Thoughts and Recycled Viralness

I was talking with Ashley the other day about vacationing. It seemed that everyone around us has, or is, going on vacations all the time. Take for instance my brother Nick. That kid has been everywhere. Not only that, but he travels all the time! He just got back from a trip, with some of his good buddies, to Mexico. Before that, he went on a cruise to Mexico. I am not bad-mouthing it, I am just jealous. Anyways, as Ash and I were talking about vacationing we got stuck on the principle of how to spend money.

My argument was that we spend as little as possible on the hotel, and spend that money elsewhere. Meaning that we would find a comfortable place to put our bags, and depending on the location, spend the money on activities. I think that the fun of the vacation is going places. That is why you left the house in the first place! My ideal hotel would look something like this:

Love Shack

It is not the best looking thing, but you get to spend your money on more things.

Her argument was simple. It was, if you want to have a fun vacation, you better put me in a nice hotel with an awesome pool.

Now honestly her argument is perfectly valid. When you vacation, you are trying to relax. You worked hard, now it’s time to hang out by the pool and enjoy the sun. Her idea of a hotel would be something like this:

Ash's Dream

So this got me thinking, how are Ash’s vacationing preferences, as well as my own, illustrated mathematically? Honestly, I have no idea what the answer is. I just want to jot some ideas down, and see what sort of feedback I can generate.

So to start, I will throw out some parameters that will be needed. They are:

• Probability of Winning the Lotto [L]
• Winnings From The Lotto [t]
• Savings Rate [r]
• Discount Rate [d]
• Wages Earned [w(ICON Health & Fitness)]
• Benefits (money to be spent on vacation) [b(r*w)]
• Time Frame
  • I will assume for all time before the vacation there will be 40 periods x ϵ [0,40]
  • The vacation will comprise of 5 periods x ϵ [41,45]

And from there, I have can put together (a simple) mathmatical equation.

Ashley’s Present Value of What To Save For The Hotel of Her Dreams = {e^(-dx)*(1-r)*w(ICON)+(L*t)} + {e^(-dx)*b}

You would have to integrate the first part of the binomial from 0 to 40. Likewise integrate the second part from 41 to 45.

Now, you may be asking the question, what does the expected utility for myself look like? It looks like this:

Tyler’s Expected Utility To Save For The Hotel of My Dreams = I DONT CARE, I WANT TO GO ON VACATION!

Just wanted to update my family, and whoever accidentally fell onto this site, that the Opportunity Quest orientation on Tuesday.

The orientation will be a good time to bring any questions that you might have. It is also a great place to network with the New Venture Consulting Group. They will be mentors for all of the participants and, after the ideas are submitted, judges for the competition.

After the orientation all are encouraged to register for both, Opportunity Quest and the Student Entrepreneur Conference. To register for Opportunity Quest, please visit the Entrepreneur Club’s website. Registration for the Student Entrepreneur Conference will be handled through the University of Utah’s website.

Earlier this semester I was given the privilege to be apart of the Entrepreneur Club. I was given the responsibility to organize a competition for USU called Opportunity Quest. When I first heard about it I was stoked. I thought, that organizing a competition was going to be easy. I basically got the final say on everything; the marketing, planning out the dates, and helping with the judging. It also seemed that this would look great on a resume. The shock is that organizing this is hard. I mean really hard.

To date I have had to meet with multiple people several times. I have designed a poster numerous times to ensure that when it prints it will look awesome. Dates have been scheduled, re-scheduled, then scheduled again. To say the least, it has been a whole lot of work to get just here.

Where is here you might ask? Currently, I have a poster designed that I will place across campus. I designed a t-shirt that will be a freebie later on. I designed a TV slide that will be displayed in key areas. In cooperation with others, I planned dates for events such as: orientation, registration, executive summary submission deadline, presentations for finalist, and a dinner for the finalist.

I still need to market a seminar that is in the middle of all of this. This is quite the task, but I have never regretted the responsibility. I truly believe that Opportunity Quest can foster a healthy entrepreneurial spirit. If you would like additional information concerning Opportunity Quest feel free to contact me.

I have been assigned to plan out my next five years. To find out what I am going to do while I pay out every cent that found its way into my wife’s checking account. As a class we were told that we must know the company that we are going to work for or know the industry. It has been enjoyable to research what my options will be once I finish. It seems that there is so much out there for me to experience.

I have been looking a lot into Economics and Finance. While researching I noticed that it is a rapidly expanding occupation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics(BLS) noted that this field of work will see an expansion of nearly 33% through the year 2016. That might not mean a lot, but it means job security to me.

The assignment was not just to surf the Internet and find who is hiring. I was to find what position I would apply for, my daily schedule, pay scale expectations, and working locations. It is cool to think about where I might be in five years. I want to submit myself to my first few jobs. Learn everything that I can. Go where I have to. I really believe that if I keep a good attitude it will erase much of the competition.

Today I had the privilege of listening to Robert Pedersen, CEO of ZAGG, about his career paths. It was really captivating. I tried to take good notes, but I was taking pictures of the lecture at the same time.

One of the things that he stressed at the beginning was to “Be True To Yourself.” That sounds quite simple, but it got me thinking. I started to think about how at the end of my life, who is going to be by my side? What is my legacy going to be? What impression will I have made? I don’t get to take much with me when I die, but I will sure leave a lot. Namely, I will leave an impression. Is it going to be a good one?

Another point was to “Do Something Better Than the Other Person.” Meaning just because their is a product or service already out there that does not necessarily mean that you cannot make money doing it too. Recognize an opportunity and seek after it.

All in all, it was hard not to get excited about the oppurtunities that are out there. It is just going to take some elbow grease and teamwork.