Excel Monkey

of obscene pay packages for finance professionals.  Retailers and realtors are laughing all the way to the bank due to the amount of money being spent by finance types as they spend what is the biggest bonus payout in Wall Street history.  Felt pretty good about my year-end discussion (promotion, ranked in the top 5th percentile of all analysts at my firm, co-founded a new group that will launch in Q107), but then news broke about Goldman's bonus pool.  I work at another bulge bracket firm (having left Goldman last year, oops) and figured pay would be relatively similar among other bulge bracket firms in order to attract/retain talent, but I know that our pool wasn't that high.  Kind of wondering now whether work/life balance is really worth it.  At what point does the incremental value of money diminish?  Or do we just consume more as we earn more?

for too long have i endured incompetence, inane questions and basic stupidity.  as a result, three of my colleagues and i are spinning-off from our current group and establishing our own.  we already pitched to our md and cio and got approval from our firm.  we're currently building our model and expect to be up and running come Q107.  here's hoping for some alpha in the new year.

Got back from my trip to LA on Sunday. All in all, the trip was good, but something happened that bothered me. I'm not sure if it's a Californian thing or if my friend's just an odd ball. So, I'm driving down 5 to Huntington Beach with the top down on my car. All of a sudden, somewhere between downtown LA and Huntington Beach, my friend decides to take off his shirt and ride topless. Not only was this visually unappealing, I thought it was a bit unsanitary since he's perspiring all over the leather seat. So, I'm guessing it's my friend who's an odd ball and that it's not the norm in LA to ride in a car sans shirt. It just doesn't seem proper.

Oh, a few weeks ago my fiance and I were in Toronto to get our marriage license (she's a Torontonian living/working in NYC... because of me). The very first thing I noticed when we arrived at City Hall was that we were the only heterosexual couple applying for a marriage license at that time. There were four couples ahead of us, all of whom bat for the same team. Now, I'm not saying that this perturbed me. Only the above did, but it did throw me for a loop. Totally forgot it was legal in Canada. Just curious whether the license will be honored in the states (with the exception of Vermont).

Didn't get to go to the Hamptons like most if not all Manhattanites do for Memorial Day because I had to study. Of course I had to procrastinate, so I decided to go for a run. It was a great day to run, albeit a tad bit humid. As I was jogging, a couple of things stood out, so I had to take photos. Images aren't so great because I used my Treo.

Ah crap. I need a paid account to upload photos. Regardless, the first photo was of Bethesda. For some reason that fountain always stops me dead in my tracks. The second photo was of all the people on the great lawn. Some people were laying out on rock due to lack of lawn space.

I also had two other photos I thought were interesting. One was an SUV covered in aluminum foil... In its entirety. In the vicinity of 80-something and Park Avenue. Either someone not from the neighborhood or a neighborhood eccentric. The last photo was from the opening of the Apple store on Fifth Avenue. Went to the grand opening. There was an employee with this very zany/crazed look on his face. A little too happy to be there I suppose. The line for the grand opening wrapped around the entire city block 2.5x, after which it went up Madison to approximately 64th street. The Apple store is between 58/59th street.

Well, still planning out where to eat when I'm in LA beginning Thursday. If anyone comes across this and has any recommendations, I'd greatly appreciate it.

i'll be in LA early june for several days. any suggestions for night time activities would be much appreciated. i'm particularly keen on activities involving alcohol (i.e. lounges, clubs, etc.) thanks..