Rough Draft

Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room

A group of us at work spent our lunch a couple days last week listen-watching Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room. I had heard nothing but good things about the movie, so I was definitely looking forward to finally seeing it. I had intended to see it in theaters last spring, but never got around to it. This ended up being a fitting time to see it though, since the trial is just getting under way.

I have to admit I wasn't familiar with many of the specific details of the scandal or even all the major players. The two biggest things I didn't realize were 1. how many people outside of the company (the accounting firm, investment bankers, etc) were just as responsible as the top Enron execs and 2. how many people got screwed that weren't really a part of the company (such as the PGE electricians that Enron bought). The PGE people basically had to put some percentage of their 401K savings into Enron stock, and at a a company meeting Skilling and another exec answer a question about whether they should put all their savings into company stock by laughing and saying "yes, of course!".

The film was incredibly depressing and disturbing to watch. The shear number of people that the Enron execs convinced to just blindly believe them was stunning. Sure, lots of them were getting bribes, but you'd think at least someone would realize it couldn't go on forever. I mean seriously, how legitimate really is the weather futures market. And there was the scene where Fastow was pitching his LJM scheme to some investment bankers and one of them asks "isn't this a conflict of interest since you are the CFO of Enron and in charge of this LJM fund?" and Fastow basically says "no" and then later in the same meeting the investment bankers are all like, "well this sounds great". Um, no?

I have to say the one guy that did things "right" was Lou Pai. He got in, made his millions and got out long before the shit hit the fan. It seems he was the smartest of them all.

Another thing I hadn't realized was how responsible Enron was for the rolling blackouts in CA. They were literally calling up power plants and asking, or rather telling, them to shut down the power for certain amounts of time and then make up a reason that the power needed to be turned off. All the while, Ken Lay's friend Bush turns a blind eye. And then Lay starts holding meetings with Arnold Schwarzenegger. His gubernatorial victory seems like so much less of a surprise now.

My one disappointment with the film was with the presentation of some pieces of data. The main thing that comes to mind is a statement regarding mark to market accounting. It was something like, "they could just make up any numbers they wanted". It wasn't really like they could just write down numbers out of thin air. They had o actually come up with all these schemes (like the Blockbuster deal), so they could book revenue in one quarter, even if that revenue was never realized. Another point that came up with my co-workers is that they could have provided some slightly better statistics. For instance instead of saying that Skilling or Lay sold X million dollars worth of stock, it would have been nice to know what percentage of their holdings that number represented.

Overall the movie was incredibly well done and I highly recommend you see it, especially if you aren't all that familiar with the story.

Buca Di Bepo

Ricci and I went to Buca Di Beppo for dinner tonight. I've been to one in Cleveland a couple times. People always tried to build it up as "oh, you get so much food for your money" and both times I was disappointed in that regard. So I was reluctant to go to the one out here, but I figured I'd give it a try.

Sadly, once again my expectations of large quantities of food were not met. We ordered the large baked pasta sampler which included stuffed shells, manicotti, and baked ravioli, and cannelloni. When we ordered the large the waitress asked if we were sure we wanted that size because it "feeds 5 or 6", but we said we were sure. We also ordered a small fettucini alfredo. The baked pasta sampler came out first and I was underwhelmed at the size. It looked like it would feed four people at most, but more likely three. The pasta came out and it was pretty sizable.

We ended up eating just over half the baked sampler and about half the fettucini. The bill came to $40 -- $26 for the sampler, $10 for the pasta. Not exactly a great value in my opinion. The food itself was pretty good, but nothing outstanding. I'm sure there are Italian restaurants in the area with better food, it's just a matter of finding them.

My restaurant recommendation if you're in The Pruneyard and want a lot of food for your money is without a doubt El Burro. Jeff and I have been there twice and both times the bill was around $20 and we had at least as much leftovers as I had tonight at Buca Di Bepo.

Snowboarding in Tahoe

I'm a bit slow in posting this, but a couple weekends ago I went snowboarding at Kirkwood up in Lake Tahoe. This was my first time snowboarding, and I had a blast.

Kirkwood offers a lesson package for $70 a day (including equipment), so I took advantage of that deal. The first day was pretty rough and involved a lot of spectacular crashes. The lesson took up the whole morning. We started on a very small hill and just practiced our stance and how to get on the heel edge and toe edge of the board. Then we took the ski lift up the bunny hill and traversed our way down, one diagonal path at a time. My balance was ok, but I wasn't anywhere near being able to make turns.

After meeting up with Jake and Rus for lunch, Jake joined me for another trip down the bunny hill. It was very slow going for me as I still hadn't quite gotten the hang of keeping my speed in check or turning, so I'd got a little way down the hill and then just drop on my ass. Towards the bottom of the hill I ended up getting myself into this nearly flat area by a fence. After a vain attempt at trying to skate myself the rest of the way, I was forced to totally unclip from my board and walk.

After this Jake convinced me I should try going down the blue hill because it was only a little steeper than the bunny hill. I reluctantly agreed. We were in the ski line next to rather cute girl and she overheard Jake and I talking and said it was her first time going down a blue hill as well. If it really was her first time, she was damn skilled. I made it about 20 ft down the hill before falling and the next thing I knew she was no longer in sight. Oh well. After a whole lot of falling and struggling to get back up, I eventually made it to the bottom, totally exhausted.

I fared much better on Sunday. I got the lesson package again since it was cheaper than a full lift ticket and rental. For the lesson we ended up going down the bunny hill twice, and by the second time I was getting really close to being able to link a turn. After lunch (and watching the end of the first half of the Steelers game) I headed out to the blue hill with Jake, Mike, and Mark. We took path none of us had been down before and it was a really nice run. I did the best I had done and even got my speed up in a few parts. By the time I got to the bottom though my legs were killing me because I spent most of the time scooting down on the heel edge as opposed to linking turns.

I sat out one run and then went up again with Jake. We went down the blue hill run we had done on Saturday and I did much better. I was feeling really good after that run, and immediately went up for another one. Unfortunately, I underestimated how tired I was at that point, which resulted in many falls on my last run.

After just two days of snowboarding though I feel like I've got the hang of it and should be able to pick up where I left off the next time we go.

I should also mention the enormous house we stayed in. The house is owned by a friend of Jake's, so we got a great deal on it. There were 15 people staying in the house, but it didn't feel crowded at all. The house had a full kitchen was was taken advantage of: eggs and pancakes for breakfast, and for dinner on Saturday Rus made some really tasty turkey chili.

The house also had a hot tub outside, which we made use of Friday night and Sunday night. Sitting in a hot tub while being surrounded by snow was pretty surreal. Just sitting back and looking at the stars was very relaxing.

Even though every bone and muscle in my body ached for a couple days, it was worth it. I'm definitely looking forward to taking another trip up there.