Thanksgiving Week

Thanksgiving week started with a Warsaw trip to Seattle to get a behind the scenes look at the Seattle Supersonics. It was great! They gave us VIP access and put us up in a suite at the Sonics/Kings game that night. The next day, we heard from plenty of front office speakers including the highlight of the day for me, listening to Starbucks Chairman and Sonics owner Howard Schultz. He was a great speaker and he was very open and insightful with us. He definitely seems like a very good person who treats his employees with respect and compassion.

I headed home on Monday night (ditched class Tuesday) and it was great to be in LA. Basically, I left 45 degree cloudy and wet weather in the Pacific Northwest for sunny and warm 85 degree weather in LA. It was great walking around in t-shirt, shorts, and sandals for a few days. Spent most of the time at home relaxing and running errands for my mom. I also went to the Clippers/Raptors game at Staples Center on Wednesday courtesy of Rich and his Yahoo! tickets.

Well, now I'm back in chilly Eugene and it's back to reality with the last week of classes and then finals. It's gonna be a blast!!!!!

Rivalry Weekend

Big Game and Civil War were played simultaneously at around 4 PM on November 19th. For the 2nd year in a row, I missed out on Big Game and had to watch it on TV. After tailgaiting in the Autzen parking lot, I decided to bypass (gave my ticket to Ranajay at the last minute) Civil War (cuz it was freezing and foggy) and watched Big Game on TV with Tim, a 1st year MBA who went to Stanfraud. It was a great game and Cal won for the 4th year in a row. Steve Levy definitely came through in his first start ever and he's now a legend. To all Stanfraudians, "WE GOT THE AXE! WE GOT THE AXE!"


Tim and I showing off our true colors while tailgating!

It was ugly but the weekend was great!

As everybody knows, the Cal-U$C game didnt quite materialize into the epic battles of the past 2 years when Cal actually had a quarterback. Let's just say once Ayoob/booyA started sucking on the 4th play of the game, we knew it was gonna be a long and depressing afternoon. And it was! Onto Big Game!


Ended up finding Mae in the student section once it cleared out after we started losing






Aside from the football game, it was just about a perfect weekend away from the Eug. I was starting to get a bit suffocated from the Eug's coziness so it was great to get out of town and go back to the Bay Area. The weather was great and ran into a bunch of friends who I hadn't seen in ages.

Sproul Plaza and Sather Gate

The first stop was Zachary's Pizza for dinner on Friday night. Their deep dish stuffed Chicago style pizza is absolutely amazing and is definitely worth the wait. I also ran into Kathryn there, who I last bumped into at a bar in Santa Monica on St. Patty's Day. It's a bit awkward seeing her now that she's newly married after she had dated my friend Conor for so long. I've known her since 7th grade, I feel like it shouldn't be so weird but it is a bit. At Zach's I ate half (4 slices) of a medium stuffed pizza. It was my own personal record but I was just still hungry after each slice. I think my previous best was only 2 or 3 slices. It tasted so good though. After Zach's went to Spats to hang out.

Saturday started off with breakfast at Cheeseboard with Mae. Since it's an extension of Arizmendi Bakery, my favorite bread bakery in the Bay Area, they have corn-cherry scones and great bread. It's soo good. The also have a blueberry-candied pecan scone, that was awesome too. After that, Mae went to meet up with her MPH friends while I met went to campus and checked out the new Nike gear at the bookstore before meeting up with other friends at Top Dog, where I had a Bratwurst. Can't beat the Top.

After the game we walked around Telegrapha and I had a Fat Slice (just like old times) and I ran into Peter & Christie (finally married after being together forever) and Peter's bro. Johnny. It was great seeing them and finally having a chance to say "Congrats on their newlywed-ness." After that, we headed out to the Marina district in SF, where we dined at Pluto's and then went to a karaoke bar called Silver Clouds. Came back into Berkeley at night and went back to Top Dog for a lemon chicken.

Headed back to Oregon and reality the next morning. It's been a long week with deliverables due but I did attend a Nike Diversity Recruiting night last night and it provided a great opportunity to meet some Nike recruiters. Apparently Nike chose 6 schools at which to start building a University Relations Program. (Cal is one of the 6 also) So we'll see how things work go with the jobhunt.

Civil War and Big Game on Saturday, then off to Seattle on Sunday & Monday for a front office visit to the Sonics and the Sonics/Kings game. It should be great and I'm really excited about meeting Howard Schultz (Chairman of Starbucks) on Monday. Then it's off to LA for Thanksgiving.

On my way to the Bay

I'm sitting here at Portland Airport waiting for flight into Oakland, which has been delayed for about 45 minutes. I'm headed back to Berkeley for the CAL-U$C game tomorrow. Last week was really rough since Cal lost to Oregon in OT. I was one of the few Cal supporters in the Oregon student section and it just sucked as I stood there, drenched in rain and freezing cold, watching the Bears lose. It was rough. This past week has been just as rough on campus with just about every classmate and professor I know coming up to me and rubbing in the fact that I wore blue & gold all week and my team lost. I felt like the laughinstock of the business school. Oh well! Go Bears!

Check out the photos at

http://www.photos.yahoo.com/andrewminliu

Anyways I'm sitting here and the flight's delayed and yet people have been lining up at the gate for at least 45 minutes. The incoming flight hasn't even arrived yet. I just don't get it. As for me, it was a wet two hour+ drive up from the Eug. Traffic was bad and it's always an ordeal coming up to Portland in the rain. I did stop by Woodburn and picked up a shirt from the Polo Outlet Store. Good deal. Gotta love the bargains.

Looking forward to being in the Bay Area this weekend and getting out of the Eug for the weekend right before finals and group projects kick in. Can't wait to see my friends down there.

Blue & Gold Week

For most people, today was Halloween but for me it was also the official start of Blue & Gold Week here in the Eug to mark the CAL-Oregon football game on Saturday. Although I have declared it such, I doubt many, if any, others will follow through with my decree. (Hopefully I can track down some other Cal alums in the law school. Nelly? Anita? Ivan Jen? Roman? Dave? you guys/gals representing?) Anyways, I expect to be verbally abused throughout the week but I will remain strong as a rock and simply ignore the douche-bags as they try to get into my head. By the way, it started this morning as I walked up to the line for football tickets and was cordially greeted with a "What the Fuck are you doing wearing a Cal sweatshirt?" from the douche-bags at the front of the line who lined up in the wee hours of the morning. Have no fear my fellow Golden Bears, I will remain strong and represent up here in the Eug! Unfortunately the 10 day weather forecast calls for rain rain and more rain so it could get sloppy on Saturday.

I must say I had a good weekend. Celebrated Halloween at the MBAA party on Saturday night. I wish I had put a little more effort into my costume but I ended up dressing up as "Mr. Counterfeit from China" by putting on some of the fake stuff I purchased in China. It was a fun party nonetheless. Also on Friday, I make the 40 minute drive up north to Corvallis to meet up with Yong, Wen-Chieh, Jung Hao, and Chade for lunch at the best Chinese food place I've found thus far in this part of Oregon. It's this little hole in the wall place called Shanghai Wok. They have a separate menu for Chinese people and the food is absolutely awesome and at great prices. Unfortunately, when I got with those guys, they like to order stomach and intestines, which I don't particularly like, though I did sample them. It's just not what I'm used to even though those guys grew up on those dishes back in Taiwan. On another note, I made an awesome vegetable soup on Sunday for dinner. It was absolutely awesome and I was inspired from watching alot of food network lately. It was hearty, healthy, and tasted great and I was thrilled that I basically made it on my own. YUM! Hopefully I'll start cooking alot more now.

Tonight, we had another football game, though this time it was in the pouring rain. Once again, we lost to an undergrad team who really weren't that athletic. However, they're faster and younger and basically beat us on a few key plays. I ended up with 5 catches including a touchdown and extra point. Unfortunately, I'm a bit sore now but it was fun, except for the losing part and rain. I thought I'd be more tired since I woke up so damn early this morning. I thought I had turned back my clock last night so I went to bed having set my alarm for this morning. So, I got up, hopped in the shower and when I turned on the TV, it was only 7:15 am. I felt like such an idiot. I guess when I kept waking up during the night, there was a legit reason why I kept saying to myself "damn, it's already 330 or 430 am." I felt like an idiot.

That's it for now and GO Bears!