Vegas FOAM

I can’t remember if I ever wrote about the fact that Vegas FOAM was coming up, but it went downon Tuesday night and it was one of those epic nights that makes up the business school experience at the GSB.

FOAM is an acronym for “Friends of Arjay Miller” and is the name of the running Tuesday night social events where GSB students get together and have drinks as a means to unwind after the first-half of the week. Usually, FOAM is held at local Palo Alto bars, but, once a year, it moves to Las Vegas and it is a heck of an event. The GBSers all dress in 70’s gear and act a fool for the entire night. I’d seen pictures and heard stories, but had no idea about how it really went down because I missed last year’s Vegas FOAM to fly out to NYC for the debale that was my BCG second round internship interview.

Anyways, the wildness started from the time we got to the airport on Tuesday evening and continued well into the morning on Wednesday when we flew back home. Imagine walking onto a Southwest Airlines flight and seeing the entire plane filled with wild GSB student dressed up like extras from “Saturday Night Fever” except for 3 or 4 regular passengers who looked ridiculously confused. As I walked down the aisle, everyone was taking pictures and i felt like I was on the red carpet at some awards show. It was crazy! Once we hit Vegas, everything started at the Hard Rock Casino where the FOAM committee had hooked it up for us to be able to get drinks at the bar. One tough thing about this quarter has been that I don’t get to see too many of my friends any more because of our differing class schedules, so the gathering at the bar gave me a chance to catch up with some folks that I hadn’t seen in ages. Also, I checked out people’s costumes and realized that there are entirely too many sets of 30-year old clothes for sale in the San francisco area. All was not good at Hard Rock though…I tried my luck at the Blackjack table and had the misfortune of facing the perfect storm of dealers that were on fire, high minimum bets, and several other players at the table that don’t know the rules of Blackjack. I didn’t end up losing too big, but my time playing was VERY short.

After leaving Hard Rock, we went over to Caesar’s where we were suppoed to have a special entrance line set up for GSB students to get into a club called Pure, but things didn’t work out. After waiting for over an hour to get in there, the word spread that GSB people were gathering at Studio 54 in the MGM Grand Casino, so we jetted over there. It took a little while for the FOAM committee to get clearance for all of us to get in, but, once we got in, it was great. The DJ was playing pretty good music and there were GSB kids dancing everywhere, which shocked me because GSB folk don’t usually dance. It was just a carefree night at the club without any worries about exams, classwork, or final papers…just us being us and having fun doing it.

The night ended with me eating some incredibly greasy food at one of the restaurants in the MGM Grand Casino. The food wasn’t great, but the place offered a chance to kick it with several other groups of GSBers who had crashed out for the night and were ready for some much needed rest. Our flight back here left Vegas at 6:15am and that flight was the exact opposite of the first one. Instead of having a plane full of rowdy John Travolta wannabes, we ad a plane full of folks dressed in 70’s gear who looked like they were never going to wake up again. All in all, the Vegas FOAM experience was a great one and I wish I could come back again for next year’s. I’m really going to miss this place.