After 539 pages of final exams, 72 end of year emails, and too much Excel wrangling for a grad school dropout, the 2007/2008 CMA school year is done. In the final classroom for the final final on the last day, there was a bubbling surprise waiting for me in the middle of the room.

My very own novelty fish tank!

Fisch tank.

And now I am going to Cleveland.

Speaking of The Colonel… (from a college road trip to the Kentucky Fried Chicken museum in Corbin)

Citibank’s fine services over the last few years have afforded me not only convenient, cash-free payment options at my favorite merchants, but also 60,000 ThankYou! Reward Points, redeemable for exchange of an impressive array of national and local goods and services. For many months I have pondered my 60,000 ThankYou! Reward Points, the question of which Reward would put them to best use, and the mathematics of hospitality. Economically speaking, the item with the most favorable ThankYou! Reward Point to dollar exchange rate is simply a direct credit card payment (142.86:1). I’m stingy when it comes to anything that isn’t CDs, traveling, or the movies, but this option seemed too depressing even for me (it’s something Jill would do, though). The idea to treat my seven of closest and most carnivorous Bay Area friends to a opulent dinner of huge steaks and fine beverage came to me in the shower and so it was that before I was dry, half of my ThankYou! Reward Points were redeemed towards credit at the punctuationally-challenged Ruth’s Chris Steak House at a somewhat less favorable exchange rate (100.0:1). If you do the math, you will discover how laughably off-target my cost estimation was.

Weird thing was that it was kind of worth it.

April 15th, 11:10PM at the San Francisco central processing station of the United States Postal Service.