Laguna Seca

What a way to wrap up the track season. I went to Laguna Seca lately for a back to back two day track event with a couple friends. I'm not fast enough to race quite yet, but have started reading the AFM rulebook and understanding the entry requirements... I think at this point I would be able to qualify for Sunday races but realistically need to get past the back of the pack in lap times before getting out there and going for it. Next season is probably still too early with weekend obligations in LA for business school, but I'm starting to see it clearly where I'll be able to get the times needed to race.

Only In America

I'm feeling all time high levels of patriotism currently, despite the hiccup of California's denial of civil rights on Proposition 8. The reason, I believe - is a realization I've been coming to in the last couple months about one of the greatest aspects of Americans.

When I was in India a couple months ago, I was being instructed at one of India's premier business schools (ISB) by a UCLA Anderson professor, a leader in his field who originally developed real options pricing theory under uncertainty. He was born in Chile, has degrees from Chile, Canada and Spain, lives and teaches in Los Angeles, but visited India to teach this class. One day in class he mentioned something I've been thinking about since.

He suggested one reason for America's economic success is our culture of inclusion. Only in the United States could he become a department chair at one of the most well regarded public universities in the country. Anywhere else he could be teaching, his foreign birth and cultural background would prohibit him from reaching the highest levels of status in the department... not true in the U.S. At 67 years old his belief is advances in the department are awarded solely on merit - regardless of nationality.

An extension of this pliability of attitudes came to my attention recently watching the feature film, "Milk" and also watching a documentary on the dual assassination of San Francisco Mayor Moscone and Harvey Milk. It's crazy to think that in the early 1970's the San Francisco police and the Castro neighborhood were in bloody and riotous dispute. The change in the public attitude in the last 30 years in San Francisco is an amazing difference.

This when other parts of the world are currently in contest for events and transgressions of hundreds of years ago. It's remarkable to me the ability of Americans to adapt and learn and embrace new ideas, new people, new cultures, new paradigms and generally change. We don't get everything right - all too often, but this aspect in particular of our country makes me very proud.

Buttonwillow - More Track Days

Another great weekend at the track, this time at Buttonwillow Raceway in between LA and San Francisco. Jason drove up from Orange County and we had a blast. Track days are like mixing 1 part camping with 2 parts Nascar hillbilly-ism with 1 part athleticism with 1 part club. The spirit at the track is one of achievement and exhilaration together with camaraderie. Everyone puts so much into their bikes and getting to the track and getting away from work and other obligations that there's also a great sense of both vacation and relaxation and also gratitude just for having the health and means and werewithall to get out and ride for a day. So much fun. Some guy I don't even know was following me for a while around the track with his video camera. If I get the video from him I'll post here later on.

No On Prop 8

I went in for a couple hours to make phone calls for the "No on Proposition 8" campaign. I don't have much background for what a political activism effort should look like, but as compared to other volunteering I've done I would say they were quite well organized. This is encouraging to me because I find the "yes" vote on California Proposition 8 a reasonably crazy civil liberties violation and I forget sometimes living in my *ahem* liberal city that much of even California is not like-minded. That this is even going to be a close decision at the polls on Tuesday is truely bewildering to me.

Sears Point aka Infineon Raceway

This track is so much fun. I think one of my favorite things in a track is elevation changes. There are some good sweeping turns on this track, not many high speed runs, and many slow technical turns. The track configuration we ran was non-standard (meaning they eliminated some of the turns that typically exist in professional AMA races) so benchmark lap times are irrelevant - but I was consistently at 1:55/lap. Which I think I could easily improve on next time I'm there by at least five seconds. Highlights of the day were trading corners with a friend Jeff, and getting a tow to learn the lines and corner entry from a local AFM guy Lance Williams who also rides Ducati - super nice guy. Still getting used to the transition from the R1 to the 848. Next stop: Buttonwillow this weekend where I'll have both bikes and meet Jason who's driving up from Orange County for the all weekend ride.

Tracking a Yamaha

Got out to the track on my R1 for the first time since throwing a rod at Laguna Seca last year. I've now been doing track days for 12 months, 10 track days in that time. 5 more in 2008 I have scheduled will put me well over my 2008 goal of getting in ten - I'll end up with 13. Each time I go I'm making lap time progress, I'm getting consistent with relaxed laps around 2:14 and had a few laps in the 2:09's - it's fun seeing the progress quantitatively. I think I can see so many easy mistakes I'm still making to correct that just cleaning up my riding will take a couple more seconds off. I don't have plans to visit Thunderhill again this year so we'll have to see how low we can go next year. If I can get into the 2:00 to 2:04 range I think it will be time to start racing AFM. Maybe in 2010 after business school is over?

Getting comfortable on the R1

Thunderhill turn 4

Following Brad on his RS250

Some Pictures From India

This one is from Singapore this guy put the "R" in Relax...

Back From India

Got into the United States on Thursday afternoon by way of Singapore and Tokyo, just in time to start my second year of MBA studies at UCLA Anderson on Friday morning. I’m looking forward to this quarter, the finance and operations classes are sure to be riveting. I’m sure that sounds like sarcasm but it’s not – it’s going to be a great quarter of class content.

The rest of the trip in Hyderabad was great – the finance class was enlightening. In particular given the 100mph pace of the US banking world in the last two weeks (the Fed buys Freddie/Fannie for $5T – the largest deal in the history of money, B of A buys Merrill, Lehman fails and Nomura eats most of it, AIG gets $85M from the Fed, WAMU fails… is that it?) … what a great time to be in a class studying derivatives, what credit default swaps are, different hedging strategies to mitigate interest rate risk or exchange rate risk, forwards, futures, swaps, and options.

On my way to Seattle for a wedding of a great friend and college roommate, thinking about India, here are the things that stand out in reflection as highlights of the trip:

- Trying to capture the experience of driving down the street in a tuk-tuk with my camera and realizing it’s futility… India is a place which needs viewed in 3D and with five senses.

- Getting a chance to eat a halal fast-breaking meal with a Muslim on Ramadan. I’m starting to think halal is a set of Muslim food preparation instructions not a particular dish, but basically it was a specialty lamb and cheese paste we ate that was imported delicacy from UAE.

- Visiting the largest mosque in South India where 15,000 people visit daily to pray during Ramadan

- Visiting a Hindu temple and drinking holy water before later that night talking about the Bhagavad Gita and generally Hinduism with a Hindu Indian classmate

- Seeing a camel being rode down the street as what appeared to be this guy’s daily driver

- Seeing a Bollywood movie filming in progress at Golconda Fort

- Under great protest, lip synching “Baby Got Back” while wearing a kurta payama at a Hindi karaoke session

- Dying laughing as the 67 year old professor had an epiphany and suddenly understood the Indian head nod (the Indian head nod is a cultural thing… Indians wobble their head in an ear-to-shoulder direction at certain times which usually means ‘maybe’ or ‘okay that sounds good’ or ‘yes I think so’)

- And possibly the best part… making three new friends from the UCLA FEMBA program

I haven't made it back to San Francisco yet, but when I do I'll pull some pictures off my camera and post.

Hyderabad, India - Day Two

Having a great time at ISB. Finally adjusting to the schedule and staying awake in class. Was very useful when one of my classmates pointed out there was a switch to turn on the hot water in the bathroom - I was on day three of cold showers and just thinking to myself, "dang, they got cars and the Internet but can't heat up water?" Took a trip to the Laad Bazar after class, it's an open air market that has been an active market for 400 years. There's literally probably 100 stores selling the Indian bracelets called bangles. There are over 14,000 shops in this market. I drank a glass of sugar cane juice the vendor was pulling out of raw cane stalks by sending them through a mechanical press, which cost 3 INR (about 7 cents). Saw the Charminar which is a historical edifice in Hyderabad which was constructed hundreds of years ago to lure the population of Hyderabad away from Golconda Fort and basically relocate the downtown urban area. Saw the Mecca Masjid the largest and oldest mosque in Southern India, where 10,000 - 20,000 people visit daily to pray (particularly during Ramadan which it is now). Ate true Southern India food at dinner, which cost ~$6. Having amazing laughs with classmates who are also visiting from UCLA - cool guys Chris, Rosco and Mike. The course material we've covered is about options pricing and derivatives and hedge strategies and risk metrics. A little technical but pretty interesting stuff.

Delhi and Agra

A crazy schedule. I met up with two other UCLA students from another program on Friday for a day trip to Delhi. We left from Hyderabad at 4:30am, flew two hours to Northern India to the capital Delhi, got in a hired car who drove us five hours South to Agra where the Taj Mahal lives. It was raining as it's monsoon season here now, and the Taj Mahal isn't open to walk through on Fridays... but it was still magnificent from across the river we got a very good look. The guy who built it for his favorite of his three wives (the "romantic" story about the building of the Taj Mahal is somehow slightly less romantic when you learn he built it for one of three wives), was imprisoned in this fort across the river when his son launched mutiny and overthrew his father the king. The fort has a great view of of the Taj and we viewed it from there. Some of the same marble inlay is used in the constrution of the fort and I have some beautiful pictures on my camera when I get home to unload them. THEN we drove back another five hours by car to the Delhi airport to fly back to Hyderabad for the start of school the next day. Well, the traffic in Delhi is unpredictable - between the cows wandering around in the road, the camels pulling loads of brick and wood and other building materials, the monkeys crossing the road, the people riding motorcycles three at a time and also cramming six people into little two person tuk-tuks... we ended up missing our flight back to Hyderabad. So we napped at the airport and flew back in the morning just in time for class. IndiGo is a local discount airline that looks and feels nearly exactly like JetBlue. In fact their websites looks similiar and their color schemes are the same and it's clearly an intentional mimicry. More to blog about later but off to class for now.