I was browsing eBay this evening, when it caught my eye: Glimmering, dignified, revered, bearing a name famous in the industry, it tempted me like the Sirens. I am referring to a bottle of Hennessy Paradis Extra. The smooth lines of the heavy crystal decanter, the warm amber color of the precious fluid within, the velvety reputation of the blend of fine eaux de vie… it all combined to say “Buy me! Buy me!”

It was really not unlike my experience with the LCD display, except without the lying salesman pushing a service plan. You see, the bottle and its contents were selling at a substantial discount from the normal retail price. Wanting to make the most of my potential purchase, I decided to attempt to snipe the exceptional cognac (placing a bid at the last second, for those who don’t know). Of course, that decision gave me several hours to mull about in my ivory tower. The more I thought about it, the harder it was to justify what was essentially an impulse buy. Sure, I find cognac appealing. In fact, the appeal is a large part of the reason why I ordered snifters as the souvenir glasses for Spring Banquet. It seems refined and elegant, carrying a certain air of grandeur. But is it really worth the price?

In the past, I bought certain spirituous beverages because the bottles looked neat. In particular, a bottle of Grey Goose ended on my shelf thanks to a highly appealing glass vessel. Fortunately, the spirit within ended up being exquisite as well. So, could the bottle justify the price this time? Well, what would I do with it? Flaunt it? Put it on the mantle? Use it as a paper weight?

After due consideration, I came to my senses and walked away from the computer, satisfied without spending a dime.

Today was a reasonably nice day in the Twin Cities, so I decided to enjoy it by starting to make good on my goal from a few days ago and start golfing. I’ve toyed with a golf club in years past, most recently in November when my dad visited me at Rose. I’ve never played an actual round, and I don’t think I’m ready to try yet. With that in mind, I spent some time on the Eagle Lake driving range. The experience was, well… let’s just say it went better than when I went to the driving range with my dad, which is to say that I still have a long ways to go. Despite my lack of prowess with a golf club, I had fun. I intend to continue practicing, trying different things, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later, I will venture onto the links and play nine at a par-three.

A few days ago, I went with my family to the Redstone Grill near Ridgedale in the Twin Cities. Once again, it turned out that I went to a restaurant far underdressed: while most of the other patrons (and indeed, my family) were in business casual or better, I arrived in shorts and a t-shirt. I knew I made a faux pas with my wardrobe when I saw the type-996 Porsche 911 Turbo parked out front. However, my fears were unfounded, and we had a nice dinner. I had the pan-seared ahi tuna salad, which is basically sashimi-grade tuna served chilled and very rare beside a collection of baby greens. Very good.

Today I had my first day at Medtronic. The day was filled with orientation presentations and paperwork, but I enjoyed it. Medtronic makes a big deal about the quality of their atmosphere, and for good reason: everybody I met — new employees, established employees, everybody — was cheerful, knowledgable, and upbeat. I was extremely impressed.

Pop quiz: Does having a lot of free time before starting work mean that I: a) Post much more to my blog, b) Go browsing at stores more, or c) Spend *less* time than usual browsing the web? The answer, of course, is all of the above.

Some of you may find response (c) a bit surprising, but there’s a simple explanation: at home, I’m stuck with a dialup connection, hence everything is really slow, a condition that causes impatience on my part, which eventually leads to me doing other things.

One of the things that I find myself doing more of is browsing at stores. I’ve been oh-so tempted to splurge and buy some fancy new things, but thus far I have shown restraint. For example, on the day I got back from Indiana, I went into Best Buy. I was having Best Buy withdrawal, which I’m sure anybody who goes to Rose can relate to. So, I walk in and head straight to the computer section. I’m walking down the aisles, casually pressing buttons and examining boxes, when I notice it: a 17″ LCD display. The price was especially appealing. Now, I’ve wanted a new monitor for some time, so I start justifying the purchase in my mind. Things are going smoothly in my preparation to buy, when Bob the Best Buy sales associate (all employees seem to be associates these days…) walks up.

“Good deal on the LCD panel, eh?” Bob starts. “Uh, yeah. I’m thinking about buying it.” “Yeah, they’ve been pretty popular these past few days. I think we only have one left.” “Well, I can understand. It’s a good deal, and the picture looks crisp and bright.” Then Bob makes the fatal mistake: “You know, the Performance Service Plan (TM) on these devices is a really good deal.” Arg, I HATE the PSP sales pitch. “No, I don’t think so.” “It’s a good plan, though.” Well, at least I know that Bob the Best Buy sales drone is a Minnesota-bred Best Buy sales drone: he ends sentences with ‘though.’ I counter, “Are you saying that this LCD panel is going to break? Are you saying that it’s low quality?” “Uh, err, of course not,” Bob replies. “Because,” I continue, “if it’s junk, as you are implying, I don’t think I want to buy it.” “No, no, of course it’s not junk. But you see, with these LCD panels, sometimes pixels go bad. But if they do go bad, the manufacturer won’t replace the panel.” Dammit Bob, I know you’re lying to me now. “I know about ‘stuck’ pixels and manufacturer’s policies regarding defective screens. You’re really just trying to sell me a PSP because you have a quota to fill.” I have many friends who have been under the employ of Best Buy, so I know a little bit about Best Buy sales practices. “That’s not true,” Bob retorts, “We have no quota and we don’t work on commission.” Okay, so I overstated things a bit. True, there is no quota per se, but there is heavy pressure to sell as many PSPs as possible. A few years back, one of my friends was working as a sales rep for Apple. He was stationed in a Best Buy store (Best Buy sold some Macs at the time) doing what corporate sales reps do. Apparently, he was selling a significant number of computers but did not push the PSP at all. Well, things got ugly with store management, and my friend got kicked out of the store. Yes, a corporate rep, there by agreement with Best Buy, was kicked out of the store for refusing to advocate the PSP. But I digress. “Bob,” I said, “I don’t want the service plan, and on second thought, I don’t want the LCD panel.”

The next day, having saved myself a significant amount of money the day before, thanks to a certain somebody being over zealous about a certain service plan, I decided to expand my business casual wardrobe. For some time, I had seen ads hawking the Dockers Mobile Pant. For those of you unfamiliar with the Mobile Pant, it looks like a regular pair of semi-dressy khakis, except it has hidden pockets at the thighs, accesses via a zipper concealed by the seam. Having a bunch of electronic gizmos that I like to take with me, and conscious that cargo pants wouldn’t go over well at my internship, I decided I needed a pair to try out. Unfortunately, that was easier said than done. I went to Kohl’s and found a plethora of Dockers styles: chino, pleated, classic, golf, relaxed — but no mobile pants. I trekked to Sears. No mobile pants. Marshal Fields? Nope, not there either. Eventually, I wound up at the Ridgedale JC Penny. Behold! A multitude of mobile pants! And they were good, and the purchase was made.

During the past few days, I’ve given more thought into things I’d like to learn to do. I noticed that my previous list was mostly winter activities, so here are some warmer goals:

• Learn to golf. Golf seems to be a good social activity, especially in the business world. Despite numerous claims to the contrary, it also looks like fun.
• Learn to water ski. Hey, might as well take advantage of Minnesota’s 11,000+ lakes, right?
• Go skydiving. What a thrill it must be, to jump out of a plane and fall unfettered through the air.
• Learn to play tennis and racquetball. Looks like fun, looks like good exercise, and looks like a lot of people do it, so why not me?
• Go biking more. I’d like to do more biking.

Surely, the list will grow this summer.

Despite spending less time browsing the web, I had the realization today that all three of my little bros have web sites. Good job, Willis, Vince, and Tyler!

I’m back in Minnesota, and oh! what a grand state it is. I start my internship at Medtronic on Monday, an experience that I eagerly await. In the meantime, I’ve gathered together several books that I plan to read this summer:

• Henry David Thoreau’s Walden – It’s a classic, and I’ve been trying to read many of the classics. I bought a four-work compilation of Thoreau’s writing in a single leather-bound volume, so I might also read his A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Cape Cod, and Civil Disobedience.
• Louis Gerstner’s Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? – My dad gave me this book for Christmas, I started reading it during the trip to Steamboat in February, and I finished it yesterday. It was an insightful look into the challenges of directing a large company (IBM in this case) and of the qualities required of a successful leader. My favorite part of the book was Gerstner’s postulate that “People don’t do what you expect, they do what you inspect.” How true, indeed. It’s not a long book — my reading was merely sporadic.
• J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Silmarillion – I liked the Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit, so I hope that this manuscript will be of the same caliber.
• 100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know – Okay, so this isn’t a ‘real’ book, but it’s a fun compilation of good words. I strive to expand my lexicon, so this book tickled my fancy. The words within are not extremely obscure, though I found a not insignificant number that I was previously oblivious to. Certain members of you, the readership, might find the inclusion of ‘inculcate’ particularly amusing.
• Thomas Paine’s The Age of Reason – This text is Paine’s treatise on organized religion, using Reason as a guide. Should be interesting…

I was also going to read The Scarlet Letter, but I forgot the book in Terre Haute. At one time, I was also planning to finish Dante’s Divine Comedy, but I lost interest after reading The Inferno. Ug. Some classics are extremely enjoyable; others, not so much. The Inferno itself has a good story, and I’m glad I read it. However, I think that much was lost in the translation. I suspect readability degraded during the translation of the epic poem from Italian into verse English.

Switching gears to something completely unrelated to poetry, my current Bonneville (not to be confused with the now pancake-shaped Bonneville) just rolled over 161,000 miles and is still going strong. Gotta hand it to the engineers who designed her; they sure can build a reliable machine. Needless to say, the Bonnie is in MUCH better condition than my Thunderbird was when I got it at 171,000 miles.