Colorado, from a New Yorker's point of view

I have a meeting with a head hunter tomorrow.  Which is good for my ego, at least somebody wants me.  I mostly consider head hunters to be useless.  I actually had one ask me if I had heard of the company I used to work for.  They were trying to back fill my position.

“You have my resume in front of you right?  That is how you got my number?  Look about a third of the way down.  Notice anything unusual?  Yeah, I worked for that company.  What else you got?”  Is it wrong to expect a recruiter to spend a minute reading my resume before contacting me?

Maybe they are not all useless.  I’m saying this in part because I’m hoping my meeting tomorrow is successful.

I applied for two Senior Financial Analyst jobs that this recruiter is looking to fill.  The first of which pays extremely well.  So ridiculously well that I had to wonder what they expect from a position that requires them to pay 30-50% more than most other similarly titled jobs.  I was hoping it was something simple like keeping two sets of books, or being able to operate a paper shredder.  My instinct tells me the only reason they pay so well is that they expect you to do the work of two people.  I applied for the second job because it required no extra effort.

Within two hours of applying I got a call from the recruiter.  The company looking to fill the first position is looking for a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with about 10-15 years of experience.  The CFA certification is the pinnacle of  financial designations.  If you want to be a trader, or run a mutual fund this is the certification for you.

It is one of the hardest certifications to obtain.  There are way fewer CFA’s than MD’s, CPA or lawyers in the country.  It is the financial equivalent of a neurosurgeon.    Almost anyone can be a general practitioner, just like any idiot like myself can be a financial analyst.  But to be neurosurgeon or CFA…well that’s impressive stuff.

One of my Grad school professors was a CFA.  He barley spoke English, but he was a math whiz.  Rumor had it that it he gave everyone A’s so they wouldn’t complain about his poor English.  The only thing I really remember from the class were his tirades against casinos.  It seems he was frequently getting himself tossed out for counting cards.  There is nothing like a nerdy Chinese guy coming into class on a Monday and bitching in broken English about getting booted from yet another casino over the weekend.

I tend to agree with him.  If you are skilled enough in math to count cards and run probabilities in your head you shouldn’t get tossed.  Hopefully you can be suave enough to pull it off discretely.  But regardless maybe allowing it would inspire some American students to be better in math.

Back to tomorrow’s meeting.  Without a CFA certification the first position is off the table.  Which is okay because if I had a CFA certification, the position would need to pay substantially more to spark my interest.  The second position seems to be a typical senior analyst role.

Wish me luck.

How a mouse eats pizza

There times you have food so bad it boggles the mind.  Coming back from the Great American Beer Festival I was looking for a late night place to eat.  It was a Thursday night and the kitchen’s in my two typical spots Billy’s & Patrick Carrol’s were closed.  Since its within walking distance I opted to try Carl’s Pizza.  First rule, never go to a pizza place named Carl’s.  Carl is a Scandinavian name, pizza joints should not be named after Scandinavians.  Of course when you are looking for a place within walking distance and everything else is closed sometimes you have to violate the rules.

To summarize it was horrible, even for late night “I’ve been drinking” food.  To start with the positive, the cheese was good.  The meatball topping was nicely browned and had okay flavor.  Moving on to the bad.  The tougher than cardboard dough was absolutely horrible, as you can see from the picture.  I also had spaghetti with meatballs and sausage.  It was very cheap tasting pasta, presumably similar to what you find “in the joint.”  It was slightly over cooked which not surprisingly didn’t help its taste.  The heart burn inducing sauce was average at best.  Why waste time making something from scratch if the result is only going to be average.  I recommend they start using jar sauce if they are not already doing so.

What puzzles me the most is how has Carl’s been in business for years.  Does Carl eat his own pizza?  Does he say to himself “Damn I make a great slice.”?

Assuming he eats and enjoys his own pie, I have to wonder has he ever had good pizza?  Does his palate not recognize the difference?  How can you run a restaurant with such a horrible palate?  If he has had a good slice in his life does he not want to replicate that?  I believe the place has been in business for well over twenty years.  Cooking is a skill and like any other skill you get better with experience.  Is Carl’s food better today than it was five of ten years ago?

Having food that bad really makes me wonder.  In the next few days I’ll most my review of the Great American Beer Festival.

I’ve had a scratchy throat all week so I figured what better remedy is there than going to a Hookah bar.  I’ve only been to two hookah lounges; one was in Paris and the other was in DC.  I guess this led to having slightly higher expectations.  Normally I would have vetoed the idea of going, however it was past 10pm, which meant it was now September 27th on the east coast.  The 27th is significant because it is a close friend’s b-day and this friend is the one who has taken me on both my hookah adventures.  I figured it would be a fitting tribute to her.

Having been in hookah lounges in Paris and DC I was expecting something similar.  A chic, downtown lounge, with comfortable sofas and trippy middle-eastern music playing.  I was hoping to get a pitcher of tea, and / or a glass of wine.  Instead I ended up at Exhale in Lakewood, CO.  Exhale is a dive establishment that doesn’t serve alcohol, or the traditional Middle Eastern tea that is typically found in hookah bars.  This place also had too many uncomfortable chairs and too few pool tables.  Add in the bad hip hop and the extremely young clientele and it made for a truly forgettable night.  Quick point of interest – in the six weeks I’ve been here, tonight was the first time I was out socially in a city that wasn’t Denver or Boulder.

I was probably one of the oldest people there, lucky me.  I learned a few lessons.  Actually I didn’t really learn them, I had them reinforced.  Avoid suburban hookah lounges, especially if you are going with people you don’t know too well.  The hookah experience is really about enjoying the company you are with.  Unfortunately last night I really didn’t know most of the people I was with and I really didn’t feel like socializing with people still in community college.

If I was with cool, charming, funny, and smart people in a crappy place like Exhale, it could have been fun.  And if the place is cool, it can be a blast to hang with people who are still getting used to writing a “2″ as the first digit when indicating their age.  But combine young, uninteresting people with a crappy place and you get a forgettable evening.   Just to clarify, the people I went with were cool, we just met up with a bunch of their younger friends and the rest of the scene was very young.  I even talked to some other customers and was completely bored by how uninteresting they were.

After spending over a month trying to figure out how to get this site up and running I’m finally sharing the link with some close friends.

This page will give you the gist of what I’m doing or trying to do.

I’m not entirely happy with the color schemes.  I’m still having some issues getting pictures to display properly, typically they are either too large or too small.  And of course every time I look at the site I seem to break links.

However in lieu of all that I would appreciate any and all feedback.  I’ll also buy you a beer for every typo you find.

Thanks for reading,

Tom

Since sex sells and I’m trying to promote this site I figured it would be in my best interest to add some scantily clad women.  Considering all the free porn available on line, I’m not sure how it is going to really help my site.  But here goes….

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For those following the saga of the girl next door…

One of the first times I talked to her she had just started reading George Orwell’s 1984.  She was hosting a book club meeting later that night.  Fast forward about three weeks and she’s sitting on her porch about 1/2 way through the book.  I understand it can be hard to find the time to read, but if you’re hosting the meeting and thus picking the book I think it is expected that you finish it on time.  It is somewhat disrespectful to the other members who might have struggled to complete the reading on time and here she canceling, and presumably continually rescheduling the meeting.

As a new friend I decided to get her this:

My roommate, Cori competed in her first Triathlon this past Sunday in Glenwood Springs.  These are some of the pictures from the event.  I’ve added some commentary to some of them.   In the category of frustrating the pics are really small, when I first posted they were too large.  Sooner or later Goldilocks over here should get this right.  Any web masters out there?

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Here are some photo highlights from the 25th annual A Taste of Colorado.

Famous Daves BBQ

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I finally understand the fascination with BBQ. This place is amazing. Famous Dave's have won over 150 awards. I can't wait to check out their restaurant.

This years winners:

2009 Best of Taste
Restaurant Winners

Best of Taste

1. India’s Restaurant – One of my favorites as well
2. Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que – Delicious
3. Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. – I missed their booth

Décor

1. Colorado Buffalo Grill – I missed their booth
2. Saltgrass Steak House – I missed their booth
3. Golden Toad – They ran out of their Toad Wings, which I’m assuming are chicken wings, but who knows.

Most Unique

1. Famous Dave’s Bar-B-Que – Delicious
2. Bayou Bob’s – I missed their booth
3. Golden Toad – See the comments above

Best Value

1. Baker Street Grill – I missed them as well
2. Saltgrass Steak House – Another miss
3. India’s Restaurant – Good stuff

I’ve been debating about what line of work to pursue. Part of me, a very big part, says get out of finance. Another part says, “yeah but you have experience, make that work to your advantage with a high paying finance job. Try for something out of my league. Make the fucking MBA payoff. If that doesn’t work then go for something unrelated.” Actually it makes sense to go for both. However any real job seeker will know it is easier said than done. My finance resume is pretty good and ready to go. That’s the cookie cutter one, but trying for other positions requires many other cover letters, each with different focuses and objectives etc. Such a waste of time.

The pyramid in finance gets narrow very quickly. In a typical organization there is one CFO, a few directors and a bunch of peons. At my last job there were about a dozen finance people making a decent living, where as in the small division I supported there were easily 3-4 times that in selling and marketing earning comparable or substantially better salaries. Most of them also had much better hours.

I could easily get another senior financial analyst position, but I don’t want to take the pay cut. Nor do I want to do continue to do the same stuff. I haven’t seen too many finance manager positions posted. The ones that I have come across usually require public accounting experience.

I’ve seen a couple of sales positions, but not enough for my liking. Almost all require sales experience, even for the real crappy sales jobs. Or they require obscure experience. For example, I saw a positing requiring 3-5 years of lawn care / horticulture experience and another that required years of sewer treatment design experience.

Such a frustrating endeavor. Must get motivated to find a job. I’ll keep everyone updated.

As a New Yorker who has recently found himself living in Denver each day I come across numerous situations which are different from what one would find back east.  Some are good and some bad.  I’m not going to comment about the obvious differences, such as the mountains, being landlocked, the better weather, the friendlier fitter people etc.  I’m mostly going to focus on the interesting or weird things I’ve noticed.  I’ll also pay particular attention to some of the more progressive or backwards things I’ve come across.

View the slide show, read the captions and you’ll learn about some of the differences I’ve noticed since moving to Denver about a month ago.

honor system parking

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This would never work in NY. It is the honor system for parking. You park, put a few bucks into the slot and that's it. I assume periodically someone comes and checks. I haven't yet figured out how much to put in or how long it is good for.