Thanksgiving Break 2006 - as I enjoyed a short respite from a hectic first semester at business school, the email came that my team had made it past the first round of the inaugural Microsoft case competition at the Tepper School of Business.  As I sat there on the couch waiting for the turkey to finish cooking, I reflected back on the three weeks we had spent working on the case and on the video-conference presentation that we had to prepare for in just one week.

November 29, 2006 - The email announcing the final results came in the afternoon, during my Managerial Economics class.  I shouldn't have been checking email during the class, but I knew the results were going to be announced and I was impatient.  A couple of my team mates were in the same class and we just looked at each other as soon as we got the email - big smiles on our faces.  We did it...  Our hard work paid off and we were going to Redmond...  The journey had just begun.