after midnight.  It basically looks a lot like a carnival, but with much better food and with much better prices.  We helped ourselves to some sausage, delicious fried chicken steak, an oyster omelet, some soupy product, and some bubble tea.  As is the case with a lot of Taiwanese food vendors, the deliciousness-to-cost ratio was off the charts, with the fried chicken and soda combo costing about $1.25.  We walked around some of the vendors, and then called it a night.