Winter Wedding!

(Rachel) Our friends Jennifer and Elliot had a beautiful wedding in Austin. If you couldn't tell by the Bevo groom's cake, they are fellow Longhorns. We also got to see two of my other UT colleagues - Maya and Lauren.

Black-Scholes Excel Worksheet

After spending a futile hour searching the internet for a Black-Scholes Model (European-style options) for Excel, I made my own. Until I figure out how to post an .xls document to my blog, I can e-mail it to anyone who asks (free of course). It is very useful too! Just put in the information: stock price, exercise price, interest rate, variance, and time to expiration. The worksheet yields the value of the call and put. This just might save certain esoteric business students a few minutes.

Update from November '08: Who knew BS was so fascinating, this is definitely our most popular blog post. With a 95% confidence interval (3% sigma), I will e-mail out the model within 24 hours.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Cute Family








Rachel talks with family in Oregon... because we're a sad, lonely couple!












Mr. Ham









Don't mess with the cook











A warm TX T-Day

Swissair Executive Summary

One of my lesser lifelong goals is to have my words plagiarized by someone too lazy to write his or her own paper. Therefore this post serves three purposes: 1) my family keeps bugging me to update this blog, 2) it would be cool if someone copied this, 3) it's a good example of a 1-page MBA executive summary. Writing these is pretty much all I do these days.

I am clueless about how to post anything except a photo, so it is attached as a jpeg: swissair.

Update: The professor totally didn't understand my paper, so it's possible this paper really stinks!

I Once Caught a Fish This Big!

Rachel caught some flippin' huge redfish the other day in Galveston. Maybe she'll write a brief story. Rob is jealous - he was busy taking a silly accounting test at home. Pictured with Rachel is Rhett (Katherine's father). He did most of the dirty work. Rachel insists that she did a lot of hard work too. Reeling in the fish and all...

Evacuation

Rachel and I are safe, but thousands of others are not so lucky. Others either ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere, or after spending 5 hours traveling only 5 miles, they gave up and chose to brave the storm back home. Some might die because they chose to follow officials’ warnings to evacuate, only to run out of gas in the 200-mile gridlock.

Clever us, we thought we would miss traffic by leaving at 5AM. Not quite, immediately we realized this is the same plan to which everyone else ascribed. Houston was in utter gridlock. On the radio, callers wailed that they had been on the road for 12 hours with hungry children and pets, no bathrooms, no gas, and yet they were still trapped inside the greater Houston area. We heeded the advice of one caller who reported a wide-open back-road to Livingston, via Highway 90 and Highway 146. Unfortunately this was not the case. In fact the back-roads were perhaps the worst place to be. Realizing that 90 and 146 were virtually impenetrable, we changed courses. On a particular stretch of highway, between Dayton and Cleveland, 22 miles took is 12 hours. During that time we listened intently to the radio as the hurricane was changing paths in our direction: “folks in Dayton and Cleveland better get out of there.” Yeah, sure… One radio caller asked a TxDOT official specifically about the traffic standstill and lack of gas in our area. Her response (paraphrase): “We can’t help these people, we told everyone to use only the ‘three main evacuation routes.’ Folks who found their own routes are on their own.”

This is contrary to another of our favorite quotes, from Mayor Bill White: “Folks better be off the roads when the storm hits. Those highways are a death trap." For good measure, here is another great quote, from Governor Rick Perry: “I told everyone to get a full tank of gas two days ago. It’s not my fault that these folks are running out of gas.” (Texans say “folks” a lot).

After 14 hours on the road, Rachel and I reached Cleveland, TX. We decided to travel northwest through the Sam Houston National Forest. This worked very well, traveling a whole 25 miles before stopping at a standstill 1 mile east of New Waverley (pictured). 1 ½ hours and 1 mile later, we broke through the traffic and headed north on Highway 75. It was at this time that we began to worry about our gas. We had half a tank (still amazing for 15 hours on idle). Traffic ran smoothly up the 75 and east on the 19 until we reached Crockett and Elkhart. Again, there was no gas in sight, and the lines into those towns ran an hour each. Rachel and I were agonizing over the lack of gas. We were now nearly 200 miles from Houston, in the middle of “nowhere, Texas,” and every gas station still had no gas. People were lined up at the stations waiting for the next shipment of gas – which may or may not have come as of this posting. Still we persisted. We couldn’t help but think the worst as we drove. Maybe we would need to pull over to the side of the road; maybe the traffic would be better tomorrow. Maybe we would need to ride out the storm in a church, and wait 5-10 days for the gas stations to be replenished. Rachel and I prayed long and hard.

Entering the city of Palestine was no different. Dozens of cars were camped out at the gas stations, waiting for the next shipment of gas. Low and behold, on the far side of Palestine – next to a station with no gas – stood another … it looked like someone was pumping. I drove up, a man was filling his Sparkletts bottle with gas. “They have gas!?” I exclaimed. The man simply shrugged, “yup.” I did not and could not believe it, not until the dial started to roll. Indeed we had gas; the most precious commodity in the universe to the millions Houstonians trying to evacuate. I called my dad, almost in tears: “We got gas! We’re going to be okay.” Two hours later we rolled into Kaufman, Texas. Rachel’s colleague and friend from UT, Erin Wynne, offered her home to us. 20 hours after setting off, we were hungry, smelly (we turned off the A/C starting at 8:00AM), utterly exhausted, and safe.

Hurricane Prep 101

The disaster nerds are right: prepare early. Lesson learned this morning when I arrived at Target at 7:45AM, 15 minutes before it opened. Already a mob of 75 people swarmed around the entrance. When the poor employee (presumably he pulled the small straw) opened the door, a mad rush of customers pored in. I wish I had my camera... it was a sight. Overweight Houstonians pushing their way to the carts and running to the water isle. I missed out on the water, but it was okay (I have a Britta and a bathtub). I still managed to get some Dinty Moore stew and some votives. Unfortunately the camping fuel was completely sold out.

Thus begins my next adventure: to Academy Sporting Goods. With only mild shock, I saw the line at Academy stretched to the back of the store - literally. Of course the camping fuel was sold out. It was at this moment I remembered my trusty camping stove takes unleaded, so I drove to the Shell station, bought a 1-gallon gas can, and filled it with premium.

All of this is being finished while Rachel is in Chicago for training. Deloitte - her company - just told everyone from Houston that they are being put on the next flight back to Houston. Rachel called 15 minutes ago to tell me she arrives tonight instead of Friday night.

I may clean up this post when I have more time ... I have an ECON final exam in 2 hours...

Seriously!? Hurricane Rita?

Note to readers - We didn't intend for our blog to discuss Hurricanes. We have other things to worry about (Final exams this week for Rob). But it looks like this weekend will be quite rainy and trecherous:

My 5 Hours at Reliant Center

(Rachel) On Saturday I volunteered with the Hurricane Katrina relief efforts at the Astrodome with 10 other people from Deloitte. I was a little apprehensive about doing this because assisting with natural disasters is a new experience for me. However, I knew that thousands of volunteers were needed to run the small community of evacuees, and they needed my help too. Human resources were needed; specifically, people patrolling the buildings, serving foods, data entry, and councilors.

I pulled into the huge parking lot and was escorted by signs and police officers (who confirmed that I was a volunteer and not a spectator). Dozens of volunteers were arriving with me and we were all heading to a big grey building run by the Red Cross. Everything was very organized. They checked my ID, I signed in, and I followed a crowd to a 20 minute orientation. At orientation two rules stuck out in my mind: “do not pick up any children” and “do not take any pictures” (it is their home and you wouldn’t want strangers coming into your home and taking pictures of you). After orientation I joined about 150 people in a line to wait for an assignment. Finally, they sent us all to what they called “distribution.”

We were lead through “Reliant City” (aka Reliant Center) to a large hollow building where people were sleeping, eating, and playing. Beds were set up in rows. Some were occupied by people trying to sleep; others were occupied by mothers and their children.

Finally we came to our assignment. It was an area sectioned off as a makeshift cafeteria. They stationed me at the milk and juice cooler and I was responsible for keeping it well stocked and handing drinks to anyone who asked. I was happy to see that the milk and juice were popular with the cute little kids. They would come up and ask for 3 or 4 at a time and then barely be able to carry them back to their table. I was impressed by the system that Red Cross and Aramark had created. They served two hot meals a day (in 3 hour increments) and they had a variety of snacks and drinks served 24/7. I figured that the dinner would be something simple and bland like meat and potatoes, but to my surprise, they were serving sweet and sour chicken, rice, and steamed vegetables. I stayed until 6:30pm and was replaced by two nice high school girls.

My overall impression was that there are a lot of truly caring people in the US. Volunteers came from all over the US to do what they could for the people displaced by the storm. For me it was a convenient 5 miles away. Red Cross is doing it’s best to provide those in need with food and shelter (and a little spending money). I’m glad that there is someone to pick up the slack and take care of all the people who lost their homes in New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina's Houston Impact

Just in case family and friends are wondering about the hurricane's impact on Houston. I will briefly state that the impact is quite enormous. We live about 3 miles from the Astrodome complex. Yes, the Astrodome, the Reliant Center, and the George R. Brown Convention Center (all very big buildings) are full, but that's only one part of the story. This is not just a news story about a distant land called New Orleans, but rather it is a story unfolding in our own neighborhood. Rachel and I see the result of the hurricane's destruction with our own eyes. In church this morning (the giant Lakewood church), Pastor Joel Osteen and staff announced, "any evacuees who are here today, please stand up so we can pray for you." In the auditorium of 10,000 - 15,000 people, about 200 people stood up. Next: "please raise your hands if you are missing family." 50 people raised their hands. As one can imagine, it was a very heart-wrenching moment for everyone in the room. Twice today, in our apartment complex, I overheard two separate families talk about loosing their homes. One family - over tears - exclaimed that "Houston is a big, scary place to start over again. I don't know how my children are going to make it in their new schools." 5 hours later another family was more optimistic: "We can make this work. I have family here in Houston. I just need to find a house. I hear Pearland is cheap, but Kingwood would work too. I need to find a job."

Rice University has opened its doors to Houston-area Tulane University students. Furthermore, Rice's Jones School of Management is opening its doors to Tulane MBA students. I may have another 10-20 temporary classmates next week. Update: I do have 20 new classmates from Tulane. Super people!

In our own small world, between Rice, Lakewood Church, and Deloitte & Touche, volunteers in the tens of thousands are donating their time to feed those who no longer have a home. Houston area churches were called upon by the mayor to raise $5 million to feed the hungry for 30 days. These aren't evacuees from Indonesia or Iraq whose images are strewn distantly on CNN and Fox News. These evacuees are the ones Rachel and I see walking down Main Street on our way to Rice, Target, and McDonalds. Backpacks containing their earthly possessions...

Life Changes Again!

Here we are in our apartment in Houston. As you can see, Rob is already hard at work. Rachel is enjoying her free time now that she's working 9 to 5.

Rice, Rice, Baby

Rob recently began school at Rice. 2 weeks later, Rachel graduated from UT with her masters degree. Incredible timing, huh? We'll write more about Rachel's accomplishments later. For the moment we'll talk about Rob at Rice. Rice's Jones School of Management requires a 2-week pre-term where everyone learns the fine arts of adjusting account entries and public speaking skills. In this photo, Rob's team - Team 2 - was selected to represent their 50-person "Section" in a sort of case study "speak-off" held in a large auditorium in front of the entire class of 2007. Closely resembling a pack of hungry hyenas, the class of 150 students tossed out marketing, logistical, and financial questions to try and stump the team. Their interrogations were in vain, as Team 2 dexterously parried the classes verbal assault.

What is your political typology?

According to the Pew Research Center, Rachel and Rob should be pigeon-holed into the following categories:

Rachel: "UPBEAT"
Key descriptions & values: Feel positive about the economy and the work of government. Satisfied with their own financial situation. Religious. Has great confidence in the future of humanity. Voted for GW. Likes war in Iraq. Favors preemptive military action.

Rachel says: "yep, that pretty much describes me! er... except the 2nd half."

Robert: "DISAFFECTED"
Key descriptions & values: "Embittered." Cynical about government. Unsatisfied by their economic situation. Oppose immigration & the environment. Alienated from politics. Have little interest in the news and politics. Government is ineffective, but most likely voted for GW.

Rob says: "shoot, I must have pressed the wrong button. Either that or I'm destined to live out my later years in a cabin in Montana."

Want to find out what you are? Visit the Pew Research Center's web site: click here.

More Cowbell!

Every time we hear that quote, Rachel and I start to chuckle. If you haven't yet seen it, check out this old Will Ferrell SNL skit.

Professor Dykema

Rachel and I are praying for a speedy recovery for our old George Fox professor Professor Dykema. Yesterday he and his wife were walking on a very lovely street in NW Portland. As he was opening the door for his wife at a popular restaurant/pub that everyone in Portland has visited - and this is where it gets bizarre - a man came out of nowhere and stabbed him in the back with a butchers knife. According to reports, he is expected to survive.

He has had a profound impact on our lives ... and he doesn't even know it! As a sardonic sophomore, he was my Microeconomics professor. He may remember me as half devils-advocate and half slacker. He always tied New Testament ethos into the concept of utility, and spoke about "guns and butter" as if it was an economic tug-of-war between the production of civil good and evil. As seniors, Rachel and I took his "Global Political Economy" class where we were deeply moved by his passion towards helping less fortunate populations and peoples. He lectured future business and policy leaders in his classes, and taught us that our lives impact those around us even if we don't know it. Rachel remembers one of his class examples: "If you own two coats, and your neighbor owns none, then you are at worst guilty of steeling from him, and at the least guilty of not being the example that Christ has called us to be." Professor Dykema directly influenced our decisions to volunteer with the Peace Corps, and can thereby be indirectly linked to the current state of our lives.

He is an incredibly altruistic and deeply spiritual man. Which is why this random act is so ironic and tragic. We pray for his wife Rosemary and for his full recovery.

Angela and Nick

As recently as a week ago, uploading an image required 3 programs running in perfect unison - then minutes or hours of editing arcane HTML code to make it all look almost right.

Blogger.com has now made it super easy to upload images, and since our digital camera is (equally super) ancient, I thought I would post a picture from my parents' collection. Angela and Nick are my siblings. Angela was presented with the Cougar Award: the top 8th grade award given to the "whole package" student. Nick has surprised the right-brained family by becoming a math and science wiz. He called me a month ago to exclaim: "Rob, I just weighed myself. I'm getting really big. I'm serious. You should see my muscles." Angela diffidently confirms: "yep, even some of my cool friends think he's cute... it's so embarrassing!"

Google Earth

(TX State Capitol and Mt. St Helens)
Oh my goodness! The coolest program ever is available to download for free. Check this out: earth.google.com. You can pinpoint locations almost anywhere in the USA, and indeed in many places around the world (I just checked out Pyongyang). Just now I'm taking a 360° tour of Mt. St. Helens from a 45° angle. I didn’t know this stuff was legal (or free).

Summer News

Lesson of the day: it never hurts to ask. UT rules say you can only take 12 credits in the summer session, but Rachel needed 15 to graduate, hence she was preparing to take one lonely class in the fall semester. The other week, Rachel asked her UT advisor if she could add a summer class even though it is against policy. The advisor took a look at Rachel's incredible grades and said that it was okay, but admonished, "You will be very busy!" In conclusion: we just saved ourselves $3000!

Rachel will graduate from UT on August 15. Rob will begin school at Rice on August 8. Enjoy your summer vacations friends! We spend our weekends studying... though we did just discover a $1 DVD rental machine in the grocery store. That keeps us pretty occupied. After two years in the Peace Corps, there were many movies we had on our "movies to watch" list.

Quick weather note: After an unseasonably mild spring, summer has finally arrived. It's around 100 degrees these days. I am SO allergic to Texas! It's pretty funny, and all you can do is suck it up (literally) and keep downing the Benadryl.

Deep Thoughts by Rob

St. Edwards University, recently bulldozed a forest to put up a parking lot (like the song). One of the ironies of the project was that since city officials require adequate drainage and runoff for new structures, the university bulldozed another section of the forest to build a retaining pool (adjacent to the already-present creek). School officials might reprove: “but we added some really nice landscape around the parking lot and retaining pool!”

Texas will most likely begin paving its state with an entire new freeway system, the Trans-Texas Corridor, parallel to existing freeways. Sure it would be nice to widen the freeways by a lane in the countryside, but is it necessary to create an entire new freeway system that civilians will never use (it will be a toll road) and that will slice a ¼ mile of concrete through forests, plains, farms, and deserts? Texas state officials respond - and this is only mild hyperbole, “But what will Texans do 100 years from now if we don’t build these freeways today!”

As a socially and environmentally conscious individual, I am alarmed by the pace of development in America (and Texas in particular). A recent article in the Houston Chronicle wrote about a simple and unfortunate reality: it is cheaper and easier (politically and legally) to buy a farm in exurbia and convert it into the next track of homes for middle-income, traffic-braving soccer moms and dads, than it is to build closer together within already established city limits. As a result places like Houston have both underutilized land within city zones, gentrification occurring in older more historic city zones, and city limits expanding further and further into semi-virgin land: in some cases new subdivisions are being built 50 to 80 miles outside the city center. One of the new reported communities boasts nature trails and bird look-outs. This sounds wonderful until one realizes that their house no doubt use to be the bird's house. Following developers’ trends, the new subdivision will likely be called “Scissortail Landing,” eponymously named for the birds that no longer dwell there.

The desire to obtain “the good life in the suburbs, far removed from the problems of the city,” has become a problem in itself. Development for the sake of development creates myriad social ills, including traffic congestion and pollution, out of control commercial and residential strips (ever see a new Home Depot built in the same parking lot as an old shuttered Home Depot?), and decreased socialization among neighbors due to larger and more separate homes.

Try this fun exercise, visit maps.google.com, click on “Satellite,” close your eyes and click on a random area of America. Then zoom in. No doubt you'll land in the 'burbs.

Kahlua Cake

Rachel's newest culinary masterpiece. It was...awesome...

Best Coffee in Austin

We're incorrigible Oregon coffee snobs. You might never know it since we're both so darn agreeable, but it's true. During our one-year sabbatical in Austin, we have made a couple of observations. Austin is a town blessed with an abundance of cute coffee shops. Unfortunately most are bad. Here is a list we've compiled. If a coffee shop isn't listed, it is because we haven't yet visited … if we haven't yet visited, it is because we're tired of wasting our money on bad coffee. As soon as Frommers gives us money, we'll visit the rest.

Good:
Peets Coffee & Tea, Guadalupe St
Whole Foods Market, Lamar St
Central Market, both locations
Andersons Coffee, Jefferson St (just for the beans)

Almost Good:
Spider House Café, Fruth St
Copacabana Coffeehouse, S. Congress St
Halcyon Coffeehouse, W 4th St.

Not so good:
Mozarts Coffee Roasters & Bakery, Lake Austin Blvd.
Bouldin Creek Coffee House & Café, S. 1st St.
Green Muse Café, W. Oltorf St.
Little City Espresso, Congress
Metro Espresso Bar, Guadalupe St
Jo’s Coffee, S. Congress
Ruta Maya Coffee Co., S. Congress

Here's how to judge a good coffee house: Order an iced mocha. This will tell you volumes about their dedication to espresso-based beverages in general. Iced drinks save the flavor of an espresso shot much better than scorched milk. Most coffeehouses can't handle the delicate balance of an iced mocha. It's very sad.

PS - the best coffeehouse in the world is Coffee Cottage in Newberg, Oregon.

Brief Bios

Rachel and Rob come from enormous families: Rachel has 6 siblings (7 children total - all bio. You go mom!). Rob has 9 siblings (10 children total - 4 bio, 5 adopted, 1 honorary)

Rachel was home schooled until she went to Eagle Point High School, Eagle Point, OR. Wouldn’t you know it, she graduated salutatorian. Rob moved around quite a bit as a kid, number of moves totals more than 30. Fortunately he stayed in one place long enough to attend Friendswood High School, Friendswood, TX for all 4 years.

Rachel and Rob met at George Fox University. They were two of only five international business majors in their class, so they got to know each other pretty well. Oddly, they never thought of each other as more than study buddies. This all changed in summer of 1999 when they traveled to Europe for 3 weeks as part of university-sponsored trip. Romance ensued. Serendipitously, Rachel and Rob had signed up for the “semester in China” trip the following fall (1999). Unbeknownst to each other, their lives would forever be bound.

After graduating from George Fox, their next step was to build a successful and meaningful future for themselves. They wanted to continue down the path of international business / politics / relations / whatever… They came across a wonderful organization called the US Peace Corps which allowed them to travel to a foreign country to live, grow, and work for two years. Rob and Rachel were Peace Corps Volunteers stationed in the lovely Saxon village of Sebes, in Transylvania (Ardeal) Romania. They did feel a bit sheepish about their comfortable lifestyle, but they still found many hillareous cultural difficulties and misunderstandings that will serve them well when reminiscing about their past to their grandchildren.

After serving their full two-year commitment in the Peace Corps, Rob and Rachel traveled back to the USA to begin their next big task: graduate school! Rachel was accepted to the renowned Master in Professional Accounting program at the University of Texas at Austin. As this is written (May 2005) Rachel only has a couple of months left in her program. She already has a position waiting for her in the audit & assurance department of Deloitte & Touche in Houston.

Robert currently works with a wonderful international adoption agency called International Family Services (www.ifservices.org). He is the China Program Director, responsible for anything and everything China-related. After Rachel graduates from School, Rob will attend the MBA program at Rice University. He is extremely excited to begin his studies at such a prestigious university - though he is enjoying his last bit of “freedom” before August classes begin.

Rachel and Rob - it seems - have a very interesting life. And to think they are only 26 and 27 years old!

Life After the Peace Corps

Life is a constant mesh of paths, choices, and consequences. For several years we have been trying to plot a course that would lead towards careers in international finance / business / relations, etc. As our paths trudge on, we realize that life is so unpredictable and so much fun. You never know where you will be taken. It would have been impossible for us to imagine that we would be living in Austin and getting ready to move to Houston. Over three years ago - about 2 days after arriving in Romania for two years in the Peace Corps - we were already planning for our return to America. While we were in Romania, we took a couple of classes by correspondence so we would qualify for graduate school. We made the decision for Rachel to go to grad school first, because her program was only one year, and for Rob to go to grad school second… this made even more sense since Rob didn't yet have access to his official undergrad transcripts. (Make sure you pay your school bills!)

We both continue to be amazed by God's grace. This isn't cliché! When you listen to what the Lord is trying to say, and are obedient to his "suggestions" for your life, you can be a world changer! We don't have a lot of money, but by living life like Ps. 3:5-6 and Jer. 29:11, we know that there is no limit to what we can accomplish.

Our new SUV!

We just arrived home with our little boy - isn't he cute! A petite little 4-cylinder CR-V. We don't really feel bad about buying an import. GM and Ford are just now realizing they have a problem - American tastes have been changing since... oh... the 1970s. Detroit hasn't done much to respond - they're still rolling out the Mercurys and Buicks, Navigators and Hummers. We could have gotten a V8 Chevy Suburban, but we will stand by our decision for our cute little guy.

Guinness Factory

mmm, starbucks (London)

Galway, Ireland 

Introduction

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