Chuck Norris Anyone?

Almost everyone knows who Chuck Norris is. Whether it's from old reruns of Walker Texas Ranger or some other throw-back martial arts series, we know who Chuck is. I even have a tshirt I got from Target for $4.96 that declares, "Chuck does all my stunts." It even has a beard-sporting characiture to nail the message home. I noticed this obsession probably about 3 years ago when a few of my gamer buddies were spouting off 'Chuck Norris Facts.' Interestingly, Ian Spector created a fact generator about Chuck Norris in 2005 ... o.O The website back in 2005 was getting 10s of millions of hits a month. Ian attempted to explain to Chuck, on several public occasions, the meaning and purpose of the website, but apparently the powers to be, like major TV stations, didn't have the timeslot for the interlude. So Chuck settled on a private meeting late in 2005. This is all from Ian's book that he published after enormous response from fans in 2006, "The Truth About Chuck Norris: 400 Facts About the World's Greatest Human," (Nov. 2007). Now that credit is given, I thought I would share some of these with you. Of note, I've heard the ones below so I don't mind retelling them. I hesitate to copy direction from Ian's book, since it seems unfair to impart the contents of something he clearly worked at producing ... (honestly, I think a bunch of flunkies with excessive amounts of vodka, and herbal substitutes, in their systems ran a bunch of facts through the website to produce most of the content). What you will notice is that most of these involve bodily functions, round-house kicks or body parts. Need I say more?

1. Chuck takes a crowbar into the bathroom with him incase he craps a bobcat and has to beat it to death.
2. Chuck is so all American that he eats Tyranny and shits bald eagles.
3. Chuck is like corn. No matter how much deep shit he's in he comes out in one piece.
4. When Chuck was denied a Whopper during the faux 'whopper outtage' Burger King is advertising, he roundhouse kicked the store so hard it became a Wendy's.
5. Chuck trained his dog to clean up after himself, because Chuck doesn't take shit from anyone.
6. Chuck coined the phrase, "Don't look at me like that or I'll fucking kill you." The common usage became, "Don't mess with Texas."
7. Chuck has perfected the art of removing a man's ear in hand-to-hand combat. Where do you think Tyson learned it?
8. If you can see Chuck, he can see you. If you can't see Chuck, you may be moments away from death.
9. Someone once bet Chuck he couldn't shit on the ceiling. Michaelangelo still owes him 10 bucks.
10. If Jesus had a braclet it would say "WWCND".

Hopefully this humor isn't totally lost :) Hope you enjoyed.

~B

A week in ...

So I'm more than a week into the program, actually, but I thought I would tell you guys a bit more about my program. I am studying international business strategy, more or less. I get to take 4 courses a semester for 4 semesters. The classes I'm taking this term are research design, network theory, advanced stats (based in econometrics), and organizational behavior.

Research design. The professor for this course is one of those really laid-back guys who does a lot of simulations and is walking us through the basics of creating and implementing a research design. We are even going to work with empirical data -- which apparently even the 2nd years have not yet done. The first day we all had to write our research topics up on the board, of course I didn't have one, though he did ask ... just in case. I think he has 2 PhDs, one is, surprisingly, in math.

Network theory. This is a pretty interesting class looking at the systems and networks, relationships and groupings. It is pretty interesting. Think Oracle, the original network program, or Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. Honest to god, the very basis of the theory so closely relates to Six Degrees that you describe half of the definitions in terms of Kevin Bacon and his incestuous affair with Hollywood.

Advanced Stats. This class is pretty decent. The prof. is a recent grad, and has a great energy that everyone picks up on. It makes it so much easier to learn the material. Even better is that if you call the prof out on a mistake she gives you points. Not to be out done by my more senior classmates, I picked out a mistake and already have a point to add to a homework score!

OB. This should be a great class. Organizational Behavior is basically the touchy feely side of business. I enjoyed it, even if the prof was a dick, in my MBA prog. I'm looking forward to getting into more of the power dynamics and conflict management stuff.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

~B

B does a PhD

Seriously ... how long has it been now?! I doubt anyone out there reads this anymore, but I think I will have to start this up again. Maybe I can snag hottoddy and C again. It starts with 1 ...

In any event, I totally fell off the face of the earth when I moved back to Texas. For anyone who doesn't know where Texas is, it's in the South Central part of the US abutting fantastic Mexico. I happen to be like 900 miles from the Border, but I like to say I live near anyways. Also, anyone who is reading this and lives abroad, you can always spot a texan because they look comfortable in jeans AND when you ask them where they are from they say Texas, not the US. Dead serious, I got called out on that several times.

After falling in the abyss that is family life here in Texas, I got totally disenchanted with working. Not so much the work part as the finding something I wanted to work at ... or with ... or on ... Ya, lots of choices. I started looking around for other stuff to do, PhD app here, lecturer app there, MBA search. It went on. My MBA search turned up some interesting options and I ended up going to a local university here. They paid me, gave me a nice honor's title, and shoved me into the progam. The whole process took 3 weeks, I think. In any event I finished it in 18 months. There was a lot of busy, but there was a genuine lack of productive.

I really didn't want to get a job in the corporate world. Much to the woe of my program director who expected me to get one of those killer 6 figure jobs when I graduated, I still had my eye on school and, ultimately, teaching. Seriously people, I'm obsessed. I've wanted to be a teacher since I was in HS. Well, not to be outdone by the MBA program, the head of the strategy department sent me a message on Dec 27th, when I had just gotten back from a 7 day all-inclusive in mexico -- I was an easy target I guess. We met Jan 4th and discussed the program. I met all the faculty in one day - 1000 to 1830. By the end of the day the question wasn't, "So, are you interested in applying?" Instead he dropped on me a total surprise, kinda, "So, we've had a student drop out of the program. We only accept three students a year, so there is room for someone to start in the Spring," I paused ... and his response was just, "Right now ... " o.O So, my initial offer was not, "please apply" it was "please decide between the spring and fall ... within 2 days ... "

I obviously took the offer, since I know that their last few placements are at prominent top 20 business schools with salaries well over what I'd expect as a professor. The program covers my tuition and medical, and includes a decent stipend.

SO! I'm hoping to be keeping up a bit more with my blog, maybe revitalize it. Hopefully my audience will grow, I know C is already eagerly anticipating voluminous entries :)

~B