Friday a week ago, Dan Ariely visited our offices. Dan is a professor of behavioral economics at the MIT Sloan School of Business and also has a research appointment at the MIT Media Lab. But currently, Dan is a visiting professor at Duke.

His first book, Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, will be released by Harper Collins in February 2008. Dan gave a talk on "Behavioral Economics 101" to various people from our communications and strategy groups. While he acknowledged that the discipline of economics itself is deadly boring, it gets really interesting when you look at it through the lens of human psychology. Dan has studied not only how people make financial and health decisions, but also online dating, gambling, procrastination, cheating and more.

I'm pictured here with Dan in our company cafetria grabbing coffee before his talk. I was showing him the new ASUS Eee PC, which his dad was raving about. Dan explained to me that the reason my 17" Powerbook feels huge after I've been using the Eee PC for a while is due to perceptual adaptation.

- mike lee - washington, dc

Lunch today was at Centre Market in Wheeling. The place was pretty busy with customers, but the selection of substantive food was limited to roast beef and fried seafood. I went with a roast beef sandwich. The area around the market was relatively devoid of people, but there were a few nice antique shops open.

Later in the afternoon, we made a first visit to a Cabelas. This is a massive 185,000 sq. ft. hunting and sporting goods store complete with a fiberglass mountain, large aquariums and big walk-in diorama of animal replicas. I'm not into hunting, but did appreciate the seemingly infinite array of equipment. What caught my eye was the aisle full of digital trail cameras. I had no idea so many models were available.

After dinner, we all took the trolley tour of the Festival of Lights. The driver's monologue of the story behind the various light displays and park landmarks was interesting. But our consensus was that the view would have been better from a car.

- mike lee - wheeling, wv

Post dinner walk on a beach in Hyannis, MA =]

- mike lee - oglebay, wheeling, wva

The girls left before me in the family car as I was driving a rental so I could come back a day early to do a photo shoot. The five-hour ride from the DC area to Wheeling, West Virginia was pretty easy. I did hit the cold front near Cumberland. The little standard rental car got buffeted by some wind and rain. The Oglebay Golf Resort was at the top of a mountain near Wheeling. Cici and her mommy had already met up with her grandma/pa and auntie. We all sat down to a late lunch at the massive buffet before checking into our rooms.

- mike lee - wheeling, wva

Deja vu!

-- Teehee

Sideling Hill, 1269 ft.

- mike lee - hancock, md

Caught on my way home...


"I thrash in the bed of my style, seeking a comfortable position" -Milosz

The sugar maples have pretty much all committed, but this little oak is all, "I uh.... maybe I wanna turn? I don't know. Can I phone a friend?"