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MIB is what I will be!

I just called CBS (Copenhagen Business School) to check up on my application for graduate school, and they informed me that I have been accepted in to the MIB program with official title being: MSc (cand.merc.) in Management of Innovation and Business Development

It will take two years to earn the degree and it will be a lot harder than my undergraduate program. I am looking very much forward to it, and hopefully it will work out so that I study the first two semesters in Copenhagen, the third semester in America, and the fourth will be used to write my Master thesis in Copenhagen or somewhere else.

Those of you who thought that I would be MIB – Men in Black, well, you are also right, as I will have soon to get a net suit!

Take care and enjoy the summer.

Backstage with Jason Mraz and Carlos Sosa

Christel and I went to Lille Vega to hear Jason Mraz (http://www.jasonmraz.com/) and Groovelinehors (http://groovelinehorns.com/) play. It was an amazing concert; the atmosphere was great and the music perfect. I only recently got to know Mraz music, but what Christel told me was that his concerts are suppose to be fantastic – I can only agree. His songs we of course love, but it was his energy on the stage, the improvised small songs, the several solos from the band, and the crowd that loved the music, which all together made it perfect.

Here is a picture of Christel and me in front of the stage, might be hard to see, but there is only two rows of people in front of us, sweet.
Here are some photos of the concert in random order.
After the concert Christel and I got to talk to Carlos from the band, a really cool guy, who invited us backstage. It was a small cosy party with a nice relaxed atmosphere; we talk to most of the band and Jason. We both got our picture with Jason, whom was really cool about having us joining the party. Christel was very amazed when Jason came and said goodbye and remembered our names, so was I, but maybe not as much, since Jason seemed to me to be a really good guy with an incredible amount of creative skills.
We talked a lot with Carlos about almost everything from politics to his career. Carlos was really cool guy and introduced us to the rest of the band, I unfortunately did not get a picture with him, but maybe he will email me the one that he took.

Thank you Jason and Carlos for a great Wednesday night - See you in September, have fun on your tour.

My mother received an honor medal from the Queen of Denmark

My mother has recently just retired after working for SAS in 44 years. SAS had therefore nominated her to the highest honor medal that can be given to civilians due to faithful and loyal commitment to the company.

It is a custom that a recipient visits the Queen to show his or her gratitude and respect. My mother was therefore at Christian Borg yesterday to do that.

Before the Queen arrived the soldiers were securing the premises and looking mighty fine.

Here comes Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, in her Bently of course – no real horses today.

My mother in the white shirt is waiting to meet the Queen, next to her is her former colleague Annette, whom also received the Honor Medal.

Finally, after waiting for three hours to talk with Queen in 1 minute, my mother has now officially done her duty, and can now relax and enjoy her retirement.

We made it to the final – Flagfootball

Last weekend was the end of the Danish Cup for flag football. There are three divisions in Danish flag football, with my team the Kopenhagen Koalas, being in the second best division, but in the cup, teams from all divisions are invited.
In the quarter finals we beat a team from the best division and made it to the final four. In the semi-final we were once against up against a team from the best division, but a much better team. We were able to beat them and made it to the final.

In the final we did not have a chance. We were too tired and the other team was simple too good. They especially had one player, Rune, who was outstanding, and he naturally got the MPV award, which he deserved.

Below is a picture of most of our team, and tomorrow I will be back on the training pitch to get ready for next game day.

The picture below is of our QB, Nikolaj, and I. Nikolaj used to be a receiver, but with the loss of our former quarterback, he has stepped in and turned out to be an excellent replacement, with Joe Montana skills to read the defence, and throws me a perfect ball when doing a corner route.

I am done!!

Monday I finished my undergraduate program with the oral defense of my bachelor thesis. It went really well, it actually went perfect; both Christel and I got 12, which is the highest grade possible in Denmark. When our professor told us our grade we were so happy. We have been working really hard on this project, so it was such a relief that it was worth it all. My good friend Christian and his partner also wrote about Tivoli as we did, and they also got 12, congratulation Sofie and Christian.

This means that I am done with school until the end of August where my graduate program starts; I will therefore hopefully be able to write even more on the blog during the summer.

Take care everyone.

Marc

Bachelor program will be done in 35 hours!

It is Saturday night, and on Monday I will defend my Bachelor thesis, which is the last step in finishing my Bachelor (Undergraduate) program at Copenhagen Business School (CBS). I want to do well, but I am not sure what to expect. I have made a presentation, which I hope will show how dedicated my partner and I have been to the project, and how important our project is for Tivoli.

Please wish me luck on Monday morning.

Copenhagen Business School (CBS) by night

After having a great dinner together with Kim and Christian where we talked about what master Christian and I should choose, I drove by the school on my way home. I think it is such and amazing campus we have, despite the fact there is lacking sports facilities to create some more social atmosphere.

Playing the X-box

Mikkel and Mads visit us the other night and we had a small tournament in FIFA soccer on Lasse’s X-box. It was a lot of fun, but we did not have time to finish the game, and the winner will be found another day. (It will most likely be Kritte).
(from left to right: Mads, Mikkel, Lasse, Kritte, and I)

Too expensive to buy nice cars in Denmark

So, someone must have won in the lottery or something to buy these two nice cars. The white BMW is a special model, with a huge engine, sleek rims and big brakes. They were both parked in my street – nice.

Bachelor project handed in

Friday the 16th Christel and I handed in our bachelor thesis. 115 pages including everything! I have a good feeling about the project, and no matter how it goes to the oral defence on the 2nd of June, I have learned a lot from writing the project.
I have to prepare for the oral defence, but this week I am focusing on catching up with work and all the other things that I have not have had time for lately.

Man U. forever

Manchester United has just won the biggest trophy in soccer – Champions League. It all ended in penalty shootout, but before that they had played an electrifying game against Chelsea. Both teams had equal amount of chances to win the game during the first 90 minutes, but it went all the way to penalty shootout.

THANK YOU UNITED

Transformers costumes!

Waking up to the sun, knowing that I will not see it is not nice.

It is 0815AM and I am just about to eat my cornflakes and watch an episode of Scrubs that I just downloaded from iTunes. The sun is shinning bright and when opening my window I can feel its warmth, however, my bachelor thesis is all that matters right now, so no time for walking in the sun. You might think, “so what, the sun will be there after the 16th of May as well”, but if you think that, than I know you are not Danish, because based on previous years there is no guaranty; this might be the only summer weather we get! Well, not much I can do about it, so I will just work with what I got, and that is the very important task of writing my bachelor thesis with Christel.

It is due on the 16th of May and we look to be on schedule. There is still a ton of work to be done on it, but with proper planning we should be fine.

The past weekend was the beginning of the new flag football season. Everyone thought that we were too old and not on a competitive level. Hmmm, the first game we won 63-6, I had three TD and an interception - I guess we proved them wrong. Unfortunately I got injured again, my left thump looks like it has had half a gallon of water pumped into it, and is starting to turn blue. It limited my ability to help the team in the second game, but I did get one TD, but it is irrelevant when we lost the game. The other team played well, but was lucky as hell. Four of their TD was caught after we had tipped them, it was like every situation that could go both ways, went theirs, and on top of that the referees made several doubtful calls and two obvious wrong ones, and all of them was against us. We lost with 2 or 3 TDs, the other team played better, but we just did not have a change with out anything going our way.

That was just a little update on what I am doing in sunny Copenhagen, now I better get back to my thesis, and eating my cornflakes before they all looses their crispy taste.

Marc

Summer vacation on 2nd of June

We (Christel and I) have just received the wonderful news that our oral defense of our bachelor project will be on the 2nd of June. This means 3 months of summer vacation for me!!! I guess it will be a lot of work and some nice holidays including “Skanderborg Festval” (6 days musical festival), a trip to USA (I really hope), and what else come around.

Exams are over, but bachelor project is still on!

Last week I finished my last exams, now I only have my bachelor project to write and the defense of it. I am writing the project with Christel from my study program. We are writing about seasonal employees in Tivoli (The world oldest amusements park down, which is downtown Copenhagen) and tries to give them recommendations to their action plan for the next 10 years. We have to hand in the project on the 16th of May, and so far it is going pretty well. However, it is not going to be a walk in the park the next couple of weeks. We have a good project, but have come upon several problems with getting data from Tivoli, however, we both believe that we have a strong project and that our recommendations are very operational, easy to implement, which is what our advisor has emphasized that they have to be.

Beautiful music - take care of the kids, they are our future!

Heading home – day #4

Monday morning at it is timer to get back to Copenhagen to prepare for the exam.

Thank you very much Javier for a perfect weekend away.

Say hello to your family and say muchas gracias letting me stay at their place and being so nice.

See you in Denmark soon – Hasta Luego

Game time – day #3

It was Sunday and Javier had to play a soccer game for the local team and I went to watch it. They won 2-0, and Javier played very well.

We went bowling after the game, but I have apparently left all of my small talent for bowling in Utah. I only got 99, which I have not scored since I tried to do crazy throws at my farewell bowling party back in Utah.

Downtown Madrid – day #2

The weather in Denmark have been really bad for months, but in Madrid it was sunny and about 18 degrees (Celsius) I borrowed some shorts from Javier and we went downtown to see Madrid.
Downtown in between business buildings and everything else you find Estadio Santiago Bernabeu where Real Madrid plays. (Not as nice as Rice-Eccles Stadium – GO UTES)
Above is a beautiful buildings on Calle Serrano, which is one of a few streets where all the expensive shops are in Madrid. It was nice to walk around in the nice weather and a bit fun to see how different I looked to all the local people.

Several nice buildings, in nice weather – perfect.

After a lot of sightseeing we went back to Alcobendas to have lunch with the family and afterwards Javier’s girlfriend, Encina, came over. Below it is from left to right, Encina, Javier, Guiri (me), Gema (Javier’s sister), Maribel, Vicente. A very nice family that let me stay at their place and really let me experience the beautiful hospitality that they have in southern Europe.

After lunch Javier, Encina, and I went back to Madrid to do some more sightseeing
After see all of those beautiful and historical places it was time to get some food at a nice Spanish restaurant. We met up with Cata and his girlfriend, and one of Encina’s friends Laura and her boyfriend Jesus. We had a wonderful dinner, with good food and a lot of fun conversations.

Going to Madrid – day #1

It was the weekend before an exam; however, the exam was about tourism in Spain, so why not go there and visit Javier! Friday the 11th of April I went on a SAS flight to Madrid to visit Javier, whom I have not seen since I spent my summer of 2006 in Washington DC, where we both attended LADO Language College. In DC Javier and I did everything together and had a great time, now it was time to catch up and have a nice weekend.
Eating is very important – Javier loves food, especially Spanish food. I didn’t really know what Spanish food was except you can get Ta Pas, which I have never tried.

As you can see on the picture the food was great and we are having a good time.
Javier lives with his parents right outside Madrid in Alcobendas the city is still growing as you can see with all the construction in the horizon.
In the evening Javier and I went downtown to meet some of his friends, from right to left it is, Cata (Carlo), Musto (Danniel), Javier, Guiri (me).

Super nice friends and we had a lot of fun, especially when this girl and the other female bartenders started dancing on the bar.

I got my flight ticket – heading to Madrid!

Friday morning at 08:00 I will check-in for flight SK581 to Madrid – sweet. I am going to Madrid to visit Javier during the upcoming weekend. I met Javier in Washington D.C. when I lived there during the summer of 2006. I have not seen him since than and I am looking very much forward to do so, and hopefully we will be able to attend a Real Madrid game at Estadio Santiago Bernabeu.

I will of course upload pictures about the trip and try to keep the blog a little more updated.

Take it easy everyone.

Marc

Working on the Bachelor project

The weather is finally beginning to feel a little like spring, but time is a scarce resource during this time of the year and time to enjoy the weather is not what I have. I am working intense with my bachelor partner to write our project on Tivoli (www.tivoli.dk). Today was a really good day, and we are moving forward in our writing process. The project will be put on hold for the next week since another exam is coming up. It is an oral defense of the project I made with another group right before Easter about tourism. There is a lot of catching up to do and making a perfect presentation will take a lot of time.

I am still in doubt of which graduate program to do, but I have narrowed it down to two:

- Management of Innovation and Business Development
- Accounting, Strategy, and Control

They are both two years program, but the third semester is only elective, which I most likely will take at a university abroad, and the forth and final semester is to write my Master thesis, this means that it is only the first two semester that are different. I have 2 months before I have to decide.

Good luck to everyone who has exams during the spring.

Happy Easter

I thought I would give you all a small update on what I spend my time on.

I have no more classes this year, only an oral defense and my Bachelor project, which I am writing together with Christel. However, since Christel is skiing in Austria I am spending most of my time on during all the things that I have not have had time to during the past couple of weeks where exams have been the primary focus. So now I am hanging out with my buddies in our apartment and working hard at http://nonoba.com/. Here in the apartment we enjoy watching soccer, Friends, Scrubs, Spin City, How I met you mother, and trying to keep the apartment nice…

We have had a couple of pre-party dinners lately including last Saturday, and we have another one tomorrow, which I am sure is going to be a lot of fun. We always enjoy some nice dinner, most often made by Kritte, and than we enjoy Lasse’s great taste of music while we dance – sweet.

Friday I am heading back to my parents house to do all the practical stuff such as making the garden look nice, clean gutters, and other stuff that is a lot easier for me to do than for them. We will of course also relax since it is a holiday. Sunday the weather will hopefully be nice, since we are playing flag football, and later I will join the majority of my family for Easter lunch at my parents’ house.

Next week focus is back on the bachelor project, with a small eruption of a seminar, which I have been asked to speak at. We are now 5 students who are to give a presentation on how to young people think, and how CBS (Copenhagen Business School) can help future students choose the right program, and how to sustain them and decrease dropouts. About 45 people will be attending the seminar, who all are program directors, so hopefully they will lesson and find our input valuable and interesting.

Anyway, I wish you all a happy Easter. I hope that you will have nice weather wherever you are in the world and that you will have an opportunity to spend time with your families and friends.

Best regards Marc

Traffic jam!

Some say we have a huge traffic problem in Copenhagen, and I totally agree, but relative to China it might not be that big. The picture below is from Xiamen in China.

12-hours later and the sun is back!

12 hours has passed since I last posted, and look how beautiful the weather is now. What a shame that I have to be at work, even though it is really interesting.

More snow in CPH than in the Alpes!

Sunday was the most beautiful day for months. The sun was finally shining the whole day, and the sky was blue as the ocean. It was last day of football training camp, and it was perfect finally playing in the sun and not in the rain.

This morning the sun had gone on vacation again, and as a substitute clouds, with plenty of snow to make any ski resort a powder paradise, had arrived. It has been snowing the most of the day, and there is now more snow in CPH than anytime during the entire winter. Below is a picture from central Copenhagen of the small streets. This is one blok from our appartment.

Kritte, Lasse, and I was out shopping today in the nice weather!

I even think there is more new snow here than in the Alps. Speaking of the Alps, wow do I wish I was skiing now. I know I did a lot of skiing in Utah this winter, but I just really want to go again. It is not going to happen this season, but next season I will be back in Avoriaz, having a blast.

Hopefully with enough snow to play in the powder like these two below of me in Avoriaz two years ago!

Exam is done and video from Madeleine Albrights visit at CBS

Our case exam was handed in Thursday 10AM, and I am glad it was over, even though some might argue that it is really fun to compare statistics about tourism in Spain and Latvia, I just don't think it is that fun!

Copy the link below to an internet browser and watch Madeleine Albright's speech. It is very interesting.
mms:\\cbsstreamer.e-cbs.dk\Madeleine\MA.wmv

Now it is time to focus on training camp for the falg football team and working. Remember to go by www.nonoba.com when ever you need a break and just want to play some casual games.

Marc

Exam in the command center

I am right now in the middle of writing a 72-hour case exam with my group.

Here, I am sitting in the command center analysing the tourist development of Spain and Latvia, which kind of interesting, but the rest of the exams question are such a low level that we are having a hard time being motivated.
Anyway – better get back to the analyses.

Marc

9-13-21

This is so funny - crazy Americans!

Visiting high school friend who have become a father!

Lasse (Black shirt) and I went down to Næstved to visit our good friend Andreas and his coming wife Maria. They just got a little baby boy last Sunday, whom will be named Aksel.

It might be hard to see on the photos, but he was very pretty. It was great to see them all three.

It was also the first time Lasse and I saw there new house, which Andreas have been working very hard on while Maria has been pregnant. The bathroom was so cool, and he made it all by himself.
A black toilet – that’s sweet.

Former U.S. Secretary of state Madeleine Albright comes to Copenhagen.

This year Copenhagen Business Schools has its 90 years anniversary, which together with a lot of networking have let to some very interesting guest speakers, also including Sir Giddens.

Madeleine Albright was a great speaker, and as she said: “the fun part about giving speeches now when I now in office, I can say whatever I want”. Which she also did on several issues, especially on whether there actually had been an election in Russia, which she believed to be totally fake, and would not be surprised it Putin would become president soon again. I know the speech was video recorded and I hope to find soon, when I do I will post it here on the blog.

Don’t mess with a Aussie – nice hit Andrew Symonds!!!

A little something that I thought about today!

Life is about living in the moment where you can change the path of the future and not letting you be guided in the moment by a future that no one can foresee. All we can do is to take what we have today and build upon it with the things we have learned through life. We might not know what we are building, how to do it, but the important thing is that we are moving forward with what we have, and not stopping because something in the future might come in the way. If we don’t dream or live in the moment we become slaves of our own prediction of destiny and not the creator of our own destiny and life.

Masked Ball

A big ball had been arranged downtown Copenhagen last Saturday. Our apartment was once again hosting the dinner, which was rather crowded with twenty something people in our small kitchen. We had a great time and everyone looked great, especially the girls. I think I prefer dress Thursday instead of casual Thursday in regards to dress codes at work.