The Trifecta

No, fellow Seinfeld aficionados, I’m not referring to sex, TV, and hot pastrami w/ mustard on rye (though I’m admittedly partial to all three). Instead I’m referring to three of my other passions which I managed to pull off in a quick 19-hour trip to Omaha.

Omaha?

Yup, Omaha. A group of 40 or so of us from Anderson made the trip to Omaha (in Nebraska, for those that don’t know) on Thursday evening for a Friday visit with The Man himself, Mr. Warren Buffett. Since Smitty doesn't read my blog, I'll assume that you all know who Mr. Buffett is. When the invitation was first sent out to the Finance Club at school, I was hesitant. Do I really wanna spend a day of my life and a few hundred dollars traveling to Omaha just to be part of a huge group getting a glimpse and a few bit pieces of advice from Buffett? I’m not sure what took me so long, but eventually I realized the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity with which I was being presented, so I RSVP’ed and booked my flight and hotel. Needless to say, I was surprised/excited when I found out that the hotel most of us would be staying at was a Harrah’s. Those of you who know me can probably start to see how the trifecta is coming together.

So I got to Omaha along with a handful of my classmates at around 11pm on Thursday night. We were welcomed by the Omaha winter – 19 degrees, and not even any pretty snow to look at. Our courtesy shuttle (we were staying at a Harrah’s, remember) dropped us off, and we quickly checked in, dropped our bags off and headed to the casino. Several hours later, I was up $60 or so thanks to some fantastic rolling by a fellow-Patel classmate as well as a dealer who paid me (on a double down, no less!) on my 17 against his 19. In my defense, I had given money back that I had not earned not once, but TWICE, that night. I figured if the dealers can’t keep track well enough to avoid three mistakes, it’s no longer my responsibility to keep correcting them. Besides, it was pretty late, and I figured if bad karma started to kick in, I would simply walk away after a couple bad hands in a row and call it a night.

After sleeping five hours (thank God the Harrah’s stopped serving liquor at 1:30 a.m., or else I would have been suffering from a serious hangover), I woke up, got ready and we headed over to Berkshire Hathaway’s offices. As a sidebar, if you’ve never been to Omaha, and I assume/hope that you haven’t, it’s got rural suburbia written all over it. Modest houses, no traffic. It actually reminded me a lot of the intro to The Office, where they show Scranton, PA. Steve Carell, however, is no Warren Buffett. And I didn’t see anyone who was even remotely as cute as Jenna Fischer. Anyways, we get to the offices, where we were joined by another 60 or so students from an MBA program in Brazil as well as undergrads from Omaha’s local university, Creighton, the alma mater of the great 3-point shooting specialist Kyle Korver, who I just found out 15 seconds ago on Wikipedia was born in Lakewood, CA, right next to my own hometown of Cerritos.

We were then treated to about two hours of Q&A with the great Mr. Buffett. The questions were pre-screened by one representative from each of the three schools. Buffett, however, had no idea what was going to be asked, and it didn’t matter, because the man knows so much about so many different things that he really couldn’t have done anything more to prepare himself anyways. He talked about everything from Investing (obviously), how to get girls (give them See’s Candies – a company owned by Berkshire, and NOT Russell Stover chocolates), and politics (despite being one of the wealthiest men in America, he adamantly opposes eliminating the estate tax and instead believes income/payroll taxes on lower-income workers should be dramatically reduced). While Mr. Buffett didn’t really say anything in the talks that I am likely to remember even a year or two from now, I will always remain impressed by his general sharpness, intelligence, and surprising sense of humor (while the fact that he’s a billionaire many times over likely got him some bonus laughs, he was actually pretty funny in his own right). And for a man of 77 years, he has an amazing memory, even recalling the locations of different CBS/ABC affiliates that The Washington Post owned in 1972 when Berkshire acquired a large stake.

After the Q&A, we all went to Piccolo Pete’s, one of several famous Omaha steakhouses. Of course, Omaha is known for their beef, and one of the things I was most looking forward to about the trip was enjoying a true Omaha Steak. Unfortunately, since Buffett was footing the bill for 100 or so hungry students, it was a prix fixe menu with a pretty underwhelming steak (I would have much rather spent $50 and paid for a proper slab of beef, but whatever). Technically, though, I did have an Omaha steak, thus completing the trifecta of the trip – gambling, investing, and steak.